Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (27 page)

But that was not Wayne’s problem now, as he took the receipt filled out by Travis, scanned it, smiled, and asked for proper ink and quill.

He tallied up the figures, telling the miller to assign to each the current going price once he was gone, which he was certain the man would inflate another 50 percent.

He signed and left the office, the miller, his sons, and grandsons following, joined by the farmer who had lost his wagon, mules, and half a ton of wheat ground while they had looted the place.

He ran the figures in his head.

One day on the road and they had enough flour to keep Baker General Ludwig busy for at least two days, at one pound of baked bread per man. Meat, if the cows were fat enough, along with the smoked hams: barely enough for a day.

The kraut, apples, and whiskey: not even enough for the thousand in the army hospital, let alone those who were ill but still languishing in huts with their comrades.

Before leaving, Wayne had the audacity to suggest that the miller concentrate on cutting lumber for the time being. He told him that the army would pay a fair price for the wood, to be used in construction and road making. No sense in suggesting that he entice the local farmers to bring their grain in for grinding. News of today’s expedition would keep all of them away from any miller in the region. In a few days’ time, news of this new policy of confiscation by the Continental Army would sweep the countryside.

He pointed his column back east, the day now so warm that men marched with blanket capes removed, barefoot in the mud that was almost warm, in high spirits with full stomachs except for those stricken sick by the repast and
riding in the wagons. One of them, an old comrade of Wayne’s command from the beginning of the war, had been so stricken with an attack of the flux that he lay prone and semiconscious in a wagon, crying feebly, anxious comrades to either side of the wagon. Wayne had of course relented and ordered that the poor man be given all the corn liquor he might desire to ease his passing. Chances were he would be dead before they reached the hospital. He looked the other way when several of his comrades dipped into the cup of liquor as well before passing it on.

As they marched back, as before, many of the farms were shuttered: gates closed, except yet again for the few patriots who stood by the roadside. The tireless mother, anticipating their return, had baked enough biscuits so that each man would have two. And of course she reminded him yet again to please let her son have leave to visit her. He could not bring himself to stop, go inside with her, and break the news. He could face battle without flinching. But a grieving mother? He felt himself a coward as he rode on, whispering to one of his staff, who was horrified with the assignment, to stay behind and tell her the truth…that her son would never come home.

York
February 8, 1778

It had been a long three weeks on the road, and the end was finally in sight. Baron Friedrich von Steuben and company had crossed the Susquehanna River via ferry shortly after dawn, and now, after cresting a low rise, finally saw the town of York, the current capital of the United States. It was a most pitiful, god-awful sight, he thought.

“Merciful God,” he heard Du Ponceau whisper. “Just what have we gotten ourselves into?” The sentiment of his interpreter was echoed by the others.

Von Steuben tried to maintain a calm, dispassionate exterior, not reacting openly, but inside he wanted to scream in agreement. If they were approaching the capital of the cause they had pledged their swords and careers to, they had most certainly joined the losing side.

Frontier outposts in the wilds of Russia had looked better than what he now gazed upon. The road, if anyone could call it that, was a frozen, slippery track, covered now with nearly half a foot of the snow that had begun falling during the night. At least the snow gave their horses some traction. The storm had parted for a moment to give him a glimpse of the alleged town ahead. It contained nothing more than what he assumed was some sort of town hall or courthouse of clapboard at its center, a few taverns, a broken-down, abandoned-looking stockade with a few sagging log cabins within, and not a sentry in sight. In the center of the town was a cluster of shops and a few churches, some of them of rough-hewn logs.

It was definitely no Berlin, nor Paris, and certainly not St. Petersburg. The pettiest princeling of the lower Rhine or the Balkans could claim a court a
hundred times more splendid. It looked like the last refuge of a dying cause, and his heart sank. This was the destination he had ventured all upon, had been traveling to since boarding a ship in October in France, running the dangers of the British blockade and the storm-tossed Atlantic. This was the destination he had traveled to for three weeks on horseback from Boston, staying at more than one tavern with beds filled with bugs, eating bad food, and drinking wretched, watery beer while greedy innkeepers demanded hard currency or told him he and his men could instead sleep in the barn. If ever it looked like his career was truly at the end of the line, it was here at this moment, as he reined in to look around for his dog. He was close to giving way to cursing despair when he spied Azor over by a fence rail, claiming more territory. Azor finished, tore up some snow with his hind legs, shook himself, ventured to the next fence post, sniffed it, gave a snort of disdain, and then repeated the ceremony of conquest.

