The Glorious Cause (37 page)

Vergennes met his eyes for the first time, and Franklin saw regret, a hint of sadness. So, it may not have been your decision, you may not have agreed. But you had no choice, you have made it official. The king of France now believes an alliance is unwise. He took a deep breath. No anger, be careful. You must still do your job.

“Your Excellency, forgive me, but I detect a hesitation in Your Excellency’s words, something I have not heard before. Surely, His Majesty King Louis is aware still that an alliance between France and America will benefit both. The alternative is a tragedy that will destroy not only my country, but my people. If no one will support our struggle, if there is no hope that America can survive as an independent nation, our only recourse is a treaty with England. Regardless of how ruinous such a treaty is to my country, it will certainly be of great distress to France. England reunited with America will be a force that no other nation may hope to rival.” He sat back then, saw somber faces on both men. “It was not so long ago that France was compelled to yield to English might. King Louis might fear a return to those days. I assure His Majesty, as I assure anyone who hears my words. Unless America survives, France will always be at the mercy of English domination.”

He was exhausted, had not come to this meeting expecting such a change in French attitude. The smile was gone from Gerard’s face, who looked at Vergennes, then said, “Doctor, we are not so far removed from America that we do not feel its despair. But you are aware that if France enters a formal alliance with your country, it will commence a state of war between France and England. If America is defeated in battle, then King George will be free to use all of his resources against our valuable islands in the West Indies, and against France herself. His Majesty must weigh the risks. He must make wise alliances. King George has already done so. He has secured the service of the Hessians, the Anspachers, Waldeckians, Brunswickers, all who support England in her campaign. You see, Doctor, it is not merely a war against England that we risk.”

Franklin was fighting the anger, a hard effort to hold in his words. How can you toss out such feeble excuses for backing away from the alliance? He looked at Vergennes, knew that Gerard was only filling the empty space in the conversation, that Vergennes would ultimately be the only voice that would have weight with the king.

“Your Excellency, so much has already been done, so much of a foundation already laid. I had thought we were so very close, that the formal alliance was itself more ceremony than meaning.”

He knew he was oversimplifying, but he wanted Vergennes to say it, to make plain what the king’s position was. The old man responded.

“Doctor, without a formal alliance, France is still removed from the conflict. His Majesty has provided no soldiers, no warships. A formal alliance is a line that once crossed, cannot be undone.”

“Your Excellency, I hear the words, I appreciate the exercise in diplomacy.” He held back the words, fought his own frustration, saw the grim stare from Vergennes. “Your Excellency, I do not wish to offend, but I am fighting for my nation’s existence. Surely, Your Excellency would grant me the kindness to plead my position with honesty. France has an opportunity to lead the rest of Europe in an alliance against the greatest military power that none of you are able to defeat alone. You mention the Germanic lands, as though you fear monarchs whose only power is the gold they find by selling their citizens into military slavery. Such men are not to be feared, because they do not have the support of their own people. If I did not believe that, I would not be an American. Any despot who enriches himself at the expense of his people is not to be feared. He is to be reviled. Does Your Excellency require evidence of this? What of King Frederick of Prussia, who will not allow the Hessian troops to cross his soil, to use his ports? What of the Dutch, the Danes, what of Catherine of Russia? King George sought alliances with all of them, and was completely rebuffed. No one benefits from a powerful England. And if France does not assist us, if you turn away from this alliance, England may well maintain her power over my country. And, over yours.”

He felt sweat in his clothes, realized his hands were shaking. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he tried to focus the fog in his eyes, said quietly, “Your Excellency, my country is in desperate straits.”

His voice was shaking, and Temple put a hand on his shoulder now, said, “Grandfather . . . ?”

Franklin touched the young man’s hand, nodded slowly, said quietly, “It’s all right.”

Vergennes was watching him intently, and Franklin saw concern on the man’s face.

“I apologize for my impudence, Your Excellency.”

Vergennes started to speak, stopped, seemed to weigh his words.

