Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (4 page)

“He’s all that’s left of our breeding stock,” Zebulon protested. “The bull, the two cows, and our horses, we will need them for spring plowing.”

“They are being requisitioned for the army. I’ll give you a receipt, and you’ll be paid in hard cash.”

“We can’t eat money,” Elsa replied sharply.

“Still better than what you can do with that damn Continental money the rebels would have given you instead. There’s only one use for that paper,” he said with a salacious grin.

“You are no gentleman, sir,” Zebulon fumed. “How dare you speak to my wife in such a manner?”

A heavy rumbling shook the ground as horse-drawn wagons approached. After a break in the line, several officers, resplendent in scarlet and white, led a company of mounted troops across his field and toward his house.

“Is that General Howe?”

The lieutenant looked over his shoulder and then back at him.

“None of your damn business.”

He reached into his cloak, pulled out a note pad, and jotted down a tally.

Elsa watched in horror as the audacious soldiers seized their livestock. The soldier’s vociferous laughter and cheering filled the air as if to make it a celebratory event. The draft horses, Caesar and Pompey, the cows, and the bull were tied to the wagons. Some carried the chickens; a few twitched spasmodically but were already dead. A soldier filled his hat with fresh eggs, dropping several on the hard ground; others lugged baskets of dried apples and turnips. A pig squealed in terror as their breeding sow, Beatrice, was dragged out of the barn. The lieutenant scanned the men as they loaded the goods. He quickly finished his notes, signed his name, and tore the sheet of foolscap from the pad and extended it to Zebulon.

“Report to Philadelphia, swear your oath of allegiance to the Crown, and you’ll be paid fairly.”

Zebulon took the receipt with unconcealed rage. The lieutenant had noted but one horse and a cow; there was no mention of the bull.

A shrill cry of agony interrupted the farmer; he looked on with repulsion as a soldier stabbed a bayonet into Beatrice. She thrashed about wildly, trying to pull herself free of the blade, another soldier cheered and joined in, stabbing the animal again and again until she collapsed, convulsing weakly, in a welter of her own blood.

“No!” Elsa cried. “She was only a pet. A pet!”

She moved as if to strike the offending soldiers and Zebulon grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back.

Out on the road a knot of scrupulously dressed officers rode past, barely sparing a glance at the confrontation in the farmyard. He could instantly tell by their finery that they were men of rank, far superior to the lout who handed him a document of blatant lies about what was being taken and now smiled as his men finished off Beatrice.

“Damn you, sir!” Zebulon cried. “This is an outrage, I wish to protest!”

He stepped away from the lieutenant and moved toward the open gate of his farm.

“Sir, you there! You!” he shouted, pointing toward the officers.

“Shut up and don’t you move a damn inch,” the lieutenant hissed.

“You can go to hell,” Zebulon snarled, breaking free from his wife’s grasp and shoving his way past the lieutenant and starting for the road. Surely these gentlemen would stop this outrageous abuse.

“Zebulon!”

The blow from behind knocked him to the ground. The world was suddenly red-rimmed, distant, as if about to fade away forever.

Groaning audibly, he rolled on to his side and looked up at the lieutenant, who was clutching the barrel of the pistol, the handle smeared with blood from the blow.

“Lieutenant!”

The man stiffened, looked past Zebulon, and came to attention.

“No excessive force with the civilians, if you please.”

At this command, the lieutenant stood rigid and saluted.

Elsa scurried to Zebulon’s side; as she flung herself on the ground, she took him into her arms, and tried to stanch the flow of blood from his scalp, which had been split open by the blow.

“Madam,” the lieutenant hissed, “control that husband of yours or, by Jove, I will come back here later and blow his goddamned rebel brains out.”

She gazed up at him, unable to reply.

“Damn, they are coming on fast!”

Colonel Daniel Morgan slipped his large frame down behind the tree. He returned the telescope he had been using to its own er, Major John Clark. Clark, commander of his detachment of spies and scouts, had been assigned by General Washington to shadow the British in Philadelphia.

