Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory (57 page)

But after thirty or more rounds it was nearly impossible to continue to fire the muskets. In the heat the barrels were so hot that men suffered second-degree burns if they touched the metal, skin peeling off and cooking. The sharp edges of flints had been worn smooth and in some cases were cracking and shattering.

In the high humidity, after every shot the heat of the powder ignited in the pan by the touch hole, and then, cooling, triggered condensation so that the pan became filled with a thick black sludge that had to be wiped clean after
every shot. Veterans knew to have a piece of rag tied around the strap of their cartridge box, using it to wipe the pan clean and clean the facing of the flint as well. In their excitement, though, more than one man would run his finger across the flint, pressing down too hard, and receive a painful cut that often sliced to the bone.

Musket balls, sized only three-hundredths of an inch smaller than the barrels, no longer could be dropped down smoothly. After ten to fifteen shots a man would have to lean into his steel ramrod to force the round down. Now, after twenty-five to thirty, the task was nearly impossible, the rounds having to be hammered down with repeated blows. With the extreme heat and sparks lingering in the barrels, more than one man lost fingers and even a hand when his musket fired prematurely. If he did not seat the bullet firmly but left it lodged in the middle of the barrel, at times the gun barrel would explode.

Men began to cast aside their own muskets, picking up those from men who had been wounded or killed early on, or men who had fainted or dropped their weapons and fled.

Sergeants began to pull men off the line, several at a time, and as women brought up fresh canteens of water, the precious fluid, rather than going down parched throats, was instead poured down barrels, the weapons so hot that water flashed to steam, gurgled and boiled as it trickled in a black sludge out of the touch hole by the pan. Some men tried to urinate down the barrels. But only a few could do so—the heat was so intense and they had sweated so profusely that they had nothing within them to give. A couple of men, attempting this delicate maneuver, simply burned themselves and hopped about in anguish, triggering gales of ribald laughter especially from the women staggering by, carrying the canteens and ammunition boxes and helping with the wounded. Bits of rag were wrapped around ramrods and forced down the barrels to try to clear them.

Within many of the regiments, less than half of the muskets—in some cases only a third—were still firing.

Washington could sense the fire slackening from the enemy side as well. Now was the most crucial of moments, something von Steuben had talked about in training exercises with him and officers of his staff and the various brigades, but which they never had time to drill for. Regiments were going to have to be pulled from the volley line and filed to the rear, where they could clean weapons and rest for a few minutes, have all canteens refilled, and be sent back in.

Wayne and others had questioned why they could not just “leap frog” the depleted regiments back, but von Steuben had been vehement in his reply.

“First, at such a moment, if men are told to retire, it might turn into a rout, and when they hit the reserve line, they might rout as well.”

Wayne had sensed that the German was not telling the whole truth; that, at least in this army, until far better trained, if exhausted men were ordered to retire, they might very well bolt and run, taking the reserves with them.

“Second, under cover of intense musket fire and smoke, if one regiment is filed out and another placed into action with little or no interruption, it will shake the enemy’s heart. For suddenly our fire will redouble while they are exhausted, and their morale will be shaken.”

All had nodded in agreement with that point, having experienced it from the receiving end—when, out of the clouds of smoke, sharp fresh volleys ignited. If any of their own men were still hanging on, that was usually the moment they broke.

The British were already trading off regiments from their reserve, but at least from their vantage point farther up the slope, the Americans could glimpse what was being done, officers shouting reassurances to their own men to hold on and continue to pour it in.

Washington turned and rode back to where the reserve lines waited, concealed a hundred yards behind the slope. They were men formerly of Lee’s command, now under Lafayette.

All they needed was his motion waving his sword and pointing forward. The young general did not need verbal orders. Men who had run earlier in the day stood up and began to advance, muskets shouldered high. At the sight of their general pointing the way they began to cheer.

Von Steuben, on foot, was out front as well, red-faced, gasping for air, but gamely leading the men forward, shouting at them in what they could only guess were the foulest of German oaths.

Washington rode up to von Steuben and leaned over and extended his hand, which von Steuben grasped.

“God bless you this day, sir!” Washington cried. “It is working. By God, it is working thanks to you!”

“Jawohl, mein General!”

And from the right there came a startling sound, which caused his heart to leap for a moment, but then he broke into the broadest of grins. Knox’s artillery was opening up. A full battery of six-pounders positioned at a right angle to the enemy line was pouring down solid shot and grape from the crest of Combs Hill.

“Feed it to them, damn them!” he cried. “Feed it to them!”

“My God, what the hell is that?” Captain André cried, turning to his left. In the confusion and smoke of the battle directly to his front, neither Allen nor he had paid much attention to anything happening elsewhere.

Their men, hunkered down behind a hedgerow, were curled up into the narrow shade offered under the blazing early afternoon sun. They had found a brackish creek, dragging bleeding bodies and the half-drowned wounded of both sides out of it and, under John’s strict orders, not harming the enemy wounded, before filling their canteens with the muddy water.

Ammunition had finally been brought up, corporals and sergeants smashing open the boxes and going down the line, passing out cartridges. Several of the light infantrymen died while in the shade, already too far gone from the heat. More than a few were in the throes of sunstroke, vomiting, shaking, their comrades stripping them down and forcing them into the muddy water to try to cool their bodies.

Allen, to the mocking disdain of more than a few of his British comrades while his back was turned, was taking canteens from the American wounded, going down to the filthy creek to refill them, and returning them, helping more than one man to sit up so he could drink.

“You one of them?” a man, shot in the stomach, gasped.

