He had been silent for a long moment, Grey gazing at him with anticipation.
“We retire to New York as ordered,” he said softly.
Grey exhaled noisily, sitting back in his chair, making a dramatic show of picking up his glass, filling it with brandy, downing the drink in a single gulp and then with a muffled curse throwing the empty glass into the fireplace.
“I understand your frustration, sir,” Clinton replied calmly. “And yet, think of my chagrin if I ordered you to do something and you failed to do so.”
“You are here, sir, not four thousand miles away.”
Grey looked around the room.
“At least please release my light brigade for a raid in strength—at least that, sir.”
Again Clinton shook his head.
“The army is to be reconstituted to its original order of battle. Light infantry companies are needed with their original battalions. The brigade of light infantry will be disbanded and you will reassume your original command.”
Grey blustered, but now the other brigade commanders did not support him. They had complained bitterly of being stripped of their light infantry companies. It was not their ox being gored; on this Grey would have no support.
“Our regiments will need their light companies since we shall move overland through New Jersey.”
“Why not by ship?” O’Hara, commander of his Guards Brigade, queried.
“Not enough transports, for one, what with the ships being used to carry the men we are losing to the Caribbean. Second, we have an additional concern. Numerous good people of this city have openly demonstrated their support. We must offer them protection in return. There will not be enough shipping for them and their goods, nor could we expect them to try and venture across Jersey to New York on their own.”
It will be like Boston all over again, he thought, remembering the wretched state of the refugees, begging to go with him when he was forced to abandon that city and retreat to Canada.
“Damn all rebels,” Grey whispered. “My God, if we leave those people behind they will be shot or hanged.”
“I would prefer not to think so lowly of General Washington,” Clinton offered, “but at the hands of their neighbors they might suffer, and the king himself has expressed concern that all those loyal to him must be protected.”
“We should fire the city as we leave,” Grey replied, and now again he had the support of the others. “After all, it was their capital.”
Clinton looked at him in surprise.
“We are not barbarians, sir. This city is still the realm of the king, even if we must temporarily leave it.”
“They burned New York when they evacuated.”
“That is not proven, sir. Sometimes cities do burn by accident, even in war.”
It was obvious his words were not accepted by all, and he looked around the room coldly.
“These orders must be made clear to every man, down to the lowest private and camp hanger-on. There will be no looting. We will come back to this city some day, to stay permanently. If we burn Philadelphia now it will only serve the rebels as a great propaganda victory and give them yet more foul accusations against us. Any who violate my order shall face the full weight of military justice.”
Even Grey had to nod in final agreement.
“I plan for us to leave this place within a fortnight. Prepare your troops for marching with all accoutrements and supplies. We will put out rumors that we are planning to take the campaign into the hinterland in pursuit of their Congress.”
“That should cause their politicians to wet their britches,” O’Hara interjected, and there was general laughter.
“We will cross the Delaware and, within three days’ march, gain either Amboy or to a point just south of Long Island at the Monmouth Heights. There our army will be transported by ship back to Staten Island and New York City.”
“And after that?” Grey asked.
“We await further orders from London,” Clinton said dryly.
No one responded.
“You are dismissed.”
The officers stood to leave, all but Grey and, standing behind him, one of his staff, the popular young André.
“Come now, Henry,” Grey offered informally, now that they were alone. “Surely you will not go along with this. Tell me, you have a card hidden up your sleeve. I never knew you to back away from a fight.”
Clinton shook his head.
“Charles, I wish I could say differently. You know as well as I do that our forces are now split into three components, the garrison here, the garrison in New York, and the third part being sent on this wild goose chase down to the tropics. At least back in New York I will have a unified command of two-thirds of the forces and can act accordingly at that time.”
“I still believe Washington might yet be vulnerable,” Grey continued. “I begged Howe for months to exploit Washington’s weakness. I know you supported me all along on those requests. We’ve scouted him nearly every day. I have even had men, disguised as herders, bringing in cattle inside their camp.”
“That was three months ago; this is now,” Clinton replied forcefully. “I fear there is something different stirring up at Valley Forge, and you know as well as I do that if I were to try to venture up and did not win a complete victory…”
He forced a smile.
“Their Lordships would break every bone in my body.”
“Damn all of this,” Grey replied with a weary shake of his head. “I hate when politics gets in the way of good simple soldiering.”
Clinton patted him on the shoulder.
“You still have your old command back, my friend. At least it isn’t you heading down to those damn islands.”
Grey nodded in agreement.
“I hear Anthony Wayne swears he will personally turn me into a eunuch if ever we shall meet in battle. Can’t disappoint giving him the chance,” he laughed, “though it will be he going to Italy to sing opera instead.”
André, standing behind Grey, laughed.
“I shall write him a piece for a castrato beforehand, sir.”
The two generals grinned.
“See to your men,” Clinton ordered.
Grey saluted and turned to leave.
