Lafayette quickly calmed down. As he and Washington got to know each other better, they established an ideal father-and-son relationship which satisfied deep emotional lacks they both felt. Lafayette proved to be brilliant. With reddish hair receding up his egg-like forehead, he was not handsome, but he possessed a magnetism almost equal to Washington’s own. A youthful romantic, he indulged himself in daydreams of glory, some of them completely wild, which he expected his spiritual father to agree to or not as the older man’s wisdom dictated. Unlike Washington’s other foreign officers, who despised Washington’s lack of conventional military skills, the inexperienced Lafayette became one of Washington’s most rapid and apt pupils in the new type of warfare the American general was evolving. For Washington, Lafayette’s arrival was a most happy chance.
The British in New York, having been reinforced from across the ocean, opened the 1777 campaign on June 17 by moving into New Jersey. They seemed to be on the way to Philadelphia, but they lingered below the Morristown Heights. Their object was double: to lure Washington into a battle on the plain, and to see whether the citizens would not welcome a return of British protection. But Washington did not budge and the citizens shouldered their guns to harass the British flanks. Howe returned to New York, made a second unsuccessful feint into New Jersey, and then, so Washington’s spies reported, began preparing his naval transports to receive his army.
Guessing out Howe’s intentions was now Washington’s impossible business. An important consideration was the fact that a strong force under General John Burgoyne had sailed down from Canada on Lake Champlain and had captured, without meeting any resistance, the American fort at Ticonderoga, which was supposed to hold the northern invasion route shut. If Burgoyne successfully traversed the intervening wilderness, he could either strike the unprotected rear of New England or go directly south to the upper Hudson. Howe could cooperate by sailing through Long Island Sound to New England or (as seemed more probable considering the value of breaking the rebellion in half at the Hudson River) sailing up that river to meet Burgoyne. The third possibility was that Howe would ply through the ocean to Philadelphia.
Moving his troops back and forth through a rocky pass in the Hudson Highlands called the Clove, Washington inclined the army towards Albany and New England or towards Philadelphia as different reports came in from his spies. Then, on July 24, “one hundred and seventy topsail vessels and about fifty or sixty smaller ones” sailed from New York Harbor. Since they set out into the ocean, their objective was indicated as Philadelphia. Washington responded by marching across New Jersey. However, he went slowly since he feared that Howe, having maneuvered him out of the way, would double back and mount the Hudson after all.
Never was there a more uncertain, nervous time. Washington breathed easier when the fleet was sighted off the Delaware River, but then, instead of advancing up the river towards Philadelphia, the fleet disappeared again. Was Charleston their objective? Or were they now in full sail for the Hudson? Completely confused, not wishing to destroy his army by endless marching and countermarching in hot weather, Washington allowed the troops to collapse near Philadelphia. Finally, he could bear inaction no longer. He started a slow march back towards New York. It was August 22, when hard news finally came in: the British were sailing up the Chesapeake, their destination Philadelphia after all. They clearly intended to march overland from the head of the Chesapeake.
Howe, having exhausted two possibilities, was trying a third. He had first thought that by making the Continental Army look ridiculous he could make the colonists reaffirm their allegiance. This had not worked, and in the process Howe had inadvertently taught Washington that his amateur army could not stand up to the enemy professionals in formal battle. Next, Howe had tried holding down a conquered territory with scattered posts. That had backfired. Now he wished again to engage Washington’s army, this time to destroy it. Washington had refused to come down from the heights near Morristown but surely he could not allow Philadelphia to fall without a fight. Furthermore, Howe believed that his possession of the American capital and largest city would do much to hamstring the rebellion, both physically and psychologically.
Howe had been right in guessing that Washington would feel it necessary to try to bar the British advance. Pausing only for a parade through Philadelphia, which he tried to make as impressive as the ragged condition of the troops allowed, Washington had set out pell-mell for the indicated British line of march. The Continental Army made its stand on a seemingly strong position behind the Brandywine River. This time it was not military naïveté but misinformation—Washington’s intelligence was wrong both on the geography of the region and concerning British movements—that allowed Howe to repeat the strategy of Brooklyn Heights. Making a wide sweep to the left, a British column came in behind the American defenses. However, on this September 11, 1777, the Continental Army did not immediately disintegrate. Successful rear-guard action, with Washington in direct command, enabled most of the army to escape. Howe had done little more than open the way to Philadelphia.
He did not immediately accept the prize, preferring to continue his efforts to lure the Continental Army into a conclusive battle. Washington marched and countermarched, not willing to attempt a stand that would be to the enemy advantage, forever hoping that the enemy professionals would make a mistake that would give the Continental Army a chance to fight in its own way. Finally wearying of the game, the British captured Philadelphia while Washington was too far off to fire even one defensive shot.
Washington realized that he and the Continental Army had been made to look foolish, all the more by contrast with the northern army. Commanded by Gates, that army had won an impressive if not conclusive victory over Burgoyne: the Battle of Freeman’s Farm. Washington yearned to achieve a coup before winter set in—and at last he saw a way.
