Part 5 (1/2)
Gates was appointed president of the board, with many flattering expressions from Congress. His recent triumph over Burgoyne had gained him many friends among the members of Congress and a few among the officers of the army. His head, naturally not over-strong, had been turned by success, and he entered into the views of a certain clique which had recently been formed, whose object was to disparage Was.h.i.+ngton and put forward rather high pretensions in favor of the ”hero of Saratoga.” This clique, called from the name of its most active member, General Conway, the ”Conway Cabal,” we shall notice hereafter. At the time of this change in the const.i.tution of the Board of War it was in full activity, and its operations were well known to Was.h.i.+ngton. In fact, he had already applied the match which ultimately exploded the whole conspiracy and brought lasting disgrace on every one of its members.
General Howe in the meantime was preparing to attack Was.h.i.+ngton in his camp, and, as he confidently threatened, to ”drive him beyond the mountains.”
On the 4th of December (1777), Captain M'Lane, a vigilant officer on the lines, discovered that an attempt to surprise the American camp at White Marsh was about to be made, and communicated the information to Was.h.i.+ngton. In the evening of the same day General Howe marched out of Philadelphia with his whole force, and about 11 at night, M'Lane, who had been detached with 100 chosen men, attacked the British van at the Three Mile Run on the Germantown road, and compelled their front division to change its line of march. He hovered on the front and flank of the advancing army, galling them severely until 3 next morning, when the British encamped on Chestnut Hill in front of the American right, and distant from it about three miles. A slight skirmish had also taken place between the Pennsylvania militia, under General Irvine, and the advanced light parties of the enemy, in which the general was wounded and the militia without much other loss were dispersed.
The range of hills on which the British were posted approached nearer to those occupied by the Americans as they stretched northward. Having pa.s.sed the day in reconnoitering the right Howe changed his ground in the course of the night, and moving along the hills to his right took an advantageous position about a mile in front of the American left.
The next day he inclined still further to his right, and in doing so approached still nearer to the left wing of the American army. Supposing a general engagement to be approaching Was.h.i.+ngton detached Gist, with some Maryland militia, and Morgan, with his rifle corps, to attack the flanking and advanced parties of the enemy. A sharp action ensued in which Major Morris, of New Jersey, a brave officer in Morgan's regiment was mortally wounded, and twenty-seven of his men were killed and wounded. A small loss was also sustained in the militia. The parties first attacked were driven in, but the enemy reinforcing in numbers and Was.h.i.+ngton unwilling to move from the heights and engage on the ground which was the scene of the skirmish, declining to reinforce Gist and Morgan, they, in turn, were compelled to retreat.
Howe continued to maneuver toward the flank and in front of the left wing of the American army. Expecting to be attacked in that quarter in full force Was.h.i.+ngton made such changes in the disposition of his troops as the occasion required, and the day was consumed in these movements.
In the course of it Was.h.i.+ngton rode through every brigade of his army, delivering in person his orders respecting the manner of receiving the enemy, exhorting his troops to rely princ.i.p.ally on the bayonet, and encouraging them by the steady firmness of his countenance, as well as by his words, to a vigorous performance of their duty. The dispositions of the evening indicated an intention to attack him the ensuing morning, but in the afternoon of the 8th the British suddenly filed off from their right, which extended beyond the American left, and retreated to Philadelphia. The parties detached to hara.s.s their rear could not overtake it. [3]
The loss of the British in this expedition, as stated in the official letter of General Howe, rather exceeded 100 in killed, wounded, and missing, and was sustained princ.i.p.ally in the skirmish of the 7th (December, 1777) in which Major Morris fell.
On no former occasion had the two armies met, uncovered by works, with superior numbers on the side of the Americans. The effective force of the British was then stated at 12,000 men. Stedman, the historian, who then belonged to Howe's army, states its number to have been 14,000. The American army consisted of precisely 12,161 Continental troops and 3,241 militia. This equality in point of numbers rendered it a prudent precaution to maintain a superiority of position. As the two armies occupied heights fronting each other neither could attack without giving to its adversary some advantage in the ground, and this was an advantage which neither seemed willing to relinquish.
The return of Howe to Philadelphia without bringing on an action after marching out with the avowed intention of fighting is the best testimony of the respect which he felt for the talents of his adversary and the courage of the troops he was to encounter.
The cold was now becoming so intense that it was impossible for an army neither well-clothed nor sufficiently supplied with blankets longer to keep the field in tents. It had become necessary to place the troops in winter quarters, but in the existing state of things the choice of winter quarters was a subject for serious reflection. It was impossible to place them in villages without uncovering the country or exposing them to the hazard of being beaten in detachment.
To avoid these calamities it was determined to take a strong position in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, equally distant from the Delaware above and below that city, and there to construct huts in the form of a regular encampment which might cover the army during the winter.
