To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1

by Newt Gingrich

  The men were at the table, gorging themselves; James standing sullen, leaning against the far wall, watching.

  “This your family, son?” Sergeant Howard asked.

  “It is,” Jonathan replied weakly.

  The sergeant stood and nodded politely to his mother. “Your boy is a brave lad, and we thank you for your hospitality, ma’am.”

  She glared at him, unable to reply.

  “Did the Hessians here before us act so polite, ma’am?” one of the men cried.

  “As a matter of fact they did. They’re Christian men, they are, and eat with manners. Not like you heathens.”

  Her response was met with some laughter but no mocking retorts. The men were too busy cramming down what they could.

  The sergeant stood up, came over to Jonathan’s side, and knelt down.

  “How you feeling, lad?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  The sergeant looked to his mother. “Ma’am. He’s had a bad night of it. May I suggest, ma’am, you get this lad stripped down and into a bed for a couple of hours before we move out.”

  “Exactly what I’ve been telling you, Jonathan,” his mother exclaimed, actually smiling at the sergeant.

  “Do that, and I won’t move for days,” Jonathan whispered. “No.”

  “Lad, come along now,” the sergeant said in a fatherly way.

  He shook his head. “Just let me warm up a bit by the fire. I’m so cold now.”

  “Your son’s a brave one, he is,” the sergeant said.

  “Can’t you order him?”

  “Not under my command.”

  He looked past Jonathan to where Allen stood. The uniform coat was still on the floor, color revealed, and the sergeant’s eyes narrowed.

  “You a Hessian?”

  “No, sergeant, his brother.”

  “A Tory then?”

  “Yes. First New Jersey Loyalists. I’m posted with this garrison.”

  “A bad day for you then, boy.”

  Allen didn’t speak.

  The sergeant’s gaze drifted to James.

  “And your story?”

  “He’s nothing,” Jonathan whispered. “Nothing at all.”

  As he spoke, Jonathan fixed James with a withering gaze, and James lowered his eyes, turned away, and stalked out of the room.

  The sergeant seemed to sense something and turned back to Jonathan.

  “Leave him be,” Jonathan sighed.

  “All right, lad. But you should get to bed. We’ll roust you out before the army moves.”

  “You’ll have to move,” Allen said. “You know what force is at Princeton, don’t you?”

  “Ready to turn traitor again and tell us?” the sergeant asked coldly.

  “You don’t need a traitor to tell you what you already know. Once they get word of this, they will be on you like an avalanche.”

  The sergeant forced a smile. “We’ll see.”

  “You men!”

  Jonathan looked up. It was an officer, hands on hips, standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “What in hell is going on here?”

  “Breakfast, sir,” the, sergeant replied smoothly.

  “Out! All of you, out! The General is getting set to move.”

  The officer turned to look at Jonathan’s mother.

  “Ma’am, have they been looting?”

  She paused for a second and then shook her head.

  “No. They’re my guests.”

  He turned away. “Sergeant, get your men out. Now!”

  “Sir.”

  The officer fixed Allen with his gaze. “Your story?”

  “A Loyalist, sir.”

  The officer grinned slightly.

  “Take him in tow then.”

  The officer stormed out of the building, shouting for the men to fall in and be ready to move.

  “No rest for the wicked,” the sergeant said. “Boys, take what you can.”

  He looked to Jonathan’s mother. “How many did you have quartered here?”

  “Twelve men.”

  “Their kits?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Josiah, Steven, Andrew, go upstairs. Take anything we can use.”

  The three ran up the stairs.

  The men began to clear out.

  Jonathan struggled to get to his feet.

  “No, please, son.” His mother, with hands on his shoulders, was trying to force him to sit back down.

  “Can’t he stay?” she pleaded, looking at the sergeant.

  “Son, you’re in no shape to march.”

  “Just find me some boots,” Jonathan gasped.

  “You can’t make him go.”

  “Ma’am, your Tory son there is right. The lobsterbacks will be here before the day is out; most likely moving even now. He has to move. He stays here and they catch him, Loyalist son in your house or not, it will be off to the prison hulks in New York with him. And in his shape he will die aboard those ships. I’m sorry, he has to go.”

  “You’re killing him,” she cried.

  The sergeant looked down at Jonathan and then sadly at her.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not killing him. It is this damn war that is killing him.” Now his gaze lingered on Allen.

  He sighed, patting Jonathan on the shoulder and then let fall the boots he had looted from the store.

  “Put these on, boy,” the sergeant said, shaking his head. “This war, this damn bloody war.”

  “Help me,” Jonathan whispered.

  Peter came to his side and was down on his knees, Allen joining him. The boots offered by the sergeant were a loose fit, but just drawing them on sent waves of agony through him so that he could not help but groan, his cries causing his mother to break down completely.

  Peter helped him back to his feet.

  The sergeant looked at him appraisingly.

  “Son, we’ll see if the ferry here can take you across. That or maybe ride one of the limbers for the guns.”

  “I can walk.”

  The sergeant clapped him again on the back. He spoke to Allen sharply. “You, too; come along with us.”

  “Sergeant?”

  “What is it?”

  “A request.”