Major General Lord Cornwallis was occupying Philadelphia with three thousand men. The main British army—five thousand strong—was encamped under Howe in the suburb of Germantown, some five miles up the Schuylkill River, in the direction of Washington’s own encampment. Basically, Germantown was shaped like a cross, the main road to the city being cut at right angles by a major crossroad. Spies reported that the British outposts and light infantry were stationed on the near side of the crossing, while the bulk of Howe’s army was encamped just beyond it. Most invitingly, Howe indicated his disdain of the rebels by erecting no fortifications.
Why not achieve another Trenton, this time on a much larger scale? Calling in every man he dared, even weakening the forts defending the Hudson, Washington gathered eight thousand Continentals and three thousand militia. They were to spring off after dark from so great a distance—fifteen to nineteen miles—that the British would not expect an attack. They were to attack at dawn.
As usual, Washington worked out too complicated a plan: four columns converging simultaneously from four different routes. The militia regiments were to move along byroads on both wings of the advance. (As it turned out, they never succeeded in getting into the battle at all.) The main thrust was entrusted to two columns of Continentals. The column Washington led was to drive the British back along the main road, while a force under Greene, coming in from the left, was to pin them against the Schuylkill.
As Washington advanced with his men on October 3, 1777, he could only rarely consult his watch: the troops were moving as silently as possible in utter darkness. However, it was clear that they were falling heavily behind schedule. Washington anxiously scanned the sky for signs of the dawn that would frustrate catching the British by complete surprise. The sky started to pale while they were still some distance from Germantown, but the emerging sun drew up from the ground a thick fog. Washington welcomed the obscuring vapor as sent by a benign Providence, although in a few hours he was to attribute it to “some unaccountable something.”
No news or sound had indicated the arrival of the other columns when Washington’s advance guard engaged the British pic
kets. Staying with his main force, Washington could not discern through the mist the action going on ahead of him. However, the sounds of firing, by becoming less loud, indicated that the British were falling back. He ordered more regiments forward. The firing took on a deeper tone as cannon spoke, but the direction of the movement remained the same. An ever-larger British force was clearly failing to make a stand.
Finally, Washington decided to lead his reserve guard forward. In contrast to the tumult ahead, around him all was silence. Through swirls of mist, he could see on both sides of the road abandoned cannon, empty tents, all the deserted paraphernalia of a major British encampment. His heart sang: at long last the Continental Army was driving a major segment of the British army!
Then he heard firing much nearer than the sound of battle. A large brick house stood like a fortress beside the road. It was occupied by British soldiers. The main American army had swept by, leaving behind many dead bodies. Flashes from the windows were now dropping Washington’s men. At Washington’s orders, cannon balls were fired against the house at point-blank range. The brick walls were so solid that the balls just bounced away. Finally Washington decided that he would leave a detachment surrounding the house and take his rear guard on.
He found that the American advance had penetrated all the way to the crossroads behind which Howe’s main army was encamped. And now, although fog blotted out vision, sounds indicated that Greene was coming in from the left. Most excitingly, the new sequence of firing moved beyond the crossroads, which indicated that Greene’s advance guard was entering Howe’s main camp.
In his elation and eagerness, Washington rode so far to the head of his own column that he was exposed, as an aide noted with great concern, “to the hottest fire of the enemy.” He saw complete victory in his grasp. Howe’s encampment, he assumed, must be “in the utmost confusion.” The confusion would spread, with the news of the American success, to the British garrison in Philadelphia. Fortune, he exulted, was “declaring herself in our favor.”
And then, as suddenly as a coin is spun, everything changed. Greene’s advance guard came bursting out of Howe’s encampment at a run. Almost simultaneously, the sound of heavy firing broke out where it should not have been: on the American rear. The soldiers who were moving ahead with Washington stopped in their tracks, stood listening for a brief instant, and then joined the flight of Greene’s men. Washington shouted; he flailed at the fugitives with the flat of his sword, but all to no avail. Panic had taken over.
After Washington had accepted the inevitable, he spent his energies in shepherding his troops in as orderly a manner as possible back to the encampments from which they had marched the night before. Round and round in his mind ran puzzlement as to why “the most flattering hopes of victory” had “turned into a rout.”
He was later to learn that the soldiers who had started the retreat had run out of ammunition. The firing at the rear, which had made the men fear they were being surrounded, had resulted when Greene’s right blundered into the detachment Washington had stationed around the brick house: being unable to see through the mist, each group had thought the other the enemy.
To Europeans, it was to seem miraculous that an untrained rabble should attack a mighty regular army so effectively and so soon (twenty-three days) after their defeat at the Brandywine. Vergennes, the French foreign minister, who was wondering whether to risk an American alliance, reasoned that “to bring an army, raised within a year, to this, promised anything.” Howe was impressed into withdrawing his entire force behind the fortifications he was erecting around Philadelphia. But among American patriots the event was chalked up to Washington as another defeat. This seemed the more to the discredit of his leadership when the report came in of a major victory up north: Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga to Gates.
