And the men had held.
Counter-battery fire from his own guns took out several of the British fieldpieces, each successful hit, visible to his ranks, triggering resounding cheers. Riding up to one battery to congratulate them on their successful shooting, he was stunned and impressed to see a woman manning the swabber for the barrel of the gun, exhorting the men around her to stand in the fight even though her husband had just been killed.
Throughout the barrage and counterbarrage the men had stood firm. Most of the regiments had been ordered to lie down, but there had been little comfort there, for they were out in broad, open fields, under the flaming heat of a noonday sun. Not one canteen in ten still had a drop of water in it. Drummer boys had been detailed off to take canteens and run back behind the lines to a distant creek, or seek out a nearby well or spring for refills.
Washington had established a command post under a grove of spreading elm trees, leaving most of his staff there to carry dispatches as they came in while he rode along the line to inspect. The British artillery had quickly spotted the position and turned an entire battery on it. Rather there than against his infantry, he thought, but still he was nervous for the men he had left behind until, riding close by, he saw, to his absolute delight, Billy Lee and several other servants wearing uniform jackets and hats, standing out in the open and posing as if they were the commanders, and thereby drawing the fire to themselves…and standing absolutely unflinching, to the cheers of the men watching as round shot bounded to either side of them and clipped through the trees overhead. Never once did the pseudo-officers duck.
And now the main attack was coming on hard and fast. Clinton and Cornwallis were pushing in every regiment they had. If Lee’s attack had gone in as he had planned, they would have caught the British still in camp or strung out along the road for miles. With the time Lee’s timidity or cowardice had bought them, the British professionals were now fully arrayed.
“As terrible as an army with banners,” one of the men in the line in front of him gasped, as the smoke from the artillery fire lifted for a moment, revealing the advancing host.
A minister was out in front of the regiment—men of Stirling’s command, a Massachusetts brigade—holding up a Bible. “Though a thousand fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, it shall not come nigh unto thee,” he intoned.
Washington removed his hat as he rode behind the line. Some of the men prayed on their knees.
Range was down to a hundred and fifty yards, and now out of the marshy ground the enemy came on, their drumbeat sounding the call, holding back, holding the pace of their advance back in the mind-numbing heat until they were within musket range.
“Up, men, up!” The cry echoed along the line. Men came to attention, muskets already loaded, the weapons at the shoulder. The sight sent a shiver down Washington’s spine, a battle front a quarter-mile across, thousands of men. The moment of the supreme test was at hand.
Range a hundred yards, ninety, eighty. He could clearly see the British regimental banners, the flag-bearers waving their colors back and forth slowly to make them visible, since the hot, moisture-drenched air of early afternoon was absolutely still. Enemies he had faced before: men of the Grenadiers, their high, brass-capped hats glinting in the sunlight; men of the seasoned Forty-fourth; Twenty-third; the elite Coldstream Guards; Welsh Fusiliers; and, most feared of all, the Black Watch, in their dark tartans, pipers playing.
On so many a field, the mere sight of such an array advancing would cause men by the hundreds to melt out of the ranks and stream to the rear. Here and there a lone man did turn, throwing aside his musket, and start to run. But it was only a few, those in the ranks barely sparing them a backward glance. For the men running had always been the first to run. But today, on this day, no one else followed.
He could already sense it, a change, even an eagerness to be at it. The brunt of battle earlier in the day had been borne by the men of Lee’s division, some of whom had been reformed by von Steuben and were now the reserve lines in the center. As for the rest, the men of Stirling, Greene, those of Wayne’s regiments who had not been pressed forward earlier, this was now their moment. They had marched half a dozen miles in searing tropical heat. They had seen panic, panic that at Long Island had spread like a wildfire across a plain of dry summer wheat, but not now, not this time.
A cry started to echo up from the line, one man at first, then dozens, and then hundreds.
“Come on! Come on, you bastards! Come and try us! Come on!”
Officers shouted for the men to be silent, but their rage could no longer be contained. They had been driven, terrified, disdained, wounded, at times their friends murdered as they begged to surrender on a dozen fields. Only two hours ago some of them had run, but even they had not retreated of their own accord. Rather, they had been ordered back by the fear harbored by a man who would never be allowed to lead them again.
And now they were filled with rage…and with a bitter, angry pride. In the distance Washington could hear a booming voice, that of von Steuben, almost laughing, shouting something in German, the men cheering.
Eighty yards were down to seventy and still they were coming…
And still the Americans were standing.
“Battalion!” The cry raced along the line. To both right and left battle was already joined, volleys pealing, smoke obscuring all. In the center it was about to begin. Regimental names were being called out.
“Poise your muskets!”
The rattle of hundreds of weapons being raised up.
“Take aim!”
And now the thrilling sight of hundreds of muskets, as if guided by a single hand, being leveled, pointed downrange.
A last glimpse of the enemy. Some of the regiments stopped, others tried to press the advance to bluff their opponents into fear.
“Fire!”
An explosive tearing roar thundered along the line, regiment after regiment discharging their weapons as if a single finger pulled the trigger. Great gouts of yellow-gray smoke roiled out.
