Washington's General (22 page)

With visibility no more than thirty yards in places, Greene continued his move toward Lucken's Mill under heavy British fire. He stayed off
the road, marching instead though woods and foggy fields. Somewhere along the march, a brigade under General Alexander McDougall lost its way. The careful timing, the complex coordination, the element of surprise, the predawn assault–all of Washington's plans were in ruins. Greene knew he was late, and he obviously realized that his attack on the British right would no longer be a surprise. So he improvised, turning his column to the right before reaching Lucken's Mill. One of his brigades, under General Muhlenberg's command, used their bayonets to attack British defenders near the town's meetinghouse. Their advance was impressive, and one of Muhlenberg's units took a hundred prisoners. But Greene was undermanned, thanks to Stephen's drunkeness and McDougall's disappearance. When the British counterattacked, Greene had little choice but to order his men to fall back. Washington, too, ordered a retreat. Lord Cornwallis brought up fresh troops to pursue Greene, but, in the words of Thomas Paine, “the enemy kept a civil distance.”

The battle had raged for close to three hours, and despite the chaos and the fog and the failed coordination, the Americans had put up another impressive fight. As usual, casualty figures varied, with the Americans suffering more than a thousand killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, and the British about half that number.

As at Brandywine, there was little doubt about which side won the battle. And, as at Brandywine, the Americans left the battlefield in curiously good spirits. But for bad luck here and there–the fog, the friendly fire, the siege at Chew House–they believed they could have beaten not a detachment of Hessians, as at Trenton, but General Howe's main army. General Wayne described the battle as a “glorious day.”

Some of Washington's colleagues, along with several members of Congress, saw nothing glorious about the defeats at Brandywine and Germantown and the British occupation of Philadelphia. Their whispered complaints about Washington and the men around him increased in volume and in vehemence when, just three days after Germantown, Horatio Gates's northern army defeated the British at Bemis Heights near Saratoga in upstate New York. Dr. Rush, the influential physician, gave voice to what many others were thinking when he praised Gates in a
letter to John Adams. Gates, Rush said, had planned his campaign in northern New York with “wisdom and executed [it] with vigor and bravery.” What a contrast with Washington, who had been “outgeneralled and twice beaten.” Adams hardly needed to be reminded of Washington's failures. After Brandywine, he had vented in his diary: “Oh, Heaven! grant us one great soul! . . . One active, masterly capacity would bring order out of this confusion and save this country.”

Nathanael Greene heard the grumbling. He may not have heard specific complaints about Washington, but he knew that Horatio Gates was being touted as the new great hope of the Continental army. Greene and Gates had gotten along well enough in the war's early months, but when Gates quietly emerged as a possible rival to Washington, Greene turned against him. He insisted that Gates was not, in fact, the hero of Saratoga–an assessment historians would later share. It was General Benedict Arnold who had turned the tide of battle with reckless and inspiring courage, despite, incidentally, having been relieved of command several days before by none other than Horatio Gates. Greene snarled that Gates was a “mere child of fortune.” His bitterness and anger were clear in a letter written about a month after Germantown, as complaints about Washington intensified. He conceded, not very graciously, that Gates had won a great victory. But the credit, he said, belonged to others, including Gates's not particularly competent predecessor, General Schuyler.

[The] foundation of all General Gates' successes were planned under [General] Schuyler's direction. . . . General Gates came in just timely to reap the laurels and rewards. Great credit is due to all the Northern Army, but that army has been much stronger than ours and a far less force to contend with.

Defensive as always in the face of real or imagined criticism, Greene complained that Gates's good luck even extended to his militia. They were, he wrote, much more “spirited and gallant” than the militia he and Washington were stuck with in Pennsylvania.

If the Southern Militia had lent the same aid to his Excellency that the Northern Militia did to General Gates Mr. How never could have got possession of the Rome of America. We have had two severe and general actions. . . . Our force has been too small to cover the country and secure the city. The Inhabitants, so very unfriendly, [have] render'd the task still more difficult.

