by Ron Carter
He stopped. He raised a hand as though to speak further, but there were no words he could think of that would add strength to what he had already said. He slowly lowered his hand and reined his horse to the right and raised it to a trot, back towards his officers and Turlock.
Turlock did not know how long he stood without moving, without breathing, aware Washington had been touched by a power not of any man, knowing that at that moment, somehow, the course of the world’s history hung in the balance. He waited and watched.
Washington reined in his horse, and the officer next in command licked dry lips, then spurred his horse out before the Delaware Regiment. He stopped, facing the ranks, and he cleared his throat before he raised his voice.
“All those who will remain after their enlistments expire, step forward.”
The spirit that had gripped every man in the Delaware Regiment began to slowly recede, and then it was gone. The officer sat his horse in the dead silence, waiting. Turlock’s heart rose to his throat, and he did not realize he had shouldered his musket and was preparing to stride out before the Delaware Regiment and declare himself the first volunteer, regardless of the fact he was not in the Delaware command.
Then, from the second rank, an old, bearded, hollow-eyed, hollowcheeked veteran, dressed in rags, with blanket strips tied to his feet, shuffled forward and faced the officer. His voice was high, scratchy. “I can’t go home if my country needs me.”
From the first rank came another. From the second rank a young, smooth-cheeked boy stepped forward to stand beside the old veterans. Then another and another. Turlock reached to wipe at his eyes, and then glanced at Washington. The face was once again that of the rigid commander, but the eyes were too shiny. Turlock looked back at the men stepping forward and soon it was half of them, and then it was all except those who were too sick, too exhausted, too feeble, too naked to march one more mile.
General Washington waited for a few moments, then spun his horse and started back up the riverbank. He had an army to take care of, and the burden of command gave no time for him to pause to taste the sweetness of the moment. He locked it away in his heart to be retrieved in some quiet time when he could savor the rare, unforgettable moment.
In the late afternoon the officers received their orders. They were to bivouac where they were for the night. In early dusk the men had cook fires burning, and had cleared places in the snow for their blankets. They were sitting near the fires with steaming mugs of coffee and slices of warmed mutton and bread when the call came.
“Mail. Mail.”
Turlock sat cross-legged near his fire, sipping his coffee, watching others walk to the rider who had come in from Philadelphia with the large canvas sack and was calling names from letters in the firelight and handing them out to eager hands. One thing he knew. There would be no mail for Sergeant Alvin Turlock.
The rider called, “Eli Stroud,” and Turlock’s head jerked up in surprise. Quickly he set his coffee mug to one side and rose to trot to the man.
“Stroud? You called Stroud?”
“Yes. Here.” The man thrust a letter towards Turlock. “You Stroud?”
“No. He’s on scout. I’m his sergeant. I’ll take it.”
He strode hastily back to his blanket and dropped to one knee to turn the letter towards the firelight. He read the address, and then he peered close to read the name of the sender.
Colonel Otis Purcell. Medical doctor. Northumberland Fusileers, His Majesty’s Royal Army. New York City.
Turlock’s forehead creased in puzzlement and he stared at the letter for a long time, pondering before he carefully slipped it inside his tattered coat.
Notes
Though General Washington had achieved a remarkable military victory in the streets of Trenton, perhaps his more personal victory came on the banks of the Delaware River December 30, 1776. Washington’s officers read a prepared speech praising the “spirited and gallant” soldiers (see The Papers of George Washington, vol. 7, p. 448) without whom the Revolution would have faltered and died countless times over.
On December 30, 1776, fully aware his soldier’s enlistments would expire at midnight the next day, General Washington delivered one of his most notable speeches to his men on the New Jersey banks of the Delaware River. His first attempt at influencing his men to remain included a promise of a ten dollar bonus to each man who would stay. General Washington knew he was not empowered by Congress to make such a promise, but he did so anyway. Making the promise gave him great distress, since by doing so he had essentially usurped the powers of Congress to himself, a military commander. From the beginning of the Revolution, Washington had adamantly opposed ever vesting such powers in any military commander, because his personal conviction was that power over military affairs must remain in the hands of Congress and the people, not military dictators.
