Patriots (69 page)

Mary Hays (Molly Pitcher) replacing her fallen husband

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

W
ILLIAM
H
OWE
had wanted to resign his command soon after the British surrender at Saratoga. He was eager to get back to London and defend himself against growing criticism that he had been passive and inept. A London newspaper, commenting on the inconclusive battle at Germantown, had noted, “
Any other general in the world than General Howe would have beaten General Washington, and any other general in the world than General Washington would have beaten General Howe.”

As he waited for his resignation to be accepted, Howe indulged himself and his men with a winter given entirely to pleasure. He took a large mansion in Philadelphia, consorted openly with Mrs. Loring and was an indefatigable presence at the nightly concerts and balls. His officers took their cue from him, playing dice and piquet and pursuing the willing Tory daughters of the town. In London,
George III railed that Howe had never been
fierce enough in attack, that he had shown more cruelty by prolonging the war than if he had acted vigorously to end it. When Benjamin Franklin was asked in France whether it was true that General Howe had taken Philadelphia, he answered that it would be truer to say that Philadelphia had taken General Howe.

Howe’s indifference to waging war had made him far more popular with his men than with the ministers in London, and when his orders to return home arrived his officers planned a farewell extravaganza worthy of his appetites. They called their fete the Mischianza—Italian for a medley. To make it truly spectacular, they turned to John André, a twenty-six-year-old British captain known for his talents in music, poetry and drama.

André had been born in London to a Swiss father. The boy had studied at the University of Geneva, where he mastered German, French and Italian and developed a flair for drawing. By the time his father died, André had grown into a handsome and charming youth, and he bought a commission in Britain’s Seventh Foot Regiment. He had been captured in 1775 during the Canadian campaign, but, after fourteen months of house arrest, he was freed in a prisoner exchange and went to join William Howe at his headquarters.

There Captain André paid playful court to the young daughters of rich loyalists. He composed witty love poems and drew pencil sketches of them with their hair swept high. A favorite subject was Peggy Shippen, who was almost eighteen and the treasure of her Tory father. As the night of the Mischianza drew nearer, she and her sisters consulted often with André about her costume and coiffure.

There was, however, another side to John André that the society women of Philadelphia had not seen. He was an ambitious soldier who could be as ruthless as his ambition demanded. During his captivity, he had come to loathe the rebel soldiers and the civilian patriots who pelted British prisoners of war with filth from the streets and forced them to smell a hatchet that they promised would split their skulls the next day. Since his release, André had had a chance for revenge when he served as an aide to Major General Charles Grey. A ruthless professional with greater enthusiasm than William Howe’s for blood and suffering, Grey had been ordered at Brandywine to exterminate a band of American snipers commanded by Anthony Wayne at a camp near Paoli, Pennsylvania.
Before the attack, Grey told his soldiers to remove the flints from their muskets, which meant they couldn’t fire but could only bayonet the Americans or club them to death with the butts of their weapons. Grey also warned his men that prisoners were only a burden. Captain André recorded in his journal the scene that followed. The British surprised Wayne’s men, bayonetting them even as they surrendered and then striding through the wounded and stabbing them to death. There were also accounts of British officers slicing off the faces of the Americans with their swords. Wayne himself escaped.

At André’s Mischianza, all memories of brutality would be banished. He had taken his theme from the
Arabian Nights.
Fourteen of Philadelphia’s loveliest young women were to be dressed in white silk gowns with long sleeves. They would wear gauze turbans spangled and edged with gold or silver, and their veils would hang to the waist. Their sashes were being trimmed in colors to match those of the knights who would escort them. The Knights of the Blended Rose favored silver and pink satin, the Knights of the Burning Mountain orange and black. The competing knights would stage a joust to determine which of their ladies were fairer.

All went much as John André had planned it, except that at the last minute a delegation of Quakers convinced Edward Shippen that the ball was tasteless, even improper. Usually Peggy Shippen could depend on a tantrum to sway her father, but this time he couldn’t be moved and withdrew his three daughters from the revels. A British officer called for the dresses so that other young women could wear them and preserve the symmetry of Captain André’s vision.

