To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1 (29 page)

Cornwallis had achieved it without losing a man.

He had trusted Greene, and still did. But on that day, not much more than a month ago, someone had failed, and Greene had to shoulder the blame. Under cover of a moonless night Cornwallis, leading the advance, crossed the Hudson from the New York side and landed his men on a narrow spit of land below the Palisades, their first landfall so tenuous that a score of boys armed only with rocks, standing atop the cliffs, could have slain hundreds.

The guard on the spit of land had not been relieved when his watch was done. The guard who was supposed to keep an eye on the barely visible trail leading to the top of the cliffs was gone as well, no doubt drunk and assuming after months of tedious watching without action, nothing was amiss.

Cornwallis gained the heights, not only with his infantry, but
according to reports that crossed through the lines, had even disassembled his artillery pieces and had them manhandled up the rocky cliff. He did have to admit to a grudging admiration of that feat. It was worthy of another Wolfe, and if someday this Revolution was lost, Cornwallis would return to England a hero, a peerage most likely awaiting him as reward.

It was the same Cornwallis who now commanded the far-flung garrisons spread across New Jersey this night. The Cornwallis he prayed he would humble this dawn was not a foe to be taken lightly. The man had proved that at Fort Lee.

Word had come at dawn that there the army was trumped, that thousands of British and Hessian troops were atop the Palisades and storming down upon the flanks and rear of the fort, about to cut off any hope of retreat.

He had also lost Fort Washington, on the northern tip of Manhattan in a bloody debacle. There was nothing he could possibly have done at that moment. To stand and fight would be folly, putting what was left of his army in a closed sack. All Cornwallis then needed to do was surround them, sit back, go to siege, and within days capture what was left of his army.

Humiliated, he ordered the abandonment of Fort Lee and full retreat. Any supplies that could not be carried out were to be torched.

He stood by helplessly as a mad frenzy of despair seized the army. Men racing about in panic, gathering up what they thought they should carry off, and within minutes bonfires erupted across the encampment area as everything else was put to the torch. In the panic, items that could have been saved burned as well, including three wagonloads of precious shoes newly arrived from up the Hudson, hundreds of trousers and winter jackets, men snatching just what they needed for themselves and then burning the rest with no thought of tomorrow.

There was no semblance of an army left as by the thousands they poured on to the road west, away from the accursed battlefields around New York, fleeing down from the heights toward the marshy open
ground that was the only route to safety, the bridge across the Passaic River at Hackensack.

Throughout the day they had run——he riding at the back of the column; the side of the road littered with cast-off equipment, tents, food, muskets, empty bottles drained by men who were now drunk; and more than a few simply turning off the road, heading into the marshes to hide until all had passed, so that they could then slip away toward home.

All the time he raged inwardly at the utter folly, the waste, and could see in the eyes of the men he rode past increasing despair, and in more than a few, contempt for him, after yet another defeat.

His only hope was to gain the bridge ahead of the pursuers. In the distance he could hear their trumpet calls, some of them no longer even military, but instead the mocking, disdainful call of the fox hunt.

That had been almost too much to bear. He had struggled against the impulse to turn about, ride straight back with drawn saber, and make an end to it all. He could see from the way Billy Lee watched him throughout the day, as if reading his mind, that he was ready to stop him.

They had yet to seize the Hackensack bridge. A corporal’s guard could have ended the war right there with a single volley into the mob that seethed about, pushing, shoving, fighting with one another to get across the narrow plank bridge.

He did not even bother to try to reestablish order, to ride through the mob. Instead, he had waited, resolved as always to be the last to cross, looking back anxiously up the road, seeing in the distance the enemy leisurely coming on, stopped only by a few skirmishers, as usual the undaunted men of the frontier, armed with their long rifles, trading shots with the Hessian jaegers, firing, falling back a few hundred paces as they reloaded, turning to fire again.