FIFTEEN
The Conway Cabal
(1777–1778)
Burgoyne’s effort to invade the United States from Canada had been a conspicuous example of the inability of the British ministry and military to visualize American conditions. Because British ships could carry troops down Lake Champlain, the advance to Ticonderoga had been practicable; but from Ticonderoga to the head of Hudson River navigation near Albany there were a hundred miles of howling wilderness to traverse. Since Burgoyne could not hope to build an effective line of fortifications before the onset of winter, he could not rationally expect to keep open the supply lines on which conventional armies depended. And, of course, regular soldiers were at a disadvantage against irregular American fighters in the forests.*
Once Burgoyne was deep in the woods he was deep in trouble, and as soon as a British force was in trouble, American militia swarmed to the kill. Burgoyne’s supply line was shattered and his advance reduced to a standstill. He could not get back to Canada or ahead to Albany, nor could his army hope to survive a winter in the wilderness. Gates, the American commander, who had in his own time been a British regular, knew that little was required of his forces but to keep the trap closed until Burgoyne was forced to give up. It was the insubordinate combat general Benedict Arnold who staged the battles that immediately preceded Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga (October 17, 1777). This capture of some five thousand men was the greatest victory of American arms so far.
Partly out of diffidence, partly because he was so busy elsewhere, partly because he did not believe in interfering where he did not have detailed knowledge, Washington had allowed the northern command to be semi-autonomous. Gates had already taken advantage of this to be insubordinate. Now, elated by his victory, he decided to demonstrate complete autonomy from the man who had at the start of the war come to him humbly for advice. He sent his official report not to the designated Commander in Chief but directly to Congress. Gates no longer needed the large force that had been gathered to oppose Burgoyne, yet he had no intention, despite orders sent him by Washington, of reinforcing his rival. He would not even return the regiments which Washington had at the moment of crisis sent up north, to the weakening of his own army.
Washington believed that, if only Gates would obey orders and send troops, he could still make a strike. The forts on the Delaware below Philadelphia, expertly planned by Duportail and other French engineers, were keeping the British navy and supply ships separated from the army. As weeks passed, it became evident that the forts could only be subdued by action on land as well as by water. This meant that British detachments would have to come out of Philadelphia. Washington intended, when adequately reinforced, to cut them off. But Gates saw to it that Washington had not been adequately reinforced when, after holding out for almost two months, the forts finally fell.
Without taking into consideration that geography had been the prime force in defeating Burgoyne, many patriots sneeringly compared Gates’s victories and Washington’s defeats. Washington knew that he badly needed a victory. He reconnoitered Philadelphia, trying to find some chink in the defenses. Duportail, who was with him, ruled that the city could be held against any imaginable force. Although Washington found it “distressing” to be unable to answer the expectations of the world, he led his troops into winter quarters. The address he now put on his dispatches has come in American tradition to signify hardship. It was Valley Forge.
The army was undersupplied with almost everything normally considered necessary to sustain life, shoeless feet leaving (as legend emphasizes) bloody footprints in the snow. Congress was more than ever outraged that Washington would not take what the army needed from the inhabitants at bayonet point. The Commander in Chief, had, indeed, more respect for civilian rights than did many legislators. Charles Carroll of Carrollton wrote that Washington “is so humane and delicate that I fear the common cause will suffer.” Washington himself wrote, “The misfortunes of war, and the unhappy circumstances frequently attendant thereon to individuals are more to be lamented than avoided; but it is the duty of everyone to alleviate them as much as possible.”
Washington believed that what was morally
most desirable was likely to be politically most valuable. Since the future liberty of the soldiers themselves would be secured by ultimate victory, let the American army earn gratitude by suffering deprivation while the British and Hessians earned hatred by stripping the countryside. To keep public opinion from being driven to the Crown the soldiers rather than the civilians would have to accept hardship.
Washington explained to the men that to settle into any of the villages near Philadelphia would increase the difficulties of refugees from Philadelphia already crowded there. The army would have to build its own city. He had selected as the site a succession of hills eighteen miles northwest of Philadelphia.
The men were to erect huts fourteen feet wide by sixteen long and six and a half feet high. Each was to house twelve men. Fireplaces were to be made of laths covered with mud. While the huts were being built, the men lived miserably in tents. Dr. Albigence Waldo wrote, “Poor food—hard lodging—cold weather—fatigue—nasty clothes—nasty cookery—vomit half my time—smoked out of my senses—the devil’s in it—I can’t endure it.… A pox on my bad luck. There comes a bowl of beef soup—full of burnt leaves and dirt, sickish enough to make a Hector spew—away with it boys—I’ll live like the chameleon upon air! …
“There comes a soldier, his bare feet are seen through his worn-out shoes, his legs nearly naked from the tattered remains of an only pair of stockings, his breeches not sufficient to cover his nakedness, his shirt hanging in strings; his hair disheveled; his face meager.… He comes and cries with an air of wretchedness and despair, ‘I am sick, my feet lame, my legs are sore, my body covered with this tormenting itch … and all the reward I shall get will be—“Poor Will is dead!”’”
Far from expressing sympathy, the Pennsylvania legislature protested that, by going into winter quarters at Valley Forge, the army had left the inhabitants unprotected. Washington replied, “I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold, bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked, distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent.”
Washington- The Indispensable Man Page 12