by Ron Carter
Lydia could not remember having been in a tavern in her entire life, certainly not in the past thirty years, during her marriage to William. Visiting taverns, like eavesdropping, was a sin that required severe punishment.
She walked to the table nearest the tricorn hat with the gold braid and sat down. Trying to remain unnoticed, she glanced at the hat, then the man, only to discover his eyes were boring into her.
“Ma’am, is something wrong?”
She started at the sound of his voice.
“No. Oh, no. I’m just traveling. Waiting for a coach.”
“You arrived on foot?”
“I live nearby.”
He looked at her bonnet, then at her shoes. “Philadelphia?”
“No.” She dropped her eyes. Lying was nearly an impossibility for her. “Yes.”
The man sipped at his rum. “Is there something I can help with?”
She stared at his hat. “I see you’re an officer.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“American?”
He set his rum tankard on the table, and his voice was low. “Elias Boudinot. I am chief of intelligence services for General Washington.”
For one split second, Lydia gaped. Then she rose and moved to sit at his table, next to him, to speak softly. “Sir, can you carry a message to General Washington?”
For a time Boudinot studied the frail, aging woman. “That depends.”
In two minutes Lydia quietly related what she knew, and Boudinot straightened in his chair, stunned.
“How did you learn this?”
“I overheard it discussed in my home between General Alfred Dunphy and three of his officers. They have taken residence in my house.”
Boudinot’s head dropped forward. “Adjutant General Dunphy?”
“Yes.”
“When did you hear it?”
“During supper yesterday evening.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I told all this to Captain John Craig—I’ve known John most of his life—he’s in the cavalry—less than an hour ago. He promised to tell General Washington. I tell you because I must be certain General Washington gets it.”
Boudinot’s mind was racing, searching for all other information he had received in the past twenty-four hours. This morning Howe put all his troops under orders to be prepared to march. Grey? Grant? Who better to lead an attack on what’s left of the rebels? Howe had eleven boats taken off the river last night and hauled ashore. Could this little woman be part of a scheme to draw us one way while Howe attacks from another?
“Ma’am, what route does Howe intend taking?”
“I don’t know. Only that it will be a fourteen-mile march, and that it will bring his soldiers in from behind. A surprise attack.”
Boudinot raised a mental image of Whitemarsh in his mind, and for ten seconds labored, inventing routes from Philadelphia to Whitemarsh that would involve eleven large boats and cover fourteen miles. He plans to cross the river moving toward New York, then recross at night above Bristol and come in on our rear!
Lydia glanced about the dim room, aware of prying eyes. She fumbled with her purse for a moment, then quietly laid the old needlebook on the table before Boudinot. He picked it up, opened it, and quickly felt each of the pockets. There was nothing until he came to the last one, and he removed the small cylinder of rolled paper. He closed the needlebook and thrust it back across the table to Lydia, holding the paper out of sight. He reached for his tricorn and stood.
Lydia spoke quietly. “Sir, please do not use my name. If the British discovered this, they might burn my home or do worse to my husband and myself.”
“I understand.”
He set his hat squarely on his head and spoke loudly enough to be heard by those nearest. “It has been a delight to see you again. Be certain to give my regards to Uncle Benjamin and the grandchildren.”
Lydia nodded deeply, stood, and watched Boudinot walk out the front door, into the sunshine. She sat silent while listening to the sound of his galloping horse fade, moving up the road, northeast. She glanced at the large clock on the mantel above the huge stone fireplace. It was now past two o’clock. Hurriedly she walked out the door and retraced her steps back to the woods where she had left her sack of flour. She lifted it onto a large stone nearby, then backed up to it and took it on her back, one hand over her shoulder clutching one of the ears of the stitched sack, the other curled behind her waist to support it from beneath.
She had to stop to rest three times before she reached the cobblestone street in front of her house, and she was staggering when she opened the door and entered the parlor. She let the sack fall and collapsed into the nearest chair. It was a full five minutes before she raised her head to look at the clock. It was twenty minutes before five o’clock.
With what was left of her strength she dragged the flour across the kitchen into the pantry and hid it behind a keg of molasses and a small cask of salt. Ten minutes later she was standing in the kitchen dicing mutton and turnips for stew when the front door rattled and she heard William’s voice.
“Another cold day. Will there be a warm supper?”
Eleven miles north and a little east, General Washington leaned forward in his chair. The sun was making stark silhouettes of the leafless trees to the west as he interlaced his fingers, forearms on the table in his command tent. For a time he sat still in deep concentration, then raised his head.
“Are you both convinced this woman told the truth?”
Boudinot glanced at Craig. “I am, sir. I’d stake my life on it.”
Craig nodded agreement. “I’ve known her for as far as I can remember. Went to school with her son, Daniel. She’s a good and honest woman. I’d trust Lydia Darragh with my life.”
“Eleven boats? Only eleven, for five thousand troops and thirteen cannon?” Washington shook his head, doubt clear in his eyes.
“I’ve thought about that, sir,” Boudinot said. “At first I thought he meant to cross the Delaware like he was headed for New York, then recross at night and come in from behind us. Now I think the boats might be a decoy.”
