Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (55 page)

“I am at your service, General,” von Steuben cried, and he nodded.

“Move along the line, stiffen the men. This vanguard is to slow the enemy while our main body deploys.”

“Sir, General Lee should be fighting this battle miles forward, overrunning the supply trains I saw last night.”

Washington took it in.

“No time for that now. Go rally the men and then slowly pull back onto the main line, giving me time to get the rest of the army deployed. I thought I would find this battle three miles farther ahead and not here!”

Wayne and von Steuben saluted and rode back to the right…and then Washington saw him, crossing the field to the left, surrounded by staff, a knot of infantry falling back with him, his head lowered, his mount lathered with sweat.

At that instant, at the sight of Lee, the way he had led, the way he had fought battles, the lingering sense, across all the long years, that somehow, just somehow, the professionals who trained and fought in the armies of Europe were superior and perhaps even to be deferred to in some manner, forever vanished. Gone with it was any remaining core of self-doubt. While in the future he would seek counsel and advice, he would always do so with the knowledge that his instincts and his judgment would be the final arbiter of what needed to be done.

“General Lee!” he thundered, riding straight at the man. Lee looked up at him, eyes narrowing. Men who had been fleeing slowed to a stop, for, though in the middle of a battle being lost, they knew a new storm was about to explode.

“General Lee!”

Lee started to raise his hand to remove his hat in salute.

“In the name of God Almighty. What have you done here?”

“Sir. As ordered, I…”

“God’s wounds, sir. I do not believe what I am seeing. What in hell are you doing?”

“Sir, the situation developed poorly…”

“Poorly? It is you, sir. Damn your soul, it is you, sir, who have behaved poorly.”

Lee recoiled in shock.

“Sir, I object to that tone.”

A pent-up rage, a fury that perhaps could be traced back across two years of frustration and defeat after defeat, at last exploded into the open.

Washington removed his hat, drew it back as if ready to strike Lee in a challenge, and then, thinking better of such behavior, hurled it to the ground.

“You are a strutting, arrogant, foul-mouthed poltroon. You came to this army boasting of all your skills and I was fool enough to believe in you.”

“The men, sir, they began to break as I told you they would when facing the enemy in an open fight…”

“Damn your soul for your lying impudence. How dare you blame these good men for your failings?”

He looked at the enlisted men who now stood in a large knot around the two, silent, stunned that their General Washington, always so controlled in manner and voice, was speaking this way. The fact that his anger had finally taken such control over his emotions, that he was cursing at a fellow officer in front of enlisted men, if anything pushed him even further and made him even angrier.

“As Almighty God is my witness,” he cried, looking up at the blazing hot heavens and then back at Lee, “this is the last time I shall ever listen to the likes of such arrogant strutting asses as you. I shall take my own counsel and I swear, by God, to listen to it. These men are soldiers and they will be led by proper soldiers and not by the likes of you, damn your soul.”

He felt light-headed, fearing for a second that he would lose his grip on his saddle. The heat was nearly overwhelming his senses, that and a rage unlike any he had known or openly vented in years.

“Sir,” Lee replied, his voice quavering but his eyes now filled with malice, “I am a gentleman and object to being spoken to in this way.”

“Object? You dare to object. Well, sir, I object to your presence on this field.”

“What?”

“General Lee, you are relieved of command.”

“What?” Lee gazed at him, mouth open and closing like a fish out of water gasping for life.

“Mr. Lee, I relieve you from this battle, I relieve you from command. You are out of this army forever, as of this moment.”

“I demand, sir, that you retract that. I shall seek a court of inquiry. I shall go to Congress itself for what you have said, for the insults you have leveled at me.”

“Damn you to hell!” Washington roared, and he leaned forward menacingly, his massive frame towering over Lee. “Go to whomever you damn well please. Go to Congress, go to Gates, go to the damn king himself! Now get the hell out of my sight or I will personally whip you from this field!”

Lee shied back, one of his staff grabbing his reins, pulling him back farther.