Washington was not the only general whose flanks were exposed to the grapeshot of congressional and collegial criticism. Greene was, too, and he knew it. “I have been . . . told there has been some insinuation to my prejudice respecting the Germantown battle,” he wrote. Indeed there was; critics in the army and in Congress were saying that his late appearance on the battlefield had led to the American defeat. It was unfair and uninformed criticism, but then again, Greene himself was not particularly fair to Horatio Gates, either.

Greene made inquiries among his friends to find out what was being said about him and by whom. He learned that critics–among them General Thomas Mifflin, another fallen Quaker and the army's quartermaster general–believed he had had too much influence over Washington during the Philadelphia campaign. For the remainder of the war, German-town remained an especially sensitive subject with Greene, and he never tired of explaining and justifying his actions that day.

The British were in command of Philadelphia, but they did not rule the Delaware River. The Americans controlled two strategic forts along the river, about five miles south of the city. Along with Washington's continued presence in the area, the forts presented General Howe with a problem, for he needed the river clear of an American presence to secure his lines of supply and communications. From the American perspective, if the forts could be sustained and Washington could block some of the roads leading to Philadelphia, the British might have to withdraw for want of supplies.

Fort Mifflin, named for Greene's fellow Quaker and critic, was on Mud Island in the river itself, and Fort Mercer, named for the general killed at the Battle of Princeton, was on the New Jersey riverbank. Like Forts Lee and Washington on the Hudson River, Forts Mifflin and Mercer were across from each other and offered the Americans command of the narrow river. Adding to the hazard were the remains of ships sunk to further block the river, and a small American fleet operated just north of the forts.

Colonel Christopher Greene, a cousin of Nathanael Greene's, commanded the garrison at Fort Mercer. With him was Nathanael Greene's young friend Sammy Ward, who had been taken prisoner during the Canadian expedition two years before but had since paroled and returned to service.

The British and Hessians attacked the two forts in late October and found them well defended. Christopher Greene's four hundred Rhode Islanders beat back a Hessian force of some two thousand, to the delight of his cousin. “Honor and laurels will be the reward of the garrison,” Nathanael Greene told Christopher. A siege ensued, which Greene monitored closely for both professional and personal reasons. Not only did the forts hold out hope for a much needed victory, but his kinsman and his friend Sammy were among the besieged.

Greene and the rest of the army moved to within a dozen miles of Philadelphia in early November, hoping to draw Howe's attention–and some British troops–away from the siege along the Delaware River. The new camp at Whitemarsh provided Greene with an unexpected distraction, which he was pleased to describe in a letter to Caty, still living with the Lott family in New Jersey.

[Close] in the Neighbourhood of my quarters there are several sweet pretty Quaker girls. If the spirit should move and love invite who can be answerable for the consequences. I know this won't alarm you because you have such [a] high opinion of my virtue. It is very well you have. You remember the prayer of the Saints, tempt me not above what I am able to bear.

Caty no doubt found this letter terribly reassuring. She might have smiled just a bit to learn that not long after her husband entertained her with his thoughts of infidelity–and with Quaker girls, no less–his horse reared up and threw him ten feet. He landed just inches away from a nasty encounter with a stone wall. “One foot farther,” he said, “would have given me a passport.” He was lucky to walk away with just a sprained wrist.

After days of bombardment, Fort Mifflin, on Mud Island, fell to the British on November 15. Washington immediately ordered Greene to cross the Delaware into New Jersey to reinforce Christopher Greene and the other Rhode Islanders at Fort Mercer. General Cornwallis also crossed the river with quite the opposite assignment: to put an end to Christopher Greene's stubborn resistance. Cornwallis was first to arrive near the fort, and he soon had his victory. Christopher Greene decided that the fort was doomed, so he ordered his troops to set the place ablaze and then make good their escape. Nathanael Greene learned of the fort's loss while marching through Burlington, New Jersey.

