Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (37 page)

“Gentlemen, you may take dinner with me tonight,” Lafayette offered. “Not much, I can assure you: boiled mutton, some cobs of their Indian corn, and sauerkraut. Baron, when you hear the evening salute fired, that will be the signal for dinner with the general. If an aide is not sent to fetch you, you will find the headquarters but another two hundred yards downslope, a small stone house.”

He looked around the small cabin, smiled, bowed low, and left.

“So this is it?” L’Enfant asked.

“Certainly not Versailles,” Du Ponceau retorted sadly.

Von Steuben threw back his head and laughed.

“You lads wanted war and an adventure. Well, you have found it. Now see to your horses. Remember, a good soldier always sees first to his mounts and then to his men before his own comfort. Time enough to complain later.”

They did as ordered, leaving him alone in the cabin with Azor, Vogel going out to tend to the baron’s mount.

He reached back into his breast pocket, pulled out the flask of cognac, un-screwed the cap, and offered a toast to Azor.

“Well, my friend, here begins our new life,” he announced with a sardonic smile. Azor did not reply, just looking at him forlornly, for there had been nothing for him to eat this day.

“First I must learn to curse well in good English, for I shall need it,” he sighed, emptying the rest of the flask.

The evening salute and tattoo echoed across the fields as Martha Washington trudged along the muddy track back to the headquarters. It had been a long, trying day. Three of the lads she had been tending to had died, two from what was now feared to be typhus, the other from exposure and an attempt to amputate his feet, both of which had developed frostbite in the last storm as he had stood sentry. The doctor had forbidden her to attend to him during the surgery and inwardly she was grateful that he had done so. He had forcefully argued that he could never face General Washington if he should find out that his wife had witnessed such a thing.

And yet so many of the other women working in the hospitals had witnessed such things every day, and held up without complaint, some never leav
ing the place. More than a few of them were now sick as well, two of them dying in the last week.

As mistress in charge of a plantation in which hundreds lived, were born, worked, and died, her duties had never been as romantic as some might think. She had helped with the borning, had held more than one of her servants as they prepared to die, and prayed over their graves. Death was nothing new to her, but the conditions here, this winter, were indeed a trial to the soul, with no end yet in sight. Her husband had argued with her nearly daily that there were places other than the hospital where she could be of help, but she felt it her duty, at least for a few hours each day, to visit there, if only to sit with some of the sick and read to them. Since her arrival, she had shamed more than a few officers’ wives to take on more of the burden that hundreds of other women already were bearing.

As she approached the headquarters home, she saw her husband out with several of his officers slowly walking back after attending evening parade. As if sensing her approach he turned, looked over his shoulder, smiled, and excused himself from the informal meeting. He came toward her and extended a hand, which she gladly took.

“You’re cold,” he announced anxiously, squeezing her hand tight, and she smiled.

“My hands are always cold.”

“Well, there is that saying about it meaning a warm heart,” he offered and she smiled, falling in by his side.

“Your day?” he asked.

She did not reply for a moment.

“How many did we lose?”

“Over thirty, George. One of them a boy of only sixteen. Frostbitten feet. Dr. Otto tried to remove them…”

Her voice trailed off.

“You weren’t there, were you?” There was a bit of a harsh tone to his voice.

“No, he forbade me, but I felt I should have been.”

“It is not your place.”

“It is my place,” she replied forcefully.

He looked down at her.

“Let’s not have this argument again, dear. With typhus now loose I would prefer you not to be in the hospital at all.”

“Then order out all the other women who labor there and perhaps I’ll follow.”

He shook his head.

“Such insubordination. And to the commanding general,” he said with a rueful smile.

“You would expect nothing less from me.”

“Still.” He sighed. “You know I would prefer otherwise.”

“If you want me here with you, then expect this.”

He finally held his free hand up in a gesture of surrender.

“Can I order you not to be in the front line when there is a battle?” she continued. “We’ve had this argument before. You say it is your duty, but at times I think you actually seek out the thrill of it.”

