Steuben began at the beginning, with how to stand at attention and at parade rest, then how to turn left and right or reverse direction. He taught a standard marching pace and a quick-step rate. He marched the men in columns, several abreast; until then, the Continentals’ principal method of advance had been single file, which left them more vulnerable to attack. He emphasized navigating across the terrors of a battlefield under discipline, fighting as a unit, not as a mob that might flee, as likely to fire on friends as on foes. He showed how to move from column to line and back, to move obliquely, to wheel left and right. He taught the most efficient way to load, fire, and reload, skirmishing techniques, advancing and retreating by platoons. He insisted on fire discipline, shooting only when ordered, which created the heavy volleys needed to break the enemy. Finally came the bayonet charge, preparing the Continentals to turn this chilling maneuver on their enemies. Steuben’s message was that war was a skill that required thought and preparation, not just a brief chapter in the life of a citizen-soldier. Once a unit mastered Steuben’s lessons, he moved on to another unit while the newly educated soldiers instructed others, spreading the training through the army.6
Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Steuben taught values as well as skills. Prussian officers conducted drill, but sergeants did the job in the British Army, and that had been true for the Continentals too; drill had been beneath an officer’s dignity. But here was a general who had served Frederick the Great, festooned with decorations, who was absorbed in drill, swearing when the men blundered and gleeful as a child when they got it right. There was something winning about the fat man sputtering with frustration, his interpreter struggling to translate a string of curses.7 His written manual stressed an officer’s responsibility for his men. The officer, he wrote, should know each soldier by name and visit those who were sick or wounded. Each junior officer “should endeavor to gain the love of his men, by his attention to everything which may contribute to their health and convenience.”8
Steuben extended that concern to his subordinates. For one dinner at his quarters, he required that all arrive in torn clothes, an act of solidarity with the camp’s privations. The dinner, one recalled, was “tough beef-steaks and potatoes, with hickory nuts for our desserts.” Lacking wine, they set coarse liquor aflame and “drank it up, flame and all. Such a ragged, and at the same time merry fellows, were never [before] brought together.”9
Washington advanced Steuben rapidly. By the end of April, the Prussian was major general. Washington barred other officers from drilling their men, insisting that Steuben install a single system; Washington later ordered that all army units everywhere follow Steuben’s manual. Washington had neither the experience nor the time to train the soldiers as Steuben could, but he recognized that the Prussian was teaching essential skills to his army.10
The transformation was striking. In early June, a member of the Board of War was “astonished at the progress he has made with the troops.” Steuben gave the credit to the soldiers. They had, he wrote to President Laurens, made “a more rapid progress than any other army would have made in so short a time.”11
With the weather warming, there was no time to waste. General Sir William Howe would not loiter in Philadelphia all summer. Congress directed Washington to convene a war council at Valley Forge before the fighting season arrived. By ordering Mifflin and Gates to attend, Congress made clear that they were Washington’s subordinates.12
The commander considered moving against the British strongholds of New York and Philadelphia. His chief engineer reminded him that the Continentals should fight “protected by a natural or artificial fortification.” Even after Steuben’s training, facing off on open ground was not a good idea. Washington wrote up his ideas for the campaign. He asked his senior generals for their thoughts in writing.13
Then startling developments on the other side of the Atlantic overturned every expectation.
* * *
The news arrived in mid-April. Parliament had enacted two laws. The first abandoned its power to impose any taxes on Americans except to regulate trade. The second appointed peace commissioners for America. Had Parliament taken those steps four years before, the war would not have happened.14
For Washington, the new laws were far too little, far too late. “Nothing short of independence,” he wrote to a Virginia delegate, “can possibly do.” Yet he feared that the British moves would “ensnare the people by specious allurements of peace.” Peace without independence, he worried, “would be the source of perpetual feuds and animosities,” particularly because of Britain’s “love of tyranny and lawless domination.” The British inevitably would seek again to “bend our necks to the yoke of slavery, . . . for her pride and ambition are unconquerable.”15
Days after Washington wrote those words, more electrifying news arrived: France had signed a treaty with the infant United States. This changed everything.