“Doctor, I do not fault you for your passion. If we have witnessed one remarkable result of your conflict, it is the passion of your people for your cause. Do not be concerned. There is no offense taken in this room. But, Doctor, these words will remain
in this room
. His Majesty is very clear. France will not start a war by allying herself with a cause that is already drowning in defeat. If your cause can be achieved, France will gladly become your ally. We will do more than offer you arms and gold. But no nation will respect your independence until you demonstrate that your independence can be achieved.”

“Your Excellency is saying that France will assist us when we prove we no longer require your assistance.”

He stood slowly, Temple reacting quickly, helping him up. He steadied himself against the table, saw a sad resignation on Vergennes’ face.

“Doctor, I must serve my king.”

The meeting was over, and Franklin felt Temple holding him, guiding him to the door. The escort was waiting for them outside, and Franklin began to find his strength again, his legs more steady. He tapped his grandson’s arm, said quietly, “It’s all right. I can walk.”

They moved into the grand hall, and Franklin felt the lush carpet under his sore feet, was grateful for the one bit of luxury. The soldiers led them out slowly, the walk much longer than he remembered. They moved past the artwork, the porcelain and silk, and he ignored it all, focused on the floor in front of him, the slow march of the men who would lead him outside. His mind was already drifting toward Passy, to the gardens, the quiet, the solitude of his office. It is where a man goes to retire, he thought. Perhaps I will stay here, after all. I may not have the strength to go home, another difficult voyage. He thought of his sister now, fragile Jane, a woman of enormous sadness, relying so on her famous brother for survival. I hope you are safe, my dear. And Sally. At least my grandsons are with me, out of harm’s way.

Then he could see the sunlight, blue sky, the soldiers standing aside. He searched for his carriage, tried to pick out the one from a long row of carriages, thought, So many visitors, all the business of government, all those who preen and fawn before their king.

Temple was out ahead of him, the young man saying something to a driver. Franklin blinked against the brightness of the sun, thought, His eyes are sharper than mine. Good to have him along. I should tell him that. He started to say something to the young man, realized that Temple was farther away, directing the carriage out of the line, and he thought, I suppose it can wait. I had so hoped this would be a good experience for him, that his grandfather could show off a bit, perhaps impress this boy with all my vast skills at diplomacy. Instead, he will recall that I groveled to them. Begged. I should be ashamed.

The carriage was close, and Temple was beside him again, helping him as he climbed slowly up. Temple was in quickly, and Franklin felt the young man’s hand tugging at his coat, sealing him against the cold. He wanted to apologize, try to ease Temple’s disappointment, tried to put the words together, and Temple said, “I wish I could tell them . . . the congress, I mean. I wish I could tell them how you stood up to the French. The whole country should know.”

D
ECEMBER 4, 1777

The ship came from Boston, had escaped the dangerous net the British navy had spread throughout the North Atlantic. Though the passengers were few, one man disembarked with serious purpose, and found the fastest means to reach Paris. His name was Jonathan Loring Austin, a Massachusetts attorney, schooled by the hand of John Adams. Austin made his way to Passy with one mission, to deliver the news to the American commissioners. The word had already reached every corner of the thirteen states, was still celebrated from barrooms and offices to the camps of soldiers. Burgoyne’s entire army had been defeated, and over five thousand British and Hessian troops had surrendered at Saratoga.

Within hours, all of Paris had heard the news. Franklin waited at Passy with renewed patience, hoped that word of the astounding American victory would bring a change in the attitude of King Louis. He was not disappointed. Within two days, Gerard came to Passy carrying Vergennes’ message of congratulations. Within a week, the foreign ministry was inviting the American envoys to present another proposal for an alliance, which Franklin sent by the hand of his grandson. In another week, Vergennes met Franklin, Deane, and Lee with the news that the government of France had sent envoys to King Charles of Spain. If Spain agreed to join France in declaring war on England, then both nations would form an official alliance with the United States of America. Franklin’s cautious enthusiasm gave way to a new despair. King Louis, whose lust for high-stakes gambling was legendary, was hedging his bets. Though the cheering for the American victory still rolled through the streets of Paris, at Versailles, the French court would only risk a war if total victory was a safe bet.