Washington nodded. “That is my conclusion. I think he intends making a feint to the east, then circle back and come at us directly from the south.”
Boudinot and Craig nodded in agreement.
“Then we need to send out scouts to track their movements. We must not let them know we are watching.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We must send enough Continentals, with militia and cannon, down to Chestnut Hill to stop them, if we have guessed right about their true intention. And we must send all the tents and baggage to Trappe. With winter coming on, we can’t risk losing them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll hold a war council and issue written orders yet tonight. One last thing. No one is to know the name of that little Quaker woman. Under no circumstance is she or her husband or their home to be put in danger because of anything we say or do. She may well have saved the army and the revolution by herself.”
At half past eight o’clock, beneath a black velvet dome speckled with countless diamonds, on horses with winter hair hanging from their jaws and bellies and vapor streaming from their nostrils, the officers of the war council came to the command tent. The pickets held the flap for them, and they entered in silence, wondering the purpose of being gathered on short notice.
At ten minutes before ten o’clock, they walked back through the flap into the frigid, starry night, silent, breathing shallow to protect their lungs from frostbite. In the hand of General James Irvine of the Pennsylvania militia were signed orders. Six hundred of his men were to proceed south immediately, to take up positions with cannon on Chestnut Hill as an advance guard. The New York division was to dig in behind him with more cannon—fifty-two in all—in the event of an all-out assault by the British.
At precisely three o’clock a.m., the Americans saw the lanterns swinging and swaying from their attachments on t
he thirteen cannon the British were maneuvering into position at the base of Chestnut Hill, and ten seconds later the silence and the darkness were shattered by the roar of the American artillery. Flame leaped fifteen feet from the gun muzzles, and for an instant everyone on the hill saw the crimson tunics and the crossed white belts on the red-coated regulars below.
Caught by surprise, the British were desperately trying to load their cannon to return fire when the second American volley of grapeshot came ripping into them. With the echo of the cannon still ringing in the wooded hills, General James Irvine drew his sword, stood, shouted, “Follow me, boys!” and led his militiamen down the hill at a run. He was the first to meet the British in the dark, swinging his sword with all his strength, driving the startled British backwards in a hand-to-hand fight in the dark. He felt a sting on his left hand and fought on, his howling men right behind him. It was only after they had cut deeply into the leading British ranks that Irvine realized he had led his men into the center of the five thousand redcoats.
He halted, turned, and shouted, “Fall back! Fall back!” and they began a controlled retreat. Within minutes Irvine, and those around him, were surrounded on all sides by the British, and only then did Irvine lower his sword. He raised his left hand, trying to see what had hit him, to discover the last three fingers missing, and he could not remember when or how it had happened. Slowly he dropped his sword and raised his hands, and twenty of his men laid down their weapons in surrender. The others—more than five hundred fifty—had safely withdrawn.
He listened as the British moved them off the slope of Chestnut Hill. The British were withdrawing their cannon, and he heard the British officers shouting.
“Fall back! Fall back! Too many big guns on the hill.”
Dawn was breaking when a British surgeon finished binding Irvine’s mutilated hand. It was eight o’clock when the British began a movement to the east, probing for a soft spot in the American lines.
There wasn’t one.
Orders came. “Prepare to march. Prepare to march. South. Back to Philadelphia.”
With his bloodied left hand clasped against his chest, Irvine and his twenty men exchanged smiles. They were captured, but their command—six hundred Pennsylvania militiamen—had hit the center of the five thousand British regulars with such ferocity in the night that they had slowed them, stopped them, turned them, given the British better than they got. And more than five hundred fifty of their men had made it back to the American lines.
They had turned Howe’s surprise night attack into a rout. Irvine and his men marched back to Philadelphia surrounded by their British captors, but their heads were high, their step firm.
By nine o’clock the reports reached Washington. The British were in full retreat, moving south toward Philadelphia. They were beaten.
Washington sat at his table and carefully unrolled the small cylinder of paper to read it once more. Five thousand men. Thirteen cannon. Eleven boats.
He raised the chimney on the desk lamp that still burned and touched the paper to the flame. He dropped the burning message to the dirt of the tent floor and watched it turn to a small, fragile ash, then ground it beneath his heel.
Whoever she is, may the Almighty attend her every need.
A rustle at the tent flap brought his head up. Alexander Hamilton stood before him.
“Sir, when did you have it in mind to continue our march to winter quarters?”
“Are the British still in full retreat to Philadelphia?”
Hamilton set his jaw for a moment before he answered. “Yes, sir, they are, but reports are coming in from dozens of scouts to the south. The British are burning farms and crops and slaughtering sheep and pigs wherever they find them. They burned part of Beggarstown. They burned the Rising Sun Tavern to the ground. They’re driving seven hundred head of cattle back to Philadelphia for meat.”
Washington’s eyes narrowed in outrage, and for a moment his hand trembled before he brought himself under control. “A day will come when they will regret such things.” He cleared his throat. “We’ll march as soon as the men are prepared.”
“Valley Forge?”
“Yes. Valley Forge. Get the men ready.”
