Volume I Part 14 (1/2)
[353] Marshall, i, 184.
[354] Marshall, i, 184.
CHAPTER IV
VALLEY FORGE AND AFTER
Unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place ... this army must inevitably starve, dissolve, or disperse. (Was.h.i.+ngton, Dec. 23, 1777.)
John Marshall was the best tempered man I ever knew. Nothing discouraged, nothing disturbed him. (Lieutenant Slaughter, of Marshall at Valley Forge.)
Gaunt and bitter swept down the winter of 1777. But the season brought no lean months to the soldiers of King George, no aloes to the Royal officers in fat and snug Philadelphia.[355] It was a period of rest and safety for the red-coated privates in the city, where, during the preceding year, Liberty Bell had sounded its clamorous defiance; a time of revelry and merry-making for the officers of the Crown. Gay days chased nights still gayer, and weeks of social frolic made the winter pa.s.s like the scenes of a warm and glowing play.
For those who bore the King's commission there were b.a.l.l.s at the City Tavern, plays at the South-Street Theater; and many a charming flirtation made lively the pa.s.sing months for the ladies of the Capital, as well as for lieutenant and captain, major and colonel, of the invaders' army. And after the social festivities, there were, for the officers, carousals at the ”Bunch of Grapes” and all night dinners at the ”Indian Queen.”[356]
”You can have no idea,” wrote beautiful Rebecca Franks,--herself a keen Tory,--to the wife of a patriot, ”you can have no idea of the life of continued amus.e.m.e.nt I live in. I can scarce have a moment to myself. I spent Tuesday evening at Sir William Howe's, where we had a concert and dance.... Oh, how I wished Mr. Paca would let you come in for a week or two!... You'd have an opportunity of raking as much as you choose at Plays, b.a.l.l.s, Concerts, and a.s.semblies. I have been but three evenings alone since we moved to town.”[357]
”My wife writes me,” records a Tory who was without and whose wife was within the Quaker City's gates of felicity, ”that everything is gay and happy [in Philadelphia] and it is like to prove a frolicking winter.”[358] Loyal to the colors of pleasure, society waged a triumphant campaign of brilliant amus.e.m.e.nt. The materials were there of wit and loveliness, of charm and manners. Such women there were as Peggy Chew and Rebecca Franks, Williamina Bond and Margaret s.h.i.+ppen--afterwards the wife of Benedict Arnold and the probable cause of his fall;[359] such men as Banastre Tarleton of the Dragoons, twenty-three years old, handsome and accomplished; brilliant Richard Fitzpatrick of the Guards; Captain John Andre, whose graces charmed all hearts.[360] So lightly went the days and merrily the nights under the British flag in Philadelphia during the winter of 1777-78.
For the common soldiers there were the race-course and the c.o.c.k-pit, warm quarters for their abodes, and the fatness of the land for their eating. Beef in abundance, more cheese than could be used, wine enough and to spare, provisions of every kind, filled pantry and cellar. For miles around the farmers brought in supplies. The women came by night across fields and through woods with eggs, b.u.t.ter, vegetables, turkeys, chickens, and fresh meat.[361] For most of the farmers of English descent in that section hated the war and were actively, though in furtive manner, Tory. They not only supplied the British larder, but gave news of the condition and movements of the Americans.[362]
Not twenty miles away from these scenes of British plenty and content, of cheer and jollity, of wa.s.sail and song, rose the bleak hills and black ravines of Valley Forge, where Was.h.i.+ngton's army had crawled some weeks after Germantown. On the Schuylkill heights and valleys, the desperate Americans made an encampment which, says Trevelyan, ”bids fair to be the most celebrated in the world's history.”[363] The hills were wooded and the freezing soldiers were told off in parties of twelve to build huts in which to winter. It was more than a month before all these rude habitations were erected.[364] While the huts were being built the naked or scarcely clad[365] soldiers had to find what shelter they could. Some slept in tents, but most of them lay down beneath the trees.[366] For want of blankets, hundreds, had ”to sit up all night by fires.”[367] After Germantown Was.h.i.+ngton's men had little to eat at any time. On December 2, ”the last ration had been delivered and consumed.”[368] Through treachery, cattle meant for the famis.h.i.+ng patriots were driven into the already over-supplied Philadelphia.[369]
The commissariat failed miserably, perhaps dishonestly, to relieve the desperate want. Two days before Christmas there was ”not a single hoof of any kind to slaughter, and not more than twenty-five barrels of flour!”[370] Men died by the score from starvation.[371]
Most of the time ”fire cake” made of dirty, soggy dough, warmed over smoky fires, and washed down with polluted water was the only sustenance. Sometimes, testifies Marshall himself, soldiers and officers ”were absolutely without food.”[372]
On the way to Valley Forge, Surgeon Waldo writes: ”I'm Sick--eat nothing--No Whiskey--No Baggage--Lord,--Lord,--Lord.”[373] Of the camp itself and of the condition of the men, he chronicles: ”Poor food--hard lodging--Cold Weather--fatigue--Nasty Cloaths--nasty Cookery--Vomit half my time--Smoak'd out of my senses--the Devil's in it--I can't Endure it--Why are we sent here to starve and freeze--What sweet Felicities have I left at home;--A charming Wife--pretty Children--Good Beds--good food--good Cookery--all agreeable--all harmonious. Here, all Confusion--Smoke--Cold,--hunger & filthyness--A pox on my bad luck. Here comes a bowl of beef soup,--full of burnt leaves and dirt, sickish enough to make a hector spue--away with it, Boys--I'll live like the Chameleon upon Air.”[374]
While in overfed and well-heated Philadelphia officers and privates took the morning air to clear the brain from the night's pleasures, John Marshall and his comrades at Valley Forge thus greeted one another: ”Good morning Brother Soldier (says one to another) how are you?--All wet, I thank'e, hope you are so--(says the other).”[375] Still, these empty, shrunken men managed to squeeze some fun out of it. When reveille sounded, the hoot of an owl would come from a hut door, to be answered by like hoots and the cawing of crows; but made articulate enough to carry in this guise the cry of ”'No meat!--No meat!' The distant vales Echo'd back the melancholy sound--'No Meat!--No Meat!'... What have you for our Dinners, Boys? [one man would cry to another] 'Nothing but Fire Cake and Water, Sir.' At night--'Gentlemen, the Supper is ready.' What is your Supper, Lads? 'Fire Cake & Water, Sir.'”