Features paling in spite of the heat, Lee lowered his head and, with a raking of spurs so vicious that his horse whinnied from pain, rode off. Washington, still standing in his stirrups, glared at him as he left.

“By God,” he heard one of the enlisted men gasp, “we got ourselves a fightin’ general today.”

He turned his gaze on the men, struggling to control his fury.

“Do you men still know how to fight?” he roared.

A primal cry erupted around him.

“Then fall in and show those redcoats over there”—he pointed back to the advancing British—“how Americans can stand and fight for their freedom!”

Breathing hard, face drenched with sweat, he turned back. His staff gazed at him awestruck.

He saw General Lafayette, silent, features immobile, and nodded to him.

“General Lafayette, you will assume command of Mr. Lee’s men. General Wayne is holding the right. Those you can rally here are to hold, then only slowly give ground. The main body, even now, is preparing on the far side of the ravine. It is good ground and that is where we shall make our stand and then drive them from this field.”

For once Lafayette did not offer his usual flourishes. He simply snapped off a salute and, turning, galloped off with a big grin on his boyish face. Lee was gone, and the army was going to fight like a real army…at last.

Billy Lee rode up and offered him a canteen, like Lafayette his features fixed, not daring to speak. He took a long drink, not objecting when Billy Lee poured some of the precious water out, soaking a large handkerchief and offering it so that he could wipe the sweat from his brow.

“Sir?”

It was one of the enlisted men. He vaguely remembered him, the boy who had been the guide at Trenton and then part of his guard. He was holding up his hat to return it.

“Thank you, son,” and he took the hat back and put it on.

The boy was grinning at him.

“No, sir. It is I who thank you.” Suddenly red-faced, the youth dashed off to fall in with the battle line.

“Give them hell, boys! Make it even hotter for them than this day already has,” Washington cried. Turning, he galloped back up the long slope to the west to see to the deployment of his main line of battle.

Noon: In Front of the “West Ravine”

“Keep pushing them! Keep pushing them!”

Allen van Dorn stalked behind the skirmish line, Captain André at his side. The fight had been going on now for almost five hours. Most of it had been an open-field chase, typical of so many battles here in America. Within minutes of first contact with their advancing lines, two miles to the east, the enemy had wavered and then without warning had just simply broken.

It most likely would have been over by now except for the heat and the rough—and in many places marshy—ground that slowed their advance to a crawl. The light infantry was sloshing through sucking mud, at times sinking nearly to their knees. And all the time, plagues of biting mosquitoes and gnats covered them, getting into their eyes, ears, and nostrils. Their water was gone, some of the men in desperation scooping up muddy mouthfuls of slimy liquid out of their footprints in the marshes, and then taking the mud to cover their faces in an effort to keep the insects off. But within minutes the sweat pouring down their faces had washed the mud off.

And then, increasingly, men began to simply stop sweating. They would stagger along for a few more minutes and then just silently collapse, as dead as if they had been struck in the heart by a bullet.

He looked back anxiously at André, who seemed to have recovered somewhat from the heat of the previous day. But he knew the man was still weak from heat exhaustion…and he was feeling that same weakness. Allen longed to shuck off the heavy red wool jacket, but dared not. In the smoke and confusion, if he should be seen with just a white linen shirt, he might be taken for a rebel straggler, and with his local accent no appeal would spare him from being taken prisoner or, more likely, being shot or bayoneted on the spot.

For several minutes he had clearly seen General Washington in the fray, just north of the road, surrounded by a knot of officers. He had informed André, and the captain had tried to press the light infantry forward into range, but the men were exhausted. They were moving woodenly, slowing as they got barely into range and firing several ragged volleys, more than a few of them then crying that they were out of ammunition.

Their resupply wagon, which should have been following the main body of regiments advancing behind them, could not be found.

“Light infantry of Grey’s command! Halt!”

The cry echoed up and down the line. And the hundreds of skirmishers and dragoons slowed to a stop, many of the men sitting down, some just collaps
ing. Those still capable tried finding shelter under the tangle of growth sprouting in the marshy ground.

