Being George Washington Read online

  Conway could barely contain himself in pronouncing those words.

  Washington, invariably gracious, had no welcome for this man. “Major General Conway, I will treat and provide you with every ounce of respect and cooperation that your rank and appointments entitle the bearer of that rank and assignment. When official business demands that I consult with you, I will. No such business exists at present. You are dismissed.”

  Conway stood there stunned. The world suddenly seemed enveloped in silence. Even the sparrows outside in their nests seemed to have ceased their songs. A minute previously, Conway had felt himself at the top of the world. Now he had absorbed an icy blast worthy of the North Pole. George Washington had cut him dead. George Washington, he had just discovered, was afraid neither of British bullets nor of strutting, scheming backstabbers.

  Conway exited the Potts farmhouse. He tried to provide the impression that all had gone well inside, but he noticed a semicircle of Washington’s officers had gathered around him. They followed him to his horse in an oddly menacing manner, speaking not a word. Their silent, icy glances were nearly as frosty as the reception Conway had endured inside and conveyed one unmistakable impression: George Washington had the undying loyalty of every one of the troops who served with him.

  If Conway and his ally Horatio Gates were to triumph it would not be with the support of the men who had suffered alongside George Washington at Valley Forge. They’d need to look elsewhere.

  January 21, 1778

  Philadelphia

  General William Howe drummed his finely manicured fingers upon his fine Chippendale mahogany desk. Behind him, in an elaborately carved and gilded frame, was a portrait of his monarch, King George III. The frame had not always contained the monarch’s portrait. Until Howe’s arrival it had held a family portrait of John and Elizabeth Cadwalader and their daughter, Anne. But now Cadwalader served in Washington’s army and William Howe—along with Betsy Loring, a woman half his age—slept in Cadwalader’s bed.

  Superintendent-General of Police Galloway once again stood before him. “Your Excellency,” Galloway began, “you know that we have word that the worst may have passed for Washington’s army—”

  “Yes! I know that,” Howe impatiently interrupted. This Galloway was more than he could bear. “He has more recruits,” Howe continued. “He is now receiving supplies. French and German and even Polish officers join his ranks. Yes. Yes. Yes. I know all of it!”

  Galloway tugged nervously upon his fine lace cuff. He knew that Howe did not want to hear what he was about to suggest—but he was bold enough to make the suggestion anyway. He had to, so much depended upon it! General Howe might be able to return to his estates in Britain if Washington succeeded, but, if, heaven forbid, Washington and his rebels triumphed, Galloway would have to abandon his own fortune and board a sailing ship for Canada—assuming the British still held Canada—or for London, or, maybe even for India. No, Joseph Galloway had to make his case whether William Howe liked it or not.

  “We still have time, General,” Galloway continued. “A force of sufficient strength could still wreak havoc on the rebels at Valley Forge.

  Howe thought otherwise. Washington had supply problems, yes, but he had chosen Valley Forge wisely. It would be a difficult place to attack, even in perfect weather. But an attack in wintertime? What was Galloway thinking? Real armies would never so much as contemplate that!

  Galloway saw the look upon Howe’s face that he had seen many times before. But as Galloway continued making his case, he looked beyond Howe, through the leaded-glass window onto Second Street, where a gleaming black sleigh, brightly upholstered in green fabric, had pulled up. Assisted by her footman, the beautiful Betsy Loring stepped daintily down onto the cobblestones. Almost simultaneously, and without any willful thought on his part, bits of doggerel began to play in Galloway’s brain.