Washington agonized over what he had done, only to find out later that since Congress did not know when they would be able to convene again to conduct the business of the war, they vested such powers in him for a short time before they fled Philadelphia. Washington’s relief at finding out he had not exceeded his congressionally granted authority was monumental. The act of Congress granting Washington such powers was a tremendous tribute to the integrity and character of Washington, since by so doing they essentially entrusted the entire war into his hands. When he discovered this fact, he immediately wrote them, advising he would never abuse the power, and would relinquish it back to Congress at the earliest opportunity, which he did. Few events portray the high principles and character of Washington as clearly as this incident, which history has largely passed over (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, pp. 279-81, 333-34).
General Washington appealed to Robert Morris to raise money to pay the soldiers. Morris did so and, on January I, 1777, sent Washington a canvas bag which included “410 Spanish milled dollars, 2 English crowns, 72 French crowns, 1,072 English shillings” (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, pp. 279-80).
When the ten dollar bounty failed to rally the troops, Washington offered a second, heartfelt and personal speech, the text of which is quoted in this chapter and also appears as the epigraph of this volume (see Commager and Morris, The Spirit of ‘Seventy-Six, pp. 519-20; Freeman, George Washington, vol. 4, pp. 332-33 n. 44, 45). After Washington’s words, almost every able man answered the call for volunteers (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, p. 278).
For the battle that was coming, General Washington had 1,200 veterans and 3,400 untried militia to engage General Cornwallis, who had 8,000 seasoned soldiers, some of the finest in the British army (see Ketchum, The Winter Soldiers, pp. 283-84).
West of Perth Amboy, New Jersey
December 30, 1776
CHAPTER XIII
There!”
In deep dusk Billy dropped to one knee in the drifted snow, arm extended, pointing, voice excited, low.
Instantly Eli crouched, balanced, and his head snapped around to peer northeast along Billy’s point. Across a shallow valley, more than a mile distant, pinpoint fires glowed in a long, narrow stand of oak and maple trees in the open, gently rolling farmlands of eastern New Jersey. “That has to be them,” he breathed. “Can you see their flag?”
Billy fumbled with the stiff leather case and drew out the telescope General Washington had given them. He forced numb fingers to extend it, then raised it to his eye. For thirty seconds he studied the double lines of campfires strung out for more than half a mile, then concentrated on the center of the line. His eyes narrowed for a moment as the firelight caught the blue-and-white crossed lines on the red background of a flag on a pole.
“The Union Jack. British.”
“How many fires?”
Billy moved the glass slowly, counting the individual points of light in the double rows. “Eighty. About eighty.”
For a moment both men made mental calculations before Eli quietly spoke again. “About eight hundred soldiers? Maybe a thousand?”
“I’d gu
ess about one thousand.”
“Can you see horses? Cannon? Tents?”
Billy raised the telescope again. “I can see where they are, but I can’t count them.”
“Can you tell which direction they came from?”
Seconds passed while Billy studied the camp through the telescope. “No.”
“If they came from the east they have to be from Perth Amboy, headed for Princeton, or maybe Brunswick.” He stopped to study the fires while he worked with his thoughts. “I think they’re going to join Grant and Leslie to attack Washington and retake Trenton. This is what Washington wanted to know.” He settled onto one knee in the crusted snow, pondering.
Billy spoke. “We need to know how many they are, and how many cannon. And if we can, we need to find out who’s in command.” He stopped to gather his thoughts. “I think we need to talk to someone over there—probably an officer.”
Eli nodded. “That’s what I think.”
Billy collapsed the telescope, returned it to its case, and rose to his feet. “Let’s go.”
