To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1

by Newt Gingrich

  Several Hessians were standing outside as if about to come in, and he braced himself, ready to meet their rush.

  How ironic, to march off to war, hundreds of miles, and wind up dying here in the front of my family at the end of it all.

  He stepped out into the area of the family store and his heart swelled.

  One of the Hessians was pointing in, as if gesturing toward Jonathan, turning to say something.

  “Move along there, you.” The voice was thick with a New England twang. “Move along.”

  The Hessians turned away from the door, others falling in with the first three and continued down Queen Street, heads lowered, one cradling a bleeding arm, escorted by a lone soldier who was prodding them with leveled bayonet. Peter appeared in the open doorway, breathing hard, as if he had been running, looking in, features alight with a childlike grin.

  “They’ve struck their colors!” Peter cried. “We’ve won!”

  Jonathan could not react; he stood there. He felt Allen’s hand on his shoulder slipping away.

  “Allen, it looks like you’re my prisoner after all.”

  “Allen. A Tory?”

  It was Peter stepping into the room.

  “How are you, Peter?”

  “A lot better than you are now,” Peter replied. “We’ve won, damn it. We’ve won. They’re surrendering out in the fields south of town and coming back in now!”

  Peter then fell silent, gazing coldly at Allen. As Jonathan’s childhood friend, he had held Allen in high esteem as well.

  “Allen, why?” Peter whispered.

  Allen sadly shook his head.

  “Peter, little Peter. You, Jonathan, and James ran off. Someone had to stay behind.”

  “But as a damn Tory!” Peter cried.

  Jonathan looked to his friend and then back to his brother.

  “Yes, Peter, he’s a Tory.”

  “You two,” Allen replied, his voice distant, “you may have won this battle today, for this moment. Before the day is out the British garrison at Princeton will be swarming down here to finish you off. This is but a victory of the moment.”

  “And you wanted to come out on the winning side, is that it?” Jonathan whispered.

  Allen shook his head. “Mother and father worked for years to build this business. Our grandfather before them. When you and James ran off like that on your half-crazed dream, it almost destroyed them and risked destroying two generations of work.”

  “So you decided to play the other side, is that it?”

  “Jonathan, you’ve been led into this risk by nothing but a band of either idealists or cynics. I see little difference between the two. Men like you and Peter will certainly do the dying. And when you are dead and all is lost, they will strike their deals and save their own skins.”

  Jonathan shook his head, trying to form a rebuttal, but the fever that was wracking him made any coherent thought difficult.

  “As for the idealists, they’re fools as well. Do you honestly think men like Jefferson, that wild fanatic Samuel Adams, or Hancock can run things better than the king and his ministers?”

  “Washington?”

  “Another Caesar in the making. Come on, Jonathan. You’re the learned one among us. You know your history. Caesar, Cromwell. Washington will be the next dictator if he should ever win, which he won’t. They’re all of the same cloth.”

  “You’re wrong on that count,” Peter interjected. “We marched with him. We know his measure.”

  “Little Peter,” Allen chuckled sadly. “Always the child who wanted to play at war.”

  Peter glared at him.

  “And you, Allen van Dorn, are a traitor on the losing side.”

  The two armies were commingled now, all moving slowly as they faced into the storm. Hessians walked as if in shock. Little more than an hour earlier they had been fast asleep or sitting down to warm breakfasts in the barracks or houses where they were quartered. Now they were a shattered, defeated rabble, defeated by a force they had, until an hour ago, viewed with contempt.

  His own men? As Washington rode past them he could see the looks they gave him. How different those looks were now. Days before, those looks had showed dejection, despair, and, in the eyes of more than a few, smoldering anger. Twelve hours earlier, their faces were drawn, the faces of men who would try one more time, and face a death most expected would greet them at dawn. They had been willing to die, and most had expected they would die.

