Many people know that General George Washington wept when he said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York City on December 4, 1783. Almost no one knows the reason for his tears.

For a long time historians have relied on a memoir written decades after the event by Major Benjamin Tallmadge. By that time memories of the Revolution had become drenched in rose-tinted nostalgia. Tallmadge made it seem as if Washington was saying goodbye to old and dear friends. In fact, he did not know more than a half dozen people in the room.

An examination of the preceding months makes it clear that a sentimental farewell was the least of the reasons for the general’s tears. Washington’s anguish went back to March when anonymous broadsides began circulating around the Continental Army’s camp in New Windsor, north of New York City on the Hudson. They were triggered by a report that the British had signed a “preliminary” peace treaty in Europe. The fiercely worded appeals exhorted the officers to abandon “milk-and-water style” petitions to Congress for the money that was owed to them. They had not been paid in years — and Congress had solemnly guaranteed them half pay for life in 1780. It was becoming obvious that the bankrupt Congress had no intention of paying them a cent. There was only one option left: their swords. Five days later, Washington confronted several hundred grim-eyed officers in a public building in New Windsor called the Temple. He made a passionate appeal to them to reject these calls for violence. His words did not seem to have much impact. The men’s faces remained cold and angry.

In desperation, Washington pulled out a letter from a Virginia delegate who claimed Congress was trying to meet the officers’ demands. As the general started to read it, he blinked, rubbed his eyes wearily, and drew a pair of glasses from his pocket. It was the first time anyone except a few aides had seen him wearing them. “Gentlemen,” he said. “You will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown grey but almost blind in the service of my country.”

A rustle of unease, a murmur of emotion, swept through the audience. Washington finished reading the letter and departed. Instantly, General Henry Knox, the portly commander of the artillery, was on his feet asking the men to reject the “infamous” broadsides and affirm the army’s unshaken attachment “to the rights and liberties of human nature.” Another resolution asked Washington to become their advocate to Congress.

The resolutions were approved by a seemingly unanimous voice vote. Then the army’s lean and dour quartermaster general, Colonel Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, leaped up and condemned the hypocrisy of heaping infamy on the broadsides. During the four preceding days almost every officer in the army had read them “with rapture.” Pickering’s words made it clear that the crisis was far from over. The officers were still angry men. In a letter to Congress, Washington left no doubt that he shared their feelings. He warned the politicians that if they failed to compensate these men, “then shall I have learned what ingratitude is” and the memory would “embitter every moment of my future life.”

Congress not only failed to compensate the officers, it did so in an underhanded way. The politicians furloughed four-fifths of the army, the men who had enlisted for the duration of the war. When the British signed a definitive treaty of peace, the furloughs would become permanent.

On June 5, 1783, a committee of officers told Washington they viewed the furloughs “with a mixture of astonishment and chagrin.” Most of the army was being disbanded without even one of their demands for justice met. They were being sent home without the means to “support and comfort their families,” and liable to arrest for the debts they had contracted in the service.

Washington’s reply was labored, polite — and unsatisfactory. He said he was “only a servant of the public” and had no power to alter the furlough policy. There simply was no money to pay the cost of keeping the army together. The departing officers cancelled a dinner at which they had planned to make General Washington the guest of honor. The decision, one angry officer wrote, had troubled “certain characters.” He undoubtedly meant General Knox and a few others who had helped to defuse the broadsides — and General Washington. The commander in chief must have been deeply wounded by this unmistakable evidence that he had lost the admiration and affection of his officers.

By this time, the officers — and the whole Continental Army — had become targets of a vicious smear campaign led by congressmen and newspaper editors. The officers were portrayed as greedy would-be aristocrats who wanted to live off their pensions. The neighbors of one Connecticut officer told him they hoped he would die so he could not collect his pension. They cheered when he got sick.

This low opinion of the officers soon engulfed the rest of the Continental Army. A Washington County, Va., official reported, “Some how there is a general disgust taken place for what bears the name of a regular.” It’s a small wonder that the furloughed men marched off without a victory parade or even a statement of gratitude from Congress. After the regiments departed, Washington wrote a message to them, titled: “Farewell Orders to the Armies of the United States.” Some biographers have dismissed his fulsome praise of what the men had accomplished as a collection of platitudes. It is no such thing, if you read it with an awareness that it came from a man who was trying to fend off lifelong embitterment.

At West Point, a group of unfurloughed officers decided to write a response. They chose General Pickering to compose it. To no one’s surprise, the New Englander’s praise of Washington was minimal. Pickering spent most of his time indicting Congress and the states for atrocious malfeasance. The officers did not bother to personally give this nasty reply to General Washington. They mailed it.

This is the seldom if ever examined background of Washington’s meeting with his few remaining officers at Fraunces Tavern. On the second floor, the general poured himself a glass of wine and raised it to his lips with a shaking hand. The officers passed decanters and quickly filled their glasses.

Washington gazed at the men, his lips trembling. He wanted — even needed — to break through the resentment he knew was infesting their minds and hearts. He wanted to speak to this small cluster of guarded faces — and reach the whole officers corps.

Slowly, Washington raised his glass and said: “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”

Tears began to stream down Washington’s cheeks. The officers’ anger at this man — if not at Congress — dissolved in the several meanings of the general’s grief. They understood that the chief reason for those tears was regret. He had failed to get them the rewards they needed and deserved. Not only the money that was owed to them — but the praise and the appreciation from a grateful country.

Three weeks later, General Washington went before Congress and resigned as commander in chief of the American Army. In spite of his bitter disappointment, he retained his vision of why the Revolution had been fought — to create a nation of free men. He went home to Mount Vernon a private citizen, subject to politicians he neither respected nor admired. When George III heard this news, he gasped: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world!” For once, His Majesty was right.

Mr. Fleming is the author of “The Perils of Peace,” which tells the story of the last two years of the American Revolution.