The deep purple dusk turned to black of night as the two worked their way through the crusted snow, moving due east, then angling back north in a great circle. They stopped every three hundred yards to listen and peer into the night, searching for British pickets or patrols. Far to their right the lights of a farmhouse glowed, and on a distant rise to the north was a cluster of lights from a tiny hamlet that was not on their map. A great distance to the west a wolf pointed its nose into the starry heavens to mourn the world, and another answered the lonesome call.
The full moon had risen above the eastern horizon when Eli suddenly dropped to his haunches with a warning hand silently raised to Billy. Instantly Billy dropped and waited in the stillness, vapor rising from his face in the bitter cold. West, from their left, came a whisper of sound and then muted voices.
“Patrol,” Eli hissed.
Neither man moved as they waited, balanced, ready to move hard and fast if they had to. The sounds of moving men came stronger and then they could hear the squeak of the frozen snow beneath boots as the patrol came towards them in single file, dark shapes in the faint silvery light of the moon. The patrol passed forty feet south, and neither man moved until the sounds had died. They placed their feet carefully until Billy stopped and went to both knees in the snow, hunched forward as he peered hard at the ground. Eli dropped to one knee and reached to touch the hard-crusted snow, then look east, to his right. Billy rose and in three strides was beside him.
“The tracks of the column,” Eli whispered, “they came from the east.”
“Perth Amboy.”
Without a word they continued north until they were a quarter mile past the camp, and then turned west. Hunched low, moving slow, pausing every thirty seconds to listen, they stopped behind a thicket of scrub oak with their backs to the north, facing the center of the camp. For five minutes they studied the lay of the tents, the movement of troops, and the location of the fires. They saw the horses picketed in the trees at the west end of camp, eyes glowing wine-red in the yellow firelight.
Billy nudged Eli and whispered, “Cannon?”
Eli shook his head. “Maybe near the horses.”
“How many men?”
They silently counted the tents, then made the calculations.
“One thousand,” Billy whispered.
Eli nodded.
Fifty yards to their right an owl hooted, and in the quiet they heard the rush of wings. Eli raised a warning hand, and both men turned their faces away from the moonlight to remained motionless, listening. Ten seconds later a six-man patrol came plowing through the snow traveling east on the far side of the thicket, their silhouettes sharp and clear against the campfires. Neither Billy nor Eli moved until the patrol was gone.
Eli pointed west and they moved on, stopping, listening, circling south until they were at the west end of the camp, two hundred yards from two pickets stamping their feet for warmth in the bitter cold. For long moments they watched, using the telescope to gather the detail. Eli raised a hand to Billy, and Billy nodded his understanding and settled into the snow as Eli looped the telescope around his neck, hunched low, and disappeared in the darkness, moving directly towards the campfires. Minutes stretched into half an hour while Billy watched and listened, but there was no sudden shout, no gunfire. He rose and worked his legs, and a million needle points pricked them as feeling returned. He reached for his musket.
I’ll give him five more minutes and then I go in after …
“I’m coming in.” Billy jumped at the sudden whisper to his right and Eli was there, a tall, silent, dark shape in the night. Billy settled back as Eli dropped to his haunches beside him, pointing as he spoke in whispers.
“About fourteen or fifteen cannon at this end of the camp—I couldn’t see them all. Just over sixty horses next to them tied on rope lines. Pickets about every hundred yards. Two officers’ tents are in the middle, a big one for the commanding officer and his bunch, a smaller one beside it for the other officers. I don’t think they’re expecting anything.”
He paused to consider. “In there right behind the officers’ tents are about six horses saddled and ready to go. I expect that’s so the officers can get mounted in a hurry if they have to.” He paused to arrange his thoughts. “We got to get an officer and a horse.”
“A horse?” Billy asked.
“Once the officer tells us what we want to know one of us has to ride back to Washington to tell him. The other one goes on up towards Princeton to look.”
Billy nodded.
“I saw the pickets south of the officers’ tents. They’re about one hundred yards apart. When everybody’s asleep, I figure I can take out two of those pickets right behind the officers’ tents and get one of those saddled horses and an officer.”
“How about patrols?”
