Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (13 page)

“Fourteen head of cattle, eight sheep, twenty-three pigs for meat and that is it?”

“It is evident, sir, that the locals are hiding what they can. General Wayne reports on his march south to join commands with Colonel Morgan that from reliable sources the word has spread that Congress is voting an increase in payment for all foodstuffs and therefore people are waiting for that increase before revealing where food is hidden.”

“Voting an increase? I have not heard of this.”

“Well, sir, the locals around here have.”

On top of the insanity of how supplies were to be procured, the former head of the quartermaster division, General Mifflin, whom he had once trusted and who had served well in the ’76 campaigns, had instituted an iron-clad price policy enumerating the fixed prices to be paid for dozens of items, right down to a bushel of dried corn, a dozen eggs, or a one-pound loaf of bread. Payment would only be in Continental scrip. Needless to say, many in the countryside openly preferred to sell to the British, who were offering hard currency in shillings and silver half crowns and guineas if items were voluntarily brought in. It was infuriating at this moment, but he was bound by the mandates of Congress, and none of his brigade quartermasters could step outside those bounds.

“And reserves for tomorrow?”

Tilghman said nothing.

“Let me guess. Nothing.”

“Something like that sir, though the afternoon foraging parties have yet to return.”

“Tools?”

“Sixty more felling axes came in, along with some shovels and picks. Some men poking through the ruins of the forge found several hundred pounds of quality wrought iron along with several anvils. Blacksmiths are already at work rebuilding one of the smaller furnaces, and the report is that within a few days they can start working that iron into additional tools.”

“We could use barrels of shingling nails as well for the cabins,” Washington replied.

Tilghman shook his head.

“Only eight cabins up so far, sir, though with the additional tools coming
in, the pace should increase. I’d suggest converting the iron to tools first rather than nails for shingles.”

The general gave a nod of agreement after thinking about it. What good were the nails if there were no cabins to shingle? And only eight cabins had been completed so far—about a hundred men out of the entire army within proper quarters, with over ten thousand still out in the open. And not even sure of food for Christmas dinner tomorrow.

He looked back out the window. The clouds were lowering, though the temperature had risen above freezing. It would most likely rain tonight. Taking out his watch, he absently wound the stem as he looked at it.

Exactly one year ago, at this very moment, thirty miles away, he had left his headquarters, heading toward the Delaware to start the move across the river. One year ago.
And now I am here. What is left of my army is here. After those victories, we naïvely believed the war would indeed be over by midsummer.

And now we are here.

He thought of his grand plan of but a week ago: that before dusk on this Christmas Eve night, his men would be leaving this encampment site, embarking on a forced march to Philadelphia to either take the city back by storm or, if need be, set it ablaze and, by that act of defiance, deny the enemy their winter quarters. The act would have reverberated through every court of Europe. Unlike in the game of kings, where a lost capital was the signal for a negotiated peace, the burning of Philadelphia would be a sign to the entire world that he and his men would never surrender. His only regret now was that he had not put the city to the torch before withdrawing.

Looking out across the open fields at his army, the utter folly of his dream of storming the former capital was there before him. Some men were moving about, listlessly working, but few with any energy. Dozens of cabins were going up, but with precious few tools. Most of the shelters were only three or four tiers high, and at nightfall men would crawl inside, tying what was left of tents together to form a roof over shelters not much more than thigh high. Regimental cooking fires were blazing, smoking heavily because of the use of green wood. The already butchered cattle, sheep, and pigs could then be carefully doled out. Maybe a pound per man this day. As for tomorrow, no one could say.

To have asked this army to march even a mile would have been the end of it. The result would have been, if not outright mutiny, then quiet desertion
once night fell and, even with the most dedicated, collapse from sickness and exhaustion. No men could be asked to force-march twenty miles at night, then fight a pitched battle with only this meal and a smaller issue of about four ounces per man from the day before to sustain them.