“You can’t say that being in the hospital is in some way exciting,” he offered back. “It is a reckless danger and I worry about you.”

“You stop leading from the front and I will stop going to the hospital, and no,” and now her voice was harsh, almost bitter, “believe me, it is no thrill.”

“A duty, then.”

“Yes, as I see it. Yes,” she replied firmly and intensely.

He shook his head.

“So how is this new German?” she asked.

“You heard he is here?”

“No. But I saw him ride by. More European officers looking for rank?”

He smiled and shook his head.

“This one is different, I think.”

“How so?”

“Something about him. He is not asking for rank, though I sense that is simply a game for the moment. But, still, a refreshing difference. Apparently he survived York and the Gates crowd untainted, offering his sword directly to me as a volunteer, with the position to be chosen by me.”

“It could be a ploy,” she offered.

“No, I have my sources, and what he said confirms their reports.”

She laughed softly.

“You and your sources, George.”

He laughed.

“You seem merry this evening. I think you like this new man.”

“I do. One senses that he has a few cards he is not showing, but then again who doesn’t? I just have this feeling about him that he is the man I’ve been waiting for.”

“For what, pray tell?”

“To shape this army into a new kind of army, an army that will win.”

Valley Forge
March 4, 1778

“My God, what a muddle it all is,” von Steuben whispered under his breath.

“Sir?”

He turned to the entourage that had taken to following him around the camp. Du Ponceau was a step behind him on one side, carrying a plank of polished wood with a sheet of paper pegged to it, ready to take notes, struggling to keep up with translations from German to either French or English. Joining him on what was now his daily inspection tour were a number of young staff officers who had found him to be a fascinating new addition to an encampment already replete with more than its share of eccentrics.

Young Alexander Hamilton was one of them, his command of French solid enough to allow him to follow some of the discussions without need of translation. As one of General Washington’s most trusted aides, his presence was an obvious political boon, but far more important, a gangly young lieutenant colonel on Washington’s staff, John Laurens, was also with him today.

Von Steuben had finally abandoned his horse and was now tromping about on foot along the line of field fortifications, staff and the others following to see what he might do next. And what he was doing was turning the encampment upside down.

The day was cold, blustery, a sharp wind out of the northwest after a frigid day of snow, which eddied and drifted about them as von Steuben continued his inspection of the fortification line on Mount Misery.

“Look at this, just look at this!” he announced, as he stood at a parapet and
pointed to his left. The others gathered around, not sure what he was saying or pointing at.

“My God, there is defilade there below us,” and he pointed downslope to a fold in the ground.

“Defilade?” Laurens asked, trying to follow the translation. “Is that French? What does it mean?”

“It means cover for an attacking enemy,” Hamilton whispered urgently.

Von Steuben set a sharp pace along the shallow entrenchment, heading to his left to a point fifty yards off that jutted out along the natural crest of the hill.

“Now look again at the same place,” he announced, “defilade!”

He said the word as if it was an obscenity.

They all gazed thoughtfully at the fold in the ground between the two points below the wall of the fort as if they were looking at some monstrosity that had crept into their camp, though few were sure why they were looking at it.

“You there!” Von Steuben turned to where a lone sentry stood, wrapped in a blanket cape, face all but concealed by a scarf. At least when the entourage had approached, he had stopped slapping himself to try to ward off the cold. He was standing with shouldered musket.

“Me, sir?” the sentry asked nervously.

“Yes, I not talk to the sky,” von Steuben replied in broken English, “damn, yes, you.”

The sentry nervously approached and made an attempt at coming to attention and saluting.

“Look at that ground down there,” von Steuben barked, pointing with his walking stick to the low hillock that he had suddenly found so offensive.

The sentry did as ordered.

“Now, what you do if English there?”

The sentry nodded thoughtfully. He was chewing on a wad of tobacco, jaw working hard, staring at the ground in question.

“Me and the boys thought the same thing now, standing out here like we do,” he finally replied. “If we was charging this fort, we’d go for there, hunker down, wait for a volley to fire, then jump up and come the rest of the way. Don’t like it one bit if you’re asking me, sir. Whole bunch of places around here like that where they can gain on us and we can’t shoot ’em.”

