Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (14 page)

“They’re on to us, trying to lure us in. They know we’re out here,” Morgan announced calmly. “And they’ve got horses; I lost most of mine when they surprised me a couple of days back.”

As they talked Wayne watched the Hessian scout, talking with what was now obviously an officer, pointing back toward the woods.

The scout saluted and rode off, clods of mud kicking up behind his mount as he urged it to a gallop. It was a good horse with a good horseman, Wayne observed, as the man easily jumped a low fence, disappearing down into a hollow and lost from view.

“Time to get out of here,” Morgan announced, “they’ve seen us. You watch our left as we pull back, Wayne, and I’ll watch the right and center.”

Morgan crawled back from the edge of the woods, Wayne following him to where their small command waited.

“Up, boys, time to start running again.”

The order was greeted with muttered curses, men coming to their feet, some of them already turning north and setting off at a trot. Wayne pointed the way, those still with him following. Through a gap in the woods he saw that Morgan had indeed been right. A company of British light infantry, accompanied by a troop of mounted dragoons, was emerging out of a creek bed a quarter-mile off, moving at the run, heading north as well with the obvious intent of circling into the wooded ground they were now fleeing.

The Americans came to the edge of the woodlot, open pasture about a hundred yards wide before them. A low, rocky crest, thickly wooded, awaited them. There Morgan had kept his reserve and those too sick and exhausted to keep up.

“Across now, boys!” Wayne shouted, riding into the open.

As he rode into the open ground he suddenly heard a distant bugle call, and it made his blood boil. It was a foxhunting horn, a call for the chase. The same taunting call the British had used after they broke his regiments at Paoli, his entire command fleeing in panic from the sudden onslaught.

“Sons of bitches.”

He stopped, looking back. His men were coming out of the woods, some running, more than a few barely able to walk. He did a quick head count. Some of the men would never get out of the woods in time, and he could only hope they would find good ground to hide in. The memory of Paoli burned deep, the light infantry now pursuing him the same ones that had surprised
his command three months ago, nearly wiping it out. He didn’t give a damn what some “neutral observers” claimed. A number of his men who begged for quarter had been bayoneted to death. He had eagerly volunteered for this expedition the moment he heard they’d be facing that light infantry. It was to be his chance for vengeance. And now he was running yet again.

Again that damn fox horn!

Their pursuers were still a couple of hundred yards off, slowing, knowing that in this game the hunters could, within seconds, be the hunted, if reserves armed with long rifles were in the next stretch of woods. They continued to move northward, though, seeking to flank their enemy.

He heard Morgan shout. The man was not slowing down. A troop of dragoons were skirting the west side of the woods in which they had been concealed, riding hard to close off retreat.

“Move it, boys, move it!” Wayne shouted, and he spurred his mount. A couple of puffs of smoke snapped from where they were heading, and for an instant Wayne felt his heart leap. Had they been cut off?

But it was Morgan’s men, firing at the dragoons to keep them back, the mounted men quickly turning.

Wayne, not pushing his blown mount too hard, trotted up the slope, gained the woods, and turned.

The last of the men on foot cleared the pasture and came into the woods, many of them collapsing in exhaustion. They were played out, driven now far beyond even a remote attempt at a raid.

He had a dark image in his heart as he surveyed the scene. Something would have to change. He must convince Washington of it. This was now a no-holds-barred fight of gouging and kicking, not some gentlemen’s game, no matter that the overtures of the Howe brothers called them to just come in, surrender, take the oath to the king, and go home.

Enough food was being swept out of this one valley to feed the army at Valley Forge for a month; instead it was going into the overstuffed larders of the enemy. If he was in command and the locals had not been willing to sell…he would have burned it all, scorched the earth for a dozen miles around Philadelphia, and then watched them starve in the city.

This was for him now a war of no quarter.

Raging with frustration, he drew his pistol, aimed it in the direction of the dragoons, and fired.

Distant laughter echoed back seconds later, followed by another call of the foxhunters.