There would be no victory this night with Philadelphia ablaze or captured, and with it the boost of morale that had allowed him to hold together at least some semblance of force when nearly all enlistments ran out six days after Trenton. No victory this time, and the vast bulk of this army could well, in seven more days, ground their arms and turn and head for their homes—duty, as they saw it, done.

The madness of expecting to field an army made up primarily of short-term enlistments was all too clear now, and the British knew it too well. Why even bother to fight, they reasoned with scornful disdain, when the Americans would just simply melt away?

His one hope now, at this moment, was the column sent off with Anthony Wayne yesterday. Five hundred men had been picked from the various brigades to lend some small support to Morgan. Given that two of his best commanders were leading them, perhaps a raid might even sweep up Howe himself, if he was indeed across the river, raiding for supplies and stripping the countryside clean. If those supplies could be captured…He did allow a smile with that thought. A legal technicality would take hold. If already purchased or stolen from the locals by the British, and then captured by his own men, they were legitimate spoils of war for the use of his army—return or payment not required to the original owners. Morgan had sent up a report that over two hundred wagons were on the move. Troops were scouring the countryside, and hundreds of head of cattle, swine, and sheep were being driven back to the ford at Darby. If taken in a quick coup, enough food to see his army through for a month or perhaps two months or more was waiting. And at this moment of desperation he was not above bribing the listless men making camp in the fields beyond the Hewes house. He would shower them with a week of full rations, even rations and a half, to fill their stomachs, and perhaps thus move them to sign a piece of paper to pledge another year, six months, even three months to stay with the colors and keep the Revolution alive.

Hope for survival for the next few days rested with his most aggressive commander, Anthony Wayne, even now leading five hundred men into battle alongside Colonel Morgan’s riflemen and raiders.

Five Miles West of Darby, Pennsylvania
December 24, 1777

“There they are,” Colonel Morgan sighed, handing his telescope over to General Wayne.

Wayne braced the instrument in the crotch of a tree and focused it. He felt like some damn primitive savage at this instant, saliva actually filling his mouth to the point he feared he might drool, stomach constricting with pangs of hunger. Half a mile away redcoats were pouring out of a large smoke-house, lugging heavy hams and long links of sausages. From the barn, barrels were being rolled out, needing three and four men to hoist them up onto the bed of a wagon, which was sagging down under the weight, while out on the road cattle were been herded along…back toward Philadelphia.

He shifted focus to a farm farther out, a mile or more off. Hard to see individual figures but the sense of it was the same, wagons backed up to the barn, smokehouse, root cellar. Ringing the entire operation, light infantry deployed several hundred yards out, not standing in the open but instead taking advantage of stone walls, trees, woodlots. Intermingled with them, those damn Hessian riflemen on horseback, casually moving back and forth. Wayne focused on one of them, passing just a few hundred yards away, and felt a knot in the gut. The man was chewing on a turkey leg. Satisfied with his repast, he threw most of it away, only half eaten.

“Damned son of a bitch,” Morgan whispered, pocket spyglass trained him.

It was almost as if the Hessian could hear the curse. He turned, looking straight in their direction, and started to ride toward them.

“Don’t move an inch,” Morgan hissed.

Had the man seen them? Perhaps a glint of light off the lens of the telescope and spyglass?

He was within two hundred yards. Cursing softly, Wayne edged back, tight against the tree he was hiding behind. Looking behind him, he saw the few dozen men who had come forward with him.

“Nobody move,” he whispered. “Don’t shoot unless I do.”

The Hessian was down to easy rifle range for Morgan and his men, who remained motionless, not yet hoisting a single weapon. At last the Hessian slowed, stopped. Someone was shouting to him. He turned and looked back.

“Ich glaube es gibt etwas im Wald da!”

One of Morgan’s men whispered a translation.

A shouted command echoed back. The Hessian leaned forward in his sad
dle as if squinting, Wayne feeling as if the man’s gaze was boring straight into him. He wondered if this was one of the bastards who had surprised him at Paoli. He struggled to keep that thought buried, for it would most certainly overrule his judgment and lead him to do something rash.