  What had driven them? The crossing had been, for many, a final act of defiance of fate. They had wagered all for their country. Many believed their country had forgotten them, but they had not forgotten their country, and they were willing to die for it, even if that death was a futile gesture, a final farewell to a world they had dreamed of shaping, but was not yet ready for that shaping.

  He thought of Thomas Paine. What he had written had come from the souls of these men. Paine had shaped the thoughts, vague and unspoken by so many of these taciturn men from Massachusetts farms, Pennsylvania frontiers, the rich lowlands of Maryland and Virginia. Shaped the thoughts into words that would be associated from this day until the ending of the world with these frozen, staggering, exhausted men who now trudged toward the village of Trenton.

  What did they think now? What did they feel? Victory? A revolution saved? Perhaps. But he knew other thoughts were far closer to their hearts at this moment.

  Dry shoes and socks. A warm fireplace where they could strip off their filthy rags to dry them out. Maybe, just maybe, something warm to put in their stomachs. Of all that they fought for, those most simple of things, shoes, a dry blanket, a fire, food, for such things a revolution had been saved as well.

  He was into the streets of the village. The carnage of battle was a sight he was long used to, but in these narrow confines the horror was somehow worse. The pavement was carpeted with frozen blood, cries of the Hessian wounded echoed, bodies of men and horses lying in the frozen muck.

  “General Washington, sir!”

  Knox’s booming voice greeted him, and the colonel came running up on foot, nearly slipping on the ice, hand outstretched.

  “I thank God you are safe, sir,” Knox cried.

  “And you, too, colonel,” Washington said, grasping Knox’s hand warmly.

  “The town is secured, sir. Did you stop them as they fled?”

  “Nearly all are rounded up,” Washington replied. “We are bringing them in now.”

  “Glorious!” Knox shouted, “By Jove, sir, you did it!”

  Washington smiled. “Our thanks this day must be to God and to these young, courageous Americans,” he said softly.

  Knox nodded. “Sir, I think the home over there is appropriate for our headquarters. I already have my staff in there.” He pointed down Queen Street, the flag of Knox’s command hanging from a windowsill.

  Washington’s mind was elsewhere. “As you see the other generals, tell them to report. Staff meeting as soon as we can get everyone gathered. Prisoners are to be secured in the barracks and churches. Any abuse of them will be dealt with harshly by me personally. Do I make myself clear, colonel?’

  “Yes, sir.”

  He hesitated. “How bad are our losses?”

  “Sir, I count only two wounded and one dead so far.”

  “What? Are you certain?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He could not believe what he was hearing. Knox must be carried away with the moment. When the reports finally came in from the other commands, surely it would number in the hundreds, for evidence in the street was clear enough that the fighting had been vicious.

  “Sir, trust me. They were in such a blind panic with our surprise attack that those few who did fire upon us had worse aim than any green militia. A miracle it is, sir.”

  “Indeed it is,” he whispered.

  He rode on toward the house Knox had pointed out.

  An abandoned Hessian gun was in the middle of the street. A dozen or so of his men had gathered aro
und it and now, grinning up at him with delight, their faces begrimed with powder smoke.

  “We hit ’em good, sir, with their own gun no less! Should have seen the way they scattered!”

  He returned their salute and rode on, men behind him exclaiming. ‘See the way he saluted us. Did you see that!’

  He saw one of his men, in a blood-soaked Virginia uniform, sitting in an open doorway. Jacket torn open, grimacing as a surgeon worked on him, an ugly wound inside his armpit. The surgeon did not see who was watching; the wounded boy was looking up.

  “Are you sorely hurt, lad?”

  The boy was in obvious pain, surgeon leaning into him, the flash of a scalpel.

  The boy tried to shake his head, face pale.

  “Got it!” the surgeon exclaimed, sitting back on his heels, obviously intent on his work.

  “Now don’t move, son. I clamped the artery. Another five minutes and you’d have bled out and be as cold as this ice five minutes after that.”

  “Thank you,” the young man said weakly.