  “What? Be quick about it.”

  “Will you take my parole?”

  “Your what?”

  “I offer my parole not to try and escape if you will let me help my brother here. Once across the river, you can send me with the others.”

  The sergeant looked at him appraisingly. “Fine, then.” He pointed at the coat on the floor. “Turn that coat. Give him something warm to wear.”

  Allen picked up his uniform jacket, pulling the sleeves inside out, so that the blue with green facings was concealed. Stripping off Jonathan’s tattered blanket he draped it over his brother’s shoulders.

  Jonathan slowly walked to the front of the house, trying to keep his balance with frozen feet stuffed into boots far too big. He could hear his mother crying.

  “Maybe the war is over now,” she said between sobs. “Maybe my boys can come home tonight or tomorrow?”

  The sergeant looked at her, and wanted to comfort her. “Maybe,” he lied, and then was out the door.

  Jonathan felt his mother’s arms go around him, head buried against his back.

  “You boys will take care of each other?” she begged.

  “Yes, Mother,” Allen whispered, his own voice breaking.

  “Then take my blessing.”

  They turned to face her. Reaching up she kissed Allen’s forehead, and then touched Jonathan’s fevered brow with her lips.

  “May our Lord watch over my boys and bring them safe back to me at day’s end,” she said slowly.

  Jonathan fought to hold back his own tears. It was the same blessing she had given them every day across so many years as they had once rushed out together to go to school, to play, to explore the world beyond.

  “And may the Lord watch over you, Mother, so that you may greet u
s at day’s end,” both replied softly, kissing her in return.

  Jonathan glanced toward his other brother, James, silent, arms folded, with his father standing beside him, obviously in shock. Neither of them spoke, and he had nothing to say to them. Not now.

  He stepped out onto the street. A column was beginning to form up, orders being shouted for the men to make ready to move out.

  A shaft of sunlight passed through roiling clouds, bathing him with its feeble warmth.

  He fell in with his comrades, and did not look back.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The scent of lilacs drifted on the morning air.

  Washington smiled. A dream? Strange that you can at times realize you are in a dream. But is it one?

  Martha was standing in the open doorway at Mount Vernon, waving, calling his name, the way she had so often greeted him when he came home after a long trip, unable to contain her excitement, her delight showing when she first caught a glimpse of his horse trotting up the lane. Propriety forgotten in front of the house servants and field hands, she held up the hem of her dress as she sprinted, girl-like, down the steps and onto the graveled path.

  It was a beautiful morning. To his left the broad sweep of the Potomac reflected the turquoise blue sky, whitecaps dancing across the river, a schooner, close-hauled, bow wake foaming, catching the sun, sparkling like diamonds.

  It was an all so perfect morning. Warm, the kind of warmth that bespoke a hot day to come, but now, in the first hour after dawn, after a long night of travel, the warmth would soak into his bones and make him feel so alive. Looking forward to breakfast at home, catching up on the local news, sharing the day together.

  She was coming closer. He could hear her laughing.

  Mount Vernon. Strange, some of it was as he remembered it as a young man, still a bit of a rough-hewn look to the place, before her

  hand guided the creation of the finer touches, the change of paint, the new curtains from England, the expansion of the porch as a place for a score of friends to sit on a summer evening to watch the sky and river darken. And yet with another look it was indeed changed back again to his memories of an earlier youth.

  It must be a dream, but he reveled in it as she drew closer.

  “George!”

  He slipped out of the saddle, the way he would sometimes do as a younger man, swinging right leg forward and over his horse’s neck and then dropping to the ground, a bit of bravado, for, after all, was he not the finest horseman along fifty miles of the Potomac?

  He alighted, grinned, and flung his arms wide.

  She leapt into his embrace, still laughing, face radiant, eyes sparkling, brow and cheeks not yet lined with age. She kissed him excitedly.

  “Oh, George, you should have been home ages ago,” she exclaimed, kissing him again, and again as he held her high in the air. “What kept you?”

  What kept me?

  Had it been a hunt that went too far afield? He and the others deciding to just make it a night, building a fire and settling down, sleeping under the open canopy of the sky until first light of dawn, all of them then joking about how wives would be waiting, arms akimbo, ready to let fly with various accusations.

  Or was he now just back from the Monongahela, bearing the first tidings of that terrible defeat . . . No, that was before Martha, long before her.

  “You’re cold, George,” she exclaimed, cupping both hands to his cheeks. “Good heavens, you’re chilled to the bone, and soaked clean through.”

  She pushed back slightly, and he let her slip to her feet, stepping back slightly, her headed tilted in a manner that could always cut into his heart.

  “George Washington, you’ll catch your death of cold.”

  The front of her dress was stained, wet from his holding her, and he wondered if the fine blue silk would somehow be ruined. But she didn’t seem to care. She reached out to take his hand, clasping it firmly with both of hers, chaffing it vigorously even as she turned to lead him back to the house.

  “What have you been doing? We must get you inside at once! And get you out of those wet clothes this instant.”

  How he adored the way she could, at times, take command of him this way, her gentlest suggestion a wish for him to fulfill, her orders something he would accept with a knowing smile and follow if only to please her.