From the war’s onset, American leaders had longed for a French alliance. They avidly hoped for war to erupt between Britain and any other nation, but best of all with France. Since the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, the French had rebuilt their military and navy, aiming to avenge their losses. The American rebellion offered an opening for that counterstroke. Though Washington and others worried that Americans hoped too hard for French deliverance, he had used the prospect of French intervention to cheer his army before the march to Valley Forge, predicting that the time “is not very distant” when France would fight Britain.16
News of the treaty, which would certainly be followed by a French declaration of war against Britain, brought jubilation in Congress and at Valley Forge. Congress ratified the treaty forty-eight hours after receiving it. “Joy sparkles in every eye,” an officer wrote in camp. The tidings left Washington so lighthearted that he joined some soldiers in a game of wicket (an early form of cricket).17
The new alliance fundamentally shifted the strategic balance in favor of the Americans. The French could challenge British sea power, reducing British military options and improving the flow of supplies and trade to America. Moreover, any contest between France and Britain would focus on the Caribbean, where the sugar colonies of each nation offered the richest prizes on the planet; that would siphon British resources from the mainland. Admiral Lord Howe, the fleet commander and brother to General Howe, received an order to that effect, noting “the contest in America [was] a secondary consideration.”18
The home government ordered two more strategic changes. First, it accepted Sir William Howe’s earlier request to return to England, leaving Sir Henry Clinton in command. Howe was a skillful general and popular with his troops, though the suspicion has lingered for centuries that his lack of energy reflected an ambivalence about fighting Americans. Howe’s successor, Clinton, was an able soldier but had a quarrelsome disposition; in his memoirs, he described himself as a “shy bitch.” Clinton would have fewer successes than Howe had because the British reduced their army on the mainland. London ordered Clinton to abandon Philadelphia and concentrate his forces in New York, while transferring 8,000 men to Florida, the Caribbean, and Canada. By diverting British resources to other parts of the hemisphere, by relegating the American conflict to a secondary priority, France’s entrance into the war dramatically improved American prospects.19
The news prompted each army to stage a public exercise: The Americans mounted a demonstration at Valley Forge called a “feu de joie,” while British officers indulged in an extravaganza in Philadelphia to mark Sir William’s departure. Though the two events occurred only twenty miles and a few days apart, they expressed unbridgeable differences between the combatants.
Held on May 5, the American feu de joie (which translates as “fire of joy”), celebrated the French alliance and the new competence of American arms. After morning services, the Continentals marched to the parade
ground in their best dress.
As described by John Laurens, the men formed a double line “with admirable rapidity and precision.” Artillery erupted in three rounds of thirteen shots each, thrice honoring each state. Then the infantry unleashed “running fire” musketry, with each man firing in turn down the army’s first line, then back up the second line. That, too, was performed three times, in honor of the king of France, the friendly European powers, and the United States, and concluded in ecstatic huzzahs. Young Laurens exulted in “the order with which the whole was conducted—the beautiful effect of the running fire which was executed to perfection—the martial appearance of the troops.” When the officers and the few ladies in camp gathered under awnings for refreshments, “triumph beamed in every countenance.” The private soldiers ended their day with an extra ration of rum.20
After the winter’s agonies, the display announced the Continentals’ belief in their cause and in themselves. Even Washington indulged in optimism. “The game,” he wrote to a friend, “seems now to be verging fast to a favorable issue, and cannot I think be lost, unless we throw it away.” To another he marveled how the army’s prospects “have so miraculously brightened.” The general attended a soldier production of Addison’s Cato, his favorite play and a reminder of the price men will pay to resist tyranny. President Laurens, however, kept a tight rein on his hopes. “There is blood much blood in our prospect,” he warned Steuben, adding that Britain “will be very angry.”21
The earnestness of the Continentals’ feu de joie contrasted sharply with the imperial panache of Sir William’s sendoff, called a “Mischianza,” drawn from the Italian for “medley” or “mixture.” The budget was breathtaking: Twenty-two senior officers each contributed £140, which translated to between a half million and a million dollars in today’s money. They spent it all. Beginning at four p.m., four hundred guests on flatboats floated a mile down the Delaware, flags flying and music rising from three bands. Landing at an estate south of the city, they entered an amphitheater through two arches built for the occasion. Seven black-clad “Knights of the Burning Mountain” squared off against the same number of white-clad “Knights of the Blended Rose,” for their ladies’ honor. With trumpets blaring, they charged each other with lances, then fell to sword and hand-to-hand fighting until reaching the inevitable draw.
Ladies in Turkish costumes led the celebrants through another arch into the estate’s garden and mansion, where they drank tea and lemonade while an orchestra played in a ballroom lined with eighty-five mirrors. At ten p.m., fireworks burst overhead, followed by more dancing and gambling.
The doors to the banquet hall opened at midnight. Eighteen chandeliers, each with twenty-four candles, dazzled the eye. African American servants in turbans and robes served at two immense tables that held more than a thousand dishes and fifty pyramids of sweetmeats, jellies, and cakes. The dancing continued until sunrise.22
At the feu de joie, the Continentals celebrated skills they had mastered. At the Mischianza, the elite flaunted its power and riches. To underscore the contrast, while the Mischianza’s revelry prevailed, fifty American prisoners escaped a Philadelphia jail through a tunnel.23 For the Continentals, the best feature of Sir William’s departure was that it delayed the beginning of the campaign: Sir William had no appetite for battle in a war he was leaving. Every day of delay gave the Americans more time to train and organize.
