by Ron Carter
Open talk broke out between the officers, and Washington let it go on for a time before he raised a hand.
“Are there any clear-cut proposals?”
There were none.
“Then I suggest the following: First, General Burgoyne made his reputation as a light cavalry officer at the battles of Valencia de Alcantara and later at Villa Velha in the British war with Spain. Since then he has made his regiment the finest light cavalry in the British army. I am convinced he believes he can now lead his light cavalry as he always has—all mounted on horses, swords in hand, straight ahead at the gallop.”
He paused, then changed direction with his thoughts. “I think he will move his entire army south in boats on Lake Champlain probably to within striking distance of Fort Ticonderoga. Remember, most of the cannon at Fort Ti are set to cover the lakes—both Lake Champlain and Lake George. That means that in order to take Fort Ti with the fewest casualties, he’ll have to come at it from the land side. So he’ll have to put most of his army ashore north of Fort Ti.”
A light went on in the heads of most of the officers.
“If he takes Fort Ti, he’ll have two choices in moving on south. Move his army overland, or move it by boat on Lake George and the Hudson River. To take the Hudson River route he’ll have to portage his entire army and all its artillery across the Chute—the spillway that empties Lake George into Lake Champlain—and then twelve miles to the Hudson River. I do not think he can portage all his boats that distance because some of them are too large. The result is, he’ll have to find boats when he gets to the Hudson. If he does, and moves south on the river, his entire army will be exposed on the open water for thirty miles. American cannon hidden on shore can reach him the whole distance, and there is no way he can shoot back.”
Half the officers were leaning forward as their minds leaped ahead. Washington stopped for a moment to further arrange his thoughts.
“Considering the unacceptable risk of moving in boats on the Hudson River, I conclude that if he succeeds in taking Fort Ticonderoga, he’ll move his entire army south by traveling over land.”
He stopped, waiting for the officers to settle in their minds. “Now let me put it all together. I believe General Burgoyne does not understand that he cannot move his army through those northern forests the way he has done in Europe. It’s true he’s had limited service here in America, but I do not think he understands that his worst enemy here will not be our forces, but the terrain. The notion of mounted light cavalry charging through those woods is utter nonsense. There are places they’ll be fortunate to make one mile in one day. There are swamps where they’ll have to build causeways very close to a mile long. There will be no forage for their horses and cattle. Wagons and cannon will be virtually impossible to move. His supply line will stretch over two hundred miles, clear back to Quebec. It can be cut off at will.”
He straightened. “In short, I think General Burgoyne’s army will be vulnerable. It is my judgment that with the right leadership, and with the natural barriers the British will face in the New England forests and woods, our northern militia can stop them.”
He looked around the table. “Do you have advice?”
Talk rose, slowly at first, then more excitedly as the officers spoke, giving and taking, gesturing, sorting through the flood of reactions. Washington listened with silent intensity until Cadwalader raised a hand and the room quieted.
“Who will be sent up to take command?”
Washington’s answer was firm. “That will be for Congress to decide.”
Hamilton thrust his tiny, thin hand into the air. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
At Washington’s nod, he continued.
“Congress could put the northern campaign under command of a politician—or perhaps some French dilettante. That notable warrior General Roche de Fermoy leaves much to be desired. That any commander would get drunk and abandon his command in the face of the enemy is unacceptable. We have Heaven to thank for Colonel Hand and the success of the action at Princeton the following day, or we would all be prisoners. Or hanged. I know the importance of respecting Congress’s authority, sir, but we must concede that they have not always exercised it with wisdom or judgment.”
Washington turned understanding eyes on small, slender, young Alexander Hamilton, who had been in command of a cannon battery at the battle of Trenton and then at Princeton. Hamilton had performed heroically and was a promising officer, with but one considerable flaw: he never questioned but that his opinion on anything was ultimate and final.
Washington spoke with quiet emphasis. “So long as I am in command, the military will be subject to the will of Congress. Congress will select the commander of the northern forces.”
