“You seem to be getting told a lot about the activities of others, George.” She looked up at him with that understanding gaze of a wife who knew her husband far too well. “And your hand in this?”
“It would not be proper, of course, for me to engage in such activities or urge others to do so.”
“Wars are not just won on the battlefield, George. I recall reading one of your books, by that Italian, advising princes and such.”
“Of course, I have no idea what you are referencing, Martha.”
“Oh, of course not, George.”
He smiled.
“Is it true about Dr. Rush joining your critics?”
He nodded his head sadly.
“Yes, I trusted him. A good man. His encouragement was crucial before Trenton. That he would go over to their side is saddening. I have heard the same for both of the Adamses. Of John I would have thought better.”
“Is there anyone on your side?”
“Some of the Virginia and Carolina delegates, but last report I had, there is barely a quorum left in York—the rest have fled or gone home for the winter. So there is little Congress can do.
“As for the Board of War led by Gates. They can file their reports. But with whom? As to their mad idea to rely solely on an army of militia and disband any troops of longer service? I dare them to come to this place, line up these men, and tell them so. I daresay half the men will grab their blanket roll and go home, most likely never to return, but as for the rest?”
His voice was cold as he spoke and she could feel the tension in him.
“Not likely. I daresay that perhaps that was a hidden intent all along when we arrived at this place, found not one day’s food, not even a single ration waiting for twelve thousand hungry exhausted men. Not one tool, not one shelter prepared.”
His anger became clearly evident.
“Perhaps that was the intent all along. To let this army disintegrate, melt away, and go home. I would then be dismissed, and Gates would take command in the spring—that is, if he could rally any army at all to stand beneath the flag once more.”
He broke away from her side and went back to the window to look out at the rising storm. A few men trudged past the headquarters, leading a pony cart pulled by a skin-and-bones mule, the wagon piled high with firewood.
Outside he could hear axes ringing. Men of the headquarters company were busily chopping up more firewood for him and for their own shelter in the barn, where they had rigged up several of Dr. Franklin’s stoves, parts of which had been salvaged out of the ruins of the forge down in the valley.
A soft knock on the door interrupted them.
“Enter.”
The door cracked open and it was Billy Lee. At the sight of him Martha broke into a smile.
“Billy Lee, how are you?”
“Just fine, ma’am, and it is a joy to see you.”
“As it is a joy for me to see you. But I must have a word with you.”
“Ma’am?” and he looked at her nervously.
“The general has lost weight. Far too much weight. I told you to take good care of him, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am. But you see the vittles, it’s been hard to find a proper meal of late.”
She stood up, laughed, and went to his side, though she did not take his hand.
“Your wife, Janie, sends her love to you and orders you to keep safe. She knitted a new scarf, mittens, and wool cap for you. I have them in my luggage.”
“That is kind of you, ma’am, and her. Ma’am, is she safe? We heard there was fever there some months back.”
“Just the usual summer complaints,” Martha lied. The smallpox epidemic had at last reached their rather isolated home; four slaves had died, two of them children, and over a score of others had fallen ill. Janie had been one, and out of loyalty to the man serving her husband in the field Martha had insisted that Janie be brought into the main house and nursed there by her personal servants. The girl had recovered but was terribly scarred. She would tell George of it and let him find the proper time later to break the news and arrange for a letter to be sent back to Mount Vernon from him.
“Ma’am, General, dinner is ready.”
“Thank you, Billy Lee.” Martha said, and this time she did reach out and touch him lightly on the shoulder. “And, Billy Lee, thank you for keeping my beloved general safe. We’ve heard rumors of your heroism and I am grateful to you for it.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I will tell them you shall be joining the party shortly.”
He closed the door, and she looked back at her husband, who was smiling.
“That darn fool,” he sighed. “At times the British must think I am an African. Whenever the bullets begin to fly, he somehow finds a way to get between me and them.”
She went back to the mirror, checking her hair one more time, forgoing the formality of a wig for this occasion. Brushing some lint from the wool cape off her shoulders, she looked back at him.
“Am I presentable?” she asked, almost girlish with concern.
“Forever presentable,” he replied with enthusiasm, “and I am so glad you are here to be presented.”
He took her hand, led her to the door, and opened it.
In the room across the hall the table was set. His staff, generals, the wives of Greene and Stirling, all of them were waiting, the room crowded, extra mismatched chairs pushed in around the table.
As they entered, General Greene and his wife, acting as hosts, greeted them, the general bowing, Mrs. Greene offering a curtsy. The two women embraced, for they were friends from the winter before at Morristown. All gathered around the table broke into applause, George and Martha assuming the place of honor at the head of the table, which was so small that they were pressed almost shoulder to shoulder.
The plates had already been set. No fine china, just plain pewter. In the center of the table was a repast of boiled and fried salt pork, though there were some very thin slices of smoked ham as well. The bowls of sauerkraut and dried applies were filled to overflowing The Greenes again acted as hosts, doling out equal portions as the plates were passed around. Two bottles of wine for more than a dozen around the table had already been uncorked, companions to a jug of sweet cider for the second glass set before each. When all were served, Nathanael Greene stood, glass held high.