  The rhymes now invading his head had torn their way through Philadelphia like wildfire. Superintendent-General Galloway wasn’t the only individual frustrated by Howe’s abysmal lack of military initiative. Many blamed Howe’s lethargy upon his reluctance to leave the City of Brotherly Love—not simply because of its brotherly love in the form of urban comforts, but also because of its sisterly love provided by the beautiful Mrs. Loring. And so, in rough waterfront taverns, behind General Howe’s red-coated back, an increasing number of critics hoisted their pewter flagons of ale to chant a poem first penned by a rebel:

  Awake, arouse Sir Billy,

  There’s forage in the plain,

  Ah, leave your little Filly,

  And open the campaign.

  and …

  Sir William Howe, he, snug as a flea,

  Lay all this time a-snoring;

  Nor dreamed of harm, as he lay warm

  In bed with Mrs. Loring

  There was much truth in those words, but even if Mrs. Loring had chosen to remain as faithful to Mr. Loring as Martha Washington had remained to George, General Howe had little interest in pursuing Washington’s rebels through bramble bushes or across frozen streams. In fact, he seemed to have little interest in pursuing any rebels anywhere.

  General Howe, disgusted with the war and how Parliament’s politicians ran it, had already submitted his resignation to the king. He now waited only for Betsy Loring—and for his orders to return to London.

  He’d be damned if he took a rebel musket ball through the neck before he got there.

  February 2, 1778

  York, Pennsylvania

  Inside the brick and log Golden Plough Tavern, the Continental Congress’s president, Henry Laurens, was having a hard time. “Laurens,” the angriest of his adversaries said, jabbing his finger at him, “when will you stop defending your friend Washington? The game is over. Gates is the general we want—the general the revolution needs! He wins! He fights!”

  “Yes, Henry,” pronounced another congressman, a balding man barely over five feet, who busied himself tapping the remains of burnt tobacco from a white clay pipe that measured a full half yard long. “The revolution,” he continued, “is bigger than any one man—even if he is as tall as General Washington!”

  Even Henry Laurens had to chuckle at that one.

  At that moment, a weary traveler entered through the Golden Plough’s heavy red wooden front door. Garbed in white buckskin, he could not help but catch every patron’s eye, and before he had reached the bar, excited shouts erupted.

  “It’s Daniel Morgan!”

  For they knew Morgan had fought at the recent Battle of Saratoga. They clamored for firsthand news of it and how General Horatio Gates had vanquished Britain’s General Burgoyne—and demanded to know what Morgan thought of the remarkable Gates. Morgan extended a calloused hand above his head as a crowd gathered around him.

  “I’ll talk, if you buy!” he shouted and the crowd laughed. “And when I talk I’ll tell you the truth about Saratoga—and that cowering old woman Horatio Gates. If it were left up to him, Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne would be drinking here with you instead of me.

  At that the crowd began to quiet down.

  “It was Benedict Arnold who led the charge and saved the day! Horatio Gates is not half the general George Washington—or even Johnny Burgoyne—is and that’s the truth, too! If you replace Washington, you can replace me! Half my army would march home to Virginia if you did that! The other half would join the British—and hang the lot of you!

  “Now, who’s buying?”

  The crowd had been stunned into silence. Morgan’s broad smile was met only by a host of blank stares.

  “I’m buying!” exclaimed Henry Laurens, “for you and for the house!” Surveying his suddenly sheepish fellow congressmen, Laurens softly said, “Now, can we finally have the end of this foolish talk?”

  “Yes,” said the small congressman with the big clay pipe, “but only if we drink a toast.”

  “A toast?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” he answered, with a laugh, knowing he was beaten, “a toa
st, to Daniel Morgan—and to our commander in chief, George Washington!”

  With that, the Congress spoke no more of Horatio Gates.

  February 28, 1778

  Valley Forge

  “Eins!”

  “Zwei!”

  “Drei!”

  “What the deuce is going on out there, General?” General Charles Lee asked Horatio Gates, who had recently arrived from New York, as the two Washington critics stood watching the unlikely scenario unfolding before them, “Are we the last officers in this Valley Forge to speak English? Lafayette! DeKalb! Pulaski! Now, this fellow! And he calls himself a baron, a general—and he is out there drilling troops like a sergeant! They can’t even understand him! He has to have his commands translated. This encampment is a bedlam, and I know not whether our so-called commander is its warden or a mere inmate!”