He reached for the map. “Assuming Congress agrees with what I have explained and sends a general to the northern militia to stop General Burgoyne, we will undertake to hold General Howe in check here.”
He unfolded and spread the map before them. “If General Howe intends taking Philadelphia, I have concluded the following location will be the best to watch his movements, and hold him.” He raised his face to them. “I repeat, we cannot engage him on open, flat ground. He knows that, and will try to draw us out for a battle we cannot win. We’ll have to be watchful and prudent and pick the time and place for any engagements.”
He tapped a long forefinger on the map. “We are here, at Morristown. Right now General Howe’s army is here, at New York, about thirty miles east of us.” He shifted his finger further down the map. “Here is Philadelphia, south and a little west of us about eighty miles, on the Delaware River.” He began moving his finger slowly. “If General Howe marches his army from New York to Philadelphia, the most logical route will be from Amboy, here, to New Brunswick, here, southwest through Princeton, across the Delaware at Trenton, and on down the river past Germantown to Philadelphia.”
He moved his finger back up the map to Morristown. “If he follows that route, it is my judgment that the best place for us to watch his every move, and to harass him effectively, would be here, at the village of Middlebrook, about thirty miles nearly due south of where we are now. We’ll have to cross the Raritan River, but once across, we will have several advantages.”
Again that long finger tapped the map. “The village is small—just a few homes at a crossroads. It is located at the foot of the Watchung Mountains, near the stream that bears its name—Middlebrook. The stream runs here, past the town, on past a copper mine here, past the smelting furnaces here, and on north to the Raritan River.” He shifted his finger back. “Here, on this hill just outside the village, is a huge rock, four hundred feet above the valley floor. From that rock, one can see all roads, nearly to Amboy, New Brunswick, and on down to Philadelphia. We can camp here”—he tapped the map—“near the mountains, and build redoubts and cannon emplacements, here and here, to defend our camp. Should General Howe choose to force a major battle, we can disappear into the Watchung Mountains within minutes. I believe that is where we should move our forces immediately. We will leave the sick and wounded here at the Morristown hospital until they can travel. Then they can join us.”
He raised a hand to thoughtfully touch his chin. “Have I forgotten anything?” He dropped his hand. “Yes. I think you all know I have sent General Putnam with his command to Princeton. General Nathanael Greene is at Basking Ridge. General William Heath is at Peekskill, and General Anthony Wayne is at Ticonderoga. So long as we hold those positions, we can constantly watch the British and move to prevent them from severing the northern states from those in the south.”
Satisfied, he straightened and directed his gaze up one side of the table and down the other. “Do you have questions? Is there a better plan?”
The silence held.
Washington nodded. “Thank you, all. I’ll have written orders for each of you by evening.”
* * * * *
The road from Morristown to Middlebrook
Late May 1777
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They came striding along the dirt wagon road that wound crookedly from Morristown, south across the Raritan River. They were more than six thousand, and they came loud, boisterous, confident, carrying their rifle or musket in one hand, or across their shoulders with their arms hooked over them, dangling. The column was strung out for three miles in groups and clumps that bore no resemblance to a marching army. They called bawdy stories to each other, or humorous insults, or openly berated their officers in the ancient tradition of enlisted men.
They walked laughing, jostling, nearly jubilant, spirits soaring, buoyed by the incomparable, pristine beauty of another New England spring. Oak and maple trees, standing so thick one could hardly see the blue heavens, had burst their buds and turned the world into an ocean of green. Dogwood and mountain laurel blossoms spangled the forests with splotches of white and pink, and emerald skunk cabbage lined the banks of the unnumbered brooks and streams carrying the roiling spring runoff from the mountains to the great rivers, and on eastward to the sea. Birds of every size and hue flitted in the scrub oak and maples and pines, filling the air with their warbles and chirps as they established rights. Red squirrels and striped chipmunks, still shedding their long winter hair, darted about, pausing only long enough to study the strange procession in disgust, then disappearing in an instant. A mother raccoon interrupted her washing of a crayfish in a stream to cuff her two newborns into silent obedience, then study the boisterous procession as it passed. A porcupine waddled into the road and hunkered down for a moment to stare, then moved on. A fresh new world, burgeoning with life and the promise of rich harvests surely to come, had dimmed the men’s memory of the harshness of their winter encampment on the outskirts of Morristown.