His mission in New Jersey was moot, but Greene was eager for a fight anyway. He would try to get a sense of how many troops Cornwallis had with him. And then, he told Washington, “If it is possible to make an attack upon 'em with a prospect of success it shall be done.” In his reply on November 22, Washington told Greene that an attack “would be a most desireable judgment.” Later that day, Washington sent Greene another message, this one more adamant. He told Greene he was “inclined” to have him attack Cornwallis “as much in force as possible.” Washington was determined to salvage some victory, however small, from this long and frustrating campaign.

While Greene was eager to show Washington's critics, and his own, that Horatio Gates had no monopoly on bold action, he tempered his enthusiasm when he learned that Cornwallis had been reinforced and now had five thousand troops. Greene had only about three thousand Continentals, and his militia force of about eight hundred was shrinking as militiamen drifted away from camp. He sent a long message back to Washington, explaining why he believed he could not carry out the
general's wishes. “I cannot promise myself Victory, or even a Prospect of it, with Inferior Numbers,” he wrote. “The Cause is too important to be trifled with . . . and your Character too deeply interested to sport away upon unmilitary Principles.” Having, at some length, explained his reluctance to attack, he also assured Washington that he would do otherwise if given the order: “For your Sake, for my own Sake and for my Country's Sake, I wish to attempt every thing which will meet with your Excellency's Approbation.” As he read this message, Washington must have appreciated his loyal lieutenant Greene all the more.

Greene's forces skirmished with elements of Cornwallis's force, but Greene never did launch the attack he and Washington had discussed. Greene recrossed the Delaware on November 29 and joined Washington in camp in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania. Almost immediately, Washington asked him to meet with his army's other generals to decide what they ought to do next. An unorthodox winter campaign was not out of the question, in fact, Congress was all for it, and, perhaps not coincidentally, the commander in chief seemed eager to take on General Howe one more time. Amid rumors that the British were preparing to attack, Washington told Greene on November 28, “I shall not be disappointed if they come out this Night or very early in the morning.”

There was no British assault, and Greene joined with the vast majority of Washington's generals in advising a retreat to winter quarters. But where? Greene, in a long memo to Washington dated December 1, advocated the area in and around Wilmington, where they had encamped before marching to defeat at Brandy wine and Germantown. He told Washington that winter quarters ought to be located as close to the enemy as reasonably possible to prevent the troops from losing their edge. “If we retire so far back as to be totally out of danger, pleasure and dissipation will be the consequence,” he told Washington. “Officers of all ranks will be desireous of visiting their friends. The men will be left without orders, without government–and ten to one but the men will be more unhealthy in the spring than they now are and much worse disciplined.”

The issue of winter quarters or winter campaign remained unsettled.
A committee from Congress arrived in camp on December 3 to talk about prospects of renewed assaults on the British. It was clear the politicians were not prepared to see the army retire for a few months, allowing the British a comfortable winter of balls and parties in the city that had given birth to American independence. Washington asked Greene and the other generals to put their views in writing. Greene wrote long into the night, producing a well-written analysis that showed yet again just how far his self-education had taken him.

However desirable the destruction of General Howe's army may be and however impatient the public may be for this desirable event, I cannot recommend the measure. I have taken the most serious View of the subject in every point in which I am able to examine it and cannot help thinking the probability of a disappointment is infinitely greater than of Success. We must not be governed in our measures by our Wishes.

Greene's argument carried the day. He was an optimist, it was true, but he was no fool. He was eager for battle, but he knew there was no point in risking the army. There would be no renewed attack on Philadelphia. General Howe's troops would be free to enjoy the winter respite among the Tories and Quakers of the former rebel capital.

The Continental army soon broke camp and marched from Whitemarsh to winter quarters in a place near Philadelphia named Valley Forge.