To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1 (14 page)

McConkey’s Ferry
7:30
P.M.
December 25, 1776

Unable to conceal his impatience, Washington stood up, abandoning the warmth of the fireplace, and left the tight-packed room. Several of his staff prepared to follow, and he looked back at them, shaking his head.

He stepped out into the storm.

The troops waiting before the ferry house were motionless, heads bent low against the storm, some muttering, some cursing, and mingled with the howling of the storm the sounds of incessant coughing, rattled breathing, men hawking and spitting and coughing again.

Benjamin Rush had warned him of this.

“One night out in bad weather now and I tell you, sir, half of the men will be down with inflammation of the lungs and die from it. Can you not find warm dry quarters anywhere and just give them a few days rest?”

No rest tonight, he thought grimly and felt a wave of pity as he walked along the side of the road, staying in the shadows, studying them intently.

Rush was right, most of them were indeed sick. Sick, emaciated, ragged, barefoot, shivering from the wet and cold. Even as he watched, one simply sat down in the mud and slush, head bent, shaking uncontrollably.

An officer standing near the collapsed soldier came to his side and knelt down, his words hard to hear.

“Come on, William, lad, back to your feet now.”

The officer put his arms around the soldier and tried to lift him up, but the boy just leaned against him as a dead weight.

“Sergeant Compton,” the officer sighed. “William here is finished. Find a dry place to put him and report back.”

The sergeant nearly picked the boy up and staggered off into the dark.

The officer saw Washington in the shadows and came to attention.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he announced nervously. “William is a good man, but his lungs have been really bad for days. We told him he could report sick, but he tried to come anyhow.”

Washington nodded.

“He and you tried your best. Carry on.”

The officer, obviously relieved that he would not face an upbraiding, turned away.

The unit was close-knit, perhaps the young soldier a nephew or neighbor before the war the way the officer had almost tenderly tried to rouse him.

Another boat was loaded and pushed off, and the suffering column staggered forward a dozen feet and then came to a stop again.

More muttering, cursing, and the incessant coughing the only sounds from those enduring agony and waiting.

He turned away, angling down to the riverbank, downstream from the ferry dock.

Yet another river. Across the years of peace after the last war he had ordered many of the best works from England on the art of war and read them at his leisure. At a moment like this it is almost too painful to recall quiet evenings on the porch of Mount Vernon looking over the broad expanse of the Potomac, often with Martha by his side in the next chair, sometimes sewing, often reading or catching up on her correspondence. Other times, late at night on winter evenings, sitting by a warm fire, the only sounds were the crackling of the blazing logs of hickory and chestnut and the soft gentle tick-tock deliberation of the clock in the corner gradually luring him to a comfortable nap in his chair, book falling to the floor by his side.

Books describing the great battles of the past, the campaigns of Marlborough, Frederick of Germany, and, farther back, Caesar. How Caesar in little more than a week bridged the mighty Rhine, four times as broad as this river, flung his legions across on a raid, and then, when it was completed, actually tore the bridge down. To have but one legion of those troops on this night, he thought wistfully.

There was no bridge here, though. There had been one on the Raritan less than a month ago, he remembered, and that had been a near disaster . . .

The Raritan Crossing, Brunswick, New Jersey
December 1, 1776

They had been harried since the break of a fog-shrouded dawn. Ever since the retreat from Newark his worst fear had been that Howe would fling a blocking force across the narrow strait dividing Staten Island from Jersey and push forward to block the single bridge and ferry dock at the Raritan River. His advance guard, however, had reported the way ahead was clear, and Greene had pushed his exhausted command forward to seize the crossing and prepare for the rest of the army to follow.

The bridge was secured, but by dawn and the resumption of the exhausting march, Hessian troops were upon their rear and pressing in. He feared that, as the Romans were trapped by Hannibal against the Po, his army would bunch up, with their backs to a river having only one crossing, and disintegrate in panic. Such a position was often described in the books he had read as the last day of an army, and the river by evening would be running red and choked with the bodies of the slain.

The cold fog shifted over to lowering clouds out of which came a cold drizzle, mixed with occasional flakes of snow and driving sleet. Riding alongside the column, he saw the men pressed on, not as they once had, with élan, eyes afire, believing some “mischief” as they called it, awaited them ahead. They shuffled along woodenly, moving fast, to be sure, but doing so with fear in their eyes, faces drawn and pinched from exhaustion and hunger, nervously looking over their shoulders. Passing woodlots bordering the road he could see tracks where more than one man had broken from the column and dashed into the woods. Some most likely had offered the usual excuse, that with the bloody flux running rampant in the army they had to relieve themselves, even though he had given specific orders that proprieties and modesty were to be forgotten; if a man was seized with such needs he could fall out by the side of the road but no farther. From the tracks he could see that few had returned to the march. Cowering in the woods, scores of men——perhaps hundreds——were breaking off from the column, never to return. They would wait until the armies had passed and then slip off for homes in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or the faraway frontier of Virginia.

The Raritan was not a large river at all. Though swollen by the early winter storms, it was still narrow enough that a bridge could span it and afford a dry crossing. Knox had arrayed a battery on the north side, guns dismounted, on a low rise just outside of the village of Brunswick. He rode up to him.

“Amazing, sir,” Knox exclaimed. “Yesterday, they could have sent just a few boats up this river from Staten Island, seized the bridge, and destroyed it.”

Washington said nothing, studying the narrow single-lane crossing, just wide enough for the artillery and the army’s few remaining supply wagons to get across.

Greene came up to join them.

“Sir, half my command is across. Your orders?”