Du Ponceau offered a translation, and von Steuben smiled and slapped the sentry on the shoulder.

“You are a good soldier. By Gott, I think you should be a general,” he announced in German. It was quickly translated.

The sentry grinned.

“Forget the promotion, I’ve worked this chew out, you got another?” And as he spoke he spat the wad over the side of the trench.

Von Steuben looked at him, eyes narrowed. All were silent at what was obviously an impertinent act, and then the baron broke out laughing.

“By God, I like you. Anyone got a chew, as he calls it?”

Laurens, a good son of South Carolina, fished around in his breast pocket and pulled out a small block of tobacco, gazed at it longingly, then finally broke it in half and gave a chunk to the sentry, who grinned with gratitude and bit into it with a smile.

“May I offer a suggestion to His Excellency,” von Steuben announced, looking back at Hamilton.

“It is what I am here for, sir,” Hamilton replied, fishing a scrap of paper and pencil out of his breast pocket, hands trembling from the cold.

“Once the thaw comes, either level down that hillock for a clear field of fire, or cover it with abatis.”

“Abatts, sir?”

“
Cheveux-de-frise
.”

Hamilton looked at Du Ponceau nervously.

“I’ll explain later,” Du Ponceau offered.

Von Steuben looked back at the private.

“Your name?”

“Billy Butterworth, sir, Third Pennsylvania.”

“You say there are other places like that defilade?”

“Don’t know what the hell that is, sir, but if you mean cover, well, hell, yes, all along the line we’re guarding.”

“Colonel Hamilton,” von Steuben offered with a diplomatic smile. “May I pass a suggestion that with the approval of His Excellency the General, an order be passed to this Third Pennsylvania, that this soldier be promoted to sergeant and given a detail of men to work in front of the lines with proper tools to either level down or fill in places of cover for an attacking force, or build abatis or entanglements thereon.”

Hamilton hesitated as the request was translated.

“Sir, I will pass along the suggestion, but our officers with engineering appointments might have a differing view.”

Von Steuben sighed, tapping his walking stick atop the low wall of the fort, which at this place was barely waist-high.

“I wish no disrespect, of course, and I am merely an advisor,” he replied with a smile. “But His Excellency did give me leave to examine the camp and make suggestions.”

“I’ll try, sir. But as for the promotion of the private here?” And his voice trailed off as the candidate for promotion fixed him with a baleful gaze.

Hearing the translation, von Steuben nodded.

“Translate clearly,” he said to Du Ponceau.

“Colonel Hamilton, no disrespect, sir, and you have a correct point of protocol. I am only an advisor and mindful of that at all times. But I have always been of the school that a good officer will find that a private sees far more than an officer at times, because he is forced when on sentry to stare at the same place day after day that an officer just passes by. It is good for an officer to listen to his men when they make proper suggestions, though do not confuse what I have just said when it comes to the battlefield.

“In the heat of action, a private”—he looked back at Butterworth, his features now serious—“a private or even a newly promoted sergeant must obey the officer without question. Discipline in battle must always come first. That is how we shall win.”

As he spoke, he knew that the private was listening, which was exactly what he wanted. The promotion might never come, but this man would tell everyone this evening how the “sauerkraut general” had offered to promote him, that he had urged officers to listen to their enlisted men, and that obedience in battle must be given unflinchingly. Tonight he would thus win over yet more of the enlisted men for the plan he would launch tomorrow.

He slapped the private on the shoulder.

“You smell like a dying dog, but you are good soldier,” he announced with a laugh, and moved on.

Leaving the fort by the rear sally port, he remounted, the others following his lead, and they continued across the field back toward his quarters. One of the army’s generals had gone home on leave, and Washington had offered him the man’s small, two-room stone house, which he had gladly taken after a couple of freezing nights in the log hut.

