Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (17 page)

“They’d have known anyhow,” Harris sighed.

“And then what?” Justin interjected, tossing his greasy empty tin plate on the barn floor in the middle of the group. “Another arrow in the quiver for the damn War Board, I tell you. They’ll blame it all on the general.”

As he spoke, he nodded at the barn door, open toward the headquarters house.

Peter turned away from Justin, fixing Lafayette with his gaze.

“Will they, sir?”

Lafayette said nothing, as if unable to reply.

“And I swear this in front of all of you,” Justin continued, his gaze now fixed on Lafayette as well. “They bring that bastard Gates up here and I’ll march all right, straight on York with a fixed bayonet, and I’ll spit on any man who does not do likewise.”

No one spoke, not even Harris, who put his own plate down and just stared off.

“I am sorry to have stirred such thoughts,” Lafayette offered.

“No apology needed, sir,” Harris replied.

“And yet you will all stay?” Lafayette asked.

“You heard what I said,” Justin replied, anger still evident. “At least as long as he is in that headquarters building and not that damn Gates.”

As he spoke, he pointed straight at the Hewes house. The men gazed at him but none now spoke, some looked warily at Lafayette, knowing the punishment Justin could face for having so openly expressed his opinion.

“My words and questions are ill chosen,” Lafayette said, face reddening. “I know you will stay. It is just I am struck to the heart by your courage.”

He seemed to fumble.

“My English, I am still learning. I meant no insult.”

“None taken, sir,” Harris replied quickly.

“I can offer no words of promise,” he continued. “I would insult you if I did. I can only offer the wish that my countrymen will soon be at our sides with the supplies that your general has asked for. I cannot promise, other than to say that I have added my own words as well back to those in France who can help. But regardless if France does or does not, I too shall stay to the end. And I am convinced that regardless of outside help, that end will be victory as long as our General Washington has comrades such as you by his side.”

“We thank you, sir,” Harris offered.

“No, it is I who thank you.”

He stood up, making a gesture for the rest of them to remain seated. “I apologize if I have interrupted the pleasures of your repast,” he said with a smile and a feeble attempt at humor.

Bowing slightly, he left the barn.

“Good lad, that Frenchie,” someone said, and there was a chorus of agreement.

“I still think we should go and hang Congress,” Justin grumbled. “And if Gates sticks his nose in here, well, I think we all know how we feel.”

“Ah, shut up,” Harris replied. “Work detail this afternoon. We’re to start
building some quarters and a shed behind the headquarters for staff and as a cookhouse and dining area.”

“With what?” Justin asked. “Our bare hands?”

“If need be, damn it!”

“All right, Sergeant,” Justin sighed. “A cookhouse, you say. Now, that sounds promising at least.”

Justin pointed to his tin plate in the center of the group.

“Anyone for a louse race?” he asked.

Lafayette stood on the other side of the barn door, listening.

“Learn anything?”

It was Major Tilghman.

“You heard it, I assume.”

Tilghman nodded, putting his hand on Lafayette’s shoulder, guiding him away from the barn and the house and out into the field beyond.

“Most of it was soldier talk, soldier grumbling,” Tilghman said. “The general’s always said that as long as you can hear them grumbling there is hope. It is when they fall silent that it is time to worry.”

Lafayette had heard the same words. And yet how strange was this world. In the armies of France, in the armies of any other nation, if such grumbling were overheard by an officer, a flogging or caning was certain, or a hanging in the Czarist and Prussian armies. How different indeed this America was. It had shocked him to the core the first time he encountered it. Even now, what the one private had said, not once but several times, about marching on York could be grounds for having a man lashed to death or hanged. The soldier had said it in his presence, and he wondered if it was an act of defiance or an echo of the disrespect more than a few first showed him when he joined this army. Or was it an echo of a new kind of army, an army of men fighting for their freedom, including their right to speak their minds as they saw fit?

