Private Joseph Plumb Martin believed he became infected with scabies when he was inoculated against small pox. At Valley Forge he described the itch as so intense, “I could scarcely lift my hands to my head.” Through soldiers they knew in the artillery, they acquired sulphur, mixed it with tallow for grease, which they applied to their infected skin while lying around the hearth. They also imbibed generously of “hot whisky sling[s]” and “we killed the itch and we were satisfied, for it had almost killed us. This was a decisive victory, (over the scabies) the only one we had achieved lately.” (Martin, Joseph Plumb, Private Yankee Doodle- Being a Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier, George Scheer, editor, p. 111.)
5) Dr. Albigence Waldo, a surgeon at Valley Forge in an entry in his diary in mid-December described the scarcity of food:
“Heartily wish myself at home, my Skin and eyes are almost spoil’d with continual smoke. A general cry thro’ the Camp this Evening among the Soldiers, “No Meat! No Meat!” - the Distant vales Echo’d back the melancholy sound - “No Meat! No Meat!” Imitating the noise of Crows and Owls, also, made a part of confused Musick.
What have you for your dinner boys? “Nothing but Fire Cake and Water, Sir.” At night, “Gentlemen the Supper is ready.” What is your Supper Lads? “Fire Cake and Water, Sir.” Very poor beef has been drawn in our Camp the greater part of this season. A Butcher bringing a Quarter of this kind of Beef into Camp one day who had white Buttons on the knees of his breeches, a Soldier cries out - “There, there Tom is some more of your fat Beef, by my soul I can see the Butcher’s breeches buttons through it.” (Allen, Thomas, B., Remember Valley Forge- Patriots, Tories and Redcoats Tell Their Stories, p. 32; Waldo, Albigence, Dr., Diary of a Surgeon at Valley Forge, 1777.)
6) Washington’s General Order issued on December 18, 1777, required the building of huts and specified their size and construction. Washington himself lived in his field tent up until Christmas, when many of the soldiers were already occupying the newly built wooden huts. (Allen, p. 25) He then moved into a modest, compact two story stone house, with two chimneys at one end built by Isaac Potts who owned the forge, and made it his headquarters. Instead of seizing the Potts house, he rented it as his quarters. (Chernow, Ron, Washington
- A Life, p. 324.)
7) The character of Sarah Penrose is based upon the life of Hannah Mason, a fifty–six year old slave who worked as a cook for General Washington at Valley Forge. Her master was Reverend John Mason of New York who assigned her to Washington and was paid most of her wages. When she was set free upon the total payment of fifty-three pounds to Reverend Mason, she remained in Washington’s service as Hannah Till, taking the name of her husband, Isaac Till, instead of that of her master. She worked as a cook for seven years during the American Revolution, serving both Washington and Lafayette. After the war, she lived in Philadelphia and died in 1824 at the age of 104. (Loane, Nancy K., Following the Drum- Women at the Valley Forge Encampment, pp. 106-107.)
8) In January 1778, Washington approved the recruitment of black troops by Rhode Island General James Varnum. The state promised to free any slaves willing to join an all-black battalion and compensated their masters with their fair market value. In May 1778, Rhode Island’s General Assembly repealed the slave purchase act that allowed the State to purchase slaves from their masters for military service. Free men of color could continue to enlist in the “Black Regiment.” The First Rhode Island Regiment was all black with white officers, a total of 242 men of whom 197 were colored soldiers. (Popek, Daniel M., “They . . . fought bravely but were unfortunate: The True Story of Rhode Island’s ‘Black Regiment’ and the Failure of Segregation in Rhode Island’s Continental Line, 1777-1783,” p. 195.
Connecticut permitted slave owners to avoid military service if they sent their slaves in their stead. An August 1778 census of troops listed 755 colored, almost five percent of the total number in the Continental Army. (Chernow, pp. 333-334.)
