Washington's General (21 page)

Privately, Greene was nursing a grievance. Washington had not seen
fit to mention him or his division, particularly Weedon's brigade, in the accounts of the battle he sent to Congress. Had Washington not noticed how well Greene's men had fought? Still very much the limping private scorned by the Kentish Guards back in Rhode Island, Greene was ever wary of the comments, or silences, of his colleagues. After moping about and feeling sorry for himself, he finally asked Washington to explain himself.

The burdens piled upon Washington's shoulders were weighty enough as it was. He surely did not need to suffer a petulant Nathanael Greene, who had once before threatened to resign over a personal slight. Instead of reminding Greene of his priorities, Washington offered him the balm of flattery. “You, sir, are considered my favorite officer,” he told Greene. “Weedon's brigade, like myself, are Virginians; should I applaud them for their achievement under your command, I shall be charged with partiality; jealousy will be excited, and the service injured.”

Washington phrased his answer in the passive voice: he noted that Greene was believed to be his favorite officer; he was not, however, saying it himself. Others didn't doubt it, although at least one prominent American had a more cynical view of the relationship. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a physician and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, complained that Washington was little more than a cipher for Greene, Knox, and a young aide named Alexander Hamilton. He denounced Greene as “a syncophant to the General, speculative, without enterprise.”

What this army needed, Rush decided, was a new commander in chief.

He was not the only American who thought so.

Near the pleasant village of Morristown where she continued to enjoy the hospitality of Abraham Lott and his family, Caty Greene followed news of the defense of Philadelphia with increasing anxiety. While the Lotts were convivial hosts who arranged for parties and dances–just the sort of thing Caty enjoyed–she was lonely, still ailing, and worried about her
husband. The children, toddler George and infant Martha, were far away in Rhode Island, and she missed them, too. Her mood can be deduced through one of her husband's letters.

My sweet Angel how I wish, how I long to return to your soft embrace. . . . How happy should I be could I administer consolation to you in a distressing hour. Rest assured my dear, nothing but the great duties of my station, the loud wails of my Country, the peace, liberty and happiness of [millions] should keep me from [you].

He promised he would soon return to her, if “kind fortune” carried him “through showers of leaden deaths unhurt.”

Before they could reunite, there indeed would be more showers of leaden death, just as mid-September brought dark skies and rain showers to the fields of Pennsylvania. The defeated but unbeaten Americans spent the last two weeks of September on the march as Washington tried to anticipate Howe's next move. After Brandywine, a British occupation of Philadelphia seemed inevitable. Congress certainly thought so, as members soon fled for safer quarters, eventually finding a temporary home in York, Pennsylvania. The American generals, however, were confident they could make Howe pay dearly for a city that had only minor strategic value.

The British were ready to unleash a follow-up assault on September 16–four days too late, in the view of some of Howe's junior officers. The Americans took up defensive positions near the town of White Horse Tavern, about twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia. Greene was dissatisfied with the deployment, complaining that the troops occupied low, muddy ground. Behind the American center and the left wing was a soggy valley that would force the Americans to abandon their artillery during a retreat. Both Greene and another officer, Timothy Pickering, told Washington of their concerns. As they conferred, they could hear musket fire in the distance, signaling the start of the British advance. “Let us move,” Washington said, at last.

As the Americans began to fall back to higher ground, a providential deluge bogged down the British so badly that they abandoned their attack. The Americans slogged their way eleven miles to a new position at Yellow Springs, and then marched again, through more rain and mud, finally crossing the Schuylkill River at Parker's Ford. They began moving toward Philadelphia, always trying to remain between Howe and the capital. In late September, however, Washington reversed himself and ordered a countermarch away from Philadelphia when he fell for a British feint aimed at the American supply depot at Reading.