27. WASHINGTON

V
ALLEY
F
ORGE,
P
ENNSYLVANIA,
J
ANUARY 1778

For days, the rhythmic sound of axes rolled over the plateau, the forests below teeming with men who knew only one duty now. They had begun their winter camps by sleeping in the ragged canvas tents, but Washington knew that canvas would shield no one from winter. If the army was to subsist and survive in a winter quarter, they would have to build solid structures. The ground had been chosen with the vast stretches of woods in mind, and no one complained when the tools were handed out. Already the snow had covered the plateau where the cabins would be built, and already sick men were filling the nearby farmhouses, the health of the army decaying. Each day, fewer men were able to answer the call to duty, fewer men made the difficult trek down into the trees, fewer men had the strength to haul the stout logs up to the heights of the camp.

He had begged the congress to secure horses and wagons, and neither had appeared. Washington watched as the men formed their own teams, wrapping themselves in leather harnesses, straining with hard groans as they pulled the cut timbers up the hill. On the plateau itself, men with some training in carpentry guided the others, notching the logs, each cabin rising slowly as the timbers were set upon each other. Stiff red hands worked frozen mud and clay, filling the gaps in the logs, sealing out the cold. As the walls grew higher, the men worked from the inside out, seeking protection from the sharp wind. Washington had hoped they would find some ingenious method of building a roof, something more weatherproof than thatched sticks and muddy grass. But once the doors were built, slabs of split oak, a dozen men could finally huddle inside, protected against the hard freezing wind. The grassy, porous roofs would have to do.

Each cabin had a chimney to vent the choking smoke from a variety of crude hearths. The men who had some experience with brick making or masonry, or some skill with molding clay, could construct an efficient escape for the smoke from their blessed fires. Others relied on wooden chimneys and fireboxes caked thick with mud to make them fireproof.

Inside, the snow and grass beneath their feet was trampled down to wet bare dirt that would become the floor of each cabin. As the cabins filled with men, the wetness of the bare earthen floors rose up to swallow them in a soft cauldron of sickness. Though the fires in the crude hearths would eventually dry the ground, the cold still seeped in, and the troops scoured the countryside for straw, for any kind of ground cover. But the barns had been stripped clean of hay, the feed so desperately needed for livestock. What straw could be found was soon matted and worn, but it could not be replaced, and so even when soiled, it could not be discarded. Soon, mold and filth was all that remained, and many of the men found that their only protection against the earth beneath them was the clothing on their backs.

They were still soldiers, and the camp was still the vulnerable home of an army whose enemy was barely twenty miles away, and so the official duties would continue. Provosts and lookouts and pickets were still posted, guarding against a sudden assault by the enemy, or keeping watch on those who might attempt to desert. Washington could not stop the desertions, of course, knew that any man who feels a festering passion for going home will somehow find the means of escaping the army. They would leave mostly at night, some slipping away from the outposts, some from the cabins themselves. Many would not go far before the cold and snow and their own wretched weakness would drag them down, some freezing to death in the roadways, found by patrols the next day. Others would never be found, would stumble into gullies deep with soft snow, swallowed up by the frozen misery they were so desperate to escape.

Despite the loss of numbers, Washington had begun to detect some new form of camaraderie. Each cabin was its own small community, and when one man did not return from his night watch, the others would make good use of the small bit of vacant space while cursing the man’s weakness. It was rarely infectious, a man’s desperate escape regarded more as a tragedy. It was better to learn a man’s character now, in the camp, than on the line when you might have desperate need for his musket. The men who kept to their duty understood that a deserter was less likely to find his way home than to suffer a lonely death. There was simply nowhere to go, no place close enough to offer sanctuary where a man could find any better protection against the weather than the cabins at Valley Forge.

Few had coats, and the shoes that were still serviceable could not stand up to the constant freezing and thawing that came with the daily routine. Most of the men had worn through their pants and shirts, many could only wrap themselves in what remained of blankets. In each cabin, the man whose lot it was to make the march to the frozen outpost would be dressed by the men around him, each man contributing some small bit of protection, anything that might help their comrade survive the watch.

