Washington and Caesar (55 page)

“Keep your order, then!” he yelled. “Come up to me and To Tree!” To Tree was the British Army’s innovative manner of getting soldiers who were trained to linear warfare to take cover in a wood. The Company of Black Guides had something of the opposite problem, as they generally had a tendency to take cover if cover were offered, whether ordered to or not. They all but vanished into the treeline.

Caesar blew one long note on his whistle. He shouted “Skirmish” at the full reach of his lungs, and all along the line, the file leaders picked targets and began to fire at the Continentals. Stewart’s company was already taking the ground to their right, and the light company of the Fortieth had just appeared on their left and was moving into the treeline. Caesar waved at Virgil and Fowver, standing together at the left end of the line. Fowver nodded, saw that Caesar was going for new orders, and moved to take command.

Caesar ran back to the rear of the wood and then along behind it, looking for Captain Stewart or their battalion officer, Major Manley. He saw two horses grazing, but neither was familiar. He ran along the edge of the wood until he reached its southern boundary and there he found all the officers, gathered in a clump and watching the great spectacle of battle laid out by the wood’s height.

Caesar was a veteran now and he had never seen a battle laid out so clearly. The British columns were coming up from the rear and just starting to form their front, first companies forming battalions, and then battalions forming brigades even as he watched.

Across the field and up the low hill, the rebel lines were formed but constantly twitching, or so it appeared at this distance. Caesar knew that the twitches meant they were moving, making little corrections to best occupy their ground. Such maneuvers were common on parade, but most armies in the field depended on the NCOs knowing
the axis of attack and keeping a couple of natural objects, say a flower and a fence post, aligned in front of them to keep the line marching in the right direction. Most commanders left gaps in their lines so that miscalculations in marching by battalions didn’t throw off the whole line. The Continental line was clearly in disarray, packed too tight and trying to maneuver in the face of the enemy. And now the Guides and all the other troops in the wood were starting to get hits, causing more confusion.

Far distant, back toward the direction of Chad’s Ford, he could see a column of marching men, and in the foreground he saw one Continental brigade intermixed with another and trying to sort itself out. Almost opposite the wood, a battery of Continental guns, masked from the wood by a little hill and sited in a dip, had begun to fire into the forming British line.

Simcoe was closest to him, and he pointed his riding crop along the distant road from which the enemy column was coming.

“That’s their reserve, Caesar. We must break General Sullivan in front of us before Mr. Washington can bring all
that,”
he waved his crop at the marching column, “into the fight and stop us.”

“Very kind, sir,” said Caesar, and he meant it. Officers seldom took the time to explain anything.

Stewart rounded on him.

“Seen Jeremy?”

“No, sir.”

“Keep shooting. As soon as they start to break, get at them. Wait for Major Manley’s call, though. He’ll be behind the wood. I’ll be there in a moment.”

The Continental battery fired, almost together, and an entire company of the Seventeenth Regiment seemed to disappear. Caesar was appalled by the carnage a single battery of guns could wreak. None of the men in that company would ever have had a chance to stop it.

A British battery moved ponderously forward, its hired drivers unwilling to get too close to the action. When at extreme range, the gunners had to drag their guns forward on ropes, and they did it with elan. Caesar didn’t have time to watch, and when the Continental battery fired again, he wasn’t there to see the execution it wrought.

Washington was well ahead of Greene’s column now. Too late, he fully understood the confusing welter of messages that had reached him all day. He
should
have attacked across the ford when he felt that Lord Howe lacked the men to stop him. He could have ended the war in an afternoon, and even now he felt that victory was close. If only Sullivan could hold the hill and the woods to their front, Greene’s men would arrive and even have time to breathe a few times before Washington sent them into the teeth of the British advance.

He looked at his watch. It was half past five, and before his unbelieving eyes, the troops in the wood began to leave it and march back. In moments, the whole edge of the wood erupted in a flame as the British, advancing along an axis that allowed them to use the woods to cover their entire force, took the woods and used them.

He rode forward to Sullivan, who was shaking his head in weary disbelief.