Washington assured him that earning respect would come hard for someone who was as young as he was and who was French as well. Until recently, his France had been the traditional foe of all who lived here. He could try to force it by claiming a title, or by actions. The point of the advice was obvious, to earn respect by action, which he felt he had done. Even now, as he walked, the pain from the wound at Brandywine still troubled him, a reminder of what he was willing to do for that respect.

“I was stunned, though, by such open talk of mutiny,” Lafayette finally of
fered. At least with Tilghman, a well-educated man, he could fall back into French, which was far easier.

“You handled yourself well, sir,” Tilghman replied. “Instinct would have been to order the man arrested, which you could have done. So why didn’t you?”

Lafayette lowered his head, not sure how to reply.

“Did you agree with him? At least as far as Gates is concerned?”

“If they remove our general and place General Gates in command, I shall resign and return to France,” Lafayette said coldly.

“Ah, a fine point there,” Tilghman replied. “A point of honor which we as officers have, but the enlisted man does not.”

“And that is?”

“An officer may, without disgrace, resign his commission in protest at nearly any time, except when directly in the face of the enemy, when it is obvious that such a resignation is an act of cowardice.”

Lafayette bristled slightly.

“No, sir,” Tilghman offered, hand extended. “Perhaps my French is imperfect as your English can still be at times.”

Lafayette relaxed a bit and smiled, the two falling into the American speaking English, the young nobleman French.

“The code of a gentleman and officer embraces you and me. We can resign in protest and be thought none the worse for it, something surely our general will do if in any way Gates is placed in direct command, either of this army in the field or in some new position he and his cabal can manufacture with Congress. This Board of War is damn near on that mark already.

“We can resign, but those men in there,” and he nodded back to the barn, “what recourse do they have? Stand and endure it? Or go home…as a deserter and lose all honor, in fact face a flogging or hanging if taken in the act.”

Tilghman sighed and shook his head. “God pity the common man. And that, sir, is what I believe this Revolution to be about. The right of the common man, even in uniform, to stand up and say no when a moral question strikes directly to his heart. It was Private Putnam, I believe, who spoke that way just now.”

“I was not sure of his name.”

“And you will not report him?”

“Of course not.”

Tilghman nodded. “Good, thank you, sir.”

“Why such concern?”

“He is a good soldier. He was part of the original regiment the general mobilized back in ’75. His younger brother died during that winter in Boston. My God, the Virginians died by the score from the cold then. You heard him speak of his closest friend, a comrade engaged to his sister. He has stood the test. He’d be a sergeant, even an officer, if not for his damn loud mouth, but the men see him as their voice, even when they themselves lack the stomach to say anything themselves.”

“So you agree with him?”

Tilghman smiled.

“Do you?”

“It is not my place to say.”

“Come now, my dear Marquis, it is you and I, alone in this field. I swear to you my solemn oath that it goes no further. Do you agree with him?”

Lafayette looked at him, features grim.

“I already told you. If Gates comes, I resign.”

“Even if Washington urged you to stay on?”

“The general is a gentleman and, yes, he would urge us all to do so. But sir, my oath of loyalty above all else is to him and always shall be. I will not stand for such a base betrayal of the one man who you and I know is the last remaining hope of this cause.”

“Even though nearly all battles fought, except for Trenton and Princeton, have been defeats, perhaps even better defined as routs and debacles.”

“And if our general had what he desired? Proper supplies for his men, shoes, dry uniforms, ammunition, and an army of long-standing enlistments, men of three years and not just six months or three months, there is no power that could stop him. I am sick of the fools that plot against him.”

“As am I,” Tilghman replied, shaking his head.

“We both see where this is going to lead,” Lafayette continued. “You saw Wilkinson as did I, observing this morning’s tragic drama. He is a good man in his own way, but he has fallen back into Gates’s pocket. Even now he is riding at the gallop to York with the report that a quarter of the army disbanded this day. And does our general now just sit back and wait for the axe to fall?”

Tilghman smiled.

“Do not consider General Washington to have such naïveté. He is a general on the battlefield, to be certain, and under that quiet demeanor, he is as adept a fighter as any politician or lawyer in Congress.”

