The Old Fox, however, was not to be there in the morning.
The troops built fires, left them burning, and then started noisy pick and shovel work. The purpose was to convince the British and Hessians that either another early-morning attack like the first battle of Trenton was imminent or we were digging in to stop another assault on the bridge in the morning. Meanwhile, the troops wrapped the wagon and artillery wheels with cloth to muffle the noise as they moved out. Again no one was told where they were going. Local guides directed us to trails that would bypass Cornwallis’s forces.
There then took place a very curious change in the weather. The day before, when Cornwallis had advanced from Princeton, rising temperatures had turned the roads and trails to mud, slowing progress. Now the temperature quickly fell below freezing again, leaving the roads and trails hard enough for our rapid movement. The skies were darkened with clouds covering all stars and obscuring roads. Providence, I decided, was at work again.
Still, not everything went as planned. A few militia units, panicked in the dark and mistaking our own troops for the enemy, fled toward Burlington, New Jersey. The General, however, had shrewdly placed our regular units between militia units to minimize such panics. Our movement was so rapid that Horace Walpole in Britain after the war compared the General on that evening to the Roman general Fabius, and European military experts marveled at how a body of troops could move so fast, especially in the dark. What they didn’t know was that our sleep-deprived soldiers were frequently stumbling and held upright by friends.
The morning brought a beautiful day, and we quickly advanced more than half the way to Princeton across Stony Brook and along the Quaker bridge road. But then occurred a piece of damnable ill luck. We were spotted from the main Princeton–Trenton road by the last British column moving to support Cornwallis at Trenton. Actually we spotted each other about the same time. The General had an excellent view and immediately dispatched me to ride to General Hugh Mercer and order him to move up his Pennsylvania militia brigade from a ravine and defend against what British officers always do—attack.
Our initial defense was successful, but the main British column commanded by Colonel Mawhood kept attacking, shot most of General Mercer’s officers out of their saddles, drew bayonets, and charged into our breaking lines. I rode as fast as possible, fearing as I never had during the whole war that I would be caught and bayoneted. General Mercer, after trying to rally his men, followed. I looked behind me from a nearby ridge and saw General Mercer fall from his horse. He was quickly surrounded by redcoats, who from their cries thought they had chanced upon General Washington. They yelled at Mercer, demanding, “Damn you, rebel, give quarter.” I heard him shout, “I am no rebel,” and he drew his sword to lunge at his tormentors. They bayoneted him several times, thinking they had killed the General. I just sat on my horse, looking back, shaking with terror and exhaustion, ashamed that I had left General Mercer behind. I was not proud of my actions that day, but I could not think of anything but my own safety.
As I rode back toward our main forces, I encountered the General, who did not seem at all dismayed by Mercer’s retreating brigade. “Josiah, we have them. This is one of those rare times when by chance we have them outnumbered.” Shouting at me to stay in place and await further orders, he led an array of Delaware, Connecticut, and Maryland regiments, rallied the retreating Pennsylvania militia, and rode toward the enemy, shouting, “Parade with us, my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy, and we shall have them directly.”
It was truly amazing. Following the General’s example, our troops poured forward. I looked down from a nearby hill. The General was out front on Old Nelson, and the British troops were firing at him from no more than thirty paces. And yet they did not hit him. It reminded me of those old Indian tales about the General having supernatural protection and the story of how he found the sound of bullets “exhilarating.” It all struck me, who had never lost my fear whenever I was near the front lines, as unbelievable. But watching the General that day from one hundred yards to the rear, both the tales and story seemed so true. The thought occurred to me that maybe the General wanted a glorious death. It would have enhanced his reputation, something he surely desired. But it did seem that Providence was indeed watching out for the General that day.
Later, I heard soldiers speak of that day with wonder. As our troops led by the General surged ahead, the British troops broke, just as we had so many times. Seizing his chance, the General urged his troops in pursuit: “It is a fine fox chase, my boys.” Our riflemen were relentless, and I saw the bodies of hundreds of British soldiers shot in the back while fleeing. I had never seen British soldiers flee like this, nor had any of our troops. I did not tell my Quaker relatives, but I must admit it was an exhilarating experience.
The General reorganized our troops, and we moved quickly on to Princeton, where we forced the surrender of the few British defenders and helped ourselves to supplies. Only the total exhaustion of our troops kept the General from moving on and attacking the major British supply depot in Brunswick.
The day had been a glorious one. The General immediately sent out messengers to various militia units throughout the state ordering attacks on British installations. The General seemed to have forgotten his disdain for volunteer units now that his regulars had whipped the British. Cornwallis ordered his troops back from Trenton not to seek us out—although they still greatly outnumbered us—but, amid the confusion, to abandon their posts and retreat to the safety of New York. The British troops and their Hessian allies had seemed so disciplined and organized just a week before. Now they were in total disarray as our regular and irregular forces harassed them all the way back to the Hudson River. “General Washington is coming,” the British troops screamed as they fled across New Jersey. Of course, the General could not be in so many places; it just seemed that way to the now-disorganized British and Hessian troops.