For the first and last time, Greene muttered what others were saying openly about His Excellency George Washington. As they marched and marched and countermarched, Pickering told Greene that before he joined the army, he had “entertained an exalted opinion of General Washington's military talents.” But after observing the commander in chief during the defense of Philadelphia, Pickering said, he had become disillusioned.

Greene, according to Pickering, replied, “The General does want [for] decision. For my part, I decide in a moment.”

The Philadelphia campaign had become exasperating, almost as tedious as the previous summer, when Washington marched the army up and down the length and breadth of New Jersey. Greene and the army's other top generals, including Lord Stirling and Knox, met with Washington for a council of war on September 23 to discuss what, if anything, they could do to prevent the fall of Philadelphia. Howe had outfoxed Washington: his feint toward Reading succeeding in drawing the Americans nearer their depot and leaving the road to Philadelphia open. After completing the feint and doubling back, Howe now was moving closer to the capital. But Washington had to concede the obvious: he told his generals that “the Troops were in no condition to make a forced March as many of them are barefooted and all excessively harrassed with their great Fatigue.”

The British marched into Philadelphia unopposed on September 26.
Lord Cornwallis led several hundred troops along Second Street as hundreds of civilians waved from the streets and rooftops. The capital was in enemy hands. Washington's barefoot soldiers could do nothing about it.

Three thousand British troops occupied Philadelphia. Nine thousand more remained outside the city, most of them camped in the nearby village of Germantown.

Greene and sixteen other major generals and brigadiers were summoned to a council of war at Washington's headquarters in Penny-packer's Mills, Pennsylvania, on September 28. Earlier that day, word had arrived in camp of a major engagement near Saratoga, New York, during which Americans under the command of General Horatio Gates inflicted heavy casualties on a sizable British force. (The decisive battle near Saratoga would not take place until more than a week later.)

With this news to cheer them, Greene and his colleagues heard Washington explain why another dramatic victory was within their grasp. Howe and the bulk of his army were camped in Germantown, about five miles north of the capital. Washington's informers reported that Howe had done nothing to fortify the town. With militia and Continental reinforcements heading for the American camp, Washington asked his generals if “it was prudent to make a general and vigorous attack upon the Enemy.”

The matter was discussed and then put to a vote. Washington, though he had been given nearly dictatorial powers over the army when Congress fled Philadelphia, continued his practice of putting such matters before his general officers. Greene soon wearied of these deliberations, for they seemed to serve little purpose other than to delay urgent decisions. Of course, they also served to provide Washington with the cover of consensus when decisions went awry.

On this occasion, Greene joined nine other generals in voting against an immediate attack–a sign that while he was eager to please and ready to fight, he was not blind to hard facts. But this majority advised Washington to move the army to within twelve miles of Germantown to await
the expected reinforcements and “be in readiness to take advantage of any favorable opportunity.”

The American movement toward Germantown began almost immediately. Somewhere along the march, Greene lost a brass pistol that his friend Henry Knox had given him–carved into the barrel were the initials
H. K.
Greene posted a twenty-dollar reward for the pistol's return. There is no indication he ever got it back.

Once again, Greene was summoned to join his fellow generals in a council of war, this one on October 3. Washington informed them of intelligence reports indicating that Howe had weakened his main force, sending a detachment to attack an American fort on the Delaware River. By Washington's calculations, the British had between eight and nine thousand troops in their still unfortified camp in Germantown. The Americans, thanks to reinforcements since Brandywine, numbered about eleven thousand, including roughly three thousand militia.

Greene and the generals were unanimous–the time had come for an attack. Washington had a daring but extremely complicated plan that brought back memories of the Christmas raid on Trenton. The army would march overnight toward Germantown in four columns; like the Trenton scheme, the plan called for a surprise simultaneous assault on the garrison before dawn. At Trenton, a similiarly coordinated and closely timed attack went wrong almost immediately, which should have argued against an even more complex and far more dangerous assault against Germantown. But the Trenton battle plan, even in its improvised form, had worked. Washington believed a simliar attack could work again.