General Grey was in the middle of the road, André heading over to him, Allen following.

“A good drive of the game,” Grey announced, “but damn hot work it is. Damn rebels run too damn fast.”

Fighting was still heavy down to the left, where a line of their own heavy infantry, coming into range, was now engaging. To the right flank, other units were closing in.

“Something is bracing them, though, sir,” Allen offered, and Grey looked down at him.

“How’s that?”

“They were running like sheep…”

“As they usually do,” Grey interrupted.

“But they rallied just ahead.”

“Yes, yes, saw that too. That damn Washington. Saw him. André, too bad our lads couldn’t have gotten a bit closer, that would have really made hash of them this day. Shoot the lead dog and the rest of the pack will run.”

Allen stiffened slightly at the way Grey had called Washington a dog. That was not the man he remembered seeing at Trenton, or the one who had showed pity to the brother of one of his fallen men, and offered him immediate parole and exchange.

“Yes, he was there, sir, and there is something different about them this day,” Allen offered, ducking low as the enemy line, a hundred yards off, fired a volley, several balls humming by far too close.

Grey sniffed derisively.

There was a round of laughter from Grey’s staff when not a single shot hit.

“Can we have a flag of truce for a moment,” said the major that Allen detested, laughing. “You there, Allen, you’re a provincial and understand their barbarous jargon. Go over there and tell him that ‘Flintless Grey’ and his light infantry are at their beck and call for a duel with bayonets, by God.”

“You go tell him,” Allen snapped, and then paused, “sir.”

“You impudent pup. After this battle…”

“I am at your call, sir,” Allen snarled back, “any time you wish.”

“Both of you!” Grey cried. “I’ll put both of you on report. And you, Mr. van Dorn, I’ll put you up on charges if you dare to challenge a superior officer to a duel.”

Allen glared at the major with contempt.

“Mr. Van Dorn!”

He turned back to Grey and saluted.

“My apologies, sir. Heat of battle.”

“You say that you sense something. Well, by God, I have you on my staff to tell me about these rebel neighbors of yours, now tell me, damn it.”

“Look at those lines forming, sir. They did not break and panic when we drove back their first attack. They are holding, and even some of those who broke before are standing now.”

“And giving back in an orderly way, by God,” the major interjected, and pointed forward.

He was right. The advance line of rallied troops was indeed now retiring, but doing so slowly, coming about every minute or so to fire another volley even though the range was far too long.

Directly ahead, what was left of the first wave of the American attack was falling back, not in confusion but rather moving to merge into the main line. From the other side of the field, British heavy infantry were struggling to advance through the marshy ground.

“Light infantry to rest. Get the men watered and resupplied with the ammunition, which should be coming forward,” Grey announced.

He scanned the enemy position.

“We might have a half hour, an hour at most, and then the chase will be on again. Now move quickly, men!”

Allen looked back toward the retreating American line and wondered who was with them this day, and what now compelled them to fight in a manner he sensed was different from anything the British had ever faced from them before.

Englishtown
12:30 PM

His horse stumbled as he rounded the bend in the road, and then it started to collapse. Von Steuben did not even rein in. The poor beast simply stopped, head lowered, panting.

He dismounted and reached for the canteen he had picked up off the body of a dead man lying by the side of the road. Taking off his hat, he poured what little water there was left into it, and set his hat on the ground for the poor horse. He looked back over his shoulder. Du Ponceau was slowly trailing be
hind, joined by Vogel, who had been thoroughly shaken when a spent musket ball had struck him in the back, perhaps cracking one of his ribs. The poor man was petrified by the experience, and no matter how many times he and Du Ponceau had reassured him that the round had not penetrated and that there was no blood, Vogel kept reaching nervously back, expecting to find a hole.

There was a moment of fear as he watched the two approach. Poor Azor was nowhere to be found. Then at last he saw his beloved companion, who was engaged in his first battle and not doing all that well, slinking at times on his belly and yowling pitifully whenever a cannonball shrieked by…much to the amusement of the men that his owner had been rallying.