In the days that followed, thousands of citizens were burning their certificates of allegiance to the king signed just weeks before, and thousands more across the land rushed to enlist. The General was acting as New Jersey’s chief executive. Upon the General’s instructions, I wrote orders allowing loyalist families safe passage to British-held New York. The General worried that, after all the pillaging by the British, Hessians, and loyalists, the latter might now face massacres.
I delighted in reading the intercepted letters of British junior officers. One wrote, “We have been outgeneraled.” Another complained to his relatives at home that “our men fight well, but our generals are no match for Washington.”
Just a month ago I had written those letters for the General to his cousin Lund back at Mount Vernon, despairing of his reputation. Now the congratulations were pouring in. I do believe our people thought Divine Providence was at work. One letter to the General that I opened said, “The Lord has smote the enemy and you are our Moses.” The General wrote courteous responses but made little comment to me on these extravagant comparisons, which led to my later concerns. Still, I could tell how relieved he was as we settled into quarters at Morristown, New Jersey. His reputation had been not ruined but resurrected.
Later, we received congratulations from Frederick the Great: “The achievements of Washington and his little band of compatriots between the 25th of December and the 4th of January, a space of ten days, were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military achievements.” For a general concerned about what others thought of him, those were sweet words, coming as they did from one of the greatest military strategists of all time.
The General did not gloat, but, always concerned about his place in history, he said to me, “Josiah, this has been a glorious time. Will our descendants remember us?”
I did not realize it at the time, but during that month, the War for Independence was won. I believe the British and Hessian troops, including the officers, knew after the two battles at Trenton and the one on the road to Princeton that they could not prevail
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It was hard to see that truth as the war continued for seven more years. The British moved still more troops to America. There was the ordeal at Valley Forge where over 20 percent of our soldiers died from lack of nourishment and exposure, and the even worse ordeal two winters later at Morristown. There were more battles, most in Pennsylvania and most ending inconclusively, increasing Congress’s frustration with the General’s largely defensive strategy against our more numerous opponents. There was some brutal fighting in the South as the British organized thousands of loyalists there, but since I was not present as Generals Greene and Lafayette commanded our troops there, I do not have firsthand knowledge.
Just as with the victory at Boston, expectations were unjustly raised; soon, memories of the triumphs on the Delaware started to fade from the minds of some of the congressional and military critics. Still, the accolades from European observers like Frederick and the British press, the devotion of the troops and the General’s staff, and the cheers from the citizenry, many of whom had relatives among the troops, intimidated the General’s would-be rivals and critics. Those closest to and furthest from the action held the highest opinion of Washington’s generalship.
The Congress was highly upset when the General evacuated Philadelphia. So was I as I thought of Prescilla and what fate would befall her when British forces occupied the city. The stories of rape from New Jersey left me imagining the ravishing of Prescilla by British or Hessian soldiers or the plundering of my family. But no importuning by Congress or me could convince the General to repeat the mistake of New York.
When Philadelphia, almost as much a loyalist stronghold as New York, fell in the fall of 1777, the Tory sympathizers welcomed the British with huzzahs, dinners, and luxurious balls where Philadelphia’s ladies flirted and puffed themselves up like pigeons for the British officers. I pictured Prescilla with her narrow waist, modest bodice, flowing black curls cascading down her neck, and soft brown eyes at those balls, and soon, I admit, I feared her seduction by a British colonel in a handsome uniform. Looking back, I am ashamed of my fears. Prescilla sent me a message that she never attended one ball and stayed home as much as possible to avoid British troops on the streets. I suspect my family did not behave as admirably, breaking the boycott of trade with Britain and financing “humanitarian” supplies for British forces.
The true importance of the victories in late 1776 and early 1777 was made clear to me when the General and I dined with General Cornwallis almost five years later on Chesapeake Bay the day after the surrender at Yorktown. I was sitting next to Cornwallis when he leaned over and said, “Your general may not have been a great general at the beginning of the war, but he certainly became a great general.” Then he rose, offered a toast, and said, “When the illustrious part that your Excellency has borne in this long and arduous contest becomes a matter of history, fame will gather your brightest laurels rather from the banks of the Delaware than those of the Chesapeake.”
Of course, while foreign leaders and most of our own people had come to admire the General’s military skills, generals like Gates and the soon-to-be-released Lee still pleaded their cases to and conspired with the Congress. General Arnold defected and wreaked havoc down into Virginia, and men like John Adams continued to opine that they knew more about military affairs than the General.
I fear all these happenings have colored scholars’ opinions of the General’s leadership and will continue to. Still, after Trenton and Princeton, the General’s position was secure with the people and especially with the troops. Both the General and the Congress knew that if Congress replaced him, the hearty men who had fought at Trenton and Princeton and the citizenry would indeed rise up.
That’s what made the week at Newburgh so tense and dramatic for a person such as me who believed in republican principles. All the troops needed was a signal from the General, the signal that never came in earlier mutinies. Of course, if the commanding officer led the way, could it really be called a mutiny? I suspected that if the General led, the troops would follow, and the congressmen, instead of debating the terms of peace with Britain, would find themselves racing to their homes for safety—that is, if they escaped the gallows.