The Hessian finally turned and started to ride back at a trot.

Morgan let out a sigh of relief.

“The angel of death brushed over that one,” Wayne announced. “If he’d come within range I’d of killed the bastard.”

“It ain’t over yet,” Morgan whispered. “He could be a smart one. Seen us and knew if he gave it away, he’d have a bullet in the head. Keep an eye on him.”

The wagons down by the nearest farm were pulling out, gaining the main road to head back toward Philadelphia.

He’d been watching this same drama, over and over, ever since coming up to Morgan at dawn and offering to serve under him. That had been a humiliating moment. When Morgan had seen the troops he had with him, the old colonel had exploded with rage.

“Didn’t Washington get my damn message? A brigade and we could raise havoc, and you bring me this instead? A couple of hundred men barely fit to stand, let alone fight?”

Wayne, noted for his temper, felt so humiliated he could not bring himself to reply.

The order had been given directly by Washington, upon receipt of Morgan’s urgent message to form a column of men. The fifty men from each brigade who either volunteered or were in the best condition to march and fight were promised abundant food once they routed the British raiders.

Wayne had set out before dawn, with the hope that by forced marching he could join Morgan by the end of the day. First light and little more than two miles from Valley Forge the truth of it all started to unfold.

Only a handful of the men were actual volunteers, nearly all of them men from his own command, spoiling for a vengeance fight against the British light infantry that had taken his brigade apart at Paoli. They were men he knew he could rely on. The rest? The other brigade commanders had found this to be a convenient way to dump off their shirkers, the men who would not help with the building of cabins and bringing in firewood, the troublemakers and those ready to desert anyhow. If they disappeared while under Wayne, their own units would not be held accountable for the loss.

Within hours, the column had melted away by more than half. A few of
them at least, it was pathetically obvious, were played out, and he had found himself kept busy, even while riding, jotting out quick “This man has my permission to leave the ranks to rest” passes and signing his name. Most, though, at every bend in the road or whenever they passed through a wooded stretch, had just dodged out of the line and disappeared. He had sent the three men of his mounted staff back along the road to try to round some of them up, but they had returned empty-handed. They had returned as well with reports of angry civilians cursing them, saying that the damn stragglers were now armed bands, looting their farms.

There was a part of him that felt little pity now for those civilians. They had refused to sell, keeping their stock hidden. The army was starving to death but ten miles away. The men no longer with him, many of whom had been good soldiers, standing on the volley lines at Brandywine and Germantown, and with little or no food in their stomachs for almost five days, and after a march of twenty miles—could he really blame them anymore?

When he finally joined up with Morgan he had fewer than a hundred men fit for duty still with him. Another hundred had kept up, but were only fit for a hospital ward and clearly not for running, skirmishing, and raiding.

Wayne watched the lone Hessian riding back into the forward picket line. He glanced over at Morgan, who was down on his stomach, soaked clean through from hours of crawling through woodlots, following the narrow defiles of creek beds, keeping out of sight as they dogged the outer edge of the foraging enemy. All the men with them were soaked to the skin, the day having been one of intermittent cold rain, the ground now only congealed mud.

Not a shot had been fired; Wayne had been surprised at first by Morgan’s caution at the first sight of the enemy, just several dozen strong, cleaning out a crossroad tavern, a blacksmith shop across the road, and an adjoining farm. As much as the food, Wayne craved to get at what was in that shop: axes, horseshoes, tools, and yet more tools.

“You ain’t been out here for four days the way me and my boys have been, Wayne,” Morgan had replied, as if lecturing a new recruit. “Run with me for a while and you’ll see what I mean.”

He had seen quickly enough. The British had learned a lot in two years of war. After looting the tavern and blacksmith shop, that party had moved on farther west. Then, from out of a nearby woodlot, a company of light infantry emerged in open skirmish line, a dozen mounted Hessians emerging as well from concealment in a barn not two hundred yards from where he and
Morgan had been hiding. If his small band had attacked, they would have been cut to pieces.