The last of the line infantry, militia, and two dozen precious field pieces were finally across. The ground on the east side of the bridge was a sickening field of litter and refuse, enough rations to feed the
army for days tossed on the ground as men shed the few extra pounds of food in their exhausted state so as to lighten their loads, muskets by the hundreds, cartridge boxes, canteens, more than a few horses some dead, others just collapsed from exhaustion, cut from the traces of the guns and the few precious surviving supply wagons just left behind. The refuse of an army in panicked retreat is a sight which he had become all too familiar with during the last three months.

They had marched into New York from Boston with such exuberant confidence in the spring, and, as winter closed in, fled in such ignominious terror and despair.

He could not imagine then that the despair could ever deepen and become worse. But it had.

And now, at this moment, a voice whispered within him that they were marching to their final fight. As he watched the men passing, staggering toward Trenton, he had a different sense of it all. Despair yes, but also defiance. If this was indeed the last day, they would die facing the enemy rather than running away.

He turned his mount and urged him forward. The road was packed with his troops, artillery pieces interspersed, men standing, huddled together for warmth. Waiting in the darkness . . . freezing in the darkness . . . a darkness which was beginning to shift to the first pale shadows of a stormy dawn.

“Forward, men. Forward!” he cried. “Victory or death. Now forward!”

“Thank God,” Jonathan gasped.

He had been shaking so hard he felt that he was about to break apart at the joints. Each breath was an agony. The men of the headquarters company, at the head of the column, stood together in a tight knot. Peter had positioned himself to the windward side of Jonathan and without embarrassment had his arms tight around him, the two standing together, shivering, shaking. All around them men were bowed over, the heavy snow gathering on their battered hats
and turned backs so that they looked almost like frozen lumps or snow-covered rocks firmly affixed to the road.

“Forward, men! Forward!”

They could hear his command, and the company captain repeated it. There were no drums to set the marching pace, no flags to mark the head of the column. The men began to shuffle forward. Several horsemen trotted past, one of them nearly pitching over as his mount stumbled on the ice, gaining the front of the column. A moment later Washington himself trotted past.

“Advance scouts?” Washington shouted. “Any reports?”

“Nothing, sir,” the captain replied.

Jonathan barely noticed Washington’s passage. Head bent, he pressed forward. In places the road was frozen solid; in others the ice was broken by the passage of the advance company sent to probe ahead of the main column. Lost in silent misery, he staggered on, step by labored step. Lift one foot out of the freezing mud, move it forward, for an instant test whether the ground beneath was solid and slippery, waiting to pitch him over, or solid enough that his numb bare feet could get a grasp; set that foot down, pull the other out of the sludge, move it forward. Step by step. He had run the calculation in his head while waiting for the previous hour, to think of anything to make the agonizing minutes pass. Six miles to Trenton. A man makes a step of two and a half feet. About two thousand steps per mile. Six miles equals . . . He couldn’t quite sum the numbers; he didn’t want to, the thought was too overwhelming.

“Jersey!”

He was shaken out of his misery and contemplation. It was the sergeant.

“General wants you two up forward with him. Let’s go!”

The sergeant led the way, running as best he could, nearly pitching over, stumbling, regaining his feet. Jonathan ran as if in a nightmare. Strange thoughts surfaced. He remembered when he and James had stolen the rum from behind the tavern and gotten drunk
for the first time in their lives. How his legs no longer obeyed what his brain commanded, and at the time how hysterically funny it had seemed to him.

It felt the same now, but there was nothing to laugh about. He could not feel his legs. It was as if he were removed from his own body and trying to will it to move. The weight of his water-soaked cape, bore down on him, as did the musket on his back, slung inverted to prevent the sleet and snow from lodging in the barrel . . . as if it mattered, since he did not have a single dry cartridge.

He followed the sergeant and then saw the General’s white horse, in the lead, his servant riding beside him.

The sergeant came up by the General’s side.

“Here are the local boys, sir.”

Washington nodded and looked down.

Jonathan struggled to keep alongside of him, moving at a slow jog. The General, mounted, was forcing a fast pace now. The near jog was beginning to restore sensation to his legs and feet, and he wished it would not, for each step produced a stinging pain.

