1777

 

__________ 

“John Burgoyne wagers Charles Fox one pony [fifty guineas] that he will be home victorious from America by Christmas Day, 1777.” 

Wager in the betting book of London’s Brooks’s Club.

__________ 

 

January 1: Money to pay Washington’s soldiers has now run out. McMaster explains: 

Washington now proposed to follow up this victory [at Trenton] with other attacks. But a new difficulty arose, for the time of service of many of the Eastern troops would expire on January 1. These men were therefore asked to serve six weeks longer, and were offered a bounty of ten dollars a man.

 

Many agreed to serve, but the paymaster had no money. Washington therefore pledged his own fortune, and appealed to Robert Morris at Philadelphia. “If it be possible, Sir,” he wrote, “to give us assistance, do it; borrow money while it can be done, we are doing it upon our private credit.” Morris responded at once, and on New Year’s morning, 1777, went from house to house, roused his friends from their beds to borrow money from them, and early in the day sent $50,000. (97/171)

 

George Washington is much more than a statue in a museum or park.

* 

Slaves sold to pay gambling debts. 

January 1 or 2: William Byrd III commits suicide. His 

love of gaming became an overmastering passion: a contemporary described him as “never happy but when he has the box and Dices in his hand.” Byrd ran through the large estate he had inherited from his father (on one occasion, he was compelled to sell four hundred Negro slaves to pay his gambling debts) and committed suicide in 1777. (300/104)

 

* 

January 3: My reading on George Washington and his army (see: December 26, 1776) picks up here, after he stuns the Hessians at Trenton: 

Nor was Washington’s bag of tricks empty yet. A few days later he surprised and pounded British troops at Princeton. At one point the American commander rode to within thirty yards of enemy lines, encouraging his soldiers forward. Another American officer covered his face with his cloak rather than watch the general be shot down; but the British ranks crumbled and began to run.

 

Washington led the chase. Clapping spurs to his mount he shouted, “It’s a fine fox chase, boys!” and off he went. 

 

Washington’s army soon went into winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey. Plumb and Lancaster note: “Since an idle force rots quickly, troops were set to work building a fort of sorts, about which there grew up a legend that it was planned simply to give them something to do. Most fittingly, it has been called Fort Nonsense.” (48/183)

 

* 

FINANCIAL PROBLEMS only increased as the war progressed. States printed paper money, of questionable value.

 

At the start, most people accepted such fiat money willingly enough. As times grew darker, laws were passed forcing such acceptance, and where people prove reluctant, boycotts, imprisonment, or the rough work of city and town mobs were called quite effectively into play. … Commodity prices jumped alarmingly, and individuals and groups began to hoard against the next skyrocket ascent.

 

Speculators rushed into the field and paper fortunes were made, lost, made again. They cornered supplies of shoes, clothes, vital supplies, and sold them at huge profits while Washington’s troops wrapped rags about their feet or wound quilts around themselves in place of unobtainable breeches.

 

 

During the winter after the fights at Trenton and Princeton, hard money was so scarce that “a bonus of ten dollars in coin” induced many soldiers to stay beyond their enlistment terms. (48/267)

 

* 

“The bridge looked red as blood.” 

While searching for a copy of Joseph White’s Narrative, on his service during the Revolution (see: 1775), I came across an excellent description of events leading up to and including the Battle of Trenton. Most of the following comes from the story in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, written by Virginia Kays Creesy. In places, I have included material from White. 

We pick up the story at Trenton, where Washington’s troops are still celebrating their stunning victory. Lord Cornwallis and his men have made a hard march, hoping to strike the rebels before they get away. Washington is outnumbered, although he has been joined by a force of Pennsylvania militia – but experience has shown that, facing British and Hessian veterans, militia forces often decide to run, rather than fight. 

Cressy writes: 

A frontal assault against the British soldiers now advancing on Trenton was therefore out of the question. Instead, Washington posted his militia in a defensive position on a hill behind the Assunpink Creek, overlooking the bridge to Trenton. Then he sent a detachment of Continental riflemen up the Trenton Princeton Road to harass the British advance.

 

Sniping from behind trees, destroying bridges, felling trees as roadblocks, the riflemen were so successful at buying time for Washington that it was dusk when Cornwallis’s advance guard finally reached Trenton. While Washington and his army watched from the hillside, the American marksmen dashed from house to house in the town, still contesting the British advance. After the riflemen retreated across the Assunpink bridge, Washington ordered his artillery to open up on their pursuers.

 

 

The bridge crossing was covered by American artillery, including a gun served by Sgt. Joseph White and his crew.

 

Here, we let him tell the story:

 

The night before, a large body of malitia joined our army, and they were sent out to meet the enemy, and fight upon their retreat. As soon as they had got over the bridge, we had all our cannon placed before it, consisting of 18 or 19 pieces. The enemy came on in solid columns; we let them come on some ways, then by a signal given, we all fired together. The enemy retreated off the bridge and formed again, and we were ready for them. Our whole artillery was again discharged at them. – They retreated again and formed; they came on the third time. We loaded with cannister shot, and let them come nearer. We fired altogether again, and such destruction it made, you cannot conceive. – The bridge looked red as blood, with their killed and wounded, and their red coats. The enemy beat a retreat, and it began to grow dark.

 

We were dismissed for an hour or two, to pull down all the fences we could find, to build fires with them – and get some refreshment. The fires were made to deceive the enemy; to make them suppose that we were there encamped.

 

 

“We’ve got the old fox safe now.” 

With darkness falling, Cornwallis blunders. Believing he has Washington trapped, he is said to have told his top commanders, “We’ve got the old fox safe now. We’ll go over and bag him in the morning.” 

Creesy picks up the thread here: 

Over the creek in the American camp, the soldiers understood their dilemma, yet it did not depress their spirits, perhaps because so few of them had ever been in battle before. A young Rhode Island veteran, Stephen Olney, was deeply troubled by their “most desperate situation,” but he could not get his comrades to share his mood. When he asked a fellow lieutenant what he thought now of their chances for independence, the officer shrugged off Olney’s concern, answering cheerfully, “I don’t know; the Lord must help us.” Instead of worrying, most of the men went immediately to sleep, especially the exhausted militiamen who had been marching all the previous night.

  

Luck was with Washington. A cold north wind blew up, temperatures plunged, and muddy roads turned, Creesy writes, “as hard as pavement.” The American commander saw a chance to sneak away in the dark, and head for Princeton, where a smaller enemy force was position. 