The quarters of the men were appalling. If the weather turned warm during the day, the dirt floors turned into clinging mud. When it rained, the rough-cut shingles of the roof leaked like an open sieve.

After but a day of wandering around the camp, asking questions and ob
serving, he had come to the conclusion that the conditions were the fault neither of the general nor of his men. The problem was above all the lack of tools.

The men openly complained that for the entire army there were only several hundred axes of dubious quality, only a handful of them with properly tempered steel blades. Adzes and froes to shape the logs and to cut shingles for roofs were even scarcer. The hundreds of cords of firewood that should have been cut last summer and set aside to season properly had never been laid up, so the men were forced to try to keep warm with green wood that barely cast a flame. Any dry deadfall for miles around had already been scooped up, the best of it set aside for the hospitals. Several forges had been constructed for the making of tools, but getting a good supply of charcoal to provide the higher level of heat for forging iron into steel for tools was next to impossible.

In a proper winter camp, as he was used to seeing in Russia where weather conditions were, of course, far more severe, the army would have gone into winter quarters in a proper fortress or town. If not, provisions would have been made early on to construct cabins tight against the winter blasts.

As to sanitation, that was a total nightmare. He had learned on the first day to carefully watch where he stepped. Sanitary discipline was non ex is tent, and once night fell, few men took the trouble of hiking all the way to the latrine pit when just behind their cabin was sufficient. For many poor souls, the flux that was afflicting the camp made even a dash of a few dozen feet impossible. As a result, a freeze was welcomed, and any thaw turned the fields into little better than a stinking cesspool.

It was now even worse because of the decision to enforce the inoculation of all soldiers who had not yet suffered from smallpox. Few had taken this order gladly; some had even deserted rather than undergo the ordeal. More than a few preachers in the camp railed against inoculation as an act that went against God’s will. But out of sheer necessity Washington had ordered that all who could not clearly show that they had endured smallpox were to be inoculated.

For the majority of men, the symptoms suffered in the weeks after were fairly mild, but hundreds living in the harsh conditions had fallen seriously ill, and scores had died. It was not nearly as bad as a real epidemic, but for the time being it had laid low nearly every tenth man with the army, and another one out of ten was in hospital with other complaints. In Frederick’s army, at least half of these men, von Steuben concluded, would be declared unfit for duty, with a fair percentage of them discharged as no longer being fit for any kind of service other than as reserves in a warm and dry garrison fortress.

A thousand things should be seen to, he thought as he rode through the
camp. However, diplomacy required that he hold his tongue, and as for blame, if there was any, it was not, in his eyes, for Washington. The general in chief spent most of his time writing, making appeals to Congress and to the strange hodgepodge of state governors and legislatures to which many of the militia units answered, appeasing local inhabitants who bombarded him with complaints, and yet at the same time trying to keep this army alive both physically and with the spirit needed to survive and fight.

He needed a proper inspector general to see to such things. On the staff of any army on the continent the inspector general was tasked with taking care of what he was now observing, leaving the general in command free to see to the broader issues, and to plan both for defense and any forthcoming campaign.

But with no tools, creating proper flooring for cabins, well-sealed doors, leakproof roofs, and split logs for corduroying the roads and walkways was impossible. Without funds, obtaining proper rations for these pathetic scarecrows was also impossible unless, as Washington had now been forced to act out of necessity, a general simply seized what was needed for his beleaguered forces, offered scrip in payment, and prayed that the local population did not rebel in turn. Without money there was no medicine for the sick other than home-brewed remedies.

Without…without…without…

He sighed and yet forced himself to keep his good-natured smile as he rode past a column of infantry that was attempting to simply march by column of fours and properly wheel.

He paused to watch for a moment, trying to conceal his dismay as the men floundered about. My God, that they had survived this long in and of itself both off the battlefield and on it was a miracle. He rode on and did not bother to pain himself by looking back as he heard an exasperated officer shouting orders that were met by grumbling, cursing, and even outright laughter.

Tomorrow he would see if they still laughed!

He caught sight of his modest dwelling, smoke pouring from the chimney.