* * *
The British peace commissioners, led by Lord Carlisle, moved to open negotiations in early June, but the Americans were not interested.24
When the commissioners tried to send an emissary to York, Washington intercepted the man and sent him back. Congress said it would never discuss peace until Britain recognized American independence, or withdrew its fleets and armies. Lord Carlisle found his situation “a mixture of ridicule, nullity, and embarrassments,” especially when news arrived (considerably exaggerated) that a French fleet hovered off the coast.25
The peace overture angered Washington. “They meant to drive us into what they termed rebellion,” he fumed in a letter to Bryan Fairfax, to “strip us of the rights and privileges of Englishmen.” With “this country deluged in blood,” he asked, “what punishment is there in store for the men who have distressed millions—involved thousands in ruin—and plunged numberless families in inextricable woe?” Washington would never reconcile without independence.26
Looking forward to the campaign ahead, he felt the tide of war moving in his direction. His army was improved. The French were coming. And his command of the army was assured—at least until the next battle. By the end of May, more than 10,000 men crowded into camp, with more arriving every day.27
Planning to leave Valley Forge, Washington paid tribute to the dedication of the men whom John Laurens called “those dear ragged Continentals,” the sight of whom brought “tears of blood.” “No history,” Washington wrote to a Virginia delegate in Congress, “can furnish an instance of an Army’s suffering such uncommon hardships as ours have done, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude.” Now—before any French troops had arrived in America and before the British sent any of its soldiers to other theaters of war—he had to confront and defeat his principal adversary, the British Army.28
Chapter 36
Victory, He Said
In June 1778, the British commander, Sir Henry Clinton, had nearly as many problems as Washington did. London’s order to abandon Philadelphia spread panic among loyalists, who feared retribution when patriots resumed control of the city. Viewing their quandary, a Hessian soldier recalled, “the heart of every honest man bled.” Clinton decided to take the loyalists to New York by ship, a goodwill gesture that forced most of his army to march across hostile New Jersey, hauling its baggage. To protect the march, Clinton retained the troops that soon would be transferred to Florida, the Caribbean, and Canada. They could leave from New York.1
Of Clinton’s nearly 20,000 men, about two-thirds were infantry. He had six elite regiments, beginning with the grenadiers, the tallest and toughest. Light infantry units, including Hessian jaegers, were trained to fight in irregular settings. Support units included cavalry and artillery.2
Yet the British had morale problems, starting at the top. With France in the war and the Americans “every day growing stronger in number, confidence and discipline,” Clinton expected Britain to fare poorly. Evacuating Philadelphia felt like a defeat. Many soldiers who had found romance there chose to desert. Four hundred never left the city; six hundred more slipped away during the march. The army’s column—soldiers plus 1,500 wagons plus 5,000 horses—stretched for twelve miles, vulnerable to desertion and ambush.
Washington’s Continentals also totaled 15,000, including four artillery regiments. Tolerably well fed and well shod, newly trained, they still were not the equal of the enemy. Washington wanted to steal a victory to bolster spirits in the army and the nation, but he could win only if he fought a portion of Clinton’s army in a favorable situation. In short, he needed Clinton to make a mistake.3
In late spring, Washington regained the services of Major General Charles Lee, who could be a great help or an excruciating migraine. Lee had spent more than a year as a British prisoner following an early-morning capture at a New Jersey inn, while still in his nightclothes.
Treated well by his captors, Lee had flirted with treason, preparing for the enemy a plan for defeating the American rebellion. The British did not follow Lee’s blueprint, yet the episode sorely compromised him after he was exchanged for a captured British officer. The enemy could reveal his disloyalty whenever they chose. That sword of Damocles, hanging over Washington’s senior general, may have influenced the coming campaign. Indeed, when Lee had to swear anew that he had no allegiance to the British Crown, he specifically exempted the Prince of Wales from his oath. Washington chose to overlook that unsettling reservation.4
Lee’s conduct required considerable o
verlooking. Washington mounted a formal dinner to welcome him in early April, giving Lee a chamber in his headquarters. Next morning, a visitor found Lee’s chamber occupied by the smuggled-in wife of a British sergeant with whom Lee was intimate. Rejecting Steuben’s training methods, Lee proposed to reorganize the army. Accompanied by “his usual train of dogs,” he also disparaged the commander in chief, remarking that Washington “was not fit to command a sergeant’s guard” and informing President Laurens that Washington “cannot do without me.” Washington overlooked it all, awarding Lee command of the army’s right wing for the new campaign.5
When Clinton’s army began to move in mid-June, Washington posed six questions to his generals and requested written replies. It was the sort of deliberate procedure that spawned talk of him being indecisive. Yet having opinions in writing allowed Washington to study the reasoning of different advisers; it also ensured a record of who had recommended what, in the event of post-action finger-pointing.6
Most of the generals recommended avoiding a large battle, called a “general action.” Knox and Charles Lee called it “criminal” to risk one. Outlier advice came from two of Washington’s favorites, Lafayette and Greene, who urged a more aggressive course. After all, Greene wrote, Steuben had improved the army, so Washington should use it. Washington tended to agree. He resolved to shadow Clinton’s march, watching for an opening to strike.7
For both armies, the advance became a gasping ordeal in heat that was infernal. Soldiers in woolen uniforms carried heavy packs and ten-pound muskets. Drenching thunderstorms turned roads into bogs that sucked at feet and wagon wheels, yet brought no relief. The heat and humidity returned in minutes, with swarms of hungry mosquitoes.
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