“I think we should show a bit of discretion,” Morgan announced calmly. “That gun does seem to have us in its sights.”
They turned and rode back across the field, von Steuben’s staff and escorts behind, Morgan’s riflemen and the Jersey militia following. The British advance had stalled out in the middle of the field and did not press forward, instead trading shots at long range. The British were at the disadvantage without any Hessian Jaeger riflemen, who could fire at nearly the same range as Morgan’s men could with their Pennsylvania and Virginia long rifles.
But they did not press forward. The lone artillery piece stayed just barely out of rifle range, tossing either four-pound shot or grapeshot down the Hightstown road or into the adjoining woodlot. The cavalry finally did advance to either flank and at last forced Morgan and his riflemen and militia to fall back for half a mile until they gained a defendable stretch of a nearly dry streambed, where cavalry could not easily venture against determined infantry.
Allentown was now out of sight. Were these enemy skirmishers the advance guard for today’s march, or a cover while the rest of the army continued to the east and the road toward Monmouth? This was a key bit of information that he must bring back to Washington today.
“I’m going to ride parallel to their line for a while,” von Steuben announced. “See if they are really moving that way, if I can.”
Morgan nodded.
“Can I find you here when I get back?”
Again that annoying shrug.
“Maybe. Depends.”
“Send a report back to the general once you get a sense of their movement,” von Steuben ordered, and Morgan shot him a bit of a cold look.
“Don’t need to be told that. It’s what I’ve been doing these last six months.”
The baron offered a smile.
“I did not mean an insult, sir. Just that the general needs to know today, immediately, if they are heading east rather than north, so that he can move accordingly.”
He turned and started off to the east, his staff and escort following at the gallop.
It was turning into a beautiful day and he felt a surge of joy. At that moment it almost didn’t matter which direction they were turning. He had a job to do. It was a job he was suited to and there was that heady sensation that today, indeed, he could make a difference in this war that he now so passionately believed in.
On the Road to Hightstown
One Mile North of Allentown
“Damn, that was close!” Captain John André announced. Allen had instinctively ducked as a rifle ball cracked the air between them.
“Calm, sir,” André chortled. “Always show calm in all things as a gentleman should. Look to our good general back there for inspiration.”
Without lowering the field glass held in his right hand, André gestured back to the rear with his left hand.
Allen looked over his shoulder to where General Grey, mounted, remained a couple of hundred yards behind the light infantry skirmishers.
“Easy enough for him,” Allen muttered. “We’re in rifle range, he isn’t.”
“My fine young provincial friend. You put too much credence in these backwoods ragamuffins and their rifles.”
“My fine English-born friend,” Allen snapped back. “I know what they can do. Remember, I lived near here. Several of the men of my village had long rifles and could choose which eye they wanted to shoot at a hundred yards.”
“And we are a good two hundred yards back,” André replied casually.
Allen kept his eye on one rifleman in particular, who apparently had singled them out for attention. The man was casually leaning against the side railing of the bridge the light infantry were to take and secure, arm moving up and down as he loaded. Behind him, men with axes and crowbars were hacking at the decking of the small, twenty-foot-long bridge, tearing it up.
“Gun number one. Fire!”
The four-pounder a dozen feet to the left of where André and Allen stood kicked back with a roar. The rifleman on the bridge, and those working at destroying it, spotted the flash and dove for cover. Splinters kicked up near the rifleman from the impact of grapeshot. Allen watched the man with the rifle, who stood back up several seconds later as if nothing had happened and continued reloading.
The skirmish was picking up in intensity, but so far there had been only a few casualties on either side, the light infantry keeping their distance to well over a hundred yards. They were taking advantage of any cover, knowing they were facing riflemen. The cavalry was far out to either flank, having been flanked in turn by militia concealed in nearby fencerows and woodlots. The militiamen, though firing at extreme range with their muskets, had forced the attempt at flanking to turn back.
“Ah, John,” Allen finally offered, seeing that their distant opponent had finished loading, and this time was sitting down, elbows on knees and drawing careful aim.
“I see him,” André whispered, “and, my friend, General Grey sees us. It is our job to stand here and inspire the men.”
There was a flash, and a second later André flinched. Startled, Allen looked over. The rifle ball had grazed André’s epaulette and he was gazing down at it.
“Damn him, this uniform cost twenty guineas,” he snapped.
Angry now, he stepped forward and drew his sword.
“Come on, men, enough of this playing about,” he shouted, and he pointed the sword toward the bridge.
The rifleman was back up, reloading. The axmen worked furiously—planks were coming up, and, rather than toss them into the shallow stream, the party was hauling them away.
André trotted along the road, sword out.
“Come on now, men, to the bridge!”
Cursing under his breath, Allen followed.
It was already blazing hot. Sweat beaded his face. His shirt underneath the jacket and vest was soaked, as if he had been swimming. His mouth was dry, his tongue felt swollen.
