Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (52 page)

“So why are you not attacking now?”

“As I said, sir,” and Lee’s voice took on a slightly pedantic tone, “I know
Clinton, sir, and he is subtle. He has picked good ground on what he knows is a day of killing heat and told his men to find shade and rest. If I push these men forward now, sir, half of them will fall out and the rest will collapse if they try to fight a battle.”

“The weather is the same for both sides, General Lee,” Washington offered, “and they are far more burdened down than we are.”

“Yes, sir, but we will have to march into battle with the temperature over one hundred degrees while they wait.”

“Did you think of advancing in the morning instead?”

Lee nodded.

“But then the men still back at Cranbury would have had to march ten miles or more to come up and engage. May I suggest instead, sir, that we wait out this day? Besides, that storm will soon be upon us.”

As he spoke, he gestured back to the west. The thunderstorm was indeed approaching, towering in its majesty and power.

Washington shifted his gaze from the map to Lee and then back to the map again.

Another peal of thunder slapped across the sky, the blazing afternoon sun at last darkening in the southwest as the forward edge of the storm advanced. The sun disappeared, and many men emerged from hedgerows and orchards, and from trees and the north side of the other buildings in the village. There was even a bit of a ragged cheer as the first cool gust of wind swept down from the heavens, flattening the spring hay.

“Sir, this storm promises to be a big one. To try and march now?” Lee offered. “The roads, especially at the bottoms of the ravines, will turn into quagmires an hour from now. I beg to suggest that your plan for movement is a most excellent one, but, please, I implore you not to be too hasty. There is wisdom in the adage ‘haste makes waste.’ In this case it will be a waste of thousands of good men.”

Washington thought of the lieutenant he had left lying in the stream and, finally, reluctantly nodded. Lee smiled.

“I have a forward screen of scouts. This same storm will sweep on to Clinton and his army, too, forestalling all movement for the rest of the day for him as well. He may move, sir, but not much before midmorning tomorrow.”

A heavy droplet of rain smacked the map, staining the ink. Laurens looked up at the darkening heavens, and with a nod from the general, he rolled the map up, putting it back in its leather case.

Lee sat back in his chair, his spaniels resting around him, panting and cowering with each peal of thunder.

“I assure you, tomorrow shall be a glorious day for our arms,” Lee announced, raising his tankard of strong ale in salute.

Washington nodded thoughtfully. “Your orders are as follows.” As he spoke he looked over at Hamilton, notebook out, his back turned to the increasing gusts of wind. “I expect your advance guard to have broken camp before dawn, be completely formed and on the road. You are to advance with all possible speed directly upon the British forces now encamped on the high ground west of Monmouth CourtHouse. Whether they are preparing to move or not, you are to attack with alacrity and élan, your regiments properly deployed into battle order as they have been trained to do this past winter.

“You are to bring about a general engagement regardless of enemy disposition, be they preparing to retreat or hold the high ground, as you described. The main body of the army shall be on the road before dawn, coming forward with all possible speed. By your bringing about a general engagement, the enemy will be fixed in position and the forces with me shall fall upon their flank and rear.”

He spoke with a steady voice, but his enthusiasm was obvious. Across nearly two years, if ever there was an opportunity to deliver a resounding defeat, perhaps even a war-winning defeat, it was now.

“You do realize, sir, that the combined forces of the enemy equal, and perhaps exceed, our own?” Lee offered cautiously.

“Our men are trained,” Washington replied, slapping the table with his hand. He repeated emphatically, “Our men are trained. After so many months of suffering at Valley Forge, they are ready for a fight. General Lee, they are eager for a fight, to prove that they have endured a frozen hell, have been reforged, and will now stand and face the enemy. And you will have the honor to lead the way.”

His last comment was an encouragement to Lee, and he looked into his eyes.

“Tomorrow, sir, you shall lead the way, and in holding the enemy in place and, I believe, knocking them off balance, you shall open the way to a victory that shall be spoken of in every court in Europe. The victory can be yours and I shall credit it to you if you do as I have ordered.”

