Kings Pinnacle (28 page)

“Very good, captain. I have
been trying to draw Washington out into battle all summer here in
northern New Jersey, but can’t seem to get him into a major
engagement. He seems to want to fight these damn small skirmishes
where there is no clear winner or loser,” said General
Howe.

“Yes, sir, that is true, but
we are losing more men than he is,” replied the concerned Captain
Ferguson.

“Yes, I know, and I want to
end this rebellion this year. That is why I am going to attack and
take Philadelphia. As you know, Philadelphia is the rebel capital
and where their so called Second Continental Congress sits in
session. If I capture Philadelphia, then the war will be
over.”

“Sir, on the European
battlefield, the capture of the enemy’s capital traditionally ends
the war. But I doubt that Washington will give up, even if we take
Philadelphia,” replied Captain Ferguson.

“He might not, but he might.
I am going to take Philadelphia anyway. I don’t like fighting these
damn skirmishes. By attacking Philadelphia, we might be able to
draw Washington into a full scale battle and defeat him, even if he
won’t surrender.”

“Sir, it is a long march
from New York to Philadelphia. We will have to cross the Delaware
River at some point, where we will be vulnerable to attack. We
would also have to build boats to cross the river because it is too
wide to ford that far south. That will delay the crossing quite a
bit and lengthen our vulnerability.”

“You have hit the nail on
the head, Captain. That’s exactly why I am going to take the
British Army to Philadelphia by sea,” replied General Howe with a
self-indulgent smile.

This was indeed a surprise
to Captain Ferguson, whose respect for General Howe increased
greatly upon hearing his battle plan.

“There is one other item I
want to discuss with you, Captain. We have successfully placed a
spy in Washington’s camp. This spy, whose name is by the way Major
Samuel Ruskin, provides us with advance knowledge of Washington’s
movements and deployments if he can. He has been fairly reliable in
the past, with a few exceptions. I want you to be my liaison with
this spy during the Philadelphia campaign. We have set up a way to
send information to this Ruskin fellow from time to time, but it is
not entirely reliable. I have sent Ruskin a message already that
you will serve as my proxy,” said General Howe.

“I would be honored to help
any way I can, General. How will I get in contact with this Ruskin
fellow?”

“You won’t, Captain, unless
it is of the utmost importance or I command you to. He will contact
you, usually through a third party. He has been using a young woman
to carry these messages to us. I don’t want to use her to send our
messages back to Ruskin. We can use someone else for that. I think
that would be much too risky, since we know nothing about this
young woman. She could even be a double agent.”

“How will I recognize this
young woman?”

“She will say that the
message is from the Prophet. That is his pseudonym or nom de guerre
as it were. We want to keep his identity a secret. You and I and
two others are the only ones in the entire British Army who know of
his existence and identity. I want to keep it that way,” replied
General Howe. “Don’t breathe of word of this to anyone else. I
don’t want to compromise him.”

“As you wish, sir,” replied
the captain.

The British Army departed
New York from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, courtesy of the British navy
a few days later, in late July 1777, and, after encountering a
number of delays, finally arrived at Head of Elk, Maryland in late
August 1777.

* * * *

Samuel

“
Take this message from
the Prophet to a British Captain Ferguson who commands an infantry
rifle company of the British forces that now occupy Kennett Square,
Pennsylvania,” said Samuel to Molly after he had finished with her.
“Find this captain, who will be camped somewhere near the main
force. Tell him that Washington intends to block the oncoming
British Army at Chadds Ford and make his stand there on the road
between Baltimore and Philadelphia.”

The British Army had sailed
from New York south along the New Jersey coast with the intention
of entering the Delaware Bay and traveling up the Delaware River to
Philadelphia. But intelligence reports indicated that the
Continental Army had set obstructions in the river, making it
impassable. These reports later proved to be false, but in reliance
on them, the British fleet had sailed further south and entered the
Chesapeake Bay. They sailed up the bay all the way to Head of Elk,
Maryland and unloaded the troops near the mouth of the Elk River.
From there, they marched north to find the Baltimore to
Philadelphia road so that they could follow it into Philadelphia.
General Washington had learned of their intentions and had moved
his army south from his winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey, to
take up the high ground in the best defensible position he could
find near Chadds Ford, on the Brandywine River.

Unlike many of the other
rivers that crossed the road from Baltimore to Philadelphia, the
Brandywine River was a shallow but fast-flowing river that was
fordable at only a few places. It was the best place he could find
to try to stop the advance of the British Army. General Washington
had issued general orders for deploying his army and ordered his
commanders to determine where to position his forces.

“It is only seven miles from
Chadds Ford to Kennett Square,” continued Samuel. “You can be there
before nightfall if you leave right now.”

“Yes, sir,” replied
Molly.

Molly rose, dressed and
immediately left the tent, walking west out of the camp, to find
the road toward Baltimore. She waded across the Brandywine River at
Chadds Ford, since it was less than waist deep at that point, and
dried off on the west bank. Then she walked along the road again
toward Kennett Square.

When she had walked a little
more than four miles from Chadds Ford, she came upon some British
troops who had set up a check point in the road. A British soldier
stopped her when she arrived at the check point.

“What is your business
here?” asked the soldier.

“I have a message for
Captain Ferguson,” replied Molly.

“Ah, then you are in luck.
Captain Ferguson has his headquarters tent set up just off the
road, in the trees south of here,” said the soldier pointing to a
game trail path that led south from the road.

“Thank you, sir,” said Molly
as she started walking down the path toward the tent.

It was only a short walk to
the tent that was set up in a clearing near the trail. There were
two British soldiers on guard outside the tent near the front tent
flaps. Molly walked up to the two soldiers and stopped in front of
them.

“I have a message for
Captain Ferguson,” repeated Molly.