  She began to chatter away, telling him all the news of what had happened since he left. How long ago was it? Yesterday afternoon? A month ago? Ten years? There was talk of the Richardsons and their newborn twins, of the storm that had blown down a favorite old chestnut tree where as a boy he had gathered nuts to roast. But when was that? Wasn’t that eight years past, its wood now paneling a guest room?

  Talk of a new colt from a favorite sire, the loss of a hunting dog——“poor thing, we buried him as you would have wished,” she sighed——the arrival of new china settings for twelve and apologies that they had cost eight pounds more than expected and four of the cups arrived broken and how their agent in London would hear of it . . . Such a thing . . .

  He laughed and shook his head. Four cups broken. Strange how important that now was, and he clucked, saying he would send a letter forthwith and insist upon proper replacement without charge for, after all, the entire set was useless until plates, cups, and saucers matched.

  She squeezed his hand with delight and exclaimed again how cold he felt.

  They were at the four steps that led up to the porch. One of his hounds, now aged, allowed to run free about the place, came out from under the porch, tail slowly wagging in greeting, head up, sniffing at him. Poor thing, nearly blind, but still he could recognize his scent and drew closer. He reached down with his free hand and scratched him behind the ears. Was it Scottie, Old George, or Max? But wasn’t it Old George who had died long ago and was buried under the chestnut?

  Accepting the greeting, the dog went back, and with a sigh settled into the soft warm earth under the porch.

  She stopped on the third step, the place where when she turned she could meet him at exactly eye level.

  “How I’ve missed you,” she said, and leaning forward kissed him lightly on the lips.

  He drew her closer and she laughed.

  “You know everyone is watching us, George. What will they say?”

  “They’ll say that I’m home.”

  He kissed her and she sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  “When will you come home, George?”

  He drew back slightly in surprise.

  “But I am home.”

  He was on the porch of Mount Vernon, she was in his arms, the doorway was open, house servants coming out, smiling, ready to greet him. Neighbors were coming from across the fields beyond, waving, distant shouts.

  “I am home.”

  “Sir . . .”

  “Martha?”

  “Sir!”

  The voice was a whisper, masculine . . . It was Billy Lee.

  “Sir.”

  Trenton, New Jersey

  11:30 A.M., December 26, 1776

  A chill breeze swept in and around him as he opened his eyes. Billy Lee was leaning over him, hand resting gently on his shoulder, shaking him.

  “Sir, you were dreaming, sir.”

  He started to say her name again and then stopped, embarrassed. The room was filled with a dozen or more men. They were standing politely, with backs turned, for no proper gentleman should hear the whispered dreams of another, but he could see a couple of them exchanging sidelong glances and grins.

  “How long was I asleep?” he asked, an edge of embarrassment and then anger at himself in his voice for being caught up this way.

  “Only a few minutes, sir. Just a few minutes.”

  He stood up, Billy Lee drawing back. Wordlessly he accepted the offer of a cup of coffee. He wanted to dress Billy down, to tell him never to allow that to happen again. It was undignified. How dare he allow me to fall asleep while my men still labored?

  But he said nothing. Bi
lly knew without being told, and being Billy, he had allowed his General a brief nap, knowing that just twenty minutes or so would refresh him. Yet now he felt as if drugged. It was hard to shake off the sleep, and the softness of the memories.

  He sipped the coffee Billy Lee offered, black and thick, not hot, but still warm enough, and drained the contents quickly, letting it go to work.

  The room suddenly felt confining, hot. The doorway out onto the street was open. General Sullivan entered, mud spattered, wet breeches soaked, a broad grin lighting his face.

  “They have over forty hogsheads of rum, by God,” he exclaimed, and then, seeing the General, he fell silent, the others grinning again.

  “Where?” Washington asked.

  “Sir, in a storehouse behind the barracks.”

  “Order it destroyed. If our men get into that we won’t have an army in another hour.”

  “Sir, I’ve already ordered that.”

  Washington said nothing more, but could clearly smell the rum on Sullivan.

  Greene stood in one corner, Knox was over by the fireplace, extending his large beefy hands, rubbing them vigorously. Stirling and Mercer were leaning over a map spread on a table, the corners held down by pewter candlesticks, the map itself wet and stained.

  He walked over to join them.

  “Your reports?” he announced, signaling that a meeting had begun, and each, unable to contain his delight, told his story.

  “Fifteen hundred or more prisoners . . . Three stands of colors . . . Six field pieces, four of them of bronze . . . The Hessian commander Rall is dying . . . Over a hundred enemy dead and wounded, with surgeons now attending to them . . .”

  He nodded, taking the information in while continuing to gaze at the map, as if by looking at its lines he could somehow cross the spanning miles and divine all.

  “First, gentlemen, any reports of British movement from Princeton?”

  They looked one to the other and shook their heads.

  “Do you know for sure? I want definite information, not assumptions.”

  “Sir, as ordered,” Sullivan replied, “advance scouts were sent out along the Pennington Road, and from there on to the Princeton Road. None have reported in with any observations of movement. In fact, the garrison at Princeton may not even be aware yet of our presence here.”