Lee gazed straight at Washington and simply nodded.

The rain was beginning to fall, heavy drops that smacked onto the table, kicking up tiny swirls of dust on the ground with their impact. A cold gust of
wind swept across the fields and around the yard of the tavern. It was a blessed relief from the hellish heat of the day.

“Do we understand each other, sir?” Washington asked.

“Yes, sir, we do.”

He nodded to Hamilton, who finished dictating the order and handed the note to Lee.

“I shall ride back now to Cranbury and prepare the army to move before dawn. Good day to you, sir.”

Lee and those with him came to attention and saluted as Washington left them and returned to the front of the tavern, where Billy Lee stood patiently, brushing the sweat off of their horses while holding a bucket up for Hamilton’s horse to drink. Out in the street of the village a crowd of men had gathered, in part to enjoy the cooling breeze and also out of curiosity as to what was transpiring. All came to attention as their general mounted.

He looked at the men and then rather uncharacteristically stood in his stirrups.

“Tomorrow will bring us victory, men,” he shouted.

A ragged cheer went up, men taking their hats off and waving them in salute as he turned and urged his mount up nearly to a gallop.

He did not look back as he rode off, nor did he see Lee, standing by the side of the tavern, take his orders and, without looking at them, stuff them into his pocket. Lee then turned away and went back to the front porch of the tavern and called for another round of cool ale for himself and his staff.

Once out of the village of Englishtown, Washington settled his mount back to a slow trot. The storm was upon them with all its fury. Cold, delightfully cold blasts of wind raced down from the heavens, pressing the winter wheat flat and even bending the thick stalks of corn. A blinding sheet of rain raced toward him and he lowered his head, holding his hat brim, his mount shying for a second as a bolt of lightning slammed into a tree atop a low rise just a hundred yards ahead.

He knew the storm was making his staff and their cavalry escort, riding behind them, nervous. A man on a horse in open fields in such a storm could be struck down, but he had a sense that fate had decreed that such would not be his end. Dr. Franklin might debate the point with him, but on this day, death by lightning would not be his fate.

They crested the hill, those around him looking more than a bit nervously at the heavens as they rode on, the fury of the storm whipping about them. The rain was deliciously cooling and he could feel his horse being revived by it. The
animal skittered with each crackling peal of lightning that struck the ground nearby or raced overhead. He urged him to a quick canter, eager to be back with the main body of his army and set the orders in place for their movement before dawn.

The cavalcade swept down into a sloping ravine, the clay road beneath them now slick and slippery from the pounding rain. As they forded the shallow stream, pockmarked with the driving rain, he looked to his right.

The lieutenant they had left there two hours ago was floating in the stream, facedown…dead.

He slowed, staring at him for a moment. Billy Lee turned his mount, splashing up the creek, dismounting to pull the body up onto the bank. Kneeling down, Billy folded the young man’s hands on to his chest and then with two fingers closed his eyes, lowered his head to pray for a moment, and, re-mounting, came back to join the group.

“Too far gone,” Laurens sighed. “Lad’s brain was burned by the heat.”

Washington said nothing.

The storm was sweeping past them, the rain abating. Steaming mist was already rising from the road ahead. He sighed. It was just a summer heat storm, not a line of storms promising cooling breezes once it had passed. In another hour it would be as hot again as it had been throughout the day.

He could already sense that tomorrow would be even hotter.

Near Monmouth CourtHouse
3:00 AM, June 28, 1778

“John, come on, John, wake up.”

Allen knelt in the mud by his friend’s side, shaking him on the shoulder.

Ever since his bout with the heat two days ago, John André had not been his usual self. His demeanor was subdued, remote. Allen now saw that change along with more than a few of the men of their command. Men born and raised in England had never experienced such heat before. Last night at Grey’s staff meeting it was said that at least a hundred or more had died during the march from Crosswicks to here, and much of the rest of the army was sick with exhaustion and heat, and from the unrelenting plague of stinging insects that hovered around them in clouds.