“For Martha Washington and her beloved and honored husband, His Excellency General George Washington.”
The others stood to join in the toast. Martha smiled broadly but Washington remained unmoved, merely sipping from his glass, waiting for the others to drink and sit down.
He then stood.
“Gentlemen and fair ladies,” he said softly. “There is a tradition we must never forget, no matter what the circumstances.”
He held his glass up.
“For these United States of America. For the Congress which guides and governs it, for the Declaration of Independence which defines us, and for those who serve honorably as their sworn duty directs them to serve.”
The others stood, looking one to the other, and raised their glasses, repeating the toast and then sitting back down.
As he settled into his chair, he looked over at Martha. She had tears in her eyes.
“Bet they’re having roast beef, suet pudding, kidney pies, plum duffs, the works in there,” someone growled.
Peter Wellsley looked over his shoulder at the complainer. Of course it was Putnam. The others joked if he didn’t have a complaint by the end of a day it would surely mean the coming of the end of time and the Day of Judgment.
“Ah, shut your yap and take your ration,” Harris growled.
The daily ritual of their company had just been played out. The finest choice of some actual smoked ham had been the last to be doled out, along with a handful of dried apples and a cup of kraut. Harris, betting most likely that the best would be the next to last, had called his own name, only to wind up with the ham bone to gnaw on, while Putnam
had received the prize. Harris immediately declared that he would boil the bone later to get the marrow out.
Over the last month they had managed to make the barn a rather cozy place to live. Extra boards had been salvaged from the wreckage of the forge and hammered over any cracks. Fresh hay and straw were still up in the loft and had been forked down to be turned into bedding, though after a month they were crushed flat and increasingly filled with vermin. Dried horse manure had been moistened and troweled into cracks between the boards to keep out drafts, what was left of their tenting strung together to form enclosures around the Franklin stoves, parts of which had been found in the ruined forge, carried back here, literally on the backs of the men, then bolted together. Fortunately, two of the men in the company had been blacksmiths before the war. Tearing out boards from the animal stalls, they had even managed to make rather comfortable benches circling the stoves. Each man had his claimed spot. Many of them had prowled around, found old grain sacks, and stuffed them with straw, dried moss, and leaves for cushions. Fights as to who owned what had been avoided by Peter, who concocted some ink from lampblack and a bit of linseed oil, stenciling the names of the owners on each.
The stoves only used a fraction of the wood of an open fireplace. As the headquarters guard company, they had hung on to their possession. In many a regiment, some officer would have laid claim to the precious find and carted them off to his own cabin. There had even been some concern when a colonel of the Massachusetts Line had spotted the arrangement, but Harris had simply told him to take the matter up with the general, and the precious stoves had stayed in place.
The storm outside was in full blast now. In spite of all their efforts to insulate the barn, the wind thundered through the eaves of the upper level, icy gusts eddying down into where they were gathered, the ragged tents strung together to form their inner shelter fluttering. Flakes of snow melted and then dripped upon them in moist droplets.
Harris made a suggestion that after their meal they take a half hour or so of what he called “the plastering detail,” scraping up more manure from the pigpen and cattle stalls, cooking it up into a paste to try to seal off the cracks in the walls of the upper level, but there were no volunteers and he let it pass.
Peter, who had assumed something of the task of firekeeper for the stoves, given that he had first found them while prowling around the ruins of the forge, put on a heavy canvas glove, gingerly pulled open the door to the firebox of each, and shoved in more wood.
Putnam’s foraging party had hit upon a real trove earlier in the day before the storm settled in. A quarter-mile out toward the east, they had found a couple of dead ash trees and a birch, down in a tangled hollow that others had not yet ventured into, the trees apparently knocked over in a storm a couple of years before and then covered over with vines and brambles. The wood was well seasoned, not as green as what so many of the men were trying to burn to keep warm. They had fallen upon the treasure with a will, fetching several two-handed saws and then bringing each log back to be split inside the barn. After some democratic debate, which had lasted all of about thirty seconds, they all agreed that this was their find alone, Putnam and company not foraging for the general but simply out prowling about on their own in search of wood or the few hares or pheasants that still survived in the area—thus all the wood was theirs. Fortunately, the storm had shadowed their efforts as they smuggled a good half-cord into the barn to be split.
It was heaven-sent: dry ash and birch that was easy to cut and split, burned hot, and left a good bed of hot ashes to warm them through the night.
In spite of the cold gusts, Peter had his uniform jacket off, the vest, such a lovely gift from Mrs. Hewes, unbuttoned. As others finished their meals, some drew off their jackets, removed their shirts, and began the ritual of louse hunting, carefully going through the seams, a find greeted with a loud exclamation of delight, the victim then crushed between dirty fingernails.
The Robinson twins, each stripped to the waist, were examining each other, poking through each other’s hair and armpits, their efforts greeted by more than a few ribald comments about where else they should search for the ever-elusive foes.