A detachment of 400 New Jersey militia was left behind to keep the campfires going and to deceive British pickets into believing the army was digging entrenchments against the next day’s attack. So great was the emphasis on secrecy that none of these men knew where their comrades had gone: their orders were simply to withdraw at daybreak and follow the army’s tracks. If they could not follow, they could return to their homes in nearby counties. Washington was taking no chance that any soldier captured by the British that night would be able to reveal his plans to the enemy. 

 

The nighttime march was difficult – with poorly clothed and shod soldiers suffering greatly. 

White explains, 

About 9 or 10 o’clock, orders came by whispering, (not a loud word must be spoken), to form the line and march. We took such a circuitous rout, we were all night marching from Trenton to Princeton.

 

Capt. Benjamin Frothingham, came to me and said, you and I must march together; we marched some ways, I being exceeding sleepy, I pitched forward several times, and recovered myself. Said he, you are the first person I ever see, sleep while marching. Do you know that you are to command that left piece tomorrow morning? I expect we shall have some hard fighting; we are going to attack Princeton, the enemy’s head-quarters. I told him I could not; – I want to know where all the commissioned officers were? Whose orders is it? It is Col. Knox’s, said he. I do not think that I am capable – the responsibility is too great for me; – I cannot think why he should pitch upon me; why, he remembers what you did at Trenton, said he. I began to feel my pride arising, and I said no more. 

 

This time, the suffering was worth it. At dawn on January 3, Washington’s men were only three miles from Princeton. 

And Cornwallis was still unaware that the “fox” had fled. 

Washington halted his forces and arranged them for the attack. A spy had provided a map, giving enemy positions – and alerting the general that a little-used track, the Saw Mill Road, branched off the main road into town and might allow him to strike the enemy from an unexpected direction. A portion of the American force, under General John Sullivan, was ordered to follow the Saw Mill Road. General Nathanael Greene led the rest of the American force up the main road. If all went according to plan, Greene’s force would strike first. Taken by surprise, the British would form a line of battle to face him. “Then,” Creesy explains, “Sullivan would throw his men in on its unprotected flank.” 

But on this day, the British were not napping, as the Hessians had been at Trenton. Three crack Redcoat regiments, guarding Princeton, were not only wide awake, but under arms. “In the night Cornwallis had sent orders directing the 17th and 55th regiments to escort supplies to him at Trenton, while the 40th regiment remained in quarters at the college to hold the town.” 

 

“A terrible squeaking noise.” 

Much to everyone’s surprise, British and American forces collide, and the battle commences. 

From the van of the British party Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Mawhood quickly decided to split his command, sending most of the 55th regiment back to town with the supply wagons while he led the 17th regiment in an attack on this unexpected group of rebels. Mawhood probably assumed he was confronting a small militia detachment – after all, Cornwallis was supposed to have the American army pinned down in Trenton – and he must have been confident that the 276 men he was keeping under his command could easily handle the situation. Within seconds the 17th regiment had left the Post Road and was racing to intercept Greene’s front guard before they could capture the nearest high ground.

 

Both forces met on a hill covered with the orchard, house, and barns of a Quaker farmer named William Clark. Kneeling behind a fence, Mawhood’s men opened fire first but their bullets went high, cutting limbs from trees in the orchard to drop in a harmless shower on the Americans’ heads. These Americans – Greene’s front guard – were regulars, some 350 men under the command of General Hugh Mercer. Not yet in formation, they wheeled about to face Mawhood’s position, taking perhaps their first casualty in the process: a corporal who, seeming to bend forward to receive the enemy’s ball, fell dead on the spot.

  

Supported by two artillery pieces, Mercer’s men advanced. So did the British. “The sun shone upon them and their arms glistened very bright [White noted], it seemed to strike an awe upon us.” Then both sides fired at once, and the smoke from the discharge of the two lines, mingling as it rose, “went up in one beautiful cloud.” The American artillery reloaded with cannister shot, which flew through the air with “a terrible squeaking noise.” 

An 85-year-old farmer in a neighboring house watched the battle start from his doorstep, but he did not stay to see the finish. “The guns went of [sic] so quick and many together ... ” he reported, “we presently went down into the Cellar to keep out of the way of the Shot.” In the Clark farm house itself, Mrs. Clark lay recovering from a miscarriage, too weak to struggle to her feet. But when shot began coming through her window, her husband and her nurse managed to carry her down to the cellar, bed and all.

 

The American fire was the most destructive and Mercer’s force seemed to be on the verge of victory when the 11th regiment rose to its feet and charged the rebels with fixed bayonets. Unable to reload before the British were upon them and themselves unequipped with bayonets, the Americans went down before the British onslaught. In distress, General Mercer called “Retreat!” Another moment and he fell on the icy snow as the British slashed at him repeatedly. A wounded 18-year-old lieutenant from Virginia, begging for quarter, was shot deliberately through the chest and stabbed in 13 places. It was savage man-to-man combat, with bayonets against empty rifles and bare hands.

 

Mawhood’s men seized the American cannon and turned them on the remnants of Mercer’s brigade, now fleeing for their lives. At this point, however, the rest of General Greene’s force came up. This reinforcement consisted of several hundred Pennsylvania militiamen, part of the same group that had had only a few hours[’] sleep in the last 48 hours, accompanied by a battery of cannon manned by 82 boys recruited from the Philadelphia waterfront by Captain Joseph Moulder. The militia, who had never seen a battlefield before, looked with anguish at the blood on the ground and the mangled bodies of the dead and – just as militia had always done in this campaign under similar circumstances – broke away from their officers and ran for safety.

 

Nonetheless, the Philadelphia battery stood firm and, for a few crucial moments, offered the only resistance to the charging ranks of English soldiers. When one piece of grapeshot grazed his elbow tearing his coat, another carried away the inside edge of his sole, and a third nicked his hat, a Delaware volunteer trying to support the gunners was forced to withdraw. Yet Moulder’s young artillerymen, all under the age of 23, held the 17th regiment in check until help could arrive. 

 

“It’s a fine fox chase, my boys!” 

During the engagement in Clark’s orchard, most of the American army had halted on the Saw Mill Road. At first they had not paid much attention to the sounds of musketry and cannon, but as the firing continued Washington realized that Greene’s men were engaged in something more than a mere skirmish. Ordering two brigades of regulars to follow him –Hitchcock’s 253 New Englanders and Hand’s 200 Pennsylvania riflemen –Washington galloped into the battle. Taking in the situation at a glance, he rode toward the British line, trying to rally the terrified militia. “Parade with us, my brave fellows!” he cried out, as he rode between the American and British lines, exposing himself to fire from both sides. “There is but a handful of the enemy and we will have them directly!”