Despite the hard winter, despite the blasts of wind that swirled the snow, in a few short weeks, what had once been a bare grassy plateau cut by a few ravines, was now a town. Washington’s army had constructed more than a thousand wooden structures, great long rows of cabins spread out over a camp that was nearly two miles long.

Washington made a daily inspection, rode along the trampled snow-packed lanes, through great clouds of black smoke from the low chimneys. The men had built cabins for more than just their own quarters, and beyond the rows of barracks were other structures, a blacksmith shop, supply sheds. There were larger cabins as well, what had quickly become vastly overflowing hospitals.

More than a year ago he had ordered the army to construct a central hospital facility in the small Moravian town of Bethlehem, a means of bringing together as many doctors and other volunteers whose sole duty was the care of the sick and wounded. But Bethlehem was fifty miles from Valley Forge, and unless a man was suffering from smallpox, or some other ailment that might endanger the entire camp, it was impractical to risk such lengthy transport. The tragic alternative was the structures they had built at Valley Forge, and very soon the hospital cabins were places to be avoided, the source of nightmarish stories of fever and dysentery, of men dying in their own filth. But avoiding the hospitals did not always erase the horror, and the awful sounds would echo across the snowy fields, the screams of men who suffered the amputation of frostbitten or infected limbs.

The numbers of sick were still growing, nearly a third of his army was suffering some serious illness, and another third were huddled in their cabins with the ailments that stripped them of any ability to fight. The men who were excused from duty found that the shelters could cause problems of their own. Sealed up in their cabins, their eyes and lungs would suffer from the stifling dry heat of the wood fires, eyes and lungs burnt with smoke. But to escape the cabins meant exposure, hands and fingers split, feet swollen into lameness. As he heard and endured the suffering of his men, Washington was grateful that Howe was so fond of quiet winters, would make no attempt to interrupt the comfort of the British troops. Eleven thousand men had moved into Valley Forge, but Washington knew that on any given day, fewer than three thousand could have put up any kind of fight.

While so many of his men had worked on the cabins, others had been busy with the shovel, digging entrenchments and redoubts, earthworks along the roads that gave access to the camp. There were inner lines as well as outer, the crucial necessity of having some good defensive line to fall back to. More often, he would ride out along the outer lines, heavy earthworks facing south and east, the roads that led to Philadelphia. Out past the works, the ground fell away, a long hill easily protected by artillery. As he rode along the far left flank, he could see the Schuylkill, and the new bridge just built by his men. It was constructed for the purpose of foraging, the most convenient means of sending wagons out to the north and west. But Washington knew that it was something else as well. Despite the strength of the ground, the stout defenses, if Howe did launch an attack, he might very well overwhelm any meager force Washington could summon. The bridge would be the army’s one avenue of escape.

The outposts and picket posts were few and scattered along the river itself, and served little purpose than to watch the far side, some sign of a British patrol perhaps. The plateau fell away to the river’s edge in a steep drop along much of the northern flank, and he stayed up on the flat roadway, would not risk the horse’s legs on a sharp slope of icy ground. The staff would be grateful; they were not the skilled rider that he was. He glanced behind him, saw Tilghman huddled in the saddle, his arms pulling tightly to his coat. Around his shoulders was draped a blanket, the man’s face barely visible. Washington stopped the horse, waited for the aides to come up, said, “We’re nearly done, gentlemen. I do not enjoy this duty any more than you, but as long as the men are suffering in our protection, we will pay our respects by observing them with the same decorum we would exhibit at headquarters.”

Tilghman emerged from his covering, removed the blanket, had received his subtle message. Washington spurred the horse, moved out again, could see the final picket post in front of them, saw the men coming together, muskets upright. Beyond the post, the ground fell away to the west, and he could see a lone column of smoke, rising from the chimney of his headquarters. He rode close to the pickets, stopped, could see one of the men bareheaded, thought, Not wise, then he saw the man’s feet, dark and red, and beneath them, the man’s hat, crushed flat, the only protection the man had against the icy ground. The site horrified him, and he said, “Have you no cover for your feet, soldier?”