“Good work. Deploy on the south bank and be ready to defend the crossing as the rest of the men get across. Knox, be ready to pull your guns out quickly and find some good ground on the south shore.”

There was the distant rattle of musketry. He turned about and headed north without waiting for a reply, followed only by Billy Lee.

Riding against the stream of the column he could see that the
men were picking up their pace. As always, the mud, the damnable mud, clung to them, caking the rags wrapped about their feet. One man, lucky enough to have shoes, suddenly stopped, cursing, pushing back against the current, the clinging sludge having sucked a shoe off his foot. He went down on his knees, feeling about, trying to find that precious shoe, men stumbling over him, the column bunching up.

“You there!” Washington cried. “Fall in and keep moving!”

“My shoe, sir!”

“Fall in and keep moving.”

The soldier shot him a defiant stare but then reluctantly gave up the search and fell in with the retreating ranks.

He felt a wave of pity for him in spite of the disruption he had caused, the knot of men who had been slowed untangling and resuming their pace. The loss of a shoe, if the temperature fell, might very well mean a frozen foot by tomorrow and amputation a week hence.

More musketry, and as he drew closer he could distinguish the sharp crackle of rifle fire. Our men or the Hessian’s mounted jaegers?

He was approaching the rear of the column, now bunched up, any semblance of unit cohesion, of anyone in command, gone. A wagon sat in the middle of the road, front axle snapped, sagging, team already cut loose, driver vanished. It was stacked with barrels stamped
SALT BEEF
, and his heart sank. There was no time to attempt to retrieve them. There were enough rations to feed a meal to a thousand men, but of so pitiful a condition the pursuing British troops most likely would scorn them and set them ablaze.

Men flowed around the wagon, not bothering to stop for a minute to bust a barrel open and fill their haversacks. With the enemy closing in from behind, they were too afraid.

“The bridge is just ahead, boys,” he repeated again and again.

The retreating column began to thin out. Stragglers were staggering with exhaustion, struggling to escape, looking back over their shoulders, eyes wide with fear. A wounded man, lean, tough-looking, blood dripping from his hand, answered his unasked question. “Sons
of bitches shot me, sir, but I got one of ’em, an officer from the looks of ’im” he announced coolly and pressed on.

Now a thin ragged line of riflemen, and in the center of the road a lone artillery piece, a four-pounder that suddenly fired, kicking back, mud spraying up under its wheels.

The gun was retreating by fire. A lone mule pulled the field piece by ropes attached to it, the crew working to reload as the driver urged the mule on with harsh prodding, several of the gunners pushing at the wheels.

He looked past the gun and could see the pursuers, jaegers, some mounted, others on foot. The flash from a rifle, a ball singing past, another flash, another bullet——they were obviously aiming at him. If musketmen, their aim would be a joke, but these jaegers were nearly as good as his own riflemen. On a calm dry day they were able to pick a man off at two hundred yards.

He ignored the threat.

The gunners finished with their work and shouted for the driver to halt the mule. The obedient animal was most likely glad to stop its labors, ears pressed down as if anticipating the explosion. The gun’s sergeant squatted down, sighted along the barrel, stepped back, whipped the linstock with burning taper on the end around his head a few times to get it glowing hot and placed it on the touchhole.

The gesture was seen by the jaegers, now little more than a hundred yards off, and in spite of the muck they dived to the ground. The gun kicked back, sending out a spray of iron balls, nails, anything deemed lethal that could be jammed down the barrel.

The impact kicked up sprays of mud. One of the jaegers, obviously hit, half rose from the mud, mouth open, screaming, clutching at the stump of his arm. The impact and the damage done enraged the Hessians, who began to sprint forward, their curses audible. The riflemen escorting the field piece now systematically took aim, delivering measured shots, and another jaeger went down.

The charge slowed, rifles were raised in reply and shots winged in.

The scream of the mule was nearly deafening as the pathetic
animal rose on its rear legs and collapsed on its side. Though its back was toward the enemy a rifle ball had shattered the creature’s skull. Its driver stood there, stunned, looking down at the animal as it kicked feebly and then was still.

He raised his lash, looking back defiantly.

“You goddamn bastards, you killed my mule!”

He actually started to push his way forward, as if to take on the enemy single-handed. Several comrades grabbed hold, restraining him.

The gunnery sergeant looked up at Washington, as if awaiting orders.

The General sighed and shook his head.

“Abandon the gun. Now run for it, boys.”

The men did not need any more urging, though the sergeant took a few precious seconds to pull open a box strapped to the side of the prolonge, pulled out a nail and mallet and with several sharp blows drove the nail into the touchhole at the breech, rendering the gun useless, at least for now.

The Hessians, seeing that the gun was being abandoned, came on the double.

It was humiliation, once again, utter humiliation!

“Run, men, run!” Washington urged as he turned, the ever-present Billy Lee moving to put himself between the General and the far-too-accurate rifle fire. Mud splattered around them, the sergeant struggling to keep up. Billy Lee reached down, offered a hand, half lifting the sergeant out of the mud, the artilleryman clinging to Lee’s saddle. The riflemen had wisely moved off the road, sprinting through orchards, a woodlot where several paused to reload, turn, and fire. He caught a glimpse of one of them deciding the game was up, and rather than continue retreating toward the river, the man turned to the west and sprinted off. Perhaps he would come back later. More likely he would continue west, trudging the two hundred miles to his home on the edge of the frontier or beyond.

With the artillerymen and few riflemen still with him, he fell back onto the bridge. The last of his exhausted infantry was streaming
over it. Two more wagons had been abandoned just short of safety, their precious contents, salt pork and beef, hard bread, dried corn, spilled out in the mud-clogged street and trampled under.