 

Many of the militia, enheartened by Washington’s example, did rally. Others, running into Hitchcock’s and Hand’s brigades, were dragged forcibly into formation by swearing officers. Once again the Americans advanced on the 17th regiment, which fired off musketry and field pieces loaded with grapeshot. To Stephen Olney it was “the most horrible music about our ears I had ever heard,” but again the English had aimed too high and the shot whistled harmlessly overhead. When the smoke cleared away, the Americans were still advancing and at their head General Washington rode calmly, waving the troops on.

 

The 17th regiment, after turning back two successive waves of Americans, could hold no longer. It had taken heavy casualties and lost most of its officers. Now Mawhood ordered the withdrawal. One last bayonet charge and the survivors of the 17th broke through the American line and fled down the Past Road away from Princeton. Intoxicated by the sight of redcoats in retreat, Washington himself led the pursuit, hallooing exuberantly, “It’s a fine fox chase, my boys!” as he galloped out of sight. So excited was he that many minutes passed before he recalled his duty as commander and turned about to rejoin his men.

 

Clark’s quiet orchard and wheat field, left in possession of the Americans, had been transformed within 45 minutes into a charnelhouse. More than 100 casualties, most of them British, lay “scattered about, groaning, dying and dead.” According to an eyewitness, “One officer who was shot from his horse, lay in a hollow place in the ground, rolling and writhing in his own blood, unconscious of anything around him. The ground was frozen, and all the blood which was shed remained on the surface, which added to the horror of this scene of carnage.” The survivors began the grim business of carrying the wounded into the farmhouses to be cared for by the local women and hauling the dead on sleds to mass graves and “heaping them in.”

 

Despite the horror, the soldiers rejoiced in their victory. The old farmer, welcoming them to his house, said some were “laughing out right, others smileing [sic], and not a man among them but showed Joy in his Countenance. It Really Animated my old blood with Love to those men that but a few minutes before had been Couragiously [sic] looking Death in the face....”

 

The Battle of Princeton was over for these soldiers, but not for the men attached to Sullivan’s column who had been halted all the while on the back road into town. From this position they had been keeping a wary eye on the 55th regiment as it moved back under orders toward the college, while the 55th regiment kept a no less cautious eye on them. Not knowing the other’s precise strength, neither force had taken action at all. Now, with the 17th regiment’s defeat, the 55th regiment moved into position to defend the town, while the 40th regiment marched out from the college to join it.

 

Led by Mawhood, who had escaped during the retreat, the 55th and 40th regiments made their stand on the edge of Frog Hollow (near today’s Princeton Inn College), it was a good position, but the British troops seemed to be shocked by the realization that they were confronting the entire American army and demoralized by the 17th regiment’s defeat. When Sullivan’s force began its attack, the British put up little resistance. Those who did not surrender within minutes were chased into town, where some took refuge within the strong stone walls of Nassau Hall, knocked out the windows with the butts of their rifles, and prepared to make a last-ditch stand.

 

Before the soldiers in Nassau Hall could organize, however, the Americans enveloped the building. While young Alexander Hamilton’s battery fired off round shot – one of which is supposed to have decapitated the portrait of King George II in the prayer hall – New Jersey militia, under the command of Princeton resident James Moore, broke in a door and charged into the building. A white flag appeared, and the British – “a haughty, crabbed set of men,” in the view of one American sergeant – surrendered.

 

The Battle of Princeton ended with this short cannonade. Killing 100 men and wounding or capturing 300 more, the Americans had virtually destroyed three of England’s finest regiments. Although they lost many irreplaceable officers, especially the greatly lamented Mercer, who died after nine pain-filled days, the Americans seem to have taken less than half as many casualties as the British. They also captured, obviously, a wagon train of supplies – a fact Washington did not choose to emphasize in his report to Congress lest that body use it as an excuse for not providing his soldiers with much-needed equipment.

 

After the battle, the triumphant but tired Americans fell to exploring the town, which they thought a pretty little place, despite the ravages of the enemy. Princeton’s elegant brick buildings, especially the college, were duly admired, but the roaming soldiers were mainly interested in what the town could offer in the way of plunder. A fortunate few sat down to the breakfast that the 40th regiment had been about to enjoy an hour before. 

 

“Every thing handy for breakfast.” 

White himself described the turning point in the fight, a charge led by General Mercer (he spells the name “Merser”), which he said broke the back of the British defense. Still firing his own big gun, he saw American reinforcements coming up fast to attack:

 

I never saw men looked so furious as they did, when running by us with their bayonets charged. The British lines were broken, and our troops followed them so close, that they could not form again. A party of them ran into the colleges, which is built of stone. After firing some cannon, they surrendered.

 

After the battle was over, I went into a room in the college, and locked myself in; I saw a plate of toast, a tea pot, and every thing handy for breakfast. I sat down and helped myself well. – I was very hungry, marching all night, and fighting in the morning, I felt highly refreshed; after I was done, I looked round the room, and saw an officer’s coat – I went to it, and found it a new one; the paper never taken off the buttons, was plated or solid silver, I could not determine which, lined with white satin; there was a silk skirt, an elegeant one. and a pair of silk shoes, and small a gilt bible; all of which, I took.

 

Orders came for all the men to throw away their dirty old blankets, and take new ones. – The barrels of flour were great indeed, after filling all the waggons, they knocked the heads out of the remainder and strewed it about the ground. The women came and looked at it, but seemed afraid to meddle with it. I being nigh, told them to scoupe it up by aprons full, before the enemy come.

 

I had rolled a barrel to the ammunition waggon, and told the captain that I was only going to that house, pointing to it, should be back in a few minutes. I engaged a woman to bake me some cakes.

 

I asked the woman if she had any daughters? what do you want to know that for? said she. I told her that I was steady as a pious old deacon. How many have you? she replied two. I have got presents for both, said I, when I come again, will bring them.

 

I went to see how the cakes come on, and carried my presents, here mother, said I, are the presents, call your daughters. She went to the stairs and called Sally, come down, but she come part way and stopt; I went to the bottom of the stairs and said, Sally come down, here is a present for you. She came, here try this peticoat on, and if it fits you keep it. Tell your sister to come, I have got something for her. She came, I told her to take the shoes and try them on, if they fitted her, to keep them.

 

I went to the company and stayed some time, orders came to get ready to form the line and march in half an hour. I ran to see if the caks were done. The woman said the oven was heating, I could have some in an hours time.

 

The coat I sold to an officer of an rifle regiment. (The uniform answered to his all but the buttons. It belonged to the 40th regiment faced with white,) for 18$. That regiment all the commissioned officers wore red coats, faced with white. 