Notes
The Lydia Darragh story is accurately presented, including the names of the two American officers she met, who carried her message to General Washington. She met officer Boudinot at the Rising Sun Tavern. General James Irvine lost three fingers in his attack on the British. In their retreat, the furious British burned homes and farms near Beggarstown and burned the Rising Sun Tavern to the ground. See Cleghorn, Women Patriots of the American Revolution, pp. 60–61; Wildes, Valley Forge, pp. 142–44.
Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
December 12–19, 1777
CHAPTER XIX
* * *
They came west, eleven thousand and a few more, strung out for more than six miles on the crooked, frozen wagon tracks that had been cut through the thick Pennsylvania woods to connect Whitemarsh with the farms and taverns and villages that depended on the Schuylkill River. They were the Continentals—the army that had been beaten at Brandywine and at Germantown. The army that Congress had sent to defend Philadelphia and had been made foolish by the British when they led them twenty miles toward Reading, then marched back to Philadelphia in the night to take the city without firing a shot. The army that was dressed in the rags that were left of their summer clothing and that had learned to eat toads and snakes and tree bark to stay alive. The army that could be tracked by the blood from their feet, left on the frozen mud and ice ridges of the back roads as they struggled on.
They harnessed their few starving horses and oxen to their cannon and wagons, and drove them until the beasts dropped in their tracks. Then they ate them, and emaciated men hooked themselves into the harnesses and drew on their last strength to move the cannon and the wagons onward through the snows and the bitter cold of winter.
The officers rode horses with ribs and hipbones showing through their splotchy winter hides, and they watched the eyes of their troops, judging, waiting for the first signs of mutiny. None of them believed that men would, or could, long stand such purgatory without breaking. They sat their emaciated mounts and grimly watched the wretched mob creep slowly to the west, and they waited.
They came to Swede’s Ford, where they had to cross to the south bank of the Schuylkill River, and in late dusk, with snow slanting in a freezing wind, they approached the narrow bridge. The men in the leading company bit down on their fear and began the crossing in the dark, walking single file on a bridge that was shifting, moving in the wind. Seven hours later the last of them crossed to no food, no blankets, no fires, no tents. Nine were found drowned the next morning and were hastily buried in the church cemetery of the small hamlet of Swedesford, nearby, and they moved on.
They arrived at the Gulph, where orders were given to distribute axes so the men could build fires and brush huts for one night. They would march farther west the next morning. In the night the snow turned to sleet, then freezing rain. For two days the rains held, and the Continental Army huddled about fires that sputtered and refused to burn—without blankets, without shelter, while the countryside became a morass of mud that mired their wagons and cannon past the axles and made it impossible to move.
Once again the soldiers tightened their belts, set their chins, and endured. Talk began in the ranks, quietly at first, then insistent. Where are we going? Winter quarters where?
The word was passed down, from John Laurens, then General Enoch Poor. Valley Forge. Not far. We can make it. Take courage.
On December eighteenth, but one day’s march from journey’s end, Washington dug a thumb and finger into weary eyes and rubbed them for a time before he heaved a great sigh. He read again the declaration he had received from Congress, under date of November 1, 1777.
“. . . December 18th is to be observed by all as a day for public Thanksgiving and Praise . . .”
; One more day. Just one more day, and the ordeal will be ended. Congress could not have done worse than stopping us today. If I refuse to follow their declaration? If I march my men this day and observe their day of thanksgiving tomorrow?
Slowly he shook his head. I cannot. This army will remain subject to the will of Congress, no matter the price. This revolution is based on the subjection of military authority to civilian authority.
He drew paper and quill before him on the table and wrote.
“ . . . I extol the courage and perseverance of the troops in support of the measures necessary for our defence; we shall finally obtain the end of our Warfare, Independence, Liberty and Peace. . . . We shall observe the Eighteenth day of December, 1777, to show our grateful acknowledgments to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us. We shall remain in our present quarters and the Chaplains are instructed to conduct divine services before their respective regiments and brigades. A supper of thanksgiving shall be prepared and served to all for the evening meal on that day. All marching orders shall therefore be postponed until the following morning, December nineteenth, at which time the wagons shall proceed at 7 o’clock a.m., followed by the troops at 10 o’clock a.m.”
Thanksgiving supper? The men stared at each other in disbelief. There was no beef, pork, or mutton, no potatoes, turnips, cabbages, flour—nothing. Thanksgiving supper of what?
With the setting sun casting long shadows in the early evening of December eighteenth, the men formed their lines with wooden bowls in hand to receive their Thanksgiving supper.
Each received one-half cup of rice and one tablespoon of vinegar.
Their Thanksgiving supper had been served.
The morning of December nineteenth broke gray in that strange, muffled quiet that comes with snow falling in dead air. At seven o’clock the wagons rolled out. At ten o’clock the leading division of the Continentals once again set their feet on the frozen mud and ice and followed, moving west on Gulph Road. Two miles to their right the Schuylkill River rolled east. To their left were the gently rolling hills of Pennsylvania with the oak and the poplar and the birch trees stark and bare, the conifers green and snow covered in their winter hibernation.