Even without the Shippen girls, the ball was a triumph. After the mock joust fought on gray chargers, knights and their ladies adjourned to a hall for dancing. At 10
P.M.
the windows were opened and the audience gasped at twenty firework displays designed by Captain Montresor, the chief British engineer. At midnight, supper was announced in a room set off by artificial flowers of green silk tied to a hundred branches, each lighted by three candles. Another three hundred candles lined the supper tables, where twelve courses were served by twenty-four marines, faces painted black and dressed as Nubian slaves. They wore silver collars and bracelets and bowed to the ground when William Howe approached.

In the midst of the dining and the toasts, an explosion echoed through the hall. Captain André reassured the guests that it had been more of Montresor’s magic, a bit of thunder to trouble the sleep of the rebels at Valley Forge. In fact the blast had come from a supply depot at Germantown, where a few
American raiders had slipped inside and blown up the ammunition. But in Philadelphia John André was letting nothing mar his Mischianza, and the dancing went on until 4
A.M.

—

William Howe, John Burgoyne and Henry Clinton had sailed across the Atlantic together to save America for England. Now, after delay and defeats, the job had fallen to Clinton alone. It was a responsibility he had tried to avoid; he considered it a hopeless command for a professional soldier. But London couldn’t persuade any better-qualified general to take on the assignment.

Clinton’s first order was to evacuate Philadelphia and return the army to New York. With France and her navy entering the war, London decided to protect Britain’s lucrative trade with the West Indies. Clinton’s new command would have to supply a third of the troops for that assignment, and he was ordered to consolidate his forces in New York by pulling out of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. He was instructed to abandon New York if necessary and withdraw to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and ultimately even to Quebec. Those orders forced Henry Clinton into the same defensive posture he had deplored when he was urging action on William Howe.

Meanwhile, Britain had sent commissioners to America empowered to offer every concession short of independence. The British might have even accepted independence so long as the king could avoid the appearance of total capitulation. But the members of Congress didn’t know that and refused to entertain the proposals. While the commissioners prepared to leave Philadelphia with Clinton’s forces, they unwittingly alerted General Washington to the British timetable. A laundrywoman’s son sneaked out to the American camp to say that some civilians had demanded that his mother have their laundry ready by June 16. Washington convened his council the next day to decide how to respond.

By spring, the men at Valley Forge were no longer a tattered camp in rags. Steuben had instilled discipline, and a successful raid
on two British supply vessels had outfitted the American soldiers in woolen uniforms of red, gray and green. During the months of waiting, officers had opened a theater and put on classic dramas and light comedy; George and Martha Washington were its leading patrons. Life at Valley Forge was no Mischianza, but morale was high and the men were restless to break camp and get on with the fighting.

That mood did not extend to Charles Lee. His time with the British in New York had convinced him that the best solution was a prompt peace and reconciliation with England. He was the only one of Washington’s generals to urge that Henry Clinton be allowed to retreat from Philadelphia unmolested. Both Lafayette and Anthony Wayne argued so vehemently against him that Washington had to calm their tempers by asking each council member to submit his opinion in writing.

But the British were moving too fast to permit more deliberation. Henry Clinton had only two choices. One was to send his troops to New York by ship. But that could be disastrous if the winds delayed him, because the Americans could march overland to New York and be there to greet him. Instead, Clinton decided to load his ships with American loyalists, who were clamoring to be saved from retribution when the patriots retook Philadelphia. Clinton also sent by ship the Hessians who might desert if he marched them through the countryside. Then he lined up everyone else with the baggage and set off on a march to New York. At midmorning on June 18, 1778, American horsemen rode into Valley Forge to say that the British were entirely gone from Philadelphia.