  The object of Lee’s ire was Baron von Steuben, who, on George Washington’s orders, had assembled a squad of a hundred men to learn the latest in modern European military techniques. Steuben strode before his command, barking orders in German, pantomiming what he wanted them to do, and either beaming with pride when they followed his orders—or throwing up his hands and sputtering a long list of Teutonic imprecations better left untranslated when they didn’t. That such a high-ranking officer would deign to directly train enlisted men was unheard-of—in either the aristocratic old world or in the republican new. But Steuben was doing whatever he was doing enthusiastically—and, perhaps more important, with General Washington’s blessing.

  As Steuben swore and sputtered and harrumphed up and down the line, his chosen squad could barely contain their smiles. This was something new, they thought, and while they may not have known what to make of this mad Prussian, they knew that they liked him. Whatever they thought of what he was teaching them, they were at least learning something. It was almost like a game. But in the process they learned to shoulder arms, march in formation, and use a bayonet for more than roasting rabbits over an open fire.

  Whether they knew it or not, they were learning how to be more than rebels. They were learning how to be soldiers.

  General Lee continued glaring at Steuben. He spat at the ground in contempt. Horatio Gates glanced downward to see if Lee had somehow hit his boots. He was relieved to see his comrade had missed.

  “So, General Gates, what think you of our Prussian drillmaster with his great ‘Star of Fidelity of Baden’ upon his chest?”

  Lee had pronounced each word of “Star of Fidelity of Baden” slowly and with the utmost contempt.

  “I think,” answered General Gates, in a low voice so none but Charles Lee might hear him, that ‘Baden’ bears far too close a similarity to ‘bedlam.’”

  Wednesday, May 6, 1778

  Valley Forge

  A lone six-pound cannon roared fire and smoke and shattered the Valley’s mid-morning silence. It thundered not in violence, nor in attack nor in defense.

  It thundered instead in sheer joy.

  The previous evening General Washington had received correspondence from Benjamin Franklin in Paris containing the news that all Americans had long awaited: France had entered the war against Britain. The colonists no longer faced the world’s mightiest empire outgunned and alone. Franklin—along with a victory at Saratoga—had finally convinced France’s King Louis XVI to declare war upon George III. It would now be a fair fight and perhaps only a matter of time until London grew tired of war, of expending its blood and treasure in a fruitless struggle against men who no longer wished to be called English subjects but rather free Americans.

  Washington summoned his officers. By flickering tallow candlelight he read to them the wondrous news. Tears streamed down Marquis de Lafayette’s cheeks. He rushed toward Washington and embraced him.

  Washington knew a celebration was in order, but it was Steuben who knew what to do—and how to do it.

  Somehow, this ruddy-faced Prussian had done more than simply train these rough and ready and—not long ago starving—Americans how to shoulder arms and respectably march around Valley Forge’s vast parade ground. He had achieved a miracle. In a matter of weeks, he had transformed a horde of patriots into a cadre of professional soldiers—capable, confident, and, hopefully, deadly effective.

  Now Steuben would stage a grand show for Washington, for the men themselves—and for an entire world still wondering whether a revolution of free men might succeed.

  Two great lines of Continental troops faced each other on Valley Forge’s parade grounds: the first line was half under the command of Major General Lord Stirling’s command and half under Lafayette’s. The second line was entirely under the command of yet another foreign-born volunteer: the German-born French general Baron Johann DeKalb.

  Three thirteen-gun salutes punctuated the morning air, but the most heartening portion of the program was the great show the enlisted men staged—a feu de joie, a “fire of joy”—a spectacular running of musket fire from the seven brigades that marked the two lines of men. As each musketeer fired a blank shot into the air, the soldier next to him instantly discharged his own weapon. On and on, the men fired in precision, without a hitch, up one line and down the next. The thunder they sent skyward was long and loud, continuous and resounding. General Horatio Gates covered his ears from the noise. General Charles Lee’s faithful dogs cowered under their master.