“Reload!”
The command raced along the line, officers stepping out of the ranks for a few seconds, crouching low, trying to see under the smoke. It was impossible to tell the impact. Ears still ringing from the massed volley, Washington could still hear the commands from the other side, nearly exactly the same, as their volley fire was returned by the British, flashes of their muskets, sheets of flame torching in front of him, the beelike hissing of the musket balls buzzing to either side of him. Along the line directly in front of him, half a dozen men dropped. A man staggered backwards, screaming, holding his hands to his face, blood gushing out between his fingers. He collapsed to his knees, continuing to scream. A few more men broke, turned, and ran, but the others continued to load.
“Faster boys, faster! Hold for the volley. Get ready!”
The enemy, faster at the reload, fired a second volley, and more men collapsed. But the line held and only seconds later the Massachusetts men leveled their muskets, aiming down into the cloud of smoke enveloping the field, and returned fire.
He pressed along the line. There was another volley from a British regiment, few shots hitting, for it was now impossible to aim due to all the smoke. One of his regiments went to the complex move of one line firing while the other reloaded, and the attempt paid off well when, out of the smoke, shadowy forms appeared, coming on at the double, holding perfect formation. The feared Black Watch! After the exchange of half a dozen volleys, they believed the time was right to come forward with the bayonet and rout a shaken and demoralized enemy.
The regiment facing them kept their nerve, and at a range of less than ten yards, the first rank leveled and fired a volley into the Scotsmen’s faces. Dozens dropped in that second. The charge slowed. The men facing them screamed with rage now and, lowering bayonets as ordered, countercharged. And for the first time since the beginning of the war, one of the few times in their long and storied history of victory,
the Black Watch gave back in confusion. Many of the Americans had inverted their muskets and were using them as clubs, and were now beginning to press down off the ridge.
“Not yet!” Washington cried, and started down the hill. A spontaneous charge, rather than a disciplined advance, could break the continuity of his own line and, in the confusion that followed, against an enemy he sensed was not yet broken, lead to a disastrous countercharge. He had witnessed it often enough on the frontier, the Indians masters at feigning a panicked retreat, only to lead their pursuers into a well-prepared trap and slaughter.
The men heard his cry and slowed.
“Gallant lads! Gallant. Hold the line. We charge when all are ready! Now we hold the line.”
The men greeted his compliments with a cheer but only reluctantly retired the few dozen paces back up the slope, but in those few seconds all saw the wisdom, as enemy regiments to either side of the Black Watch turned their fire to oblique right and oblique left, crisscrossing with musket balls where proud regiments would have been advancing.
A few regiments broke into independent fire at will, but most held to von Steuben’s training, seeing, on the field of battle, the wisdom of what he taught. The smashing hammerlike blows of a volley stunned like a well-delivered punch rather than mere slaps. When the enemy too began to surge forward, men from several regiments would be directed to fire at the oblique, doubling and tripling the blows on a particular unit, driving it back.
And, as each enemy surge was followed by their fire driving it back, the confidence of his men surged as it never had before.
Men became caught up in the hysteria of battle: shouting, cheering, some crying from a strange mixture of joy and anguish, for they were absorbing hammer blows as well. Men were dropping by the score. The wounded crawled or hobbled to the rear, but without help—the men were under strict orders that, unless in retreat, the wounded were to tend to themselves. Here and there he could see some of the women of the army, crouching low, moving up to help the injured. Yet more women were pacing behind the firing line, handing out canteens, grabbing canteens from men who were parched dry until, burdened down with two or three dozen, they ran off to the rear to refill them with muddy water and then lug them back up to the line. He saw more than one woman simply collapse, either from the heat or enemy fire.
Hundreds of men along the line were down. As he rode along the ranks he could see that it was not enemy fire felling them, it was the heat. In the thick, coiling smoke one could not see a dozen paces, and men felt as if they were choking in the smoke of a furnace.
It was nearly impossible to see anything clearly. The smoke seemed to trap the thunder of battle, pressing in on their ears so it felt as if they would burst. Mingled in were the screams of the wounded and dying, the hissing buzz of bullets, the howl of round shot, and the dreadful thwacking sound of bullets hitting men, as if someone with an open hand was slapping another.
Some would feel a sharp tug on a sleeve or trouser leg, see blood, shake the limb, and then with a curse just resume loading and firing. More than a few of those, not realizing that the shot had severed an artery and that they were bleeding out, would continue fighting until the world grew dim and they fell.
Through it all Washington continued to ride back and forth behind the volley line, shouting encouragement or passing a quick order as couriers came up bearing news from the left and right flanks. On the right Wayne reported that he had started to turn their line and thought he saw a position for artillery. He requested permission to ask Knox to bring up the reserve batteries, and Washington readily agreed. In a momentary lull he could hear Knox’s booming voice, urging his gunners forward.
He rode back up the line and caught a glimpse of the preacher, stretched out behind the line, hands folded over his Bible, a round bullet hole in his forehead out of which leaked brains and blood.