He had to follow André, damn it, and he drew his own sword.
The cavalry from the flanks, having drawn back toward the center, wheeled. Their captain, seeing André going forward, shouted for the men to charge. The thunder of their hooves rumbled across the open field as they trampled down spring corn and knee-high hay that had been turning brown in the heat.
The light infantry, which had been hugging the ground and a low line of hedges that bisected the field, came to their feet. After several hours of skirmishing in the heat, they were tired. Many of them were panting. One had collapsed in a heap, though not from any wound; after lying an hour behind the hedge, without water since the night before, cooking in his heavy wool uniform, he simply gave out.
On the far side of the bridge Allen could see a few mounted men. Someone had identified one of them as Morgan. The man seemed unperturbed by the ragged charge, and, while still mounted, he raised his rifle and fired. Allen saw a man to his right go down, cursing, clutching his arm.
The scattering of riflemen and militia in the streambed got up on the far bank and ran. The axmen tearing the bridge apart gave way and ran as well. The rifleman who had nearly killed John, unable to finish loading, gave a wave, jumped the broken span of the bridge, and darted off.
André reached the south end of the bridge. Grabbing hold of a railing, he swayed, head lowered, panting. For a moment Allen feared he had been hit.
He came up to his side.
“Damn it, sir, why did you do that?”
André looked over at him and tried to grin, beads of sweat dripping from his face.
“Sorry, lost control of myself for a moment, I guess. Not looking for mention in dispatches, mind you, just that bloody man tore my good uniform.”
Around them the cavalry were reining in. A ten-foot span of the bridge was gone in the middle and none dared to try and jump it. They turned their horses to either side, trying to force a way through the thick briars and saplings to get down to the stream.
The light infantry gained the bank. For them,
getting through the tangle was easier, and most of them were down into the creek within seconds, discipline forgotten as men began to peel off cartridge boxes and set aside muskets so they could kneel in the stream.
Some of them began to curse.
“Damn bloody rebels!”
Allen saw where the calling cards had been left. Apparently during the night someone had thought to drop a cartload of offal—from the smell of it, pig manure—into the sluggish creek, and the decaying head of a butchered sheep was bobbing in the stream.
Most of the men didn’t care, and scooped up handfuls of the water to drink, even as sergeants cursed at them to leave off.
“Rather impetuous of you, Captain André.”
Allen, leaning over, still gasping for breath, and furious that he could not refill his canteen, looked up to see General Grey.
André smiled as he saluted, though it was obvious this effort had blown the last of his strength.
“Wanted to have a talk with that bloody rifleman who marred my uniform, sir,” and he pointed at his shoulder.
Grey offered a smile and then gazed at the creek and shook his head.
“Order the men not to drink here,” he announced. “Send a well-guarded watering party upstream a few hundred yards. Captain, picket the bridge, make it look like you are trying to repair it, but go no further.”
“Sir?”
“This is only a diversion, young sir, remember that. Only a diversion. This army is moving east, not north.”
“Yes, sir.”
“André, I’m leaving you in charge. Mr. van Dorn, you stay with him.”
He smiled.
“You can translate if we bring in any prisoners here.”
Allen simply saluted but said nothing. “The army is set to move within the hour, to follow Knyphausen’s division. Once we begin the move I’ll send word back for you to rejoin my ranks. Good day to you, gentlemen.”
Grey turned and rode back toward the village.
Allen watched him go, and then winced as a rifle ball cracked the air.
He looked back to the north. The riflemen and militia had stopped their retreat at the next farm, the flash of smoke from the shot drifting up from the upper floor of the barn.
“So it’s east, as you guessed,” André said, looking over at Allen, his voice hoarse.
Allen simply nodded.
If the army had indeed turned north here, Grey would have been pushing the advance far more aggressively. He was most likely under orders to drive the rebel militia and their prying eyes just far enough back so that the line of march was no longer in view.
If Grey were to turn north, Washington would know in short order. He was without doubt somewhere just to the north of them—perhaps in Princeton, maybe even just up the road ahead in Hightstown. There and waiting, with good water all around them, while this army, burdened down, with every bridge a point of contention, with every well and creek polluted, staggered under the sun.
At least this way, Washington would have to march too, if he were looking for a fight. And there was something in his heart that told Allen that was exactly what Washington would do. Things had changed since last autumn, when, at the mere approach of light infantry and cavalry, the American militia would disappear, and even their riflemen keep their distance.
Another puff of smoke. The fence railing that André was bracing himself against splintered. Cursing, he stepped back.
There was a distant taunt, and André, eyes glazed from heat and exhaustion, looked northward and for once did not have the appropriate quip.
“Come, John, let’s get you into the shade,” Allen suggested. André did not resist as he led him away from the bridge and along the riverbank, above where the offal and sheep’s head were stinking in the creek. He sat him down. A light infantry corporal approached, offering a canteen.