A strong piece of ground at Valley Forge, on the west side of the Schuylkill between twenty and thirty miles from Philadelphia, was selected for that purpose, and some time before day on the morning of the 11th of December (1777) the army marched to take possession of it.
By an accidental concurrence of circ.u.mstances Lord Cornwallis had been detached the same morning at the head of a strong corps on a foraging party on the west side of the Schuylkill. He had fallen in with a brigade of Pennsylvania militia commanded by General Potter which he soon dispersed, and, pursuing the fugitives, had gained the heights opposite Matron's ford, over which the Americans had thrown a bridge for the purpose of crossing the river, and had posted troops to command the defile called the Gulph just as the front division of the American army reached the bank of the river. This movement had been made without any knowledge of the intention of General Was.h.i.+ngton to change his position or any design of contesting the pa.s.sage of the Schuylkill, but the troops had been posted in the manner already mentioned for the sole purpose of covering the foraging party.
Was.h.i.+ngton apprehended from his first intelligence that General Howe had taken the field in full force. He therefore recalled the troops already on the west side and moved rather higher up the river for the purpose of understanding the real situation, force, and designs of the enemy. The next day Lord Cornwallis returned to Philadelphia, and in the course of the night the American army crossed the river.
Here the Commander-in-Chief communicated to his army in general orders the manner in which he intended to dispose of them during the winter.
He expressed in strong terms his approbation of their conduct, presented them with an encouraging state of the future prospects of their country, exhorted them to bear with continuing fort.i.tude the hards.h.i.+ps inseparable from the position they were about to take, and endeavored to convince their judgments that those hards.h.i.+ps were not imposed on them by unfeeling caprice, but were necessary for the good of their country.
The winter had set in with great severity, and the sufferings of the army were extreme. In a few days, however, these sufferings were considerably diminished by the erection of logged huts, filled up with mortar, which, after being dried, formed comfortable habitations, and gave content to men long unused to the conveniences of life. The order of a regular encampment was observed, and the only appearance of winter quarters was the subst.i.tution of huts for tents.
Stedman, who, as we have already remarked, was in Howe's army, has not only given a vivid description of the condition of Was.h.i.+ngton's army, which agrees in the main with those of our own writers, but he has also exhibited in contrast the condition and conduct of the British army in Philadelphia. We transcribe this instructive pa.s.sage:
”The American general determined to remain during the winter in the position which he then occupied at Valley Forge, recommending to his troops to build huts in the woods for sheltering themselves from the inclemency of the weather. And it is perhaps one of the most striking traits in General Was.h.i.+ngton's character that he possessed the faculty of gaining such an ascendancy over his raw and undisciplined followers, most of whom were dest.i.tute of proper winter clothing and otherwise unprovided with necessaries, as to be able to prevail upon so many of them to remain with him during the winter in so distressing a situation.
With immense labor he raised wooden huts, covered with straw and earth, which formed very uncomfortable quarters. On the east and south an entrenchment was made--the ditch six feet wide and three in depth; the mound not four feet high, very narrow, and such as might easily have been beat down by cannon. Two redoubts were also begun but never completed. The Schuylkill was on his left with a bridge across. His rear was mostly covered by an impa.s.sable precipice formed by Valley creek, having only a narrow pa.s.sage near the Schuylkill. On the right his camp was accessible with some difficulty, but the approach on his front was on ground nearly on a level with his camp. It is indeed difficult to give an adequate description of his misery in this situation. His army was dest.i.tute of almost every necessary of clothing, nay, almost naked, and very often on short allowance of provisions; an extreme mortality raged in his hospitals, nor had he any of the most proper medicines to relieve the sick. There were perpetual desertions of parties from him of ten to fifty at a time. In three months he had not 4,000 men and these could by no means be termed effective. Not less than 500 horses perished from want and the severity of the season. He had often not three days'
provisions in his camp and at times not enough for one day. In this infirm and dangerous state he continued from December to May, during all which time every person expected that General Howe would have stormed or besieged his camp, the situation of which equally invited either attempt. To have posted 2,000 men on a commanding ground near the bridge, on the north side of the Schuylkill, would have rendered his escape on the left impossible; 2,000 men placed on a like ground opposite the narrow pa.s.s would have as effectually prevented a retreat by his rear, and five or six thousand men stationed on the front and right of his camp would have deprived him of flight on those sides. The positions were such that if any of the corps were attacked they could have been instantly supported. Under such propitious circ.u.mstances what mortal could doubt of success? But the British army, neglecting all these opportunities, was suffered to continue at Philadelphia where the whole winter was spent in dissipation. A want of discipline and proper subordination pervaded the whole army, and if disease and sickness thinned the American army encamped at Valley Forge, indolence and luxury perhaps did no less injury to the British troops at Philadelphia. During the winter a very unfortunate inattention was shown to the feelings of the inhabitants of Philadelphia, whose satisfaction should have been vigilantly consulted, both from grat.i.tude and from interest. They experienced many of the horrors of civil war. The soldiers insulted and plundered them, and their houses were occupied as barracks without any compensation being made to them. Some of the first families were compelled to receive into their habitations individual officers who were even indecent enough to introduce their mistresses into the mansions of their hospitable entertainers. This soured the minds of the inhabitants, many of whom were Quakers. But the residence of the army at Philadelphia occasioned distresses which will probably be considered by the generality of mankind as of a more grievous nature. It was with difficulty that fuel could be got on any terms. Provisions were most exorbitantly high. Gaming of every species was permitted and even sanctioned. This vice not only debauched the mind, but by sedentary confinement and the want of seasonable repose enervated the body. A foreign officer held the bank at the game of faro by which he made a very considerable fortune, and but too many respectable families in Britain had to lament its baleful effects. Officers who might have rendered honorable service to their country were compelled, by what was termed a bad run of luck, to dispose of their commissions and return penniless to their friends in Europe. The father who thought he had made a provision for his son by purchasing him a commission in the army ultimately found that he had put his son to school to learn the science of gambling, not the art of war. Dissipation had spread through the army, and indolence and want of subordination, its natural concomitants.