“Ten minutes’ rest here,” Morgan announced, breathing hard, as he pointed north, “then we pull back another mile. They’re still on to us.”

No one spoke. Wayne could see that more than a few would not get up again, but instead would burrow under the leaves and hope to hide till nightfall.

Morgan looked at Wayne.

“Helluva lot of good that did,” he said, and pointed at the still smoking pistol.

“At least it did something here in my soul, Colonel,” and he pointed to his heart. “Damn all of them, we’re not giving up. Just once, just once I want to see their backs and, by God, hear them plead for quarter.”

Valley Forge
December 26, 1777

It had been a cheerless Christmas. The minds of all, Washington knew, were dwelling on the past, on what they had achieved but a year ago. As for dinner, one of his guard details had come in with an old sow, enlisted men and officers sharing alike. No amount of effort by Billy Lee and the company cook could render it more than barely chewable. The last of Mrs. Hewes’s stockpile of potatoes were added in, along with some boiled ears of Indian corn the men had scavenged from a muddy field.

He had ridden around the camp, offering Christmas greetings to each of the brigades. The sense of near rebellion of three days before had stilled somewhat. The most troublesome of the soldiers, close on to a thousand, had simply deserted. Others were just too sick to complain. As for the rest, there had been something of a Christmas miracle after all. Twenty head of cattle and two wagonloads of potatoes and one of flour had come in, actually gathered up by some patriots over at Plymouth Meeting as a present to the army. He had not pressed too hard on the inquiry as to how they obtained them. The gift givers were rather closed-mouthed when General Greene inquired as to where this largesse had come from.

It was enough for two full days of rations, and at that moment, to have an extra day’s rations on hand seemed indeed to be a Christmas miracle almost as profound as the one of a year before.

The weather had at least moderated, skies clear, temperature until late morning above freezing. It had been a blessing but brought with it a midday
thaw. Until the roads were paved with corduroy logs, the pathways and supply roads would be calf-deep quagmires.

Washington turned back from the window, delaying the next meeting for a few more minutes, a deliberate move, making the person he was about to receive wait and thereby know, even before they started, precisely where he stood.

He turned his attention back to the letter on his desk, a copy of correspondence between General Gates and the current president of Congress, John Laurens. Laurens would not have been his first choice after John Hancock resigned, but then again most definitely not his last. The copy of the correspondence had been forwarded up by “a friend,” and contained with it the gossip of what was transpiring in York.

Gates was fuming to Laurens about “leaks” of his own correspondence, and Washington smiled as he read the accusation. It was a war, an open war between the two now, one that had been simmering ever since a year before, when Gates had refused to cross the Delaware in support of the attack on Trenton, and then stayed on to politic with Congress when they so cravenly fled to Baltimore during the dark autumn of ’76.

He knew Gates had his informers right here at Valley Forge, spreading rumors, and, of course, he had his own sources in York. He would indeed be a naïve fool if he had not. The duplicity of Gates was now all too apparent. The man was openly maneuvering to use the victory at Saratoga, which he had arrogated to himself, stealing most of the true glory from those who had earned it, such as Arnold and Morgan, as his stepping-stone to what he believed should rightfully have been his all along.

What was enraging, though, was the nearly open accusation from Gates to Laurens that whoever had leaked their correspondence, had, without doubt, leaked information as well to the British. Then Gates went on to make the absurd claim that he, Washington, would not be above such an act if by so doing he could somehow retain command.

That burned deeply, and he read it several times. What burned as well was that a man he had once counted as a friend, Benjamin Rush, had switched sides in this fight and now belonged to the party that felt that command of the armies had to be changed. To Washington’s deep personal sadness, Rush was now supporting Gates.

He reread the letter one more time, committing it to memory, crumbled it up, and threw it in the fireplace. He trusted his staff, but in such matters he could never be so foolish as to risk the random chance of someone’s finding the letter and sending it back to Laurens and Gates.

And now to the next task. One that his correspondent had warned him of. “Major Hamilton!”