“Filled it far upstream, I did, sir,” the corporal announced. “It should be fresh.”
“Thank you. That’s most thoughtful of you,” Allen replied, glad to take the offering. The corporal looked at him with a bit of surprise, not having expected a courteous response.
André suddenly hunched over and vomited, then lay back, gasping, features pale.
Allen unbuttoned his uniform jacket. Underneath, his vest was buttoned and soaked with sweat, as was the finely made cotton shirt beneath.
He uncorked the canteen and sniffed the water. It was warm—not pleasant-smelling, but there was no rank odor.
“Come on, John, some of this now.”
“Champagne, I hope,” André tried to quip.
“Just drink.”
He took several gulps and gasped.
“Damn, are you trying to poison me?”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
Allen took the canteen and forced down several long gulps, then poured most of the rest of it onto André’s face and chest. The water was green with algae, brackish. He forced him to drink the rest of it.
He seemed to revive slightly.
“Now just stay here in the shade, I’ll see to things,” Allen said, and motioned for one of the light infantrymen who was sitting in the shade nearby to come over. He gave him the canteen and asked him to refill it and see to the officer.
The man, obviously nearly in the same condition as André, did as ordered, while Allen stood up and went back to the bridge, keeping low.
A light scattering of shots had resumed, but not of the intensity of before. His side would advance no farther, and it was as if the other side, sensing that, was now indulging in just a little harassing fire for the sport of it.
He stood up.
The horseman on the far side, about two hundred yards off, seemed to be studying him with his field glass. After several minutes the man waved. Allen returned the gesture and then rode off.
They must know now, he realized. He gazed up the road, shimmering in the morning heat.
Hightstown, about five miles off. From there, Trenton was just ten miles to the south and west. Ten miles and an eternity away.
He could see their militia now out in the open. With the skirmishing dying down, some were sitting in the shade, under trees or on the west side of the barn.
He wondered if any of them were his old neighbors and friends.
Leaving the bridge, he went back to sit by André’s side. His features were pale, waxy, eyes closed. For a fearful second, he thought he was dead.
“Passed out, he did,” the light infantryman keeping watch said.
Allen lay down by his side, the world suddenly hazy, spinning.
He had no sense whatsoever of the passage of time when, two hours later, someone shook his shoulder.
“Orders, sir, we’re pulling back, the army is moving out.”
Eyes gummy, he opened them.
André was sitting up by his side, features still pale.
“Come along, Allen,” André sighed, “another march awaits.”
Leaving the bridge behind, Allen looked back over his shoulder.
The militia were still there, sitting in the shade…and watching.
As the British started retreating, the militia slowly got up and began following.
Hightstown, New Jersey
3:00 PM, June 25, 1778
Von Steuben was exhausted as he rode into the village. Until now the war had pretty well bypassed this place, other than for some few foraging parties passing through during the winter campaign of a year and a half ago.
It was a crossing place for roads that came up from Allentown and Trenton, branching from there to Freehold to the east, Cranbury to the northeast, and Princeton and Hopewell to the north.
Several dozen militia were gathered outside the tavern in the center of the village, which was bisected by a clear, fresh running stream, water trickling over the face of a mill dam just east of the main road. The sound of the tumbling water was refreshing, and as he wearily dismounted he asked Vogel to take his horse down to the stream to water him. Azor left his m
aster’s side and just plunged into the creek, splashing and rolling. Militiamen standing outside the tavern, laughing, offered the usual comments about the miniature horse.
Von Steuben walked stiffly up to the tavern. To his surprise, he didn’t even need to ask for a drink. One of the militia came out from the darkened interior, bearing a pewter mug, foaming beer dripping over the side.
“You the German, ain’t ya?” the host asked, and he nodded his thanks, taking the tankard and draining it in half a dozen gulps. He should have known better with this heat. The cool drink hit his stomach so that his head swam and he had to sit down on a bench, in the shade of the tavern’s front porch, the men laughing at his distress.
The same offer of beer was made for his escort of cavalry and staff, Du Ponceau and Walker. Von Steuben fished in his jacket pocket, feeling the Continentals but at last finding a couple of Dutch coppers. He pulled them out and asked the innkeeper if they might have another round. Pleased with the offer of real money, the man scurried inside.
The militia stationed here were, typical of militia, boasting about how they were ready for a fight. If need be, they would drop the bridge in the center of town, and then knock out the mill dam, find a couple of old horses or dried-up cows, take them upstream, shoot them, and push them in. A barrier of upended carts and wagons blocked a low crest a hundred yards south of the stream. Another barrier was up on the north side of the bank.
Tactically, he could see it would be an excellent place for Washington’s army to make a stand, if they could come down here in time, and if this should be the route of the enemy advance.
The militia actually seemed to be looking forward to their task of destruction. Obviously, they had never been in a fight before.
Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory Page 45