Putnam, putting a plate down in front of one of the stoves, suggested a louse race, but he had no takers, men now too intent on their own labors after a hard day, some already taking their cushions, fetching a raggedy blanket from their kit hung up by their sleeping stalls, and just simply flopping down near the stoves and quickly falling asleep.
A few took out crumpled sheets of paper from their haversacks or jacket pockets and, beneath the flickering light of a couple of tallow lamps, read yet again letters that had already been read a hundred times or more…for no post had arrived other than those bearing official dispatches since they had come to this place more than six weeks ago. Others fetched a precious sheet of paper for which they had paid two dollars Continental, a fifth of a month’s pay, and, using the ink Peter had concocted, laboriously set to work with letters for home, a couple opening small diaries to note down the events of the day: “Mrs. Washington arrived. We got a quarter gill of corn whiskey to celebrate. Storm today, much snow. Still no word of home and if Barbara and the baby are safe from the smallpox…”
Others drew out small pocket Bibles or a bit of newspaper and began to read, while off in a corner the gamblers were at work with a tattered deck of cards.
Peter sat silent before one of the stoves, the sides glowing with a soft, shimmering heat, as darkness settled outside, the storm still howling through the eaves. He was lost in thought.
Home. What day is it? Friday? He wasn’t sure. Maybe Saturday. Oh, if Saturday, that was the night his mother would always bake some pies and lay up food so as not to have to cook on the Sabbath. In autumn and winter there would always be an apple pie or cobbler drenched in fresh cream. Father would then go to the parlor to read the Bible or, if the post had arrived in time, the latest news from New York and Philadelphia and the world beyond.
Jonathan would often come over, and they would sit on the floor by the fireplace playing chess when boys, though as they got older sometimes the Olsons or even the van Broklins would be having a social, and if so they would be given permission to go. Sometimes there was a songfest at the Methodist church, which his parents didn’t hold with; but they turned a blind eye because the entire village knew he was more than a bit smitten with Sarah Treadwell, daughter of the preacher. Of course, he would have to return home before nine. He and Jonathan…
Jonathan. Jonathan was dead.
He stared at the glowing stove.
Just a day of rest here, warm, dry, a day of full rations…you would be alive, my friend, my beloved friend.
He sat silent, staring at the glowing stove. Jonathan sleeping in his grave in the cold ice-and snow-covered ground at McConkey’s Ferry, and yet I am still here.
I am here. I could be home in Trenton now. Hell, nearly everyone else on this night was home except for us few fools. Jonathan’s brothers? James, damn him, was most likely grown fat by now, warm by his fireplace—laughing, most likely, at the thought of our misery. Allen? At least he had the stomach to stay on the side he had sworn loyalty to, damn him. Several months back, a letter had come from Sarah, all formal, of course, since her father had without doubt read it before allowing it to be posted, but she had said that there was rumor that Allen had been promoted and was now on the staff of a British general named Grey.
The implication was obvious. Her father was a Tory. If only she had set her cap for Allen, she could perhaps be receiving the attention of a proper officer, one most likely safe and warm in Philadelphia this night.
Allen, my God, Allen, you actually threw in with the butcher of Paoli? He found it hard to believe that Jonathan’s brother would have sunk to such an extreme.
And I sit here. Trenton not a day’s walk away, or the same as Philadelphia, where it was reported that if a man turned his coat, came through the lines, and signed the oath of allegiance
to the king he would be given a warm meal, the king’s shilling, and a warm uniform free of vermin.
“Peter?”
He looked up. It was Sergeant Harris.
“Didn’t you hear me, lad?”
“What?”
“I told you five minutes ago, change of the watch.”
“Oh.”
Harris was holding his cartridge box and musket.
Reluctantly standing up, extending his hands for a few more seconds over the blazing heat to warm them up, he buttoned his vest, pulled on his jacket, buttoned it tight, then ducked out under the awning of tents. The temperature on the far side was already below freezing as he went to his stall, where he put on his blanket cape, the dampness in it frozen solid. He inwardly cursed himself—he should have thought to dry it out by the fire earlier. Too late now. Putting on his broken-down hat, he took a strip of canvas and tied the hat down tight under his chin, the canvas covering his ears and cheeks.
Harris was over by the door of the barn, handing him his cartridge box, checking to make sure the outer and inner flaps were sealed tight.
“I checked your load and the pan is dry,” Harris said, as he handed the musket over, an oiled cloth wrapped around the lock.
The sergeant cracked the door open and quickly slipped out, closing the door so it would not let in too much of the wintry blast.
Peter took a deep breath. It was painful. Freezing cold, wind driving the snow into his face as he followed Harris to the front door of the headquarters house, where a lone sentry stood. Since no one was watching, he was hunched over against the blast, stamping his feet, musket resting against the doorsill, slapping his hands together to try and keep out the frost.
“Private Sanders! Is that any way to keep watch?” Harris roared.
The poor sentry looked up at him, grabbed his musket, and tried to assume a position of attention.
Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory Page 27