 

 
The Death of General Mercer - John Trumbull.

“The minds of the people are much altered.” 

Creesy picks up the story again: 

By about 10 a.m., shots from the direction of Stony Brook, where a work party was tearing up the bridge, alerted the soldiers in town that Cornwallis, having woken up to Washington’s ruse, was coming up on their rear. The Americans had time to finish swapping their lice-ridden blankets for British issue before they got orders to pull out. The militia straggled as always, but the whole army was away by 11 a.m.

 

Although the American soldiers would never capture [all?] the British supplies, they had already captured something far more important: the imagination of their countrymen. As the news of the Battle of Princeton spread through the former colonies, it brought new hope and new adherents to the American cause. Only three days after the victory a visitor in Virginia was writing that “the minds of the people are much altered. Their late successes have turned the scale and now they are liberty mad again.” In New Jersey – that state which a month earlier had supinely awaited British occupation, to Washington’s outrage and disgust – men flocked to join the militia and small units wandered the countryside hunting down loyalists and King’s soldiers in “a sort of continual hunting party.”

 

Within a month the British had to contract their forces in New Jersey until they occupied only New Brunswick and Perth Amboy. Even those garrisons were so harassed that it became unsafe for small foraging parties to venture far in search of food or firewood. As a result, the large British army in New York, which had expected to feast on the stores of New Jersey’s granaries, lived out the winter on “salt and ship provisions.” By summer New Jersey was entirely back in American hands.

 

Officially, the British treated the Battle of Princeton as a minor affair. In fact, the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, the chief loyalist organ, presented it at first as a victory for the 17th regiment. After all, the 276 men of the 17th had stood off successive attacks by more than 1,500 rebels and, when surrounded, had still managed to break through the American lines and effect a reasonably orderly withdrawal. On future recruiting posters the 17th regiment would bill itself, with ample cause, as “the Heroes of Prince Town.”

 

Nonetheless, the American side was not without its heroes – the gallant General Mercer, the steady men of Hitchcock’s and Hand’s brigades, the brave youngsters in Moulder’s battery – and it had needed those heroes much more than the British needed theirs. Even the Pennsylvania militia came in for a large share of adulation: for the American public the important point was not that their soldiers had run away, but that for once they had rallied and fought again. The news that the armed yeomanry had put professional soldiers to flight dispelled the widespread belief in the invincibility of the British army…

 

Furthermore, the Battle of Princeton made a hero of Washington, establishing the public’s confidence in him both as a brilliant tactician and as a fearless leader in the field. His reputation rose to a height that, to the immense benefit of the nation over the coming years, virtually ensured that he would remain as commander-in-chief.

  

Creesy also provides information about several homes and places, as well as individuals who had a role in the battle: 

Thomas Clark house. Following the battle, soldiers carried the wounded Mercer to this Quaker farmhouse to be nursed by Miss Sarah Clark and her black maidservant. That afternoon British soldiers are said to have invaded the sick room, ripped the cravat from the general’s neck, and insulted him as he lay unable to resist. He died there on January 12. 

Worth’s Mills. During the battle an errant cannonball, probably from an American fieldpiece, entered a house near the mills and hit a woman, severing her leg at the ankle. 

The Stockton family: Princeton’s most notable Tory [was] Joseph Stockton. A cousin of Richard Stockton, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, Joseph joined a Loyalist regiment in August 1776. He escorted Colonel Mawhood to New Brunswick after his defeat at Princeton and was killed a few months later while guiding a foraging party. Joseph’s brother Richard Witham Stockton also fought in the Loyalist cause. 

Home of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant. Sergeant built a house for his bride Margaret Spencer in 1775. [At the time of the battle he was away in Philadelphia, serving as a member of the Continental Congress]. Sergeant’s young wife delayed leaving their home until finally her husband’s Tory classmate, Dr. Absalom Bainbridge, took her firmly in hand and sent her off with her baby and sister to safety in Pennsylvania. In their absence, the house burned down and, rather than rebuild it, the family chose to settle in Philadelphia. 

Presbyterian Church. A two-story brick structure with 57 pews, the Church was the spiritual home for many of the town’s leading patriots … When Cornwallis’s troops were quartered here, they stripped the interior. … The Church remained a hollow shell until after the war. 

(It is said by others that the Redcoats chopped up the pews for firewood.)

 

President’s House. On January 3 [the house of the college president] was occupied by officers of the 40th regiment, who were preparing for breakfast when they were called away by sounds of gunfire. Their breakfast was eaten with great relish an hour later by victorious American officers.  

Nassau Hall. [British] troops were quartered here, and even their horses found places inside the college building.] 

Prospect Farm. Jonathan Baldwin, the owner of Prospect Farm, was also steward of the college and, if undergraduate complaints are to be believed, he was responsible for some of the worst meals ever served up at Old Nassau.  

Hudibras Tavern. [Owned by Colonel Jacob Hyer], he kept a horse in his barn for the use of express riders carrying messages between the Continental Congress and General Washington. Hyer fought at the Battle of Princeton at the head of his militia unit, whose ranks included his older son, a veteran of the siege of Boston and the Canadian campaign of 1776. Although the British drank up Hyer’s wines, whiskey, and gin without payment, and stole or damaged his tableware and 11 of his featherbeds, he was open for business again on January 9, hosting a meeting of the Committee of Safety. The tavern proprietor posted bond for several of his Quaker neighbors when they refused to swear allegiance to the American cause. 

Castle Howard. Although a retired British officer, Captain William Howard was a good patriot who painted on his mantelpiece “No Tory Talk Here” as a warning to his ardently Loyal wife. But as soon as Sarah Howard’s gouty husband died in 1776, she married Lieutenant Ibbetson Hamer, an English soldier who shared her views, and she frequently entertained his fellow officers during the occupation. As a result, she and her new husband had to leave Princeton; their property was confiscated and eventually sold to John Witherspoon.

 

* 

AS FOR Joseph White, he never tells us if he got the cakes he was hoping would be ready before the army had to leave. 

Soon after the battle of Princeton, White’s term of enlistment ran out. He remembers General Knox coming to address “the artillery [men] in pathetic manner to stay two months longer. Most of our regiment did. – The Capt. said to me, do perswade the men to stay two months, until the new recruits learn how to handle the cannon.” 

White recalled that the next few weeks of cold and suffering he would have liked to have missed. Finally, he told his captain he would be going home the next day, the first day of March 1777. His captain tried to convince him to stay, explaining that Knox was going to command two new regiments, and promote all his sergeants, and make them officers. White might even make “full captain.” The thought of a promotion failed to move Sgt. White. 