His loyal dog broke the glum mood he had fallen into.

“He has claimed enough territory between here and Boston for an empire greater than the czarina’s,” he exclaimed in French.

His jest broke the melancholic mood of his companions, Peter Du Ponceau throwing back his head and laughing and then, with a flamboyant gesture, dismounting, and going to the same fence post to relieve himself.

“Now see here, dog, this land is now mine!” he cried, and the others laughed and applauded.

Azor looked at him disapprovingly with his massive head cocked to one side, and once the Frenchman was finished, he went back and laid claim to the same spot yet again, causing the others to laugh.

“Someone is coming,” Vogel, von Steuben’s servant, announced, pointing toward York.

A lone rider was coming up from the village, a man in uniform riding a rather fine mount.

Pulled from the merriment of the moment, von Steuben assumed a serious demeanor as the rider approached, reined in, and saluted.

“Baron von Steuben, I presume,” he asked.

Von Steuben nodded, returning his salute.

“I am Captain Rutledge, of General Gates’s staff,” he announced in a halting attempt at French.

“I have been sent to guide you and your comrades.”

“Lead on, Captain Rutledge,” von Steuben replied.

Rutledge turned, his horse slipping on the snow-and ice-covered road. The man, maintaining his saddle well, broke into a trot, the others following. As
they came down off the slope and into the village, von Steuben was surprised and pleased that there was something of a turnout for him. Apparently a fair number of the citizens of this outpost had been rousted out, in spite of the storm. They stood by the side of the icy track, waving their American flags, a few even holding up homemade Prussian and French flags, a couple calling out greetings in German, which he smiled and acknowledged with a bow.

Rutledge led the cavalcade into the village square, a patch of open ground, rutted, covered over with snow, and already trampled down. A company of rather well-dressed infantry was standing at attention, fifers playing a tune which he was coming to recognize as their “Yankee Doodle.” Several officers in rather well-trimmed uniforms awaited with a handsomely dressed civilian delegation around them, which he assumed were members of their Congress.

He reined in and with a flourish saluted the American colors, an action that drew cheers from the small crowd, and was greeted by salutes in return and a ragged volley fired by the infantry company. He could not help but note that a number of the muskets misfired, the men not having kept their locks properly covered in the storm, something that, if given authority, he would most certainly see to. It was a display of amateurism that would certainly have drawn, afterwards, the wrath of any proper officer of the Prussian or even the Russian army.

Orderlies came up to hold the reins as von Steuben and his entourage dismounted. Azor, a bit frightened by the volley, was by his side, looking around nervously. He whispered for the dog to sit and stay, and the animal obeyed for once, but then slowly crept up behind von Steuben as he stepped forward to meet the delegation.

“Baron von Steuben,” Rutledge announced, “it is my honor to introduce you to General Horatio Gates, chairman of the Board of War.”

Von Steuben made it a point of coming to attention first, clicking heels together, and saluting by bowing and removing his hat, a gesture that he saw pleased Gates and the others.

They shook hands, and Gates, speaking through Rutledge, introduced him to the president of the Congress, Laurens, the other members of Congress present, and the officers of his staff. It took some minutes for the ritual to be played out, Rutledge’s French so pathetic that after several introductions von Steuben was completely lost as to who was who. Throughout, the storm renewed its fury. Most of the civilian crowd fled back into their homes or the taverns.

Von Steuben introduced each of his traveling companions and was pleased when at least one of the members of Congress—he believed it was the
doctor he had heard about—did not hesitate to approach Azor, whose sheer size normally intimidated most. He gave him a playful pat on the head and a scratch behind the ears, which immediately earned him Azor’s affection, the dog rearing up and putting his muddy paws on the doctor’s shoulders, ready to lick him in gratitude.

Von Steuben snapped a command and the dog went back on all fours, the display breaking the formality of the moment and causing the group to relax.

“May I suggest we retire within?” Gates announced, and von Steuben nodded his agreement.

The honor guard fired another volley. This time barely a third of the muskets discharged. Fifers broke into a shrill-sounding piece and the unit marched off. Once clear of the village square, all broke ranks and dashed for the shelter of the broken-down stockade and the warmth of the fires within the dilapidated cabins.

In the tavern, servants helped von Steuben and the others as they struggled to pull off their heavy, ice-encrusted jackets and capes. Azor trotted over to the oversize fireplace and settled down before it, as Gates gestured to a table around which were a dozen chairs, tankards of hot buttered rum quickly placed before the group as they sat down.