Lafayette nodded, saying nothing. It would be nice to believe, but he won
dered just how long a man such as Washington would survive in the court intrigues of Versailles.

“A dispatch rider is preparing even now, sir,” Tilghman continued. “Letters of protest have already been written by Washington and signed, written before this morning’s humiliation. They are addressed to those members of Congress he still feels he can trust. Sir, I approach you now with the request that you do the same. That when the rider departs, you send letters to all those whom you feel you can approach in Congress who will listen to your side of this issue.”

“And you wish me to say?”

“In part what you said just now to me, but not as forcefully, of course,” Tilghman smiled. “For, after all, before this all started, I was once a lawyer, though of the two I prefer the rank of an honorable officer, but believe me, I know how to fight as a lawyer, an art which at times in this war is just as important as my sword.

“The general is prepared and is acting. Major Laurens on our staff, son of the current president of Congress, is firmly on our side and has written nearly daily to his father. Generals Greene and Wayne have written to those whom they trust, making it clear that if Gates comes, they go. I am writing to my contacts. Your voice, sir, would be invaluable as well.

“Dare I suggest, sir, that if the implication is clear that you speak with knowledge of the mood of the French, that General Washington is the hero of the French Court in spite of the temporary setbacks before Philadelphia, and that you personally, sir, will seek withdrawal of support if His Excellency is demoted or forced out of command, it will play well for our side.”

Lafayette took it in. Tilghman was asking him to join a conspiracy, and he smiled. He would die without hesitation for his general, who had become like a father for him, the father he had never really known. Little did Tilghman know that such letters had already been sent to France and, if not intercepted by the British blockade, should be at the court in a few more weeks. Well, at least it was out in the open now.

“Sadly, Benjamin Rush is out,” Tilghman sighed. “Too bad, for I liked the man. A year ago, before Trenton, his efforts were crucial, and all know that, without him, Paine’s articles never would have been published. I do not blame the man too much. He is, after all, a physician first, not a politician, and the sights he witnessed these last six months would shake the faith of any man whose heart is one of compassion, as his surely is. He is neither a military man nor a man of politics, and I pray that a day shall come when he shall awaken and return to our fold.

“John Adams is a stout, perhaps mule-headed New Englander. Gifted when it comes to the nuances of creating a government, but perhaps too caught up in the running of it. I heard last that he is now a member of twenty committees, and such a gadfly to some that they are shipping him off to your country to serve there with Franklin and thus get him out of the way. God save them both when they have to work together.”

He chuckled at the thought of it.

“Hancock has gone home. Jefferson has gone home. Only a few of the original signers, even fewer of those who first nominated and placed our general in command, are still with Congress in York. What we have there, except for Laurens and a few others, are the second-raters. The type that slip in after the giants who created this Revolution have, for the moment, fallen by the wayside with exhaustion or disillusionment, or been seduced to abandon the cause or look to their own interests, or are filled with disgust for the entire project.

“Happy is the lot of a soldier who can clearly see the face of an enemy and, if afterwards Christian compassion prevails, offer to bandage his wounds and send him on his way.

“How I hate the machinations that are behind every war.”

“Read Tacitus, Cicero, even that accursed Machiavelli,” Lafayette replied. “Nothing changes in that regard.”

“So you are with us, of course?” Tilghman asked.

“With what?”

“Our own dispatch rider to York leaves in the afternoon. Relays have been set up. With luck he should arrive ahead of Wilkinson or at least concurrent with him. One can assume that Conway is already back there, spreading his rumors. We must counter, and counter hard, if in a fortnight we are still to have our general, and with him an army, and with them a Revolution. If not, I would actually say defeat, at best, at worst a mutiny that could plunge all of us into a bloodbath.”

“And as we plot this way,” Lafayette asked, “what of those men back there? Will they eat tomorrow? Are there more tools for shelters to be built? What if the British should decide to sally forth from Philadelphia and march here tonight under the cover of the storm which seems to be approaching?”