“I told him that I should go home; did not care about a commission.”

 

“All our officers met that evening, and gave me a very flattering discharge.

 

I left the army and in about two weeks time marched home safe and sound.

 

(White eventually applied for a soldier’s pension in 1833, after Congress set up a program. He was described as, “A decrepit soldier 63 years old can not do much at any labor.” The pension was awarded.)

 

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“The mortal enemies of the Indian.” 

THESE YEARS of Revolution are also “hideous ones” for settlers on the frontier, and for the Native Americans intent on holding them back. 

Writing in 1958, Plumb and Lancaster give the following assessment. First, many of the tribes now saw the British as natural allies. 

The red man could live with the trapper, the voyageur, the coureur de bois, with the landless man whose quest was for pelts, but the whites who built a cabin and owned a plow, the people who felled the forests, who built roads and brought in wheeled vehicles, who launched craft of great carrying-power on the rivers – these were the mortal enemies of the Indian, no matter how friendly the cabin builder, the road maker, or the boatman might be by nature or how pacific his intentions. … All in all, these settlers were a hard, driving lot, intent on owning and clearing land, and possessed of a callous disregard for the tribes they encountered. Shawnese, Delawares, Miamis, Ottawas, Cherokees, Chippewas, Foxes struck at them sharply, were struck with equal ferocity. And with the advent of war, these Indians found a strong ally in the British along the eastern Great Lakes. (48/273) 

 

Entries in the diary of George Rogers Clark tell one side of the story (and no doubt a Native American diary would have entries that were much the same.) Spelling and punctuation modernized: 

Glen & Laird arrived from Cumberland[,] Daniel Lyons who parted with them on Green River and we suppose was killed going into Logan’s Fort.

 

Jonathan Peters & Elijah Bathy we expect were killed coming home from Cumberland.

 

Burr Harrison died of his wound received the 30th of May.

 

Ben Lynn and Samuel Moore arrived from Illinois. Barney Stagner senior killed beheaded 1/2 mile from the Fort.” (48/274)

 

* 

June 2: At age nine, John Quincy Adams feels bad about his focus, writing to his father about problems in school: “I make but a poor figure at composition, my head is much too fickle, my thoughts are running after bird’s eggs, play, and trifles till I get vexed with myself.” (226/157)  

A letter writer of this period offered this suggestion to his little daughter: “In letter writing as in conversation it will be found that those who substitute the design of distinguishing themselves for that of giving pleasure to those whom they address must ever fail.” (226/159)

 

* 

June 13: Lafayette, the young French nobleman, 19, is “fired by accounts of the war in America.” His full name: Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. He fits out a vessel, despite orders of the king and escapes to come to Philadelphia and offer his services to Congress. With him are De Kalb and eleven other officers. (97/174)

The young French noble offers his services to Gen. Washington.

 

* 

July 27: The use of Native American allies, by the British, introduces an added dimension of cruelty to the Revolution, and causes Gen. Burgoyne serious problems. According to Lancaster and Plumb, 

Drunken Indians brought into camp a scalp whose luxuriant tresses were quickly identified as those of young Jane McCrea. She could have been written off as just another frontier girl, victim of a deplorable misunderstanding; but she happened to be the fiancée of Lieutenant David Jones of Colonel John Peters’ little band of Tories. Worse, she had been staying with an elderly widowed cousin of General Simon Fraser of the Advanced Corps. Yet Burgoyne’s hands were tied, for when he attempted to arrest the culprit Indian, he was faced with a mass walkout of braves which he could not afford. The whole McCrea affair had wide publicity and produced deep repercussions on Rebel and Tory alike. More, it provided Americans with a rare propaganda item. (48/224)

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: We should note, of course, that numerous Native Americans of all ages and sexes were massacred prior to the American Revolution, during the Revolution, and that the massacring continued for another century.

 

* 

July 31: Lafayette, Van Loon notes, was an orphan at 13, but “so rich that he did not know what to do with all his money.” 

As for Jean Rosseau, he had been an orphan, too. “But he had obtained his first glimpses of life as an engraver’s apprentice, a footman and a tramp, and until he was well past fifty he was never quite certain about his next meal.” (124/224) 

Lafayette came to America as a volunteer and would not accept a penny for his services. On July 31, Congress made the Marquis a major general “in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connections.” 

At first the commander-in-chief [Washington] was somewhat puzzled what to do with a major-general of nineteen. He could not very well ask his roughneck mountaineers to take this child seriously. But he soon came to appreciate the very fine qualities of this young French nobleman and began to understand that a man who leaves his wife and his child and his country and a couple of million a year for the sake of an ideal is not a common every-day character.

 

It would have been absurd to expect that a second lieutenant of dragoons, trained in a small garrison in Europe, should overnight be changed into a great strategist, capable of conducting a campaign in the wilderness. But that was not necessary. The great value of Lafayette lay in the field of the morale. His presence made the cause of America fashionable. In the eyes of the European aristocracy (still the most valuable element in every state of the old continent) the revolution had “arrived.” (124/226-227)

 

* 

“Twenty-four days in going twenty-six miles.” 

BENJAMIN ANDREWS, writing in 1925, and Lancaster and Plumb, writing in 1958, tell the same basic story.

 

Burgoyne, Andrews says, was moving slowly. “[Gen. Philip] Schuyler had destroyed the bridges and obstructed the roads, so that the invading army was twenty-four days in going twenty-six miles.” “…difficulties now began to surround him like a net.” (2/91)

 

Lancaster and Plumb note that the invaders’ advance was slowed for several reasons. First, Burgoyne insisted on hauling along 138 pieces of artillery, including heavy 24-pounders.

 

There were also thirty carts, crammed with the kind of supplies needed for a “gentleman” like Burgoyne to campaign in style. (48/216, 233)

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: A comparison of Burgoyne with Washington here seemed relevant to me. The latter lived out of a large camp chest during most of the war, and usually in tents like his troops.

 

I always enjoyed talking to my classes about the keys to leadership, and hearing what they thought.

*

 

“Or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow.” 

August 16: General Burgoyne’s advance down the Hudson River Valley continues to bog in the face of gathering enemy forces. In need of fresh horses and supplies, he sends a force of British, Hessian, Tory and Native American allies toward Bennington, Vermont. Lt. Colonel Friedrich Baum is in command. When Baum hears that militia might be waiting, he sends a message, asking for reinforcements, but assuring Burgoyne that he faces only “uncouth militia.” 

The Americans are led by Gen. John Stark, hero at both Bunker Hill and Trenton. He assures his men that they have Baum’s forces in a vice. “They are ours,” he promises on the eve of battle, “or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow.” 

