To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1 (45 page)

He and those with him this day were making a new world.

“See to your men, sir,” Washington replied.

The officer hesitated.

“Sir, what is their fate to be?”

“If they pledge not to fight again in this war, they will be left in peace. Most likely they will be held for a time behind the lines, but if proper exchange is agreed upon, they will be allowed to go home.”

The eyes of the officer brightened.

“I humbly thank you, sir.”

He could not resist.

“Would your Colonel Rall have done the same?”

The Hessian lowered his gaze. “We will not forget this. I pray that in years to come, never will arms be raised between us again.”

Washington sighed.

“I join you in that prayer, sir.”

He rode on, the captives around their major looking at their former enemy with wonder.

McConkey’s Ferry
4:10
P.M.
, December 26, 1776

“Hurry, men, hurry!”

The last of the column came slipping and sliding down the slope from Bear Tavern.

It had been a day that had shifted from radiant hope to increasing concern. A lone scout had come in claiming that the British garrison was indeed on the move and even now was approaching.

He trusted, as Greene had affirmed, that it was but a single report. Perhaps a probe sent forward, but the garrison in Princeton, even if caught so off guard, was indeed very slow to react.

Nonetheless, he would not rest until the last of his men were safely across the river.

Fires lined the banks of the river, men waiting to cross gathered around them.

His army was now collapsing from sheer, total exhaustion. They had marched twenty miles since this time a day earlier, marched through a storm which even now had not loosened its hold, shifting to a cold pelting rain.

The march back, in some ways, had been infinitely worse than the advance. At least during the night they had been driven by an inner fire, a belief that this was, in some way, a final march, to be crowned
either with glorious victory or the oblivion of a death that would end their suffering.

Throughout the long day that energy had been abating. The battle had been won. In its aftermath, the suffering was renewed, even made more painful as they trudged foot after painful foot toward the rude shelters and safety on the far shore.

Every dozen feet or so another man was down on his knees or just sprawled by the side of the road, passed out with exhaustion, comrades with some little strength left coaxing him to his feet for the final few hundred yards to the crossing.

Glover’s men, who had marched with the column rather than stay behind with the boats, had pressed forward as they approached the river crossing, ready again to man the oars. Hardy New England fishermen. If ever again he heard a disparaging word from those of Virginia or Maryland who spoke with disdain about the men of the north, he would remind them of this final effort.

Manning the boats that waited for them, they were again at the oars, pushing against ice floes, helping to manhandle guns onto the Durham boats, helping unknown and unnamed comrades aboard, encouraging them that upon the far shore fires, food, shelter, and warmth awaited, even as they continued to cross the river again and again under the lash of the freezing rain.

Dusk was beginning to settle. He saw Knox in the shadows, hurrying along a team of men laboring to bring in a three-pounder, its axle tree bent, spliced with ropes and strips of lumber most likely torn from the side of a barn. There were no horses. At least twenty men were straining at the traces.

Knox, seeing Washington, rode to his side.

“My God, sir,” Knox said, voice choked. “I told them to just abandon the gun. It took a direct hit, breaking the axle. Against my orders they refused, sir. Refused and said they would bring it out or die trying. They patched it up and have pulled it all this way.”

He lowered his head.

“My God, sir,” he whispered again.

The men slowly labored past, one exclaiming that the ferry was just ahead, none noticing the General watching by the side of the road.

“No sunshine patriots here this day, Knox,” Washington commented firmly.

Knox could not reply. He fell in by their side, urging them forward, saying that a barrel of rum would be on him tomorrow. The men looked up, faces strained, and offered a feeble cheer for their gallant commander.

Wilkinson came riding up.

“Any behind you?” Washington asked.

“Just a few stragglers, sir. I fear we lost more than a few on the march here, though. Just played out.”

“Heaven help them.”

“Yes, sir. I doubt that the British, enraged after this, will offer them much mercy.”

“Perhaps the locals will at least hide them now.”

“Is that the last of them?” Washington asked, and he pointed toward a small group bearing a blanket litter.

“I think so, sir.”

“Fine then, Major Wilkinson. I will never forget your service this day.”

“Sir, the honor was mine, believe me.”

In the gloom, the driving rain, he recognized the leader of the last stragglers. He gazed past them for an instant. There was no pursuit. His worst fear eased. They had pulled out and escaped.

The sergeant leading the group looked up and, recognizing his General, stepped to the side of the road, saluting.

“Report, sergeant.”

“Sir, I think we’re the last of them. At least the last who are still moving.”

“Then down to the ferry with you, sergeant. Fires and good food await you.”

“And you’ll be with us, sir?”

“Of course, Sergeant Howard,” he said with a smile. “It would not be proper for me to be captured now.”

“No, sir; I mean, yes, sir.” The sergeant was, obviously so exhausted he was no longer sure of what he was saying.

“Who do you carry there?”

“The boy from Jersey, sir. The one who guided us. He just collapsed several miles back. Sir, we could not leave him.”

“Which boy?”

“You might remember him, sir. The one who jumped into the river when we crossed and then spliced the tow lines.”

Washington was himself so exhausted that for a moment he could not comprehend what Sergeant Howard was saying, and then memory returned.

He edged his mount forward a few feet down to the road, and gazed at the lad in the rough blanket litter.

Even in the settling darkness he could see that his features were gray, drawn, each rattling breath a labored gasp for life.