According to Thomas Allen, more than five hundred freed negroes were among the soldiers at Valley Forge. (Allen, p. 25.) 9) Galloway actually wrote to General Washington asking permission for his wife to join him in Philadelphia and bring with her their furniture and household effects, presumably silverware, dishes, glasses and the like. Washington responded that while he would immediately prepare a pass for Mrs. Galloway to travel between the lines, she could not bring anything with her because the Pennsylvania Assembly had decreed that all Loyalists forfeited their property. (Fleming, p. 17)
10) Ann Bates worked as a school teacher in Philadelphia where she came to the attention of someone in British General Sir Henry Clinton’s espionage network. When the British evacuated Philadelphia in June 1778, she went with her husband, a soldier and gunsmith, to New York City and was an operative for one of General Clinton’s spy handlers. She traveled and mingled among American soldiers and camp followers, posing as Mrs. Barnes, a “peddler of thread, needles, combs, knives and some medicines.” As she sold these goods, Mrs. Barnes, who once even penetrated General Washington’s headquarters, noted the number of troops and weapons in American’s camp at White Plains, New York. (McBurney, Christian M., “Ann Bates: British Spy Extraordinaire,” Journal of the American Revolution, Annual Volume 2016, pp.221-226; Berkin, Carol, Revolutionary Mothers- Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence, pp. 141-142; Braisted, Todd W. Grand Forage 1778-The Battleground Around New York City, pp. 36-40; Nagy, pp. 111-112.) Her role as a British spy in Philadelphia, recruited by John Stoner, is purely fictitious.
Chapter 2 – Setting a Trap 1) Colonel Harcourt of the 16th Queens Dragoons was indeed one of General Howe’s harshest critics, blaming him for the disastrous surrender of Burgoyne’s army. He shared his opinion with his father, Earl Harcourt in London. (Fleming, p. 50.)
2) Fitzpatrick’s words are a combination of a direct quote from his writings to his brother, the Earl of Upper Ossory, and Lieutenant Loftus Cliffe of the Forty-Sixth Infantry Regiment in his letters to his family. (Fleming, pp. 50-52.)
3) The prologue or poem was written by Loyalist Jonathan Odell who mocked the naïve American audiences and their pretensions. New Englanders were frequently referred to as “Brother Jonathans,” ridiculing their pious attitudes, what we today would consider being “holier than thou.” (Fleming, p. 66-67.)
4) Quakers were vociferous in their opposition to plays and actors in Philadelphia. They and other religious leaders railed against them in sermons and articles, condemning plays as “a source of all worldy corruption.” (Fleming, p.64.) In 1766, the Southwark Theatre was built just outside the city limits to avoid the jurisdiction of Philadelphia’s anti- theatre legislation. The original location was at what is now South and Fourth Streets. The motto over the stage was “The whole world acts the player.” (The Philadelphia Stage and Beyond, York County Heritage Trust.)
The play, “The Liar,” together with a farce, “A Trip to Scotland,” was performed on May 1, 1778 most likely by Howe’s Strolling Players. Seats in the gallery and pit cost one dollar.
5) The Quakers’ natural compassion for the suffering was at odds with the position Quaker leaders had taken against what they saw as “an attempt by Presbyterians and other radicals to establish ‘tyranny’ in America.” At the yearly meeting in January 1775, Quakers were warned they faced discipline if they supported the Revolution. Quakers were banned from holding any office, paying taxes or taking oaths of allegiance to the Rebel cause. (Fleming, pp. 63-64.)
6) Reverend John Witherspoon was President of the Presbyterian College in Princeton, which later became Princeton University. He signed the Declaration of Independence and was a member of Congress from June 1776 until November 1782. His oldest son, James, was killed at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777. I have imagined that after Witherspoon fled Philadelphia with the other members of Congress, he chose to return to his home in Princeton to bury his son.
Dr. Benjamin Rush, an ardent Whig
and prominent Philadelphia physician, was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of Congress. He was the Director of the hospital at Princeton.
I have assumed he would take up residence with Reverend Witherspoon in the latter’s mansion. The idea of the two of them living under one roof may be a stretch, because Witherspoon once said, “Rush’s addiction to ‘strong and superlative expressions’ made him uneasy.” (Fleming, p. 93.)
Chapter 3 – For the Love of a Slave 1) In 1775, pay was in dollars, divided into 90ths and not the modern 100ths. One pound sterling equaled two and 2/3 dollars. A private in the regular infantry was paid six and 2/3 dollars per month; a lieutenant, 13 and 1/3 dollars; a captain, 20 dollars, a major, 33 and 1/3 dollars and a lieutenant colonel, 40 dollars. Congress, in October 1776, approved increases for commissioned officers but not enlisted men and that disparity remained for the duration of the war. By 1781, due to inflation, 167 and ½ Continental paper dollars equaling one dollar in specie, meaning in coin, making the paper virtually worthless and “giving rise to the phrase,’not worth a Continental.’” (Barbieri, Michael “The Worth of a Continental,” pp. 98-101, Journal of the American Revolution, Annual Volume 2015.)