The door flew open as if the young artilleryman had been hovering on the other side. It startled him for a brief instant, and after what he had just read there was a sudden wondering. But a look at the twenty-year-old he had picked out to serve on his staff after repeated displays of gallantry, from Trenton through to Brandywine, told him yet again that this boy was loyal.

“Show the officer in and then close the door.”

Hamilton stepped back from the open door.

“Colonel Conway, the general will see you now.”

Washington did not let a flicker of expression change. He knew Hamilton had just opened the meeting with a deliberate insult.

The short, burly officer stepped halfway into the room, stopped, and turned his back on Washington without offering a salute or bow of acknowledgement.

“Your name, boy?” he snapped.

“Major Hamilton.”

“You are addressing Major General Conway, boy.”

Hamilton stiffened but did not reply. There were a few seconds of tension, Hamilton looking straight into his eyes.

“Sir, the general awaits you,” was all that Hamilton offered in reply. He gestured for Conway to turn, and, withdrawing, he closed the door.

Washington made it a point to remain seated. He was tall enough that he was near to eye level anyhow with Conway, who, red-faced, turned to face him.

“Your staff needs a lesson in manners and etiquette, sir,” Conway announced sharply. It was loud enough so that those out in the small corridor could easily hear.

“Sir, when you address me,” Washington replied coolly, “you will do so as a gentleman, and not shout as if we are in a tavern. Do I make myself clear?”

Conway did not reply.

“As to Major Hamilton’s greeting, sir. The last we saw you with this army, your rank was that of colonel. I have not been officially informed of any change in that rank, nor presented with papers which require me or my staff to recognize and acknowledge promotion to such a rank.”

He stared straight at the man, someone he had actually trusted only a few months before. Born in Ireland, Conway had fled to France as a young man, entered their army, and served twenty years with distinction. He had then become part of the flood of professional soldiers who had all but swamped
America over the last year, arriving from Europe with flowery letters of introduction and the usual endorsements of brilliance. All of them sought high rank, commensurate, of course, with their vast professional experience, to now serve the cause of freedom. Unlike Lafayette, who had come as a gentleman volunteer, announcing he was willing to serve if need be as a private in the ranks, Conway had bulled his way through Congress and emerged with a promise of a colonelcy which Washington had reluctantly agreed to, and signed the man’s commissioning papers. At Germantown he had proven himself as having some skill, but in the bitter months after that fight, he had suddenly found reason to head off with Congress as it fled to Lancaster and then York.

Of course, Washington knew that, clinging to their coattails, Conway had joined with Gates, Mifflin, and others. He also knew that but a few weeks past Conway had finagled not just a promotion to the rank of major general, but a new post created by Gates’s Board of War. He was to be inspector general of the armies.

It was a position that many had urged Washington to create, and he had agreed. In the role, Conway was to advise the commander as to the means of improving the condition of the soldiers; give recommendations as to promotions and, when needed, demotions; see to the general improvement of the welfare of the troops and act on their behalf; and provide a system of training and organization. A man holding that position, if on his side, Washington had reasoned, could be a powerful voice for the reforms for which he had been begging. An enemy in the position could be deadly. He would be a spy free to move among the ranks, garner support, write whatever reports he pleased in secret, and maneuver for the political gain of others.

For the moment, Washington could still minimize Conway’s role on the technicality that one of the powers granted to him as commander of all armies was the power to approve or veto promotions to the rank of general, and that the request for this man had yet to cross his desk. He sensed it was a game, a struggle between the power Gates claimed as head of the Board of War and his own authority as commander of the armies.

Conway was serving as Gates’s stalking horse. For that matter, he might even be stalking for himself…and Washington detested him as much for his personal ambition as for his lack of loyalty.

Washington leaned back in his chair, still refusing to stand.

“Sir, I have received no official letter of confirmation from Congress as to your promotion to the rank of major general and inspector general of the
armies. And might I add that, by the authorization given to me by Congress as commander of all armies, I have and still do retain the right and authority to approve or disapprove of any promotions granted to the forces of the Continental forces for the ranks of colonel and above.”