Clark focused the telescope back on the road and continued counting. He absently reached for his note pad as he watched, and made hatch marks as he counted the wagons, companies of infantry, and the mounted Jaegers and dragoons.

There was a tense moment as the first wave of light infantry rode past, but they did not penetrate into the woods where Morgan, Clark, and their men were concealed. Foolish mistake, but then again, the men were at least two hundred and fifty yards from the road, nearly three times the range of a musket shot.

Morgan smiled. The enemy had no idea that his riflemen were lurking.

Keeping diligent watch, he stretched his long legs out on the cold ground. He reached for his long rifle beside him; it was his most prized earthly possession, and the same rifle he had carried since the last war, the one against the French and Indians. Crafted by Adam Haymaker to his specific demands, it had cost him twenty-five pounds sterling. And that was over twenty years ago, when such a sum could buy a man one hundred acres of prime land in the Shenandoah Valley.

The barrel was almost four feet in length; its black walnut stock measured precisely to just under his chin. If he had dared to cut a notch in it for every man he had dropped with this rifle—French, Indian, British, and Hessian—such a sacrilege would have destroyed the beauty and symmetry of the weapon’s lines. Besides, such a vanity was considered exceedingly foolish by any from the frontier. If he was ever captured alive by the less than friendly Indians of that region, such a tally would insure even greater lengths of creativity with their tortures.

“Damn it. That can’t be him.” Clark spat.

“Who?”

“General Howe!”

“Where?” Morgan cried. He sat up and squinted against the cold easterly wind.

“On the road there, just before that farm down below.”

Morgan watched for several seconds. It would be a long reach at three hundred yards to the road with this wind, but damn it all!

He slipped the rifle up, cupping his hand around the lock, flicking the flash pan open to check the powder.

“Dan. You aren’t?” Major Clark asked.

“I’m going to try a shot at the son of a bitch.”

“Dan, we’re here to scout, not start a fight.”

Morgan said nothing as he blew the powder out of the pan, drew up his horn, and opened it to pour in some fresh priming.

He knew Clark was right. The man was General Washington’s master of spies for this region, tasked with infiltrating agents into Philadelphia to ascertain what the lobsterbacks were up to. Clark was here to spy, not to start a fight. Morgan and his men were ordered to provide cover and support, and then raid on their own, but not to upset or interfere with Clark’s efforts. It was at least a brigade down there, and he had only fifty men with him at this spot. But still, if that was Howe…

Clark was obviously a bit unnerved this morning because he had failed to gain warning of this move and was trying to reassert himself by determining an accurate count of strength and the line of march. He had already muttered that Washington needed to be told of it at once, that perhaps this was a chance to cut off part of their army out in the open, perhaps another Christmas coup like last year at Trenton, to restore the collapsing spirit of the revolution.

They had watched as the lead scouts crossed at the first light of dawn from the cold morning mists rising off the river.

Company after company emerged out of the fog. Most were light infantry; several units were the dangerous mounted Hessian riflemen, and then the column of wagons. They counted over two hundred on the far side of the river, lined up and waiting to cross.

The intent was twofold and obvious. The first, to sweep along the west bank of the Schuylkill River, strip the countryside of all supplies to feed the ten thousand British troops garrisoning Philadelphia, and, in so doing, deny those supplies to the patriot cause.

Dan could easily see the second intent as well. It was a taunt, a challenge. At this very moment, only twenty miles to the north, General Washington and his army were struggling to establish a winter campsite at Valley Forge. Howe was offering a dare; if he himself was moving this column, the challenge was an even greater affront. The commanding British general, leaving the comfort of his headquarters and the beds of his mistresses for a few days in open challenge and defiance, would be a chance too good to miss.

The target momentarily disappeared from view behind the house. His rifle primed, Dan Morgan waited.

Morgan sighed as he contemplated the spectacle nearly three hundred yards away. It was a far cry from what he had witnessed several months ago, up north in the forests of New York and the field at Saratoga. Back then, it was his men in the open sweeping the countryside with victory.