2) In addition to widespread desertions by enlisted men, officers resigned their commissions in droves, giving a variety of reasons for abandoning the patriotic cause. Officers were expected to pay for rations, clothing and equipment out of their own pockets, while enlisted men, in theory, were provided with these necessities at public expense. Letters from home by wives complained about living on gruel as the buying power of the officers’ salaries diminished due to depreciation of the Continental dollar. (Fleming, pp. 161-162.)
Congress, at the time dominated by ideological Whigs, assumed that “patriots in a wife’s hometown would . . . step forward to make sure she was not in want while her husband risked his life in defense of American liberty.” (Fleming, p. 162.) This proved to be an “idealistic fantasy.” Indeed, one officer at Valley Forge asked the question, “Why should an officer have empty pockets and watch his family suffer while everyone else was making money from the booming wartime economy, especially when the officer was called upon to risk his life on the battlefield?” (Fleming, p. 162.)
3) Over two thousand men, nearly one-sixth of the entire army, died at Valley Forge, mostly from disease. While typhus, typhoid fever, pneumonia, dysentery and scurvy were common and killed many during the winter months when malnutrition and exposure to cold were prevalent, many also died in the warmer spring. (Chernow, p. 327; Chadwick, Bruce, The First American Army, p. 223.) The dozens of hospitals at Valley Forge, and in the nearby towns of Reading, Bethlehem, Yellow Springs, Easton and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, were notoriously over-crowded, understaffed and unsanitary. Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote Patrick Henry, “Our hospitals crowded with six thousand sick but [only] half provided with necessaries or accomodations, and more dying in them in one month than perished in the field during the whole of the last campaign.” (Chadwick, p. 224.)
4) Fevers were thought to be caused by “effluvia,” that is the airs or vapors arising from stagnant and contaminated water. Vinegar, in appropriate doses, was prescribed as a cure. An ague fit was one of chills and shaking. “[A]s much exercise between the fits as he can bear” was thought to be helpful because “Nothing tends more to prolong an intermitting fever than indulging in a lazy and indolent disposition.” (Burdick, Kim, Fever, Journal of the American Revolution, Online Magazine, November 12, 2015.)
Today, we know that fevers are caused by ticks, mosquitos, fleas, and contaminated food, putrid water, bacteria and spread by crowded conditions. The men brought to the hospitals wore shirts and brought blankets they had used in the field. These were infested with lice, the carriers of typhus.
5) Rush complained to General Washington about the lack of guards and officers to maintain order at military hospitals. There was no discipline imposed on the patients. Those who were ambulatory went out and sold their muskets, blankets and even clothing to buy rum and food. Fights among the patients broke out and frustrated the doctors’ efforts to restore their health. (Fleming, p. 145.)
6) In late December 1777, Rush, then the director of the hospital at Princeton, sent a letter to Washington, detailing the overcrowding and dismal conditions at Princeton and in the army’s hospitals in general. He recommended that the sick soldiers be placed in local farmhouses “where ‘the air and diet’ would speed their recovery.” (Fleming, p.145.) Washington responded by letter dated January 12, 1778 that he had forwarded the letter and Rush’s recommendations to Congress.
Rush was part of a cabal of Whig ideologues, seeking to replace Washington with a General of their choice. In an unsigned letter to Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, Rush complained about the state of the Army, the conditions of the hospitals, the “idleness and ignorance and peculation” of the commissary and quartermaster departments, and suggested that Washington be replaced. Despite Rush’s request that Henry burn the letter after he read it, the Governor forwarded it to Washington. (Fleming, pp.147-148.)
7) Many women served as Continental Army nurses in hospitals. One such remarkable person was Abigail Hartman Rice who was a nurse at the Yellow Springs hospital, about ten miles from Valley Forge and about a mile from her family’s farm. She participated, together with other nurses in a protest over lack of pay and an ultimatum that unless they were paid, they would refuse to serve. The Yellow Springs Hospital Director, Dr. Otto Bodo, in May of 1780 wrote to Congress complaining about the deplorable lack of medical supplies, blankets, soap and food, as well as the failure to pay the hospital’s nurses. Congress took note and the nurses received their pay.