He had readily volunteered to take André’s place on the midnight-to-three watch, and André had collapsed on the open ground, under the rude shelter of
a wigwam made of nothing more than pine branches set up against the stout trunk of an old oak. The rude shelter had not, of course, kept out any of the rain, though in fact afterwards, when the heat came back, the mud was at least somewhat cooling, and André had dropped off into a deathlike slumber.

“Come on, John, up now.”

His friend at last stirred and, groaning, sat up.

“Where in hell are we?” he whispered.

“Same place as we were yesterday.”

“As I said, where in hell are we, or should I say are we in hell.”

Allen managed to force a laugh at André’s pale attempt at humor. He drew hope from it. Perhaps a bit of the old spirit was back.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” André gasped. Staggering to his feet, he walked off a few dozen paces. It did not really matter where he went for privacy; they were surrounded in the woods by the men of Grey’s command, along with the rest of the army. He heard André gagging and then relieving himself, someone nearby cursing him to go do his business somewhere else. André came back, and in the pale light of the setting moon Allen could see that his friend was indeed spent, white breeches and his “twenty-five guinea” uniform jacket caked in mud and filth.

André sat back down on the muddy ground with a weary sigh.

Allen offered him a plate upon which rested a biscuit and several slabs of cold bacon. André picked up one of the slices with his fingers, took a bite, suppressed a gag, and let it drop back on the plate.

“Next time, friend, I’d prefer a brisket of lamb, warm but not hot, or fresh-shot quail.”

Allen chuckled.

“You are in the Americas, sir, and bacon cooked or uncooked is what we get here.”

“Damn this place!”

Allen tried not to take offense and offered over a wooden canteen, uncorked.

André sniffed at it and sighed.

“That’s better.” He took a deep gulp of the watered rum and then another.

He coughed, suppressing another rebellion of his stomach, then took another long drink.

“Slightly better.”

Allen offered the plate again and André shook his head.

“You eat it. That will last ten seconds in my stomach. If there for more
than a minute I fear it will come out the other side. I fear I have the flux from the bad water and heat.”

Allen nodded sympathetically but did not hesitate to wolf down the greasy bacon and polish it off with a gulp of the rum.

“Officers’ meeting, sir,” he announced, now taking on a more official tone. “General Grey expects you there.”

“Lead on, then, my Virgil, lead on,” André sighed, as Allen helped him to his feet.

Being a general, Grey had retained his tent, while the rest of the army was ordered to march without them and leave them in the wagons of the supply train. It was lit within by several lanterns. Before entering, André struggled to brush the mud off his breeches and smooth back his hair, Allen helping him.

Grey looked up as the two came in.

“You look like death, John,” Grey offered.

“Why, thank-you, sir, and, bless me, you most certainly do not,” André replied, and those gathered around the general laughed, though it was forced.

“As I was saying before you arrived,” Grey continued. “The orders are straightforward. The men are to be roused now. Ranks to form at four and set off. The Germans ahead should already be up and moving, and with them the wagons, between our column and theirs. By nightfall we will have gained the Monmouth Highlands on the Jersey shore. Once there, we hold as the rearguard, while the rest of the army goes down to the beach to embark. A dozen ships are waiting to ferry us to New York City. Gentlemen, it shall be a hard day’s march.”

No one spoke.

“I expect the heat will be as bad as, perhaps worse than, yesterday. Keep an eye on the men. Let them know that any that fall out from exhaustion we will leave behind. As for the light infantry, do not skirmish them out unless absolutely pressed. We all know what fate will befall them if they wind up in the hands of the rebels, especially those led by that madman Anthony Wayne.”

Again there was silence.

“And if the rebels do attack us?” one of the staff asked.

Grey snorted.

“In an open field?” He chortled. “Let them. In fact, I shall send them a personal invitation to do so. We will butcher the rabble. Now, that would be the right way to leave New Jersey. With a defeated army of dead rebels left behind.”

Of course his words were greeted with a chorus of approval, but Allen remained silent. He suddenly realized that Grey was staring at him.