“I’m sorry, General.”

“Nonsense, General Sullivan. You’ve held together nicely. But tell me why we’ve just given the British that little wood to your front.”

“No help for it, sir. I had to make my line straight or the whole of the British attack would have fallen on the kink and broken me. Marshall and Woodford misunderstood and gave up the wood and by the time I tried to fix it…” He shook his head wearily. “I’ve just ordered them to take it back,” he said, all too aware of what that meant.

Greene’s men were twenty minutes away. Washington
watched as the British fire began to decimate the regiments moving over the open ground to the wood that, only a few moments before, they had left.

The Continentals came up the hill at them again, firing quickly like regular soldiers and then pushing forward, but this time some hint in their movement, the carriage of their heads or some little flaw in their firing, suggested to Caesar that their hearts weren’t in it. Their first counterattack had almost swept the hill, and indeed, over to the right, the Continentals had gotten right in among the trees and only the reserve under Major Manley and a lightning response by McDonald and Crawford had kept them in possession. The second attack had come to a halt just in front of the Guides, so that they had exchanged three volleys with a Pennsylvania regiment at a range so close that men were hit by burning wads of tow, or felt the blast of heat from every round. But the Pennsylvanians lost their colonel when he tried to lead them forward for a last charge. The Guides and their friends from the Fortieth kept their heads and kept up a steady fire, although Caesar was already finding a place for his men to run to when they broke—only to find that they were going to hold. He loved them for it, every one. It was the hardest fighting he had ever known, and the bluntest. The two forces simply bludgeoned each other at point-blank range. The Guides had the advantage of a little cover in the wood edge, although it scarcely mattered when the range was so close, and Caesar couldn’t imagine how regular soldiers kept their nerve in the open under such an exchange.

The third attack died away before it ever became a serious threat, and all the sergeants in the woods were bellowing for their men to “Cease fire, damn your eyes.” It was merciful to the men retreating from their third brave attempt to take the woods, and soldiers like to give each
other mercy, when they can, but it wasn’t mercy that kept them yelling to “Cease fire, there.”

The men in the woods were almost out of ammunition.

Washington sat at the top of the little plowed hill and watched Sullivan’s wing begin to break up. It went down fighting, outnumbered and outfought, but not by much, and it didn’t break like the militia of those early disasters. The enemy was more cautious, and the Continental artillery continued to wreak havoc on the British advance, actually stopping it once when the troops were all broken and swept away. The guns kept firing, and here and there a well-led battalion, or a company that trusted its officers more than it feared the British, held its ground and kept firing. Washington was shaking his head sadly, because Weedon’s brigade, his very best troops, were just too far away to save the day. They weren’t so far that he would lose his army. Darkness was coming, and darkness combined with Weedon’s men would save him from a defeat like some of those around New York, but it was so close to a victory that he could almost say the word aloud in his frustration. Lafayette watched him with something like adoration.

“Let us see if we can rally Sullivan’s men,” said Washington. If he could buy five minutes, he could save a great deal of honor from the day. He rode down toward the Meeting House with Lafayette and his staff.

Caesar watched as the line in front of him came apart, and he listened for Major Manley behind him. Most of the men were drinking water, and a few were lighting pipes. He told them not to.

“We have to be ready to advance,” he said. Down the line, Crawford waved to him. He waved back.

Jeremy rode up behind him, somehow silent on a horse.

“Forward!” he yelled as if he was the officer in command. No one doubted him. They were all used to getting Stewart’s
orders through Jeremy and the long skirmish line began to move out of the woods and up the hill at last.

“We have less than three rounds a man. Where’s Captain Stewart?” asked Caesar, running to keep up with Jeremy’s horse. Jeremy reined in, despite being the only mounted man in the skirmish line and the clear target for any sharpshooter on the hill.

“He’s arguing with some ill-born fool from the staff. Manley took a ball over at the angle and now they are all uncertain about what to do.”

Caesar was struck dumb.

“Captain Stewart couldn’t do it, you see?” Jeremy asked. “I had to.”