The man began to speak, but the words were held back by a sudden wave of shivering. Beside him, a man said, “Have
you
, sir?”

There was no emotion in the man’s voice, no expectation of a reply. Washington avoided the sight of the man’s bare feet, scanned their muskets, saw no gloves, cracked and cut hands wrapped tightly around the dull wooden stocks of their weapons. He wanted to respond, we are trying, we are making every effort . . . but the words would not come, held away by the tightness in his throat. There could be no good answer after all, no anger toward the man, who only spoke what they all were feeling. He could not help but stare at the clothing, some of it barely there, one man’s legs naked from the knee down to the rags that wrapped his feet. There were remnants of blankets around some of them, large holes revealing the torn strips of a shirt, patches of filthy color, scraps of cloth that were never meant for clothing. Each man was looking at him, hollow black eyes, and he fought for the words, some response, something to comfort them.

“Your country is proud of you. Your sacrifice will be rewarded, so help me God.”

He moved the horse, was past them, heard no cheers, no grateful salutes to his concern. Is it a lie, after all? If our country is proud of what we do, why have they not provided? How can they allow their soldiers to suffer the nakedness, to go without the basic comforts, or worse, the basic necessities of survival. He could see the headquarters now, the house nestled down near the junction of the river and the Valley Creek. For a long while he had kept to his tent, would not move into the house until the cabins had been built, would not allow his men to suffer in their tents while their commander lived in comfort. The gesture had been appreciated by the troops, but down in York, the congress could only criticize, letters condemning him for putting his men into camp at all. He had read the protests with a hard grip on his temper, fat men in wool suits, tobacco and brandy, soft leather chairs, insisting that his army should attack, and attack again. It was the consequence of the success of Horatio Gates, the simpleminded assumptions that one man’s victory can so easily be achieved on every front. If Washington’s army failed to win, it was only because they failed to attack, the mindless strategy of men whose only knowledge of war is the inconvenience of hearing about it.

He eased the horse down the slippery roadway, saw a man emerging from the house, then another, Hamilton, pointing up toward him now. The first man was quickly up on his horse, and Washington thought, I will be there in a moment. What could be so urgent that you cannot wait?

The man rode unsteadily up toward him, the horse struggling in the deeper snow, and Washington did not stop, was feeling the chill himself that had so plagued Tilghman. He recognized the man now, Major Deere, the quartermaster department, one of Mifflin’s people, rarely seen in the field. The man turned the horse, moved beside him, and Washington simply looked at him, said nothing.

“Sir! I have some unfortunate news!”

Washington said nothing, thought, Certainly. Why else be in such haste?

“The wagons have arrived with the latest victuals. There is a problem, however. It seems that in an effort to, um, lighten their load, the drivers drained the brine from the barrels of pork. I am sorry to report, sir, that the meat has . . . spoiled, sir.”

Washington sagged in the saddle, said, “How much meat?”

“I regret . . . all of it, sir.”

He closed his eyes, his head down, could not feel anger. His mind was a sea of fog, no words at all, just one vision, the bare feet of the shivering soldier. For all the shortages, food had not yet been a problem, the one item that the quartermaster had seemed to secure. At least the men had been fed, and if it was not always what they hoped for, no one had yet gone hungry. Washington rode the horse into the yard of the headquarters, an aide emerging to take the reins. He climbed down, his boots sinking into soft snow. He moved slowly toward the door of the house, climbed the short steps. He passed the flag, the dark blue square dotted by white stars, held up in a soft flutter by the light breeze. The door was open now, Hamilton standing to one side, waiting for him. The smoky warmth rolled toward him, and he moved into the hall, turned into his office, was surprised, pleased to see Lafayette, the young man rising out of his chair. He expected the usual smile from the Frenchman, but Lafayette looked at him with a somber frown.