It had come “nigh on to thee,” he thought sadly, as it had for many a man along the line, but, by God, they were holding and fighting in a manner he had never seen before.
His Americans were fighting like professionals.
As he rode along the line a cry started to go up: “Ammunition, we need ammunition!”
Each man had gone into the fight with twenty-four rounds in his cartridge box. Rarely had they held after firing but six to eight rounds. Now they had emptied their boxes and were screaming for more ammunition to be brought up.
Behind the line, men and women were lugging up boxes of cartridges, smashing the lids off with musket butts, scooping out hatfuls of rounds and going up to the volley line, stuffing cartridges into eager hands.
But after thirty or more rounds it was nearly impossible to continue to fire the muskets. In the heat the barrels were so hot that men suffered second-degree burns if they touched the metal, skin peeling off and cooking. The sharp edges of flints had been worn smooth and in some cases were cracking and shattering.
In the high humidity, after every shot the heat of the powder ignited in the pan by the touch hole, and then, cooling, triggered condensation so that the pan became filled with a thick black sludge that had to be wiped clean after every shot. Veterans knew to have a piece of rag tied around the strap of their cartridge box, using it to wipe the pan clean and clean the facing of the flint as well. In their excitement, though, more than one man would run his finger across the flint, pressing down too hard, and receive a painful cut that often sliced to the bone.
Musket balls, sized only three-hundredths of an inch smaller than the barrels, no longer could be dropped down smoothly. After ten to fifteen shots a man would have to lean into his steel ramrod to force the round down. Now, after twenty-five to thirty, the task was nearly impossible, the rounds having to be hammered down with repeated blows. With the extreme heat and sparks lingering in the barrels, more than one man lost fingers and even a hand when his musket fired prematurely. If he did not seat the bullet firmly but left it lodged in the middle of the barrel, at times the gun barrel would explode.
Men began to cast aside their own muskets, picking up those from men who had been wounded or killed early on, or men who had fainted or dropped their weapons and fled.
Sergeants began to pull men off the line, several at a time, and as women brought up fresh canteens of water, the precious fluid, rather than going down parched throats, was instead poured down barrels, the weapons so hot that water flashed to steam, gurgled and boiled as it trickled in a black sludge out of the touch hole by the pan. Some men tried to urinate down the barrels. But only a few could do so—the heat was so intense and they had sweated so profusely that they had nothing within them to give. A couple of men, attempting this delicate maneuver, simply burned themselves and hopped about in anguish, triggering gales of ribald laughter especially from the women staggering by, carrying the canteens and ammunition boxes and helping with the wounded. Bits of rag were wrapped around ramrods and forced down the barrels to try to clear them.
Within many of the regiments, less than half of the muskets—in some cases only a third—were still firing.
Washington could sense the fire slackening from the enemy side as well. Now was the most crucial of moments, something von Steuben had talked about in training exercises with him and officers of his staff and the various brigades, but which they never had time to drill for. Regiments were going to have to be pulled from the volley line and filed to the rear, where they could clean weapons and rest for a few minutes, have all canteens refilled, and be sent back in.
Wayne and others had questioned why they could not just “leap frog” the depleted regiments back, but von Steuben had been vehement in his reply.
“First, at such a moment, if men are told to retire, it might turn into a rout, and when they hit the reserve line, they might rout as well.”
Wayne had sensed that the German was not telling the whole truth; that, at least in this army, until far better trained, if exhausted men were ordered to retire, they might very well bolt and run, taking the reserves with t
hem.
“Second, under cover of intense musket fire and smoke, if one regiment is filed out and another placed into action with little or no interruption, it will shake the enemy’s heart. For suddenly our fire will redouble while they are exhausted, and their morale will be shaken.”
All had nodded in agreement with that point, having experienced it from the receiving end—when, out of the clouds of smoke, sharp fresh volleys ignited. If any of their own men were still hanging on, that was usually the moment they broke.
The British were already trading off regiments from their reserve, but at least from their vantage point farther up the slope, the Americans could glimpse what was being done, officers shouting reassurances to their own men to hold on and continue to pour it in.
Washington turned and rode back to where the reserve lines waited, concealed a hundred yards behind the slope. They were men formerly of Lee’s command, now under Lafayette.
All they needed was his motion waving his sword and pointing forward. The young general did not need verbal orders. Men who had run earlier in the day stood up and began to advance, muskets shouldered high. At the sight of their general pointing the way they began to cheer.
Von Steuben, on foot, was out front as well, red-faced, gasping for air, but gamely leading the men forward, shouting at them in what they could only guess were the foulest of German oaths.
Washington rode up to von Steuben and leaned over and extended his hand, which von Steuben grasped.
“God bless you this day, sir!” Washington cried. “It is working. By God, it is working thanks to you!”
“Jawohl, mein General!”
And from the right there came a startling sound, which caused his heart to leap for a moment, but then he broke into the broadest of grins. Knox’s artillery was opening up. A full battery of six-pounders positioned at a right angle to the enemy line was pouring down solid shot and grape from the crest of Combs Hill.
Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory Page 51