General Washington acted on impulse. Without consulting his council of war, he ordered his eleven thousand men to prepare at once for pursuit. Clinton had crossed the Delaware River below Camden and was marching north toward New York. Washington planned to cross the river at Coryell’s Ferry, move directly east and cut off the British somewhere in New Jersey.

Washington left behind Benedict Arnold, who was still recovering from his wounds, as military governor of Philadelphia. Entering the town, American horsemen rode through in triumph, their swords drawn against the British soldiers who had decamped. Buildings in the center of town had not been badly damaged by the winter’s occupation, although some had been turned into
stables and stank so badly that Henry Knox sent his wife back to Valley Forge. The Congress returned from York and convened in College Hall because the State House was too filthy to meet there. The biggest change was the British styles adopted by the loyalists—broad-brimmed hats for men, women’s hair piled higher than a neck seemed able to support. One prostitute known to have slept with British soldiers still wore her hair in that upsweep—perhaps three feet high—and she was paraded through the streets in a parody of the Mischianza.

—

Henry Clinton and his troops were progressing so slowly that Washington wondered whether he was being lured into a trap on the high ground around Morristown. On June 24, with the sun in another eclipse, Washington met with his council. Charles Lee, who talked more than anyone else, argued that getting rid of the British was so much in the American interest that the Continental Army could justify building a bridge of gold to speed them along. The majority of the generals agreed that Washington should avoid a major battle, although his stalwarts—Wayne and Lafayette, Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox—voted to challenge Clinton’s forces before they reached New York. Young Alexander Hamilton, never one to favor caution, complained afterward that the council’s proceedings would have done honor to a group of midwives.

Washington had been criticized for yielding to men less able than he was, and now he seemed ready to do it again. He struck a compromise. He would dispatch fifteen hundred men to annoy the British during their retreat. Hamilton thought such a small force could be only provocative; Lee opposed sending even that many. When his fifteen hundred soldiers had barely gone, Washington, who had also been called indecisive, reinforced them with another thousand men.

But Charles Lee was also being irresolute. His seniority ranked second only to Washington, and military protocol demanded that he be offered the honor of leading the charge, even though he had strenuously opposed it. It looked at first as though Lee would ease Washington’s dilemma by agreeing that the command should go to a young and eager officer like Lafayette. But before the orders could be issued, Lee reconsidered. If the battle turned out to be
a major one, it might look odd that he had refused a role. Lee’s argument with himself took hours, and Washington grew impatient. But Lee was worrying over his honor, and that was one consideration General Washington would not challenge. Washington patched together another compromise: Lafayette could strike first, then Lee would take charge as the senior major general. The best intelligence told him that Clinton had lengthened his lead in marching from Allentown to Monmouth Court House and might soon be out of reach.

The summer weather was sweltering, and mosquitoes swarmed over both armies. On Saturday, June 27, 1778, rain drenched the roads but didn’t bring down the temperature from nearly 100 degrees. By now General Washington had split his forces—five thousand men were committed to the first attack under Lee, while Washington tried to bring up the main army to support Lee’s charge. There was the usual welter of missed communications and vague instructions, but Lee’s orders were clear: the minute Clinton moved his camp from Monmouth Court House, Lee was to attack the British rear guard.

The rear ranks ordinarily provided a tempting target. Although Clinton had sent much of his provisions by ship, his troops were encumbered by fifteen hundred wagons of equipment and boats, and goods looted along the route. The wagon train stretched out behind him twelve miles, and though Clinton had tried to limit camp followers to two for each company, scores of women had defied his orders and joined the march. When Clinton learned that the Americans were coming after him, he moved the baggage train to the center of the march and moved his best troops to the rear.

Such foresight was not typical of Charles Lee. Washington announced at noon on June 27 that the army would strike early the next morning. He then deferred modestly to his colleagues, asking all officers to waive any consideration of rank for this vital battle and put themselves entirely under the charge of General Lee. Washington also called on Lee to meet with his officers that afternoon to plan their attack. Lee held a meeting, but it was brief because, he said, he could have no plans when he didn’t know General Clinton’s intentions.