“One passes there about every thirty minutes. We’ll have to watch and wait.”
“Let’s go.”
Slowly they made their way, to stop crouched in the bed of a tiny, frozen stream one hundred yards south of the officers’ tents, waiting until the drum-rattle of tattoo rolled out over the frozen snow to echo off distant trees. The lamps in the tents of the enlisted men winked out, and then those in the officers’ tents. The pickets allowed the campfires to burn low except for one at each end of the camp, and the big one just north of the officers’ tents. For more than half an hour Billy and Eli waited, memorizing the intervals of the patrols and the pickets. When the next patrol passed between them and the officers’ tents, Eli handed his rifle to Billy, Billy nodded, and Eli slipped silently out of the streambed and was gone.
Five minutes later Eli was crouched ten yards behind the picket east of the officers’ tents, waiting for the man to move or make a sound. One minute later the man threw his arms about himself, pounding for warmth, and stomped his feet. He heard the rush from behind one split second before Eli reached him; he was turning when the flat of Eli’s tomahawk blade struck the crown of his head and he sagged. Eli caught him and his musket as he fell, and silently laid him out full-length in the snow, musket across his chest, then crouched and waited. There was no challenge, no sound.
He moved back twenty yards towards Billy, then turned west. Five minutes later he was crouched five yards behind the second picket, waiting. Seconds ticked into minutes and the picket did not move. Silently Eli scooped up snow and fashioned a large snowball. Slowly he drew his arm back and underhanded the snowball twenty feet rattling into the frozen, bare bushes east of the picket. The man whirled and raised his musket, and in the moment of his turning Eli lunged. The startled picket recovered enough to open his mouth before Eli’s tomahawk once again flashed down, and the flat of the blade slammed hard into the heavy felt hat. The picket buckled. Ten seconds later he was laid out in the snow, musket across his middle.
Eli didn’t hesitate. Quickly he trotted east back to the officers’ tents and slowed as he came in on the west side and
worked his way to the front, where the saddled horses were tied to a rope strung between two trees. He moved in slowly, crooning low to the horses as they moved their feet and turned to face him, ears pricked, vapor rising from their nostrils. None whickered in the brittle cold as he gently caught the lead rope to the nearest horse and worked on the knot. It was wet, frozen, and he could not loosen it. In one easy movement his belt knife was in his hand and the lead rope was cut. He worked up the rope until he could touch the horse on the cheek, and he caught the bridle reins just below the bit and tugged gently. The horse, trained to obedience in battle, day or night, did not resist and slowly Eli walked it away, silent in the snow, south past the tents, into the darkness. Five minutes later he was on his haunches beside Billy.
“I’ll be back,” he said as he handed the lead rope to Billy. “I think the saddle girth is loose.”
Billy spoke quietly to the horse as he raised the stirrup and reached for the lock ring on the saddle.
Minutes later Eli once more eased up to within ten yards of the horses. He dropped to his haunches to listen, but there was no sound except the occasional popping of a knot in the fire before the officers’ tent. He lowered his face and gave the bark of a fox. It rang loud in the silence, and the horses brought their heads around, eyes glowing in the firelight, ears pricked as they searched. Again Eli uttered the bark, quick, piercing, and the horses moved their feet. Two of them blew, snorting, nervous, stuttering their feet.
A light came on inside the nearest officers’ tent and muffled voices broke the silence. Then the tent flap fluttered as someone inside worked with the tie strings, and it opened. An officer stepped out, bareheaded, clad in his nightshirt, heavy overcoat and boots, and a heavy wool scarf dangling. He stepped out into the night, head turning from side to side as he peered into the night, searching for what had bothered the horses. He walked to them and spoke, trying to settle them, when he suddenly realized there were five, not six. Quickly he moved to the end of the line and reached to feel where Eli had cut the lead rope. He was turning to call to the others inside the tent when the black tomahawk arced in the firelight. Eli caught the falling officer and held him on his feet for a moment while the horses settled, then hoisted him over one shoulder and silently moved away, south.