They wore the tattered homespun that had survived the New England winter. Most were naked from the knees down, swinging along barefoot on the hard-packed New Jersey dirt. They gleefully ignored the orders of their officers, who had long since abandoned any hope of enforcing any military discipline or maintaining any order in their line of march. After all, the captains and lieutenants had not been selected on merit, nor commissioned by any recognized military authority. To the contrary, this army had reversed the entire process. Lieutenants and captains were elected by the popular vote of those they were to command, and such elections were held as often as a captain or a lieutenant forgot who was in fact running the army.
They knew who they were. They were the Continental Army of the thirteen United States of America. Shopkeepers and farmers, backwoodsmen and city folk, literates and illiterates, artisans and laborers, sinners and saints, whites, blacks, reds, and yellows, from north and south, practical, hardheaded, independent. No uniforms. Dressed in homespun. Bearded. Long-haired, mostly bareheaded. Burned from the suns of summer and the snows of winter. Officers wore jackets made from blankets, epaulets sewed on their shoulders. A few had battered hats. Horses with their heads down labored to pull wagons that grumbled along, overloaded with camp kettles and bedrolls, cooking tripods, ammunition, gunpowder, and too few barrels of salt meat and flour.
Behind the military came the women and a few children—the wives and families of soldiers—and with them a ragtag band of camp followers. They made do with what they had and shared the fortunes and misfortunes of this marching army. They earned their keep by washing the ragged remains of clothing and by cooking and by tending the sick and wounded. They plodded along behind, the mothers watching, scolding the children as they cavorted and darted about the road or into the woods to chase the squirrels or to pluck wildflowers.
The men knew they more closely resembled an undisciplined horde than a marching army, but wore the fact like a badge of honor. No matter their appearance, they held their heads high, spirits soaring in the glories of spring. After all, weren’t they the ones who had crossed the Delaware River, west to east, in a blizzard on the night of December 25, five months before, and caught the Hessians at Trenton by surprise at eight o’clock the morning of the 26th? Finished the battle before noon? Killed or captured the entire garrison, with only four Americans wounded, none lost? And when the furious British general Howe sent his best field general, Lord General Charles Cornwallis and eight thousand of his best troops to trap and destroy Washington and this upstart Continental Army, weren’t they the ones who wrapped the wheels of their cannon with blankets to muffle them, and overnight marched around Cornwallis to take Princeton the morning of January 3, then carried on to Morristown in the Thimble Mountains, where the British dared not try to reach them? The news of their impossible victories had magically raced through New England overnight, then leaped the Atlantic to strike King George III and his Majesty’s government like a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky.
Weren’t they the ones who had performed the magic? The impossible? Weren’t they the ones doing the work of the Almighty? Their catastrophic defeats of 1776 at Long Island, White Plains, Fort Washington on Manhattan Island, then Fort Lee, and their panic-driven, headlong retreat across New Jersey to escape total annihilation were but dim memories as they swung along, nearly cocky in their confidence that they could now whip the British any time, any place. Just so long as ammunition held and they knew General Washington was out there in front, leading, as he had in both the Trenton and Princeton battles. He was the one officer they openly revered. They cursed and jabbed at all the others, each in turn, but not Washington. Not their Gen’l Washington.
Gen’l Washington? Can’t be kilt. The way he sat his big gray horse there in Trenton in the twilight, on the south end of the Assunpink Bridge. Musketballs thick like mosquitoes and the cannonballs blasting all around. And the way he come charging back the morning we took Princeton. Over a mile he ran that big horse, right out in front of the Pennsylvania militia when they was hiding scared in them trees. Him all alone, in plain sight of the British. Talked the militia out of the woods, into the open, and led them across that open field, right up to thirty yards from where that British officer, Mawhood, had his troops all in a line ready to fire their opening volley. Only Gen’l Washington shouted “Fire!” first. The mustketballs was buzzin’ both directions like mad hornets. Knocked holes in his coat and his hat, but nary a one touched him. No, sir. Not Gen’l Washington. He can’t be kilt. He’s favored by the Almighty, he is!