  “Don’t move. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t move a bloody inch. If that clamp let’s go, your mother will never forgive you, or me. I got a few Hessian boys to look at. Then inside with you, and I’ll stitch it shut proper like.”

  The surgeon stood up and for the first time realized that the General had been watching.

  “Young Lieutenant James Monroe here, sir. I saw him lead the charge to take that gun back there. Artery cut, but he’ll pull through if he doesn’t move.”

  The surgeon wiped his bloody scalpel on his jacket sleeve as he went down the street where several Hessian wounded, one with an arm dangling loosely, blood pouring out, waited for help. Several American soldiers had gathered around trying to stanch the bleeding.

  Monroe stirred as if somehow trying to stand and salute.

  “You heard the surgeon, Lieutenant Monroe. Don’t move.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will look into this, lieutenant. So you led the charge?”

  “Well, sir, a lot of the boys just surged forward and I went with them.”

  “Our country needs officers and leaders like you. Now wait for the surgeon to come back.”

  Monroe offered a weak smile.

  Washington rode on, passing a house with the door smashed open. Hearing shouts from within, he slowed. A small knot of men were gathered outside, looking in.

  “What is going on here?” Washington snapped.

  One of the observers turned. It was Sergeant Howard from his headquarters company who, seeing his General, came to attention and saluted.

  “Sir, the scout from Jersey that was with us. This is his home, sir.”

  “I want no looting, sergeant,” Washington snapped.

  “No, sir. Of course not, sir. Just it seems his family are Tories, sir. They’re not too happy at the moment.”

  He could hear the shouting from within.

  “Keep an eye on it, sergeant.”

  “I will, sir.”

  He rode the last few feet to where Knox had set up headquarters. A gunner standing guard in the doorway came to take the reins of his horse as he dismounted, still accompanied by Billy Lee and Wilkinson.

  He nearly slipped on the ice as he climbed the stairs into the spacious three-story house.

  He had been in the saddle since the crossing at Jacob’s Creek. He was soaked clean through, as were all his men.

  As he stepped into the house the sight of a glowing blaze in the fireplace beckoned from the parlor and he walked into the room. Several of Knox’s young staff were already there, one of them with a half-devoured loaf of bread in his hand. They came to attention, and he motioned for them to stand at ease.

  A chair of padded leather by the fireplace beckoned and he walked over to it woodenly and sat down.

  Billy Lee was by his side, already kneeling down, as if to remove his boots.

  “No, Billy. If I take them off I might not be able to get them back on.”

  “Sir, we don’t dry your feet, you’ll get the death of a cold.”

  He waved him off. “Find yourself something to eat, Billy. Just let me sit for a few minutes.”

  Billy did as ordered. In the kitchen in the back of the house, one of Knox’s men announced that there was fresh pork roasting out there, the table still set for the breakfast of the Hessians.

  Washington gazed at the fire. The room was hot, stifling hot after the long cold hours of what had seemed to be an endless night.

  I must not sit here now, he thought. I’ve gone far longer than this without sleep.

  He thought of his men, all that they had endured.

  A feeble shaft of light crept into the room through the south-facing windows. A break in the clouds. Sunshine.

  Paine. “Sunshine patriots . . .” How did he do it? Did he really understand what it was he wrote? Such a profane, strange man, and yet so inspired.

  Wearily, he leaned against the headrest.

  There were no sunshine patriots here this morning. Oh, certainly they would come back in the months ahead and someday try to lay claim to this victory, to this moment.

  The men here, though, these were the patriots of the cold and the night, the patriots without hope, and yet they had endured. God had most assuredly seen them even in the darkest of nights and heard their prayers. It had been the darkest of nights, followed by a storm-swept dawn, and a day filled with light and hope reborn.

  When Billy Lee returned minutes later with a plate heaped with hot food, he found his General fast asleep, staff standing about him, watching over him in reverent silence.