Just before Christmas Surgeon Waldo writes: ”Lay excessive Cold & uncomfortable last Night--my eyes are started out from their Orbits like a Rabbit's eyes, occasion'd by a great Cold--and Smoke. What have you got for Breakfast, Lads? 'Fire Cake and Water, Sir.' The Lord send that our Commissary of Purchases may live on Fire Cake & Water till their glutted Gutts are turned to Pasteboard.”
He admonishes: ”Ye who Eat Pumpkin Pie and Roast Turkies--and yet Curse fortune for using you ill--Curse her no more--least she reduce you ...
to a bit of Fire Cake & a Draught of Cold Water, & in Cold Weather.”[376]
Heart-breaking and pitiful was the aspect of these soldiers of liberty.
”There comes a Soldier--His bare feet are seen thro' his worn out Shoes--his legs nearly naked from the tatter'd remains of an only pair of stockings--his Breeches not sufficient to cover his Nakedness--his s.h.i.+rt hanging in Strings--his hair dishevell'd--his face meagre--his whole appearance pictures a person foresaken & discouraged. He comes, and crys with an air of wretchedness & despair--I am Sick--my feet lame--my legs are sore--my body cover'd with this tormenting Itch--my Cloaths are worn out--my Const.i.tution is broken--my former Activity is exhausted by fatigue--hunger & Cold!--I fail fast I shall soon be no more! And all the reward I shall get will be--'Poor Will is dead.'”[377]
On the day after Christmas the soldiers waded through snow halfway to their knees. Soon it was red from their bleeding feet.[378] The cold stung like a whip. The huts were like ”dungeons and ... full as noisome.”[379] Tar, pitch, and powder had to be burned in them to drive away the awful stench.[380] The horses ”died by hundreds every week”; the soldiers, staggering with weakness as they were, hitched themselves to the wagons and did the necessary hauling.[381] If a portion of earth was warmed by the fires or by their trampling feet, it froze again into ridges which cut like knives. Often some of the few blankets in the army were torn into strips and wrapped around the naked feet of the soldiers only to be rent into shreds by the sharp ice under foot.[382] Sick men lay in filthy hovels covered only by their rags, dying and dead comrades crowded by their sides.[383]
As Christmas approached, even Was.h.i.+ngton became so disheartened that he feared that ”this army must dissolve;”[384] and the next day he again warned Congress that, unless the Commissary were quickly improved, ”this army must inevitably ... starve, dissolve, or disperse.”[385]
Early in 1778 General Varnum wrote General Greene that ”The situation of the Camp is such that in all human probability the Army must soon dissolve. Our desertions are astonis.h.i.+ngly great.”[386] ”The army must dissolve!” ”The army must dissolve!”--the repeated cry comes to us like the chant of a saga of doom.
Had the British attacked resolutely, the Americans would have been shattered beyond hope of recovery.[387] On February 1, 1778, only five thousand and twelve men out of a total of more than seventeen thousand were capable of any kind of service: four thousand were unfit for duty because of nakedness.[388] The patriot prisoners within the British lines were in even worse case, if we credit but half the accounts then current. ”Our brethren,” records Surgeon Waldo in his diary, ”who are unfortunately Prisoners in Philadelphia, meet with the most savage & inhumane treatments--that Barbarians are Capable of inflicting.... One of these poor unhappy men--drove to the last extreem by the rage of hunger--eat his own fingers up to the first joint from the hand, before he died. Others eat the Clay--the Lime--the Stones--of the Prison Walls.
Several who died in the Yard had pieces of Bark, Wood,--Clay & Stones in their mouths--which the ravings of hunger had caused them to take in the last Agonies of Life.”[389]
The Moravians in Bethlehem, some miles away from Valley Forge, were the only refuge of the stricken patriots. From the first these Christian socialists were the Good Samaritans of that ghastly winter. This little colony of Germans had been overrun with sick and wounded American soldiers. Valley Forge poured upon it a Niagara of starvation, disease, and death. One building, scarcely large enough for two hundred and fifty beds, was packed with nearly a thousand sick and dying men. Dysentery reduced burly strength to trembling weakness. A peculiar disease rotted blood and bones. Many died on the same foul pallet before it could be changed. The beds were ”heaps of polluted litter.” Of forty of John Marshall's comrades from a Virginia regiment, which was the ”pride of the Old Dominion,” only three came out alive.[390] ”A violent putrid fever,” testifies Marshall, ”swept off much greater numbers than all the diseases of the camp.”[391]
Need, was there not, at Valley Forge for men of resolve so firm and disposition so sunny that they would not yield to the gloom of these indescribable months? Need, was there not, among these men, for spirits so bright and high that they could penetrate even the death-stricken depression of this fetid camp with the glow of optimism and of hope?