News of their movement south from Morristown spread outward to excite and fire the imagination of boys and restless young men who dreamed of adventure and glory, drawing them from their homes, as marching armies have from the dawn of time. They trickled into camp in ones and twos, or in small companies, to swell the ranks of the Continental Army with each passing day.
* * * * *
It was of little note when a rather tall boy with a decidedly Boston accent walked into the camp of Third Company, New York Regiment, in early July, as they were setting up their kettles for evening mess. No one paid him any attention until he stopped the nearest soldier.
“Can you tell me where to find an officer?”
“What for?”
“I’ve come to join the army.”
The man snorted, “Where’s your musket? Bayonet?”
“I don’t have one. I thought—”
“You thought the army had one for you. Well, it don’t, at least not right now.” He pointed indifferently. “That man with the beard is a captain. Talk with him.”
The boy did. He was sent to Sergeant O’Malley.
“What’s your name?”
“Caleb Dunson.”
“Ever cut meat?”
“Yes.”
For half an hour Caleb Dunson stood shoulder to shoulder with the supper detail of Third Company and diced fresh venison for their evening mess, then piled the bones onto a torn, bloody tarp to drag them away to a fly-infested pit. He shared a steaming stew and watched as a big, bull-necked, thick shouldered Irishman named Conlin Murphy beat a man named Jamie senseless. Caleb made the innocent mistake of standing up at the wrong time and quietly asking the man next to him a question. In less than tw
o minutes Murphy had beaten him to a bloody, half-conscious pulp. From nowhere, an aging stranger appeared, with an odd tenderness in his touch. By nightfall, the bone-deep cut on Caleb’s cheek was stitched closed, and a cold, wet compress had been pressed to his swollen cheek and eye.
The boy smoldered and swore one thing: It was not over with Conlin Murphy.
* * * * *
The Continental Army camp, early July 1777
The jumbled tangle of anger festering deep in his soul found its way to his hands as sixteen-year-old Caleb stood hunched forward, elbows tucked in, while he hammered the huge double-burlap sack filled with one hundred eighty pounds of river sand and New Jersey dirt. He shifted his weight from foot to foot to drive his canvas-wrapped fists into the bag, catching it solid as it dangled on its short tether looped over the branch of an oak tree. Caleb’s teeth were set, jaw clenched, as he swung each hand with every pound he had, and he grunted as each ripped into the dirty, worn burlap. Stripped to the waist, sweat glistened on his upper body and dripped from his nose and chin. His eyes shone, and his face was a mask of dark, animal release as he pounded away, oblivious to time, concentrating fiercely on but one thing. Learn. Learn to hit quick and hard with either fist. Learn to move, to protect the head, the ribs, to make the other man miss, to slip a punch, to set the feet quickly, strike, then move, always moving. Shuffling on the balls of his feet, it became a rhythm—set, strike, move, set, strike, move.
The sun slipped below the western rim, and still he pounded while the gray of evening settled over the sprawling, chaotic camp, scattered near an unnamed stream on the road to Philadelphia. He had taken evening mess, cut his assigned share of firewood to heat the big black cast-iron kettles of wash water that dangled on chains from the apex of the great, smoke-blackened iron-legged tripods, then gone to the bank of the stream with a shovel and Charles Dorman to fill the burlap bag with sand and earth. They worked in silence, the aging, gray-haired Dorman holding the bag open while Caleb pitched it full. Together they dragged it to the oak nearest Caleb’s bedroll, cast the rope over the lowest heavy branch, raised the bag six feet, and tied it off, swaying slowly in the golden glow of a setting sun.