During the years between Princeton and Yorktown, I saw even less emotion from the General than before. The one exception occurred in 1781 when the British sailed up the Potomac and raided Mount Vernon. It was not the raid that incensed the General but his cousin Lund’s response. I took the personal dictation of the General’s letter berating his cousin for saving Mount Vernon by providing supplies and slaves to the raiders. “It would be better that Mount Vernon had burned to the ground,” the General advised his cousin. The words took me aback, knowing how the improvements at Mount Vernon had been the General’s solace throughout the whole war. Still, I believed the emotion expressed by the General was genuine. Given the General’s concern with his reputation, he probably feared his troops and the citizenry would think less of him because his cousin’s collaboration, understandable as it was, had spared Mount Vernon.
V. VICTORY AT YORKTOWN
Yorktown was the General’s final test, and again it showed how views of his leadership changed from campaign to campaign. For years, through all the defensive battles after Trenton and Princeton, the General had been talking with the French generals about trapping a large British force on the coast where the General would concentrate our combined forces unexpectedly and, with the help of the French fleet, force a British surrender. The General’s first choice was New York. I think he still smoldered from the thrashings the British had given us there and looked on a victory at New York as the ultimate vindication. Actually, the General would have been happy if the French fleet attacked the British forces in Charleston. I remember traveling hundreds of miles and enduring interminable formal dinners with the French generals and admirals at Newport, Rhode Island, and Wethersfield, Connecticut. The General shrugged and said to me, “We should remember the French are a people old in war and very strict in military etiquette.” The French were opposed to any joint land and sea operation directed at New York. Perhaps they feared that the British fleet there was too powerful. Perhaps they were just reluctant to commit their troops. With the French troops camped in Newport, this had been a problem for years.
Anyway, when General Rochambeau sent the General word that the French fleet under the comte de Grasse would be sailing from the Caribbean to the Chesapeake, and Rochambeau’s troops would be willing to join our forces, the General quickly abandoned New York for the new opportunity. Under Cornwallis, the British army fought many battles in the South, but harassed by Lafayette, they had withdrawn to Yorktown on the Virginia coast. I have read criticism of Cornwallis’s decision, but at the time it seemed quite logical. He was looking for a place to rest his troops, await reinforcements for a campaign through Virginia, and have access to and from General Clinton and the main British garrison in New York.
He probably took into account the possibility of a French fleet cruising up from the Caribbean. He may have even envisioned the General moving his forces down from New York—after all, if that happened, General Clinton would certainly find out and send troops and supplies by sea that would be more than enough to both hold off and defeat our forces.
What Cornwallis underestimated was the General’s ability to move both our fifty-eight hundred men and the French force of forty-eight hundred south so rapidly without arousing Clinton’s suspicions. It was almost a repeat of what happened after the second battle of Trenton. The men lit campfires close to New York City, and small detachments harassed the British forces on the perimeter of the city. The General had me pen letters to citizens in New York and New Jersey—some of which he knew would be intercepted by the British—hinting at a coming American-French siege of New York. The wagon wheels again were covered with cloth so the departure would be as quiet as possible. The General moved his forces to the Yorktown peninsula while Clinton and Cornwallis still thought the General was quarter
ed up the Hudson. The General’s critics said Cornwallis, like all the British generals, was stupid and that this was just another example. But Cornwallis had a long and illustrious career that extended well after Yorktown, serving the British in Ireland and later in India. I have read he won many battles and was one of the king’s most decorated generals. We considered Cornwallis by far the ablest of the British generals.
It was amazing to me how deferential the French commanders were to the General. They yielded command of their troops on the long march to Virginia and refused to accept Cornwallis’s surrender, insisting upon Lafayette’s urging that the British surrender directly to the General. Perhaps the French were being diplomatic, but based on their own observations and the reports from their superiors in Paris, I believe they had concluded that the General was one of the world’s great commanders. I have in my files a copy of a letter from the French general Rochambeau pleading with the General to review the French troops: “If your Excellency does not find a moment to come and see this part of your army, I am afraid the whole of it will desert, so great is their desire to see their General.” I suspect letters such as these must have boosted the General’s spirits during all the internecine struggles with Congress, governors, and jealous fellow American generals. I did notice, however, that the opinion held by Congress of the General rose as opinion abroad of the General soared.
Despite his now rising reputation, the General was always open to suggestions. The General recognized that the French knew far more than he did about laying siege to enemy strongholds. He happily followed the suggested French strategy for the digging of trenches in a V-shaped pattern closer and closer to the Yorktown fortifications to enable our artillery to pound the British positions. This made it possible for us to overrun the British outposts, necessitating Cornwallis’s surrender.
Over the years, many have asked me why Cornwallis did not try to have his outnumbered six thousand men escape when the French fleet arrived off Yorktown, especially when General Clinton, learning too late of our march to Virginia, failed to send him reinforcements. The answer is that he did try, sending his troops across the York River to prepare for an escape by his main forces. But again the Divine Ruler seemed to intervene. Ferocious winds arose, wrecking some of the British boats while driving the others back to the peninsula.
The Man Who Could Be King: A Novel Page 13