Molly won’t need to. 

Her husband’s troops shatter Baum’s units, lose only 70 men, and kill, wound or capture 907 of the enemy.

 

* 

September 11: The British plan for 1777 has gone completely awry. Three forces were to converge, north of New York City, with General John Burgoyne coming south, and split the Colonies in half. Gen. Barry St. Leger, with a smaller force, supported by native allies, would be coming from the west, but in a savage little fight at Oriskany, his force was turned back. Hearing that a large American force, led by Benedict Arnold might be approaching, St. Leger decided to abandon his artillery, ammunition, and supplies, only to be “cruelly harassed on the march by his former Indian allies.” (48/227) 

Lord Howe – never known for moving with speed – was supposed to march north to meet them, but decided instead, without informing Burgoyne, to sail away and capture Philadelphia. 

Washington’s forces take up a line behind Brandywine Creek, believing they have blocked all fords, and the way to the city. On September 11, however, Howe’s men find a way across and strike American lines. Washington’s soldiers fight well, but victory goes to the British and Hessians, which sounds good when Howe sends dispatches home. “Off parchment, it did not look so impressive. He had wasted weeks of fighting weather by keeping his formidable army wallowing at sea, out of action and powerless to influence the progress of Burgoyne’s invasion from the north,” Plumb and Lancaster explain. 

“And once again he had missed his main objective. Washington’s army was still very much in being.” 

Doubts, regarding the abilities of the American commander, however, are growing. Adjutant Gen. Timothy Pickering, meeting Gen. Nathanael Greene, offers a harsh assessment. “Before I came to the army, I entertained an exalted opinion of General Washington’s military talents, but I have since seen nothing to enhance it.” (48/191)

 

* 

September 19: The “first battle” of Saratoga, or the Battle of Freeman’s Farm, makes one fact plain. Burgoyne’s invading army is in growing danger. Gen. Daniel Morgan’s riflemen open fire from heavy woods, as the British try to advance across cleared fields, and every British officer in the front lines is shot down. Morgan and his men communicate, in part, by means of an “eerie, nerve-twanging gobble wailed in gibberish among the trees.” 

A signal gun is fired, and the British and Hessians launch a general attack. For three hours, the battle rages back and forth across cleared fields. To his credit, Burgoyne is a brave man. He can be seen, in a fresh scarlet and white uniform, riding “among his men as bullets ripped his coat. His hat was pierced, but he only laughed and waved it above his head as his men cheered him hoarsely.” 

Sergeant Roger Lamb wrote later that Burgoyne “shunned no danger; his presence animated his troops for they greatly loved the General.”

 

* 

“It’s only a scouting party!” 

October 4: Farther south, Washington strikes at enemy forces in the Battle of Germantown. Eight thousand Continentals and three thousand militiamen face a force of nine thousand British and Hessians. At first, surprise is with the Americans, and a force of 120 British soldiers is forced to take refuge in the big stone home of Tory Benjamin Chew. 

Lord Howe hears the beat of drums and rides out from Philadelphia, to find his troops in retreat. 

He found himself caught up in a recoiling swirl of scarlet coats and beat about him with his sword, roaring, “For shame, Light Infantry! … It’s only a scouting party.” Then masses of Americans, gunners manhandling field pieces out in front, loomed through the smoke and fog, and blasted off a hot hail of grapeshot. A British officer remembered that cannonade as well as Howe’s “For shame,” and wrote, “I never saw people enjoy a charge of grape before, but we really all felt pleased … to hear the grape rattle about the commander in chief’s ears after he had accused the battalion of running away from a scouting party.” (48/193)

 

 

Much effort is wasted in an attempt to capture the Chew mansion, and the American attack begins to lose momentum. 

For once, General Henry Knox blunders, telling other commanders, “It would be unmilitary to leave a castle in our rear.” Extra infantry are called upon to attack the house. 

Field pieces were brought up and maintained a useless fire that might have turned the scales had it been employed in another part of the field. In the southern meadows American ammunition was beginning to run low. Militia units fired on each other in the persistent fog and fled, their panic spreading to other units. Commands falling back to draw more ammunition found their movement to the rear an irresistible impulse, began to break and run.  

The American attack stalls as efforts to take the Chew House fail.

One American soldier remembered that day. “Here,” said Enoch Anderson, “we old soldiers had marched forty miles. We eat nothing and drank nothing but water on our tour.” 

Washington’s attacks failed in the end, and Germantown went down as another defeat, with a loss of 1,000 men. 

Yet, as the Iron Duke was to say of Waterloo, “It was a damned close-run thing.” All ranks knew that they had come close to victory. On a far larger scale than at the Hollow Way, they had smashed hard into highly capable, seasoned British and German formations, had seen them break into flight or throw down their arms, beaten for the moment. Soldiers’ tales of the day drifted back into the various states, and soon civilians, too, were saying, “Maybe next time…” (48/194-195)

 

* 

MEANWHILE, the trap around Burgoyne tightened. His army’s forward progress stalled, and more and more American troops gathered to thwart escape. The British and Germans fortified their lines but faced “constant sniping” and had to deal with nightly raids. A messenger sent by Sir Henry Clinton arrived – offering faint hope of aid. 

General Howe and his troops were nowhere to be seen.

 

* 

“The soldiers greeted him with cheers.” 

October 7: In what is sometimes called the “Second Battle of Saratoga,” Burgoyne pushed out a force of 1,500 men, in hopes of discerning the true strength of enemy forces. An American counterattack quickly smashed British and Hessian formations, striking both front and rear. Burgoyne’s hat was again pierced by a bullet, and one of Gen. Morgan’s crack shots knocked Gen. Simon Fraser from his horse and left him dead. Burgoyne’s battle line completely collapsed. 

“The rout became complete, and the survivors reeled back into fortifications that had been hacked out during Burgoyne’s weeks of hopeful waiting.” Gen. Benedict Arnold helped cap the victory, leading his men forward to batter enemy fortifications – and catching a bullet in the same leg that had been smashed in the fight at Quebec on New Year’s Day in 1776. 

Benjamin Andrews tells the same basic story, calling the fight on October 7, the Battle of Bemis Heights. The nature of the contest is clear, in that the “British artillery was taken and retaken again and again. Thirty-six of the forty-eight British gunners were either killed or wounded.” (2/94)

 

At first, Burgoyne,

 

advanced a picked body of 1,500 men to reconnoitre the American lines. Morgan’s riflemen were sent out to “begin the game.” The fighting soon became even hotter than in the previous battle. In an hour the whole British line was retreating toward camp. At this point, Arnold, whom, because of his preference for Schuyler, Gates had deprived of his command, filled with the fury of battle, dashed upon the field and assumed his old command. The soldiers greeted him with cheers, and he led them on in one impetuous charge after another. The enemy everywhere gave way in confusion, and at dusk the Germans were even drive from their entrenched camp. The British loss was fully 600.