Abigail Hartman Rice, during her service at Yellow Springs, contracted typhoid fever, which permanently weakened her. She died in 1789. There is a memorial plaque, honoring her dedicated service, in the Washington Memorial Chapel at Valley Forge National Historical Park. (McGready,Blake, Abigail Hartman Rice, Revolutionary War Nurse, Journal of the American Revolution, November 28, 2016.)
8) In the winter of 1777, as the British and Hessian troops withdrew to garrison towns, Monmouth County was the scene of brutal skirmishes between Loyalist and Whig militias. “Many a score was settled with all the rage and cruelty of a civil war.” (HackettFischer, p. 349.) Tory militias served together with British cavalry in raids in the Pennsylvania countryside. There was an ongoing operation to capture prominent Rebel figures and militia leaders. (See End Note 1 to Chapter 1.) However, the raid on the Princeton Hospital to capture Dr. Rush and Reverend Witherspoon, while plausible, is fictitious.
Chapter 4- The Hospital at Princeton 1) Martha Washington arrived at Valley Forge the first week of February 1777. At the time, it was the fourth largest city in the independent colonies. (Chadwick, p. 210.) She was later joined by Caty Greene (General Nathaniel Greene’s wife), Lucy Knox, and General Stirling’s wife, Lady Sarah Livingston Stirling and their beautiful daughter, Kitty. (Chernow, p. 330; Berkin, pp. 77-78.)
By late February, General Knox, who had been given leave by General Washington to visit his family, was in Boston and only returned to Valley Forge in the early spring. On May 2nd he was in charge of the artillery that fired a thirteen round salute to celebrate the treaty of alliance with France. (Brooks, Noah, Henry Knox- A Soldier of the Revolution, pp. 114, 116-117.) I have placed him at Valley Forge when Will returns from the Princeton hospital for purposes of the plot.
Twenty-two year old Lucy Knox arrived in late May 1778, long after the brutal winter was over. (Drake, Francis S., Life and Correspondence of Henry Knox, p. 56.) She brought with her little Lucy, the Knox’s two year old daughter, and was accompanied by General Benedict Arnold, who had joined them at New Haven. He “provided the horses for the trip, ‘no small service,’ General Knox acknowledged.” (Drake, p. 56; Loane, pp. 81-82.)
2) About 1,500 horses died of starvation at Valley Forge. (Allen, p. 33.) “Dead horses and their entrails lay decomposing ev
erywhere, emitting a putrid stench into the winter air.” (Chernow, p. 325.) The idea of sending the horses and artillery away from Valley Forge and further into Pennsylvania, while logical and even likely, at least during the winter months, is a guess on my part. It is an historical fact that the horses and artillery units were in Valley Forge in late March and early April 1778.
Chapter 5 – The Madness of Anger 1) Washington was fond of Lafayette and “embraced him as his most intimate protégé.” (Chernow, pp.331-332.) Hannah Till, who together with her husband was Washington’s cook at Valley Forge, was “lent” by Washington to Lafayette, most likely during the winter before Lafayette left to lead the abortive effort to strike at the British in Canada. (Loane, pp. 106-108.)
2) In January 1778, Washington approved a proposal made by Brigadier General James Varnum of Rhode Island to recruit black troops for the regiments from that state. Rhode Island, to induce Negroes to join, promised to free any slaves who signed up. Two other states, Massachusetts and Connecticut followed suit, with Connecticut exempting white masters from military service if they sent their slaves instead. (Chernow, pp. 333-334.)
According to Thomas Allen, there were more than 500 free Negroes at Valley Forge. (Allen, p.25.) Chernow records that an August 1778 census “listed 755 blacks as part of the Continental Army, or nearly five percent of the total force,” although there is no breakdown between free men and slaves sent by their masters. (Chernow, p. 334.)
Part Two - The Army Awakens
Chapter 6 – Drills and Dinner 1) Gillet’s confinement in the hospital at Princeton, for purposes of the plot, occurs before Varnum and other officers of the Rhode Island regiment departed for Providence to raise a Negro regiment, and his return to Valley Forge occurs before the new black regiment joined the Army.
Spies and Deserters Page 32
