Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (41 page)

He slowly increased the beat to sixty steps a minute, holding out his watch, a new, expensive one that had a second-hand sweep. After a while he stopped counting and let his assistants maintain the pace, with poor Du Ponceau, whose voice was hoarse from repeating the baron’s commands, following by his side.

He knew Washington was still observing and slowly walked over to his side.

“The pace seems slow, is that your intent?” the general asked.

“Yes, sir, for now it is just to master the length of step. The standard for the army in line of battle will be seventy-five paces a minute. Standard march. One hundred and twenty at the quick time.”

Washington nodded, saying nothing.

It was now past noon and von Steuben could feel his own hunger pangs growing.

But before he allowed them to break, he shouted for the columns to halt, the men to fall out and at the double time form back into line.

“You do this right now and we eat, by God,” he announced as the last of the men pushed their way into the line and found their proper places.

He stepped to one side of the line.

“Do it right and you eat. If not, you don’t eat. Company at my command.

” Several of the men started to take a step forward. He said nothing. He’d overlook it this time.

“Forward, march…step!…step!…step!”

The line held formation. It was only ten steps, less than thirty feet, but the alignment held.

“Now my lads, without moving, stand at ease, then look to your left and right.”

They did as ordered and there was a ripple of comments.

The hundred and fifty men were perfectly aligned, with barely a bulge in
the center, where the tallest men, by nature, would continue to take slightly larger steps. For a Prussian parade formation, the response would have been hours more of merciless drill. But this was different, very different indeed.

“Excellent, my boys. We have had a good start. Now get some food, fall in again in a half hour. Dismissed.”

The men broke ranks and headed for the cooking fires, where half a dozen women had been at work, with kettles of boiled mutton.

He ventured over to where Washington had remained motionless, with Lafayette by his side, watching for more than an hour.

“It is a start,” von Steuben offered, with Lafayette translating.

The general nodded.

“I had often heard it spoken that the Germans were the hardest taskmasters of all upon the drill field. I have seen evidence of that when facing the Hessians. I expected a stricter manner from you, sir.”

He was not sure if Washington’s words were meant as a reproof or not.

“I have only had a few months in this country but can see much difference between the training of free landholders such as serve in your ranks and that of the peasants and street sweepings pressed into the service of European kings. The men need discipline, yes, much discipline. But they also must be shown and have the reasons why explained, and, yes, at times they must be cajoled. Much I plan to teach will seem strange to them, to any American, but I think, Your Excellency, it is the key to victory in the next engagement, for the enemy will not expect it.”

Washington simply nodded thoughtfully.

“Carry on,” he finally replied and turned to ride off.

The half hour passed too quickly for some, several of the men, obviously ill with the flux, asking to be relieved of duty before staggering off. When von Steuben reformed the line, he had the men count off again and acquaint themselves with the new comrade who might be by their side.

He then put them through the drill, several times, of falling out, and then, at command, springing back to form line of battle. Next it was simply taking ten steps, going about-face, then ten steps back. Ever so slowly he picked up the pace of march to the seventy-five beats a minute he sought, a drummer, a young black soldier from North Carolina, whom he had personally picked and trained the day before, keeping the tempo.

Next he had them march twenty paces, thirty paces, and then finally the length of the field, so that by mid afternoon they were marching with precision and obvious pride as they covered the entire length of the drill field and
back again, keeping alignment. Von Steuben responded with fulsome praise. The temperature continued to drop, the wind picking up, and it was obvious that the men, especially those barefoot or with wrappings, were suffering, and he did not chide them when, even while standing at attention, they stamped their feet to try to keep circulation going.

Just when they seemed well puffed up with what they had already accomplished, he felt it was time to pull his next move and knock a peg or two out from under them.

He called his assistants over, and then detailed them off, the young officers spreading out in front of the line.

“Forward, march!” he shouted, the drummer picking up the beat.

After just several steps the young officers moved in, blocking a man. “You’re shot! Lie down!”

After less than a dozen paces, gaps were opening in the line. A few of the noncommissioned officers in the marching line knew what they were to do and shouted for the men to “dress on the colors!”

Von Steuben ran in front of them, shouting for them now to quicken their pace to the quick time, the drummer picking up the beat. All the time, his assistants kept pulling more men out of the line, a near fistfight breaking out when Du Ponceau picked on a particularly large sergeant from Rhode Island who roared out that he would be damned if he would fall out even if he were shot.

He was glad Washington did not witness the shambles the line had disintegrated into after barely fifty yards.

“Halt in place! Don’t move!” von Steuben roared.

The men came to a stop. The line was curved back, in places completely broken, men just a loose mass. Those pulled from the line stood about, some moving to rejoin the ranks, others just sitting down on the cold ground, glad for the break from routine.

“All right, my lads, fall in around me,” he called.

The men, many now deflated from their pride of but minutes before, gathered in around him.

“You know what it is I was doing?” he asked.

No one spoke.

“How many of you have been in a battle?” he asked.

About half of them raised their hands.

“Where?”

“I was at Germantown,” one of them announced. “Paoli,” another said. “I’ve been with this damn army since Boston,” another cried.

He looked at the man, as Du Ponceau pointed him out. He had a deep furrow across his left cheek, the scar a slash from a blade or musket ball.

“Your name, soldier?”

“Sergeant Harris, headquarters company of His Excellency General Washington.”

“That wound?”

“Princeton,” Harris replied coolly.

“And what do you think?”

Harris looked around at the others.

“It’s one thing to march about like parade soldiers out here,” he announced, “another thing when the bullets and grapeshot fly.”