For if the officer be not vigilant the soldier will never be alert.
”Sir William Howe, from the manners and religious opinions of the Philadelphians, should have been particularly cautious. For this public dissoluteness of the troops could not but be regarded by such people as a contempt of them, as well as an offense against piety; and it influenced all the representations which they made to their countrymen respecting the British. They inferred from it, also, that the commander could not be sufficiently intent on the plans of either conciliation or subjugation; so that the opinions of the Philadelphians, whether erroneous or not, materially promoted the cause of Congress. During the whole of this long winter of riot and dissipation, General Was.h.i.+ngton was suffered to continue with the remains of his army, not exceeding 5,000 effective men at most, undisturbed at Valley Forge, considerable arrears of pay due to them; almost in a state of nature for want of clothing; the Europeans in the American service disgusted and deserting in great numbers, and indeed in companies, to the British army, and the natives tired of the war. Yet, under all these favorable circ.u.mstances for the British interest, no one step was taken to dislodge Was.h.i.+ngton, whose cannon were frozen up and could not be moved. If Sir William Howe had marched out in the night he might have brought Was.h.i.+ngton to action, or if he had retreated, he must have left his sick, cannon, ammunition, and heavy baggage behind. A nocturnal attack on the Americans would have had this further good effect: it would have depressed the spirit of revolt, confirmed the wavering, and attached them to the British interest. It would have opened a pa.s.sage for supplies to the city, which was in great want of provisions for the inhabitants. It would have shaken off that lethargy in which the British soldiers had been immerged during the winter. It would have convinced the well-affected that the British leader was in earnest. If Was.h.i.+ngton had retreated the British could have followed. With one of the best-appointed in every respect and finest armies (consisting of at least 14,000 effective men) ever a.s.sembled in any country, a number of officers of approved service, wis.h.i.+ng only to be led to action, this dilatory commander, Sir William Howe, dragged out the winter without doing any one thing to obtain the end for which he was commissioned. Proclamation was issued after proclamation calling upon the people of America to repair to the British standard, promising them remission of their political sins and an a.s.surance of protection in both person and property, but these promises were confined merely to paper. The best personal security to the inhabitants was an attack by the army, and the best security of property was peace, and this to be purchased by successful war. For had Sir William Howe led on his troops to action victory was in his power and conquest in his train. During Sir William Howe's stay at Philadelphia a number of disaffected citizens were suffered to remain in the garrison; these people were ever upon the watch and communicated to Was.h.i.+ngton every intelligence he could wish for.”
We have copied this pa.s.sage from Stedman, with a view to show the contrast between the situation of Was.h.i.+ngton and Howe and their respective armies, as exhibited by an enemy to our cause. It is literally the contrast between virtue and vice. The final result shows that Providence in permitting the occupation of Philadelphia by the British army was really promoting the cause of human liberty.
Stedman's statement of the numbers of Was.h.i.+ngton's army is erroneous, even if it refers only to effective men, and his schemes for annihilating Was.h.i.+ngton's army would probably not have been so easily executed as he imagined. Still the army was very weak. Marshall says that although the total of the army exceeded 17,000 men (February, 1778), the present effective rank and file amounted to only 5,012. This statement alone suggests volumes of misery, sickness, dest.i.tution, and suffering.
We must now call the reader's attention to the northern campaign of 1777 which, remote as it was from Was.h.i.+ngton's immediate scene of action, was not conducted without his aid and direction.
1. Footnote: This was Lieut.-Col. Samuel Smith, of the Maryland line.