“Galloping consumption,” the sergeant whispered.

Washington did not reply as he dismounted and drew closer, the men attempting to hold up the litter, slowing and then coming to a stop.

“How are you, son?”

The boy looked up at him, gasping for air, lungs rattling, unable to reply.

Washington looked over at the sergeant.

“Once across, take him directly to my surgeon. He should be set up in the ferry house!”

“Yes, sir.”

General George Washington reached down, grasping the boy’s hand. It was cold, icy cold.

“Son, my surgeon will see to you. You shall soon be well.”

Jonathan gazed up at the General, unable to speak, no longer even
sure that the man above him was even the General, General George Washington.

He could no longer speak or think clearly or even comprehend clearly. And yet one thought stood clear.

He fumbled with his wet, clammy jacket, trying to open it. Trying to draw something out.

He did recognize his brothers. His brothers Allen and Peter. Yes, Peter was now his brother as well. Allen hovered above him, tears streaking down his face. Even if he had chosen wrongly, and must now pay the price, Allen was still his brother.

He tried to open his jacket, to bring out the treasure within, the treasure that had sustained him, the treasure he wished to pass on to the General so that it might sustain him as well.

He tried but no longer had the strength.

The General looked down at him, hand touching his brow, and then pulling back.

“To my surgeon, now!” Washington cried.

The men holding the blanket labored on, the sergeant turning back to join them, holding his battered hat over the boy’s face, in a feeble effort to ward off the stinging rain and sleet.

General George Washington looked back down the River Road.

No one was behind these last few men.

He fell in behind them and rode to the ferry. As was his custom and desire, he would always be the first to lead and the last to withdraw.

The miracle of this day was at an end. The day that had saved the Revolution to create America, December 26, 1776, was over.

McConkey’s Ferry, Pennsylvania
6:00
P.M.
December 26, 1776

A gentle breeze out of the west drifted down off the high hills bordering the west bank of the Delaware River.

General George Washington stood on the shore of the river. The last of his men were safely across, the fires on the far shore extinguished.

The storm had at last abated. Nearly a full moon was showing through the high scudding clouds, the stars of winter revealing themselves overhead . . . Orion the Hunter, Gemini, Venus glowing bright on the low western horizon.

The wind had backed around, and the air was strangely warmer. The night of freezing rain, sleet, and snow, had changed back to rain and now this breath of relative warmth.

Heaven sent, he thought.

Generals Greene and Sullivan and even Billy Lee had long ago ceased urging him that a warm fire waited within the ferry house and that it was time for rest.

He could not rest.

He could not let go of this moment.

Has this been the moment my entire life aimed toward? he wondered.

Long ago, on the night after the disaster on the Monongahela, he had had the same thoughts. That fate had decreed him to be there upon that terrible day, to help lead the terrified survivors out of the trap into which Braddock had so blindly led an army.

But today? This day?

Was this indeed the day I was destined for?

Something told him it was not so, that more such days waited ahead.

Yes, a victory had been won. Won by the ragged men who had stayed with him when so many others had fled. Men who refused to give in, to surrender. Men who now, all strength drained, lay down upon frozen ground and drifted into exhausted sleep. It could rain again, freeze, bring down torrents of snow, but tonight they would sleep content. Their stomachs were filled, shoes on their feet, the turned coats of Hessians warming their backs. And their souls were filled with the warmth, the realization, that, after all, they could win, and if they endured, no force on the face of the earth could ever truly defeat them.

Today was only a single victory. But from it much would be shaped.

He might be tempted to dream that today, and today alone would bring an end to it all. That Cornwallis and Howe, dealt such a blow of defiance, would see the ultimate end and withdraw.

A fool’s dream.

No. It would not be today. Perhaps, just perhaps, a year hence. But then again, five years might be more likely, perhaps a dozen years, a score of years.

As his men drew inspiration from him, so he drew inspiration from them.

If need be then . . . forever. Never will we surrender. On this day of days we proved something, and in that proving we will never go back.

We will never surrender . . . not now. Never.

He thought for a moment of his dream of the morning. Of going home one day to Mount Vernon. To lay down this burden.

No, even that, no matter how longed for, would have to wait. Mount Vernon——the peace of that place, the embrace of Martha——he could not give in to that now. That must be his sacrifice, her sacrifice as well for a future yet undreamed. Maybe if it were to run several more years, she could come to him and bring some of the comforts of home. That would make it much easier to endure a long conflict.

“General Washington?”

He looked away from the ice-choked river.

It was his surgeon. Billy Lee, carrying a flickering torch led the way.

They saw him and hesitated to approach.

Again a difference, a deference not known before this day.

The surgeon drew closer.

“Sir, I felt I should report to you.”

“Go on then.”

“Sir, this army is worn to exhaustion and collapse. Not one man in ten will be fit to stand in the ranks come tomorrow.”

He said nothing, the surgeon nervous, clearing his throat.

“I assumed that,” General Washington finally replied. “Tomorrow is a day of rest unless some emergency requires otherwise. I want fresh beef brought up for the men. As much as they can eat. We captured some cattle in Trenton, and they should be driven in by afternoon tomorrow.”

“My thoughts exactly, sir.”

“What else?”

“Casualty list for today’s action, sir,” he paused. “Two confirmed dead from enemy action. Two wounded. One of them Lieutenant James Monroe, sir, who is expected to make a full recovery if his wound does not become moribund.”