The British attack, first sudden, and then cautious, turned sudden again. Just as Washington had a company rallied to send back to the hilltop, he saw red coats and brown appear. The men in brown coats were black, a sight that always moved him strangely. He’d seen the same men before.

The final loss of the hilltop, so suddenly, was decisive. Before he could change the orders of the men he had just rallied, they melted away under his hand. Lafayette was doing no better, and it seemed that his English was deserting him. He had a sword in his hand, and he kept shouting “For liberty!”

George Lake was at the head of the column of Weedon’s brigade. He could see Washington, Lafayette, and Colonel Fitzgerald on the little road at the foot of the plowed hill. Weedon was riding right next to him, urging him on, but suddenly Lake needed no coaching, and his jitters fell away.

“Form front on me!” he yelled, and the men came panting forward. His company was seventy yards ahead of the column. Washington was alone, except for his staff. Weedon was yelling something about the road, but George didn’t
care just then, and he yelled “At the double!” and ran the line forward.

The lights and the Guides reached the crest of the hill almost together, and saw the whole of Sullivan’s broken division laid out before them, with the powerful battery of Continental guns that had been masked by the hill now almost at their feet. And just in front of them, Caesar saw Washington as clear as if they had been hunting together. He waved his hat without thinking.

Washington saw a tall man, one of the blacks, wave his hat. The man almost looked familiar and the insolence of the gesture sparked him to anger, so that he drew his pistol and fired it, barely pausing to aim. Generals do not take direct part in major actions, unless directly threatened. Lafayette was surprised, and he took Washington’s arm.

“We’d best be away, General,” he said, keeping Washington from drawing his second pistol. Washington nodded, as if recovering from a blow, and turned his horse.

Caesar saw the familiar arm come up with a pistol and he dropped to one knee, smoothly aimed his fowler and fired. The second he fired he wondered a little. Washington was too much to be simply a target on the field. Caesar was confused just thinking about it. But he held his arms out and blew his whistle, running along the company and reforming them in close order.

“Don’t fire on the generals. Kill the horses by those guns!” he yelled, pointing down the hill where the teams were waiting to pull the deadly Continental guns clear of the British attack. They had already performed this service several times. They had three rounds. He didn’t expect his company to last long. But the guns had to go.

Lafayette gave one brief scream of pain as the ball struck his arm and then stiffened in the saddle. He began to slump off, and Fitzgerald and Johnson each got an arm around him to support him. Every one of the staff saw he had just pushed his horse in front of Washington, and every one of them saw him take a ball that might have hit their General. Washington watched it unbelieving, and took shelter for a moment behind Lake’s company, which was just coming up.

“Fire!” yelled George Lake, and his volley fell on the Guides like a hammer, killing Tonny where he stood on the right of the company and spraying Tonny’s blood over Sam the bugler. Tonny had been standing in Caesar’s place. Caesar had just stepped out of the ranks to hear Captain Stewart, coming up in the twilight. Moses Shaw, proud as Lucifer of being a front-rank man on so little service, took a ball in his gut and went down with a scream that shook the whole company. A late ball, or a spent round from another volley, caught Caesar just at the edge of the hip and went on to strike his leather hunting bag, spinning him around. For a moment he thought he was gone, the blow was so hard, but then he saw the hole in the bag. He didn’t have time to feel relieved. He waved Stewart away and looked at his company.

They held firm despite the casualties. There were men in brown coats on the ground all the way back to the woods, and more here. Caesar rued that he had reformed them in close order, but only their closed ranks gave them, or any troops, the confidence to stand the weight of fire. Their efforts had already shot down most of the horses on the guns and some of the gunners. He stepped over Tonny, and held up his fowler to get their attention.

“Make ready!” he yelled, and he felt them move, the rear rank stepping over to occupy the spaces between the rank in front. Their last bullets. “Present!” And the muskets came down, steady or trembling a little, but every muzzle
pointed at the enemy. He had his back to the Continentals, and he could feel that they were halfway through their loading. He was prouder than ever that his men had stood a volley in the open, like regulars, and now they were going to give it back.