  “Say, Jersey, what is this place?”

  It was several of the men from the headquarters company whom he had marched with through the night. He was not aware that, even as he argued with his brother, men were coming into the store and gazing about in wonder at the shelves heavy with goods.

  “My family store,” Jonathan announced.

  There was no pride in his voice. He found he could barely speak, each breath a labored effort.

  “Your store, you say?”

  The three men looked hungrily at the shelves, all of them barefoot, ragged, shivering.

  “Come on in.” He looked over at his father, who was gazing at the three wide-eyed.

  “Father, these are my friends. I don’t know their names.” As he spoke he labored for every word.

  “They are, however”——he hesitated——“my brothers.”

  He looked at the three.

  “Take what you want.”

  “You heard the orders about looting.”

  It was the sergeant, standing in the doorway, gazing in as well.

  “Not looting, Sergeant Howard. A present from my family to our brave soldiers.”

  The three looked from Jonathan to their sergeant.

  The sergeant winked. “Well, lads, be quick about it, and do as the boy says.”

  The three rushed toward the row of boots.

  “Damn you, don’t touch them!” Jonathan’s father cried.

  “Father!”

  The old man turned, eyes blazing.

  “Father, look at my feet,” Jonathan whispered.

  His father lowered his gaze, and he stood as if struck, than turned away.

  “Take the boots. Take anything you want,” Jonathan said again.

  Several more came in, the sergeant joining them. In less than a minute a dozen or more were swarming through the small store, clearing the shelves.

  “There’s food in the kitchen,” Jonathan announced.

  The men needed no urging, flooding down the narrow corridor, loud shouts of delight echoing.

  His mother stood pressed up against the side of the door, unable to speak, gazing in horror at the ragged, ill-smelling scarecrows pushing past her.

  “Not as neat as your Hessian friends, are they?” Peter asked, addressing his words to Allen.

  “I never said I liked their company.”

  “But
you did keep company with them.”

  Allen nodded.

  “We all took the king’s offer of pardon. Reverend White suggested that those of us who joined the Loyalists would find far better treatment now that the war is all but over.”

  “The same reverend who urged us to fight six months ago, no less.” Peter sighed, shaking his head.

  Allen smiled sadly and nodded. “Then he was your preacher. Now he is their preacher.

  “Since I know German, they made me an adjutant and liaison.”

  “Nice comfortable post, isn’t it?” Peter snapped.

  “I used to be able to cuff you down with one blow,” Allen replied, features turning red.

  “I wouldn’t suggest it now,” Peter retorted.

  Allen looked into his eyes and then seemed to sag.

  “Remember, it was you who gave me that copy of Paine’s first pamphlet,” Jonathan added.

  “Curse the day.”

  “I remember you saying he, in fact, did make some sense.”

  “Jonathan, that was nearly a year ago. Before the king sent his fleets, his armies, before thousands died. And you want it to continue?”

  “I want it to end. But I doubt if we’ll ever be brothers again,” Jonathan whispered.

  “I’ll not hear any more of this,” their mother interjected. “Now, for heaven’s sake, let’s get some dry clothes on him, and then off to bed, my boy.”

  He looked at his mother and felt the weight of the months at war.

  “I’m sorry, Mother. I am no longer your boy.”

  “Listen to her,” Allen whispered. “At least rest for a while.”

  Jonathan looked into his brother’s eyes, and at that moment the hatred he felt did start to melt away.

  This war, this damned war did this to us. It divided us as so many wars have divided so many families across history. Though Allen was now the enemy, at least he had made a choice and stayed with it, doing so to try and protect his parents. He could forgive him for that, even as he knew he could never fully forgive James, who had turned his back on any belief other than his own needs.

  He fought back the tears, and Allen, seeing the emotion, squeezed his shoulders.

  From the kitchen came roaring laughter and cheers of greeting as Allen led his brother there and then to the fireplace, where he sat down on a small stool.