“Do you boys recognize this road?”

Jonathan, breathing hard, turned his attention forward.

Merciful God, he realized with a start, dawn was coming.

We were supposed to attack in the dark, while the Hessians were asleep.

Now he could see a split rail fence by the side of the road bedecked with an inch or more of snow. And beyond it the shape of a house, well made of brick, a light within. And apple orchards on either side of the road.

It was the Gaines’s farm, with acres of apples, pears, and even peaches on the southern slopes of the land.

Gay and Stanley Gaines had no children. All had died in a smallpox epidemic before Jonathan had been born, and they had always been indulgent of the boys, letting them take an apple or two as they passed by, the old woman sometimes giving them a hot apple turnover on a winter’s day when he and his friends were afield hunting or
exploring. She would smile at them, that wistful smile of a mother bereaved of her own children and thus embracing any child who might wander by. On occasion the elderly couple would come all the way into town to attend church and then, after services, linger for a while in the cemetery by the row of five small headstones.

He could see someone coming from the house now, holding a lantern.

“Gaines’s farm,” Peter announced, and motioned toward the house. “Yes, sir, we know where we are now.”

“Good. Then stay close by.”

“Yes, sir.” Peter replied.

The elderly couple stood by the gate leading into their farm.

“General Washington?” It was a woman’s voice.

The General wordlessly touched the brim of his hat as he passed.

“Morning, Mrs. Gaines,” Peter announced. There was an almost boyish tone in his voice, prideful, even though without doubt she would not know who he was.

“Here, my lads,” and she stepped through the gate, holding something out for Peter and Jonathan.

Shaking with the cold, Jonathan took the offering, feeling the warmth, smelling it. A warm apple turnover. The woman had a basket under her arm, filled with her offering.

“God bless you, my boys. God bless you.”

She fell away from their side. He looked back. She and her husband were handing out the turnovers, to hands reaching out from the passing column. “Thank you, ma’am, oh, bless ya, ma’am . . . ,” and her repeated refrain, breaking down into tears. “God bless you, boys. God be with you.”

She drifted away into the predawn mist, her voice first an echo, and then lost.

“Aren’t you going to eat it?” Peter cried.

Jonathan looked down at the turnover, actually wanting to keep it in his hands for another minute. The warmth was a gift as well.

He raised the offering as if it were a communion host and took a bite. It was painful to work his jaws after the hours of chattering from the cold. He devoured the rest in several bites, feeling the warmth, a small ember of hope within, tears in his eyes from this simple act of charity, the tears now freezing.

“Keep moving! Keep up the pace, boys!”

It was the General, moving toward to the head of the column at a trot, the two boys having to all but run to keep up. Behind them they could hear the familiar sounds of an army on the move, the clatter of muskets banging against tin cups, the low undertone of voices, men gasping, cursing, the sound of the wind rising and falling in the trees as they passed through a tunnel-like woodlot, the slippery road dipping into a hollow and rising again, the going tough for a moment. Washington’s horse nearly lost its footing more than once. One farm after another passed by and he could not recall their names.

And with each step the light was changing. There was no color to it at all, just darker shades of gray shifting to lighter, deep shadows of darkness in the woods, reflecting dully off the ice and snow that carpeted fields where corn had been harvested and shucked, orderly apple, pear, and peach orchards, the trees bent low, off glistening farmhouses, outbuildings, and barns. At each farmhouse there was a light, smoke from chimneys. Some had shutters bolted, sentries posted around the building; a few had doors open, those within watching the army pass.

How easy it would be to say he could not take another step, to go to an open door and pass within to find warmth by a fire.

“The sunshine patriot . . .”

That drove him onward. I am not one of them. I am not like James . . . I am not one of them . . . I am not like James . . .

And always there was the refrain, the General turning to ride back for several hundred yards, standing in his stirrups, shouting: “Forward! Keep moving, men! Forward!”