“Yes.”

“You sound Jersey to me.”

“I am. From Trenton. And you?’

“Springfield, damn your soul.” The dying man pushed the canteen away from his lips. Allen lowered his head, put the canteen by the man’s side, and went on to help the next man.

General Grey was nowhere to be seen or found, having gone forward with the Grenadier that had been assigned to his division, leaving the light infantry behind to recuperate from their morning exertions.

As the heavy lines of Grenadiers and Guards and the serried ranks of infantry had swept forward, Allen half expected that within minutes the battle would hit its climax and then sweep on. He dreaded the thought that he and the men he was with would be thrown back into the fight.

But the volley and countervolleys had thundered on for more than an hour. Men had cheered as the Forty-second, the legendary Black Watch, attempted a charge on the center, followed minutes later farther to the right by the Coldstream, supported en echelon by the Twenty-third. To the stunned disbelief of all watching, these troops had been repulsed from the low crest.

Men by the hundreds were now pouring back from the volley line. Dragoons had begun to ride back and forth behind the line, shouting at the men to “show blood to pass,” and many were indeed wounded, reaching the creek bed where the light infantry rested and collapsing. Increasingly, though, they were men just simply exhausted and played out beyond caring. They could be flogged, beaten, threatened with the point of a sword or a cocked pistol and still they staggered on, or just simply collapsed. The reserve position was filling up with men dead or dying from the heat.

And now something was happening to the left.

Allen was helping an elderly man from, of all places, Bordentown, just down the road from where he lived. He was a distant kinsman of Elizabeth’s. Using a discarded saber and blanket to fashion an awning to keep the sun off the man’s face, Allen stood up to see what André was shouting about.

Through the clouds of smoke he could see brilliant flashes, followed a few seconds later by a howling clattering noise.

“Grapeshot into our flank!” André cried. “God damn them, how did they get those guns there?”

There was another volley from the battery and Allen could see shadows of movement in the ranks of heavy infantry.

They were beginning to fall back!

Those British light infantrymen still capable of action began to stand up. They were spectators witnessing a drama, but they knew they were about to be called back onto the stage.

Most of them had already cleaned their muskets, but many now resumed the task, dipping strips of rags into the muddy water, wrapping them tightly around their ramrods, and forcing them down the barrels to swab them clean. This was followed by a dry piece of rag to make sure the barrels were dry. Frizzens, pans, and flints were wiped clean. Though shaken, these men were far from ready to quit this fight, Allen realized.

Sergeants shouted orders for the light infantry to stand to at proper intervals and be ready, those too sick to fight and the wounded to make their own way to the rear. Wounded light infantry struggled to their feet, more than a few terrified of the fate that might befall them if taken prisoner, especially by Mad Anthony’s men.

And now the flood hit them. By the hundreds, line regiments with glorious names were falling back, most moving in some semblance of order, stopping every fifty paces or so to deliver a ragged volley, regimental pride formed across generations preventing them from fully breaking even now, as artillery
fire from the flank plowed into their ranks. A single shot could bowl over four, six, even eight to ten men into a bloodied, tangled mass.

“My light infantry!”

Allen looked up. It was Grey on the road, General Clinton by his side.

“Men. We will hold them here while the main body retires!”

Grey pushed his mount, barely able to walk, blood streaming from wounds to its right thigh and rear quarter, off the road and down into the narrow creek bed.

“We will hold them here as the main body retires!”

Never had he given such an order before! Always it had been for the light infantry to charge at the double-quick, “in and after them now, my lads, and show no mercy!”

But not now, not in this blinding heat and frightful cross fire pouring down from the hill to their right, and a resurging rattle of volley fire to their front.

“You said, earlier?”

Allen felt a hand on his shoulder. It was André.

Allen could not reply.

“Just remember, my friend. Never remind a general of a mistake you warned him about earlier. Bad form, you know, and not good for promotion.”

André forced a smile and, with drawn sword, left him to go down the line.

“Now, men. Now!”

He was not sure who shouted the command, but it filled Peter’s heart with a savage joy. He believed what was happening, for his own eyes told him so, and yet he found it nearly impossible to believe.

Four, maybe six hours ago he had seen his army, his comrades, behave as they had in half a dozen other stand-up fights. They had advanced with courage, but then within minutes were beaten down by the unrelenting volleys of the enemy, broken and demoralized. A cry would go up to retreat and it would turn to a rout. The victories at Trenton and Princeton had, in the first case, been won by total surprise and, in the second case as well, by a surprise and then a mad rush of desperate men closing with the enemy before the British musketry delivered in disciplined fire could tear them apart.

But now, this afternoon? It had been like witnessing a holy miracle. This time it was the disciplined, trained volley fire of his comrades, firing again and again and again, under a sun that was like the furnace of hell, that broke the enemy apart in an open-field fight…until, at last, their flank had been
gained, just as von Steuben had promised it could be if they held the center. American artillery on that flank had done the rest.

The British were falling back and in places were actually trying to run, though run could hardly be the word for it. Both sides were exhausted, but the British far more so, burdened by their heavy uniforms, packs, and equipment. By the score they were throwing away their muskets, or just simply collapsing in the heat.

His men had filed in to replace the men of a Massachusetts brigade, their advance greeted with hoarse, croaking cheers. The tough men of the Bay Colony then stepped back, collapsing into the tamped-down hay, those still capable of any effort helping others to clean muskets, replace flints, taking canteens and passing them to the women with the regiment. In the case of a brother, son, or father, they were given permission to help carry their kin back to a safe place before returning.