“Remember, only commanders of regiments are to know the truth of it. The men are to think we are just preparing for a spring campaign in Pennsylvania. I’ll string up the man who breathes a word, that”—he paused—“that we are pulling back.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir?”
“Next time, if you are in the mood for throwing fine crystal into the fireplace, use your own, Charles. My wife sent me that set from England, along with the brandy.”
Valley Forge
June 11, 1778
Washington’s heart swelled with pride at the sight of them. The head of the column was still a hundred yards off, but already he and those gathered around him could hear the rolling of the drums, the shrieking call of the fifers.
A pavilion tent had been set up for the invited ladies of the camp, to ward off the heat of the afternoon sun, and what now was the threat of an approaching thunderstorm. He alone remained mounted to receive the salutes. His officers and staff and the wives, including Martha, stood under the canvas.
The army approached in column by companies, each rank ten men wide, the brigades of Generals Greene, Stirling, and Wayne, men who had been drilling in the school of von Steuben for nearly two months now. At the front was the Guards Brigade of General Lafayette.
It was obvious Wayne was in his glory. What was to him the onerous task of bringing in supplies was at an end. The army was about to march and Washington had returned him at last to his old and beloved job in field command, allowing him to seek restoration of the honor he felt he had lost at Paoli.
Arrayed on the other side of the parade field were the ranks of militia regiments that had joined the army in recent weeks. The purpose of the parade, now a twice-weekly ritual, was twofo
ld: to instill pride and boost morale in those training, and to demonstrate to all coming into this army what was now expected of them. This was a new army, and it was essential that every volunteer learn he was joining a real army and not merely a mob of untrained, undisciplined militia.
Lafayette’s brigade approached, the command given for the men to march at the quick time. They presented a grand sight. The first shipment of new uniforms from France had arrived at last, complementing the earlier loads of muskets and ammunition. They had either been landed in New England and hauled down by wagon or, for the more daring ship captains, run in along the Delaware and Maryland coast, aboard swift-moving privateers able to dodge the Royal Navy’s blockade.
The uniform jackets were blue and buff, as Washington had requested to Benjamin Franklin more than a year ago, as if placing an order with a fine tailor overseas, and most definitely not surplus castoffs of the French Army; their absurd white might be fine in Europe but was nearly impossible to keep clean. The French Army might devote hours a day to such tasks, but not an American army. The uniforms were made of heavy wool, designed more for winter use, and would have been like manna from heaven if they had arrived in December. On this warm June afternoon he could see sweat streaking the faces of the men wearing them, and chances were they would shuck them off once back in camp, but by autumn they would again be grateful to have them.
And besides, with the lead regiments dressed thus, the men actually did look like and, at least on the parade ground, march like an army.
The young French general astride a spirited white horse that appeared to be prancing to the beat of the drums raised his sword with a flourish to salute General Washington, who returned the salute along with the assembled officers, the ladies breaking into applause. Even the militia on the other side of the parade ground appreciated the display, New Englanders letting loose with three huzzahs, the men from the backwoods of Virginia offering up a spine-tingling cry that sounded almost like the baying of wolves.
Lafayette shouted the command for the Guards Brigade to advance at double-quick time and the men sprinted past, muskets at the shoulder, keeping fairly good alignment, the air filled with a sound that Washington always thought to be melodious, the steady rhythm of men’s feet, the clattering of tin cups and canteens, the slapping of cartridge boxes on hips. In the long years of peace after the Indian Wars, how that sound would, at times, haunt his dreams, as he remembered the disciplined ranks of Braddock’s doomed regiments on the first days of the march inland to their rendezvous with grim disaster.
The left and right wings of the Guards Brigade swiftly passed in review. A hundred yards past the reviewing pavilion, the column wheeled ninety degrees to the right, slowed its pace, and started the march back to their camps.
Lafayette turned aside from the lead and rode at a swift canter to come up and join the entourage, dismounting to stand behind Washington, just as Greene’s regiments came into view.
The new uniforms had yet to be supplied to these men. Most were still dressed in their winter rags, cleaned up as much as possible, though many at least sported new French cartridge boxes, the leather strap buffed white. These were men of North Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia, and, deliberately selected by Washington, the New Hampshire brigade to leaven out the southern unit with a mix of men from the far north. His blending together of regiments into brigades always was done with an eye to insuring a mix from different regions, to reinforce that these were United States soldiers, sharing a common struggle.
The Virginia and Maryland regiments had tried to keep some semblance of their uniforms, brown with red, blue, and buff, and had actually protested when similar uniforms were issued to Lafayette’s brigade. Their uniforms were threadbare, the knees of nearly all of them patched and patched again, once-white trousers a dingy gray and black. Most of the tricorner hats were long since battered down to broad brims, and some of the men went bareheaded…but they marched with élan, eyes left to their general, whom they claimed as uniquely their own. The last regiment of the brigade, men from North Carolina, most of them in homespun hunting jackets, marched proudly, some carrying octagonal-barreled long rifles rather than muskets.