  Baron von Steuben had indeed transformed an ill-trained, half-starved rabble into professionals. And Valley Forge had toughened the men it had not killed or frightened away. Those who remained were hardened patriots, not frightened by battle or adversity, willing to follow George Washington anywhere.

  And so, on this fine spring morning, Frederick the Great’s grenadiers could not have performed better than these freemen who fired their muskets faster and faster, as the fire of joy splendidly unfolded. This morning’s muskets rang as loudly for freedom as Philadelphia’s great bronze Liberty Bell or Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence.

  And these men—Washington and Steuben’s men—would soon be granted a chance to see if their ability to march in line and fire into the air would match their ability to fight. Because if General William Howe wouldn’t take the fight to the rebels, General Charles Cornwallis certainly would.

  5

  A Good General, a Great Author

  I am sick, discontented, and out of humor. Poor food, hard lodging, cold weather, fatigue, nasty clothes, nasty cookery, vomit half my time, smoked out of my senses—the devil’s in it; I can’t endure it. Why are we sent here to starve and freeze? What sweet felicities have I left at home: A charming wife, pretty children, good beds, good food, good cooking—all agreeable, all harmonious! Here all confusion, smoke and cold, hunger and filthiness….

  —SURGEON ALBIGENCE WALDO,

  VALLEY FORGE, DECEMBER 14, 1777

  Around ten thousand men arrived at Valley Forge in December 1777, surviving in drafty, makeshift tents before they built small, freezing huts—fourteen feet wide by sixteen feet long—that would go on to house twelve soldiers each.

  At some point during their stay, around 30 percent of these soldiers would suffer from one disease or another; 2,500 of them would die. When they first got to the camp, about 4,000 men were without blankets; 2,000 would never have one during their entire stay at Valley Forge.

  Washington must have noticed the streaking blood coming from lacerated feet on the icy paths that led to the camp. Thousands of his men were without shoes and, soon enough, army surgeons were amputating frostbitten and gangrened legs and feet in astonishing numbers.

  And shoes weren’t the only thing missing. Eventually some of the soldiers’ clothing grew so ragged that it fell off their gaunt bodies, leaving them with only blankets to cover their nakedness. With no clothes to wear, the men were too embarrassed to even leave their quarters.

  To make matters even worse, the British, the world’s largest and most powerful fighting force, were amassed only eighteen miles away in
Philadelphia, ready to pounce. They’d already taken New York and had just handed Washington a bruising defeat in Brandywine.

  Morale was low. Not a single shot had been fired to defend the City of Brotherly Love—the capital of revolutionary America. In fact, it’s possible that Washington heard about the cheering crowds that awaited the British’s arrival in Philadelphia.

  Have Government—Will Travel

  With the loss of Philadelphia, the colonists were quickly running out of cities to call their capital. Or, perhaps more accurately, you could say that America seemed to be running out of people who believed the patriots would ever need a capital to begin with.

  So, how many official capitals did the United States actually inhabit? It’s hard to keep track, but the answer is nine. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1774. The Second Continental Congress, though, seemed to be on the run quite a bit during the war, meeting at Philadelphia’s State House, in Baltimore, in Lancaster and in York, Pennsylvania, and then back again to College Hall in Philadelphia.

  Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress met again in Philadelphia, and then in Princeton, New Jersey; Annapolis, Maryland; Trenton, New Jersey; and then New York City. After the U.S. Congress was instituted by the U.S. Constitution in 1789, it was housed in New York and Philadelphia, before finally settling down (for good?) in Washington, D.C.

  Despite the apparent hopelessness of the situation, Washington maintained his resolve. He may not have been the greatest tactical general of all time, but he knew how to lead. And he knew that real leadership required bravery—especially when all hope seemed to be lost.

  The American Job