Washington placed Greene on the left wing of the advance, with Generals Stirling, Sullivan, Wayne, and Thomas Conway joining the commander in chief in the center and a militia force under General John Armstrong on the right. The fourth column, on the extreme left, would be made up of Maryland and New Jersey militia. The length of each column's march varied, depending on its starting point: Greene would have
to march nineteen miles, while the other columns had only fifteen miles to travel. Each column was to reach its staging area at two o'clock, pause for two hours, then make its final push. The assault was to begin at four o'clock. To help distinguish friend from foe in the darkness, the troops were to be given white pieces of paper to wear on their hats. While the movement was under way, messengers on horseback would try to maintain communications between the columns, which were separated at their extremes by nine miles.

It's hard to imagine a more complicated plan of attack. But nobody raised any serious objections at the time.

A great deal depended on Greene. Washington gave him command of three divisions, comprising more than half the assault force's Continentals–nearly five thousand men. Greene's target, the British right flank, was reported to be the camp's strongest aspect. Once in position, Greene was to sweep in from the left at Lucken's Mill on the British right.

After the council of war, Greene returned to his division to put his men in motion. Thomas Paine, his friend from the march through New Jersey in 1776, had rejoined him in camp and was eager to march once again by Greene's side. But the general persuaded the master polemicist that he could best serve the cause by remaining in camp, out of harm's way until morning. Paine remained behind but was awake before dawn and on his way toward Germantown by five o'clock.

Greene's men began their march to the staging area at seven o'clock. Not surprisingly, given the recent history of such movements and the particular circumstances of this complex plan, things began to go wrong almost right away. The columns fell behind schedule. Messengers lost contact with the advancing troops. Greene's three divisions made a wrong turn in the darkness and lost time retracing their steps for four miles. Nobody knew where the militia was. Worse yet, General Howe soon knew where Washington–or, more generally, his army–was. British scouts or sympathizers had spotted the American movement and sent word to Germantown. Howe was out of bed at four o'clock.

Sullivan and Washington, in the American center, managed to stay
close to schedule. They had no way of knowing Greene had gotten lost and had fallen dangerously behind. Before sunrise, Sullivan's men overwhelmed British light infantry outside Germantown. Many fell victim to American steel, but some escaped and fell back as fast as they could. More than a hundred outnumbered British reinforcements took shelter in a stone house outside the town. Known as the Chew House–the owner was a judge named Benjamin Chew–it became a formidible obstacle between the town and Sullivan's rear guard, commanded by Stirling. Rather than simply bypass the house, the Americans chose to invest it after Sullivan and Wayne advanced toward their objective. That decision delayed Stirling's men, who soon found themselves pinned down by British sharpshooters. Henry Knox brought up artillery, but cannonballs bounced off the house's stone walls. And time slipped by.

Meanwhile, Nathanael Greene was somewhere off on the American left, trying to make up for lost time through a predawn mist. As at Trenton, the Americans still were not at their objective by morning's light. Even worse for the attackers, on this day the fog of war was more than just a metaphor. A gray, misty blanket covered the battlefield, enveloping the Americans and turning confusion into chaos.

Forty-five minutes late, Greene's divisions approached the outskirts of town along the Limekiln Road. They had made up some time after recovering from their wrong turn, but also had met unexpected resistance in the form of a light infantry unit a mile outside of town. And when the commander of one of Greene's divisions, Adam Stephen, heard gunfire on his right, he ordered his men to march through the fog toward the sounds of battle. Stephen was operating in a fog of another sort: he was drunk. Unknowingly, his men were heading for the siege at Chew House when they saw ghostly figures in the distance. They opened fire–but the figures were American soldiers, under the command of Anthony Wayne. Startled by an apparent enemy unit they hadn't accounted for, Wayne's men fired back, and both units quickly fled in opposite directions, adding to the chaos and halting Wayne's advance on the town.