“One moment, Miss, I’ll
check to see if the captain will see you,” replied one of the
soldiers, who went inside the tent and reappeared
shortly.

“Captain Ferguson is very
busy right now, but if you will wait inside the tent, he will see
you as soon as he can free himself,” said the soldier as held the
tent flap open for the young woman to enter the tent.

Molly walked into the tent
and stepped up to the British officer who was sitting behind a
field desk writing on a piece of paper. The officer seated at the
desk ignored the young woman and continued writing.

“Captain Ferguson, I have a
message for you,” said the obviously impatient Molly.

The British officer
continued to write, completely ignoring the girl. Molly waited a
few minutes and attempted to interrupt the officer
again.

“Captain Ferguson, I have a
very important message for you,” repeated Molly.

The officer glanced at
Molly, held up his hand for her to stop, and then continued to
write, again ignoring the young woman. Molly saw that he had
glanced at her, so she held her peace for several minutes. Then
when she could wait no longer, she attempted to interrupt the
captain again.

“Sir, it’s very important
and from the Prophet.”

The officer stopped writing
and looked up at the young woman.

“What is the message from
the Prophet?”

“The Prophet says that
General Washington intends to block the advance of the British
forces at Chadds Ford.”

“Thank you. Is there
anything else?”

“No, Sir, that is the entire
message,” replied the Molly.

“Thank you, Miss. You can
tell the Prophet that his message has been delivered.”

The British officer looked
down and began to write again without dismissing the young woman.
Molly stood in front of him for a few moments and slowly turned
around and walked out of the tent. As she walked back along the
path toward the road, she failed to notice the two buckskin-clad
men who were following her at a distance in the cover of the nearby
trees. One of the two men was Jonas Dunne, and no one had ever been
wily enough to detect being followed by Jonas so far. Jonas was a
mountain man as well as a frontiersman, and he blended into the
wilderness seamlessly. He had lived in the frontier all his life
and didn’t like the east and the people who lived there. He always
wore buckskins and looked a lot like the Longhunter with his gaunt
frame and piercing gaze.

“Has anyone ever seen her
before?” asked Robert, dressed in the uniform of a British Army
major and sitting behind the desk in the tent, as Alex, Hugh, Big
Mike, and the Longhunter walked in through a flap in the rear of
the tent.

Robert had played the role
of a British officer before, when he had rescued Hugh, after Hugh’s
capture by the British Army in England, so he knew the role well.
The other men had been standing behind the tent and observing the
conversation between Robert and Molly through a small slit near a
fold in the rear of the tent. Robert had hatched the plan to
uncover the identity of the spy. They had used captured British
Army uniforms to pull off the ruse. It had been a gamble, and they
were lucky that the young woman couldn’t tell the difference in the
rank on the uniform between a captain and a major in the British
Army. Robert and Alex had thought that she might appear again as
she had in the past before a major battle. So Robert had come up
with the idea to set up a tent as close to the British lines as
possible and intercept her no matter whom she asked for. The
sentries on the road and outside the tent were also patriots
disguised as British soldiers.

“She’s the one that I
stopped at the Assunpink Creek Bridge, the one who said she had a
message from the Prophet, and the same one I followed to the
Trenton Ferry before we set up the fortifications at Assunpink
Creek and fought at Princeton. The Prophet is our spy. If we follow
her, she should lead us to the Prophet, and we will have our man,”
said Alex.

“I saw her and her sister
several times in Philadelphia. Her name is Molly Ludwig and she has
a sister named Maggie. Both sisters disappeared some time ago, and
there was a rumor that they had committed some sort of crime, but
no one ever heard what it was. I had assumed that she and her
sister had moved on to live somewhere else,” said Big Mike
Finn.

“Weel, the men trailing her
won’t lose her. I’ll put my life on that. They’ll stake out where
she holds up until they have something to report,” said the
Longhunter.

* * * *

Captain Ferguson

“
Gentlemen, our advance
scouts have reported that all the fords along the Brandywine River
both north and south of the pike into Philadelphia are occupied by
Continental Army troops. We don’t know if this is the main
Continental Army or not. We must assume that Washington is going to
make a stand somewhere along our route into the rebel capital. If
it’s going to be at this ford on the Brandywine, so be it. We may
finally have him exactly where we want him. But we must take all
precautions,” said General Howe to the British officers assembled
in his war council tent at Kennett Square.

Later that day, Moses Doan,
who was called the “Eagle Spy,” confirmed that it was indeed
General Washington and the Continental Army who occupied the Chadds
Ford on the Brandywine. He also reported that they had dug into
strong defensive positions. On September 10, 1777, General Howe
called his officers into another war council at his tent at Kennett
Square.

“Tomorrow morning we will
not attack Washington’s well prepared defensive positions as he
expects us to do. For us to do so would be a disaster of major
proportions. Lieutenant-General Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen will
lead about sixty-eight hundred troops directly toward Washington’s
trap at Chadds Ford just to keep the Continental troops occupied,
but he will not cross the Brandywine River and step into the trap.
Von Knyphausen’s frontal feint will be led by the Tory vanguard of
the Queen’s Rangers and Captain Ferguson’s riflemen because of
their superior firepower and outstanding marksmanship. My command
will break off from the main road with eighty-two hundred men and
march northeast up the Great Valley Road. We will cross the
Brandywine’s west branch at Trimble’s Ford and then cross the
Brandywine’s east branch at Jeffries’ Ford. Our scouts report that
Washington’s troops have not occupied those fords because they are
so far north of the pike. They do not expect that we would march
that far north. After we make the crossing, I will proceed south
around Washington’s right flank, attacking him with full strength.
Once I have engaged Washington’s flank, the troops deployed in the
frontal feint will cross the Brandywine River, and we will have him
in a pincer.”