“Precisely. You are a good man,” von Steuben responded, and he reached out to slap Harris on the shoulder.

“You men have done well today and I am proud of you.”

He looked around at the gathering. A few grinned, most were silent, nearly all of them shivering from the cold.

“It is March. In two months the campaign season will again be upon us. In those two months, by God, I will teach you everything I know. You are good men and I know you will learn.

“We will start tomorrow with the same thing. Marching in line by step at regular time, then quick time. That shall be easy after what you learned today.

“Then it shall be marching by column, and, in an instant, the blink of an eye, you shall jump quickly and go from column into line.”

As he spoke, he held up his hands to demonstrate.

“Then it shall be marching in column at regular time, quick time, and at the run. Then it shall be forming line in any direction commanded, marching, and now shall come the hard tasks of keeping that line while wheeling about, changing fronts, and continuing to advance.”

He was warming to his subject now.

“You will learn to do so and then more. How to withdraw while under fire, how even to form square against cavalry or go to open order against artillery and then back again in an instant.

“And that is even before I will let you shoulder your muskets again.”

There was a murmur from the crowd.

“I know, I know you pride yourselves that you can shoot, but how many of you can claim with certainty that you have ever actually shot an enemy you aimed at?”

He looked around at the group, several dozen hands went up, there were
some comments back and forth, a few boasting, others taunting, some of the hands were finally lowered.

“Oh, I must have shot a hundred Turks myself,” he offered with a disdainful wave, “and that was with a pistol at a hundred paces.”

Some of the men laughed and a few more hands went down.

“It is disciplined fire, concentrated on a single point, that wins the fight in an open field,” he announced sharply. “All of you firing together, at my command. First one rank and then, as you reload, the other, and by God you will fire at least two rounds a minute, every one of you. That means every fifteen seconds you will sweep the field before you…”

He gestured to the open field, now bathed in the slanting light of a cold late-afternoon sun, the flurries of morning and midday having cleared. It promised to be a cold night.

“Fifteen seconds. That means never again will you shoot and then before you reload the enemy can be upon you with bayonets. For as one line reloads the second stands ready to smash down any attempt for them to charge. Do you see that?”

There were some nods of agreement, especially from the veterans of previous fights.

“I still prefer to do my fighting hunkered down,” one of the men replied, “nice and safe behind a wall or tree. This is foolishness.”

Von Steuben looked at the complainer and nodded.

“How many fights have you been in?”

“I was at Paoli,” the man replied tensely.

“And how many of your comrades were bayoneted to death while trying to lie down behind a wall?”

The man glared at him.

“If in those first seconds of surprise you had formed a battle line and even in the dark opened fire, how many of the enemy would have been left standing?”

There was no response.

Von Steuben stepped closer to him.

“I understand what you feel. Believe me, I do. I fought in the Seven Years’ War. I faced enemy lines at fifty paces and had to stand firm and not flinch. If we broke, if we lay down, they would have slaughtered us like sheep. In such a fight there is only one way to fight back. To hold your line. Hold your line!”

He nearly shouted the last words.

“Hold your line, and then give back to them as hard as they hit you. Then
it becomes a battle of nerves,” and as he spoke he clasped his two hands together as if they were wrestling, “nerves and endurance.”

“Let one hand feel that it is the stronger in courage, in firepower, in its will to stand and deliver, and I promise you, men, the other hand will weaken, collapse, and run away.”

He gestured now with one hand going limp and the other hitting it.

“Stand with me for a month, men. Let me teach you all that I know. You have already mastered much today, there will be more tomorrow. Stand with me, and then when you are ready, go back to your own regiments and in turn teach them as I have taught you.”

“I’ll do my teaching in good American,” one of the men announced, and there was open laughter, von Steuben joining in, then calling on Vogel to give the man a good curse in English, which he did, to even more laughter.

“In one month you will be ready. Then in the next month you will teach your comrades. Once they have learned we shall bring you together not just by regiments but by entire brigades and learn yet more new things. How to march in brigade column and then deploy to line of battle with all possible speed. How one regiment can support another on the line, and turn an enemy flank while others hold them in place. There is much to learn, much to learn.”

He looked around at the group.

“You are good soldiers, though I will say standing close to you hurts my nose and I fear for how many lice I now shall have.” He made an exaggerated gesture of plucking one off his sleeve and crushing it with his fingernails.

Again, laughter.

“Fall into line!”

The men sprang back to their position, line forming, still far too slow for his liking, but nevertheless, forming up far better than they had in the morning.

“Attention!”

They did as ordered, heads turning slightly to face the center, where he now stood.

“If after today you do not have the stomach for this, or think it folly, tell your commander tonight and he will send someone else in your place. For, by God, tomorrow, though we have laughed today together as comrades, I will tolerate no lack of discipline. If you waste my time, starting tomorrow, I will have you driven out of the ranks and break this stick over your back or head.

“Do we understand each other?”

Caught off-guard by his sudden change of mood, the men were silent.

“We now have one month to teach you what a Prussian soldier takes a year
or more to master. I think you are of sterner stuff than the Hessians whom I know some of you fear to face. In a month you will be ready to face them, in two months’ time you must train your comrades to do the same. In three months’ time, if you prove to be the men I think you are, you will see fear in the eyes of your enemies and know true victory on the battlefield, and I swear I will stand in the line with you that day.

“Think upon what I have taught you and what I have said today. You are dismissed.”

He turned and stalked off, his staff falling in around him.

My God, he thought inwardly. What a tangled mess this all is. He actually pitied those poor men. With the temperature dropping, the chill was even striking into his bones, and he had on his heavy wool uniform and cape. Some of them indeed were little better than scarecrows.