 

The next day Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga, followed by Gates. The fine army, which had set out with such high hopes only four months before, was now almost a wreck. Eight hundred were in the hospital.

 

*

 

October 12: Burgoyne’s troops are down to five days’ rations. He finds he can neither advance nor retreat.

 

*

 

October 17: Burgoyne has no choice but to surrender. He and his men are granted “free passage to England on condition that they would not re-engage in the war. The Americans capture “35 superb cannon and 4,000 muskets.”  (2/97-98)

 

Andrews offers a less than glowing review of the American commander:

 

Gates deserved little credit… but reaped the results of the labors of Herkimer at Oriskany, of Stark at Bennington, and of Schuyler in obstructing Burgoyne’s advance and in raising a sufficient army. Even in the two battles of Stillwater, Gates did next to nothing, not even appearing on the field. Arnold and Morgan were the soul of the army both days. (2/98)

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: While Arnold’s name is synonymous with treachery, he was a brave fighter. At the Saratoga National Historical Park, there is a monument of a “boot,” in honor of his wounded leg. 

 

Lancaster and Plumb add a vivid portrait of that day. The British and Hessian troops are allowed to march out and stack their “muskets, drums, and flags.” Gates agrees that no Americans are present to witness and compound the defeated enemy’s shame. (48/234-240) 

Drama reasserted itself when Gates and Burgoyne, the former gravely unobtrusive in plain blue and the latter gleaming in scarlet and white under a wildly plumed hat, watched the weaponless men of the invasion force pass in review. First came the British, sullen, silent, and by no means convinced that they had been beaten. They have never, in all their long history, made good prisoners of war, and throughout the captivity which they were now entering proved as cantankerous and exasperating to their captors as the most arrant Yankee could have been. Panache could hardly have been expected from the Germans, who, sent off to a war in which they had no interest, accepted defeat as stolidly as they would have met victory, for, barring the chance of individual loot, defeat or victory merely meant the end of campaigning. So these lost, homesick thousands marched docilely on, taking with them unnumbered forest pets. Young deer minced along, and bear cubs padded clumsily by gaitered legs. Leashed foxes moved sleekly with their owners, and raccoons chittered and clowned as they perched on knapsacks. These were the Germans[’] spolia opima, the pitiful rewards of hard campaigning.

 

These prisoners came out of the haze of war to face a real shock – the site of the ordered ranks of Gate’s army, of Morgan’s and John Glover’s men, of Abraham Ten Broeck’s Albany militia. They had seen their foes before, but rarely en masse, and some marchers wrote that they felt they were seeing a new race of men. There were oddly clothed young boys and old men in the militia ranks, and Negroes presented arms as free men along with free men. Faces, several Germans noted, were lean, the men’s bodies rangy. Paunches were few and tall men seemed the rule rather than the exception. (48/240-241)

  

They further note: 

General George Washington learned of the wreck of the invasion only by accident, a good two weeks after Burgoyne’s capitulation. The relative stature of the two men may be gauged by the fact that Washington wrote Gates at once, warmly congratulating him on his “signal success.”  

 

…It is a further measure of Gates that he did all he could to prevent and then delay the dispatch of his now idle forces to the main army, recovering from its near miss at Germantown.

 

* 

COE gives us this description of General Daniel Morgan’s life and career: 

He was the son of a poor laborer; he received very little schooling; and at seventeen he left home. At first he hired out by the day, toiling to clear land in Virginia. Later he became a wagoner.

 

Morgan accompanied the army of Braddock on its ill-fated expedition against Fort Duquesne. After the troops had been surprised and defeated by the Indians, a large number of waggoners whipped up their horses and fled. But Daniel Morgan, as Fiske says, was “faithful in every fiber.” He waited to take up the wounded and carry them, in his wagon, to a place of safety.

 

At twenty-three Daniel Morgan was a giant. He was over six feet and four inches in height, and weighed nearly two hundred pounds.

 

[Once, while delivering messages between forts, Morgan and a few others ran into an Indian ambush.] Then began a flying battle. A ball entered Morgan’s neck at the back and passed out his mouth. Faint with loss of blood, and believing that the wound was mortal, he had but one aim – to save his body from the Indian tomahawk. Throwing his arms tightly about the neck of his fleet steed, he spurred away into the wilderness. The Indians followed, but Morgan outstripped all but one. This one ran beside his horse, expecting him every moment to fall, but Morgan outrode the Indian. With a howl of rage, the redman flung his tomahawk after Morgan and gave up the chase.

 

The good horse took his master back to the fort. Morgan was unconscious when he arrived, and it was fully six months before he was again a well man. Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have died.

 

[When the Revolution began] He raised ninety-six backwoodsmen in Virginia, put himself at their head, and marched 600 miles in twenty days to join Washington in Boston.

 

…Washington, Greene, and all the able American generals knew that, once Burgoyne was on the march, the only right move for Howe was to the northward. So they were much puzzled when he went south toward Philadelphia. Washington wrote, “Howe’s in a manner abandoning Burgoyne is so unaccountable a matter that, till I am fully assured of it, I cannot help casting my eyes continually behind me.” By the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, Washington kept Howe so occupied in Pennsylvania that the autumn came without his having joined Burgoyne.

 

[At Freeman’s Farm] Both Morgan and Arnold fought most brilliantly. The fighting was desperate on both sides, one fourth of those engaged were either killed or wounded. The British outnumbered the Americans, as they were 4500, while the Americans numbered but 3000.

 

[Arnold called for help.] The foolish Gates turned a deaf ear to his requests, and 11,000 Americans sat on the hills watching … The British plan of attack was foiled by the dash of Arnold and Morgan.

 

[Gates and Arnold] … quarreled fiercely. Gates relieved Arnold of his command and sent him his passports.

 

[October 7; next fight] … Arnold was watching the battle from the heights. As the troops swayed to and fro, he suddenly saw how a furious charge might win the day. He threw himself upon a horse and galloped down the hill. The American troops hailed their “fighting general” with joy. As he was the senior officer on the field, his orders were instantly obeyed. He led three brilliant charges, scattering two columns of the British. As a detachment of German troops was flying like chaff before him a ball passed through his leg. His horse was killed at the same time, and he fell helpless to the ground. An American soldier was about to bayonet the German who had wounded Arnold, but the suffering general stayed his hand with the words: “Don’t kill him. He is a brave fellow!” If only Benedict Arnold might have died at that moment with these generous words upon his lips, our country would have been spared a dark and painful chapter. 