With the first rally cry for volunteers in 1775, he served with his comrade of the last war, George Washington, bringing with him a hundred riflemen recruited from the Virginia frontier. Sent north to join one of the great heroes of this war, Benedict Arnold, he then fought at Quebec in ’75, taking command when Arnold was wounded and captured. The campaign turned into a debacle and he, too, taken prisoner. Exchanged along with Arnold for a couple of British officers, he returned south, raised a regiment in Virginia, returned to the war, and then went north to join in the climactic struggle to hold back the northern invasion by General John Burgoyne.

How he had lusted for that assignment; he was filled with a fervent though ungodly prayer to once—just once—have Burgoyne within 250 yards of his muzzle.

Years ago, as a boy of eighteen, he ran off to join the army of General Braddock as a teamster. There he first met Washington, a young officer in command of militia, and the two became fast friends. It was there, as well, that he ran afoul of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, a young, foppish officer who should have stopped a bullet when the army was all but annihilated on the Monongahela.

After one of Burgoyne’s comrades slashed at him with his sword over some alleged rude remark, he gave the man the thrashing he deserved for insulting a free man. In retaliation Burgoyne ordered him to be bound to a wagon wheel to suffer 499 lashes.

As he contemplated it now, Dan rubbed the back of his neck. What were intended as scars of humiliation had become a source of pride. He had openly stripped to the waist before the men of his command more than once to show his wounds. He swore before them that he would not rest until every lash was repaid in full. His men followed him with an eager determination to fulfill that oath.

Four hundred and ninety-nine lashes were tantamount to a death sentence. He later learned that Washington had tried to intervene with an appeal but was rebuffed, and had been warned that it was time colonials learned the meaning of discipline. He was told that those gathered to watch saw the bones of his ribs and spine, the flesh hung in bloody strips…all in the name of proper discipline. His indomitable spirit and the fact that he had survived the ordeal made him a legend of survival and defiance against the increasingly hated officers from En gland.

When he joined the northern army with his sharpshooters, they had set to work with a passion. A wonderful moment indeed when he spotted an officer
more than two hundred yards off, and put a bullet through the man’s head with an offhand shot.

The British, under a flag of truce, sent a representative to protest the deliberate shooting of officers, as if it were against the rules of war, stating that it would only create unruliness and a collapse of discipline on both sides. The British officer exclaimed that it was not at all proper, and was genuinely upset and utterly confused that his protest was met with mocking disdain.

Morgan was supremely delighted to send a personal response back to the “Gentleman,” asking him if he remembered a young teamster who received four hundred and ninety nine lashes and was now eagerly waiting to see him anywhere within two hundred yards of the front lines.

It was later said that Gentleman Johnny never again ventured anywhere near the forward trenches during the final siege at Saratoga.

He almost regretted sending that taunt. He ruefully thought that he might otherwise have been able to get his vengeance after all.

With the victory at Saratoga, created in large part by his old comrade Benedict Arnold, he assumed the war was nearly over. His men were ordered to rejoin Washington; their triumphal march down the Hudson Valley, into New Jersey, and across Pennsylvania turned somber when they received word of the disasters afflicting Washington and his command. Howe had finally stirred from New York City. Rather than go north to link up with the beleaguered Burgoyne, as everyone assumed he would, he took a ship with nearly his entire force, leaving only a small garrison to hold New York City. Sailing south as far as Chesapeake Bay, then north, he disembarked near Wilmington, then maneuvered to seize Philadelphia, the capital of the newly proclaimed United States. To the British way of thinking, when an enemy capital fell, the war was decidedly over. Disaster had befallen Washington at the Battle of Brandywine, and repeatedly throughout the autumn.

Congress abandoned Philadelphia and fled to Lancaster. Frightened that the British would launch a surprise attack and capture them, they finally ran to the far bank of the Susquehanna at York while Washington’s army staggered northward to what was supposed to be their retreat position at Valley Forge. Some had described it as a march into oblivion.

Now Morgan had been tasked by Washington to bring his men down the river to support Major Clark with his spying efforts; to harass, observe, and provide warning if the enemy should bestir themselves from the comfort of their winter quarters.