It was a difficult moment for von Steuben—he didn’t know who should sit where—but, fortunately, Du Ponceau and the others who traveled with him already understood the game, and did not move to take any of the chairs, contenting themselves with going over to the long, rough-hewn bar, where the innkeeper had set out rum for them.

Before sitting down, Gates gestured for von Steuben to sit by his right side and then offered a toast to him and his companions. The toast was returned by von Steuben with a call, in halting English, for a blessing upon the American cause and confusion to its enemies, which was greeted with something of a cheer.

The others sat down and he suppressed a sigh as he did the same. It had been a long three-week journey from Boston. He had barely slept the night before—so voracious were the bedbugs that he had finally abandoned the cornhusk mattress and simply sprawled out on the hard, drafty, cold floor by Azor, next to the fireplace. Proper hosts would have understood the needs of a traveler. In Europe he would have been met by his host but then quickly handed off to servants for a light repast, a warm bath, a good shave, and a proper nap, while his uniform was cleaned and brushed down, wig seen to, shirt boiled—and then only in the evening would come the formalities.

These Americans struck him as a curious lot indeed: British in certain ways, but a mixture of other qualities as well. On the road from Lancaster to here he had even stayed in a tavern owned by a German from Magdeburg, where he had been born, and though obviously of peasant stock, the innkeeper proudly rattled off the names of the nobility he had served as a cobbler and officers he had known. He was even fairly current on gossip from the Fatherland. The man claimed to have fought at Minden, slapped his left arm, and rolled the sleeve of his shirt up to show the scar of a saber slash.

In fact, his knowledge of the names and doings of court were so good that von Steuben felt a bit uncomfortable that the man just might know a bit too much about himself, his family, and the fact that, though he was indeed a baron, it was a title that had been purchased and was not of long lineage…or some of the rumors as to why he was no longer in service to Frederick. But if the innkeeper did know it, which he suspected from a couple of veiled comments, as a fellow countryman he had kept mum as they drank themselves into happy oblivion. In the morning he had left his last silver thaler on his bed and a brief note of thanks for his hospitality and what he hoped would be respectful silence when it came to a fellow countryman making a new way in this new world.

Du Ponceau, who had a fairly good grasp of English, had pointed out the distinguishing characteristics of people they had met along the way: the very proper residents of Boston; Scots Irish refugees living along the frontier boundaries; the Dutch of the Hudson Valley and north Jersey; the familiar countrymen from Germany; the various Anabaptist sects that populated the region from Lancaster to here, known as Dunkers; Mennonites and Amish from the Rhineland who had fled here for religious freedom. He could not understand their staunch sentiments against war of any kind (resembling in their pacifism the English Quakers he was told had founded Pennsylvania), but the orderliness of their fields, their homes as big as barns, their barns as big as churches, their neatly arrayed orchards that stretched for acres were to him a touch of home. It filled him with pride and it was good to speak German again as they passed along the road.

Such a strange nation indeed, he thought, as he looked around the table, the dozen gathered here returning his gaze with open curiosity.

Their greetings having been offered, it became obvious that they were expecting him to say something.

He had been inwardly preparing himself for this moment for weeks. His long conversations with John Hancock and Sam Adams were warning enough
that he was wading into the perilous seas of a revolutionary government on the edge of defeat and sharply divided against itself. He had a sense that this strange land presented to him an opportunity that was now forever closed back in Europe, and that he must tread with utmost caution. If not for America, he would eventually have wound up either a drunkard or a suicide.

Gates smiled at him and began to speak, von Steuben motioning for Du Ponceau to come over and stand by his side. He whispered for him to translate directly into German.

“I trust your journey was not too toilsome,” Gates started, and von Steuben offered the usual pleasantries in reply. Even as they spoke, Du Ponceau doing an impressive job of rapidly translating, he carefully scanned the others. From several he detected bored disinterest. The excitement of the day was over, a storm was raging outside, the tavern was warm, the rum hot, and one man was already motioning for the innkeeper to bring the pitcher over and refill his mug. As he watched Gates intently, nodding with the completion of nearly every sentence, he shot sidelong glances at the others and noted who was paying attention. In the background he could hear Vogel chatting with the innkeeper, who, by good fortune, spoke German, and Vogel was already adroitly at work, casually asking who each man was, their rank and titles, so he could give him a detailed report later on each.

Gates, not too subtly, finally drew the subject around to more direct questions.