* 

Two of the nation’s first integrated military units. 

October 27: The Battle of Red Bank ends in slaughter of Hessian troops attacking Fort Mercer. 

The story gets new life in the summer of 2022, when archaeologists digging in what used to be the old trench around the fort find human remains. The New York Times tells the story of the battle, and its aftermath: 

On the day of the attack in 1777, the Hessians surely thought the same. The force of 2,300 mercenaries was led by Col. Carl Emil Ulrich von Donop, a courageous leader with a fiery temper, according to letters written by his officers. The fort was defended by only 534 soldiers, including members of the Sixth Virginia Regiment and the New Jersey militia, as well as members of the First and Second Rhode Island Regiments, two of the nation’s first integrated military units. Forty-eight of the American soldiers were Black; the regiments also included Native Americans of the Narragansett people.

 

Colonel von Donop was confident of victory. Fort Mercer “will be Fort Donop or I shall be dead,” he wrote to Gen. William Howe, commander of the British military forces. When the Hessians arrived at the fort, Colonel von Donop sent an officer to call for the Americans to surrender. “The King of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down their arms,” the demand stated. “If they stand battle, no quarter whatever will be given.”

 

The American commander, Col. Christopher Greene, soon replied: The Americans accepted the challenge, and no quarter should be taken on either side. Fighting commenced at 4 p.m. From the river, 13 galleys of the Pennsylvania Navy immediately bombarded the Hessians with cannon fire, and the soldiers inside Fort Mercer opened up with muskets and 14 cannons of their own. Two battalions and one regiment of Hessian soldiers advanced through the barrage. Their assault was slowed by trees that had been cut down; branches had been sharpened and stacked in a line around the fort. The battle lasted just 75 minutes; when it was over, 377 Hessian soldiers – and just 14 Americans – were dead.

 

While digging, archaeologists found chain shot, fourteen skulls, a row of buttons from a coat long since rotted away, and even a gold coin, which had probably been sewn into a seam and overlooked after the battle.

 

“It is painful for me to lose so many good people, I can’t describe it and I have not recovered from it,” Lt. Col. Ludwig Johann Adolph von Wurmb, who took part in the assault, wrote a few days later. “The tragedy of our poor wounded here in America is not describable without shedding tears, and those left behind with the enemy have no aid.”

 

That night, a group of American soldiers ventured out to repair some of the defenses. A voice called out from the battlefield: “Whoever you are, take me out of here.” It was Colonel von Donop, who had been shot in the hip.

 

According to Capt. Thomas Antoine Mauduit du Plessis, the French engineer leading the group, an American soldier shouted out, “Well now, is it agreed that no quarter will be given?” The colonel replied, “I am in your hands. You may take your revenge.” The Americans brought him into the fort and cared for him until he died a week later.

 

* 

November 15: The “Articles of Confederation,” framed by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, are adopted by Congress. According to the historian Benjamin Andrews, a “firm league of friendship” was created. “Each State retained its ‘sovereignty’ and ‘independence,’ as well as every power not ‘expressly delegated’ to the central Government.” Taxation and the regulation of trade were reserved to the states. 

“The faults of the Confederation were numerous and great. Three outshadowed the rest: Congress could not enforce its will, could not collect a revenue, could not regulate commerce.” (Failed to note page.)

 

*

 

Thanksgiving: As was so often true during the war, questions of supply made life for the American soldiers a misery.

 

Henry Dearborn writes, “This is Thanksgiving Day. … but God knows we have very little to keep it with, this being the third day we have been without flour or bread … Upon the whole I think all we have to be thankful for is that we ... are not in the grave with many of our friends.” (48/198)

 

*

 

“Less than nothing seemed to have been accomplished.”

 

December 19: Washington’s army makes camp at Valley Forge. “The war had been waged now for more than two years and less than nothing seemed to have been accomplished.” (2/83)

 

It would take the tired Americans a week to cover thirteen miles to reach their new camp, with Washington writing, “you might have tracked the army … to Valley Forge by the blood of their feet.”

 

Winter could not be passed in tents, and on the very first day orders went out to build huts to a prescribed pattern. Short of tools and nails, weakened men forced themselves into the woods, felled trees, split out boards, kneaded clay to plug up wall-chunks. Street by street a hut-city slowly rose, until at last the commander in chief felt free to quit his own leaky tent and move into the gray field-stone Isaac Potts house close by the junction of creek and river, a step which he had sternly refused to take as long as his men were under canvas.

 

Food began to trickle into Valley Forge. The flow dried up, appeared again, stopped, in a frightening pattern that was a nightmare for every man in authority. Soap was as rare as meat and flour, and bruised feet and chapped hands festered. Dirty rags brought on an itch that only soap and water could cure. Drafty huts, sunless and damp inside, were powerful allies of sickness and infection. Surgeon Albigence Waldo of the 1st Connecticut, who had been in the field since ’75, was shocked by what he saw. “There comes a Soldier, his bare feet are seen thro’ his worn-out shoes, his legs nearly naked from the tattered remains of an only pair of stockings, his Breeches not sufficient to cover his nakedness … his whole appearance pictures a person forsaken & discouraged. He … crys ... I am Sick, my feet lame, my legs are sore, my body covered with this tormenting Itch.” 

 

Colonel John Laurens’ saw his last pair of breeches disintegrate. A guard was seen standing on his hat at his post, to keep his feet out of the snow. 

“Yet the army still held together,” Lancaster and Plumb explain, “to the utter astonishment of the numerous foreign officers now attached to our serving in it. No troops that they had known, they declared, could or would have kept the field under such conditions.” 

Benedict Arnold arrived, still recuperating from his wound, fighting against Burgoyne. Almost immediately, he drew “a terse rebuke from Washington for attempting a rather lavish banquet, drawn from army stores, for a selected guest-list of twenty.” 

In Major General Arnold’s wake stalked gaunt, ugly Charles Lee, recently exchanged after his ’76 capture. Lee was unchanged. Disregarding the visible results of von Steuben’s training, he disparaged everything he saw and produced plans for “The Formation of the American Army,” since “I understand it better than almost any man living.” He hoped, too, that he should stand “well with general Washington … I am persuaded … that he cannot do without me.” On top of this he broached the rather startling theory that American troops could never defeat British troops, no matter what the circumstances, and in a final flourish, confided to Elias Boudinot that Washington was not fit to command a sergeant’s guard. (48/199-201, 203-204)