Next was Stirling’s command, men of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. It had not been an easy unit to create and was made up of stiff, prideful Yankees, more than a few of whom still seemed to feel that this Revolution was their creation and still spoke of how, when they fought in their home territory, victory had always been theirs. The Pennsylvania regiments were led by the First Continental Regiment of Foot, the men proudly claiming the title since they had enlisted for a full three years, the first to do so. Though their uniforms were still homespun, they had also been beneficiaries of the issuance of new muskets and cartridge boxes from France and carried their new weapons proudly.
Last of the infantry was a small detachment of Anthony Wayne’s, men who had been tasked during the winter to bring in forage or to keep picket watch along with Morgan’s men down on the lower Schuylkill. Many were light infantry, carrying an assortment of weapons of their own choosing, and rather than pass in review at the quick time, they did so nearly at the run, rifles and muskets not shouldered but carried in one hand at their sides, Wayne proudly riding ahead of them. Loud cheers greeted them as they sprinted by.
Few of Wayne’s proud fighters had participated in von Steuben’s new training. They had been employed elsewhere and, as light infantry, knew their own way of war.
As they wheeled left and cleared the parade field, the small detachment of army dragoons thundered across the field at a gallop. The few horses that had survived the winter were at last fattening out on the rich pasturelands of the Schuylkill Valley and were again capable of bearing a rider at something better than a slow walk, at least for a short distance. They were by no means even remotely a match for the well-bred and well-fed horses of the British and Hessians, but at least the army could again field a small detachment of mounted troops for scouting and skirmishing.
A battery of Knox’s guns, six-pounders of the First Continental Artillery, took up the rear. The four horses pulling each gun and limber wagon were beginning to fill back out as well. Two months ago Knox had reported that the horses were so underfed that, within the entire army, he might only be able to put a single battery on the road for a full day’s march, but with each passing day their condition was improving.
A thousand or more horses with the artillery, cavalry, and supply train had died during the winter, the army so in need of food that each death was greeted by the men as something of a gift, as they quickly butchered the skeletal animal for what little meat could be salvaged, also claiming the heart and liver, and boiling down the hooves for broth.
The survivors now pulled the six pieces as they came abreast of General Washington, and Knox shouted a command, the veteran crews wheeling the pieces about, gunners lifting the trailing prologue of each gun off the back of the limber wagon, setting the piece down, drivers of the horses then leading their limber wagons twenty paces back from the gun.. The loaders were already opening up the lids of the wagons even as they moved, drawing out serge bags filled with a pound of powder. In less than a minute the charges were rammed home. Gunner sergeants, who had been carrying lit linstocks, waved the staffs that held burning tapers of saltpeter-encrusted rope, the tips glowing brightly, each waiting as his assistant, using a brass pick, stuck the wire down through the breechhole to pierce the serge bag of powder. A thin trickle of priming powder was poured down the breechhole from a powder horn, the assistant then stepping back, hand raised to signal all was ready.
“Battery, on my command!” Knox shouted, swinging his mount in directly behind the six guns, spaced across the open field, pointing downrange across the open slope facing south. Many of the militia spectators at the far end of the field refused to budge, some of the wags shouting from the artillery to go ahead and fire, knowing, of course, that the weapons were loaded with blank charges…at least they assumed so.
Knox grinned and brought his sword down with a flourish.
“Fire!”
The six gunnery sergeants stepped forward and turned their heads to one side while touching the lit linstocks to the breeches. Five of the six guns leapt back with a roar, the sixth was silent for a second, and then a spark finally caught and it leapt back as well, the gunnery sergeant looking back at Knox with embarrassment through the smoke.
“Limber up!” Knox shouted, barely heard above the applause and shouts of approval, and the distant playacting screams of the militiamen down range who pantomimed that they had been hit.
Washington looked toward them for a second, tempted to shout an order of reprimand. They were obviously green militia who had never faced artillery before, because if they had, by heavens they would not be joking about it now, not with memories of a man next to them being decapitated, or both legs blown off by a six-pound shot, or an entire line going down from a blast of canister and grape.
But all were looking toward his reaction now, Knox waiting expectantly like a youth awaiting a nod of approval. He stood in his stirrups and offered a salute as the gunners, who had already hooked their fieldpieces back on to the end of the limber wagons, turned those wagons about and, at least able to coax their horses to a trot, set off down the field. The parade ended.
Washington felt that a final gesture was needed.
He rode out several paces, turned, looked across the assembly of officers gathered under the pavilion tent, saw the baron, and rode over toward him, reining in. Before von Steuben could offer a salute he did so first.
“Sir, you have been heavensent to us. As my inspector general of the army you have fulfilled your duty as a professional”—as he spoke, Lafayette whispered a translation—“but, sir, as a drillmaster, all I can say is that when next this army goes into battle, the laurels of the victory shall indeed be yours.”
Von Steuben looked up at him, and his eyes clouded with tears. He bowed from the waist, unashamedly wiping his face as he looked back up at the general.
Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory Page 40