23
CRUCIBLE OF FREEDOM
As news of the Declaration of Independence spread throughout the newborn nation, Americans everywhere were delirious with joy—cheering, waving, ringing church bells, wasting gunpowder. Samuel Adams wrote: “The people, I am told, recognize the resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven.”1 And John Adams was so elated that he wrote to Abigail twice on the same day. In the first letter, he took a sobering look at the reality of what lay immediately ahead:
It is the will of heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever. It may be the will of heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will have this good effect, at least: it will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies and vices, which threaten to disturb, dishonor and destroy us. . . . The furnace of affliction produces refinements in states, as well as individuals.2
In his second letter, however, he looked prophetically into the future of the newborn nation, saying that the day on which the Declaration was signed, the fourth of July,
will be the most memorable . . . in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.
You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means.
Throughout the struggle for America’s independence, the signers of the Declaration would have been dismayed at the accusation that they were in rebellion against God. On the contrary, by revolting against tyranny they were restoring God’s plan for American government. Thomas Jefferson would adopt for his personal motto the famous quote from John Bradshaw, President of the high court that had tried King Charles I for treason in 1649: “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”
At the same time that the Founding Fathers were declaring independence from Great Britain, they were declaring dependence upon God. John Adams would give voice to this attitude in the dark days of the winter of 1777, when he was asked by Pennsylvania’s Benjamin Rush “if he thought we should succeed in our struggle with Great Britain. After a moment’s pause, he answered, ‘Yes—if we fear God and repent of our sins.’”3
America’s euphoria over the Declaration died away quickly enough. On the same day that it was passed in Philadelphia, the new commander of the British expeditionary forces in America, Sir William Howe, landed on Staten Island with the first of what would ultimately amount to an occupying army of fifty-five thousand troops. American recruiters doubled their efforts, and soon farmers and tradesmen began to sign up for a whole year, once word of what had happened on the coast of South Carolina reached the Northern states.
On the morning of June 28, a combined British land and sea assault was launched to seal off the South’s principal seaport, Charleston, and provide the British with an ideal Southern base for future operations. But “luck” was running against them. Fort Sullivan, guarding the entrance to Charleston’s harbor, hardly deserved the designation fort. It was an earthworks-and-palmetto-stake affair with a great morass of mud in its middle.
These humble ingredients nonetheless worked mightily in the defenders’ favor when the British warships drew closer and opened fire. Cannonballs that hit the sixteen-foot-thick earthworks made little impression on them, and the shells that landed inside disappeared into the mud without exploding. Overcharging their mortars for greater range, the British overdid it—and blew them up. The gap of water behind the fort proved narrower than General Clinton’s reconnaissance team had indicated. A British ship tried to negotiate it and ran aground, with all hands having to abandon ship.
All day long and on into the darkness, the fleet pounded the fort, and the fort pounded the fleet—until around 9:30 in the evening the guns finally ceased firing. Having weighed the situation, Admiral Parker and General Clinton elected to disengage.
Dawn revealed that although the fort was badly battered, the fleet had fared worse. HMS Bristol and HMS Experiment each lost upward of a hundred men killed or wounded. Two other ships were sunk, and numerous others were severely damaged. (American casualties: twelve killed and twenty-four wounded.)4 By the manifold grace of God, an outgunned and outnumbered American force had again stood its ground against seemingly overwhelming odds.
The British fleet, with the Royal Army units on board, sailed north to join the main body of British on Staten Island. There, during the next two months, thirty-two thousand troops gathered under General William Howe, including a Hessian contingent of nine thousand mercenaries. As Washington had anticipated, the British considered control of New York City—and thereby the Hudson River—pivotal to suppressing the uprising. Control of the gateway to the north would effectively cut New England off from the other states.
Only one obstacle stood in the enemy’s path: the American-held town of Brooklyn at the western end of Long Island.
On August 22, fifteen thousand British troops were landed without opposition on the southeast shore of Brooklyn. Three days later they were reinforced by an additional five thousand Hessians. Facing them were barely eight thousand Americans under Washington, half of them untrained. In fact, only three weeks before, there had been less than five thousand. But in response to a sincere appeal from Washington, revealing how desperate the American plight was, Connecticut’s Governor Jonathan Trumbull had called for nine more regiments of volunteers, in addition to the five that Connecticut had already sent. “Be roused and alarmed to stand forth in our just and glorious cause. Join . . . march on; this shall be your warrant: play the man for God, and for the cities of our God! May the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, be your leader.”5
Five days later, the British had nearly surrounded the Americans, just north of the Flatbush region. The order for attack was given. The Americans left and center were overwhelmed and fell back to the final defensive perimeter around the northern tip of Brooklyn. The right, under William Alexander (affectionately known as Lord Stirling because of his Scottish ancestry), was cut off and trapped. While Stirling and the men from Delaware held a ridge, their colors flying, five times the Marylanders flung themselves at Cornwallis’s lines, trying to break through to rescue them. The last time they almost succeeded. Fresh British reinforcements stopped them, though the British reported that Stirling, personally leading his men, “fought like a wolf.”6
Washington and his generals had observed the entire action through field telescopes. Several of his generals had speculated that Stirling would give up his hopeless position without a fight. When it was over, according to an eyewitness, General Washington cried out in anguish, “Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose!”
All afternoon the Americans held their breath, waiting for the British assault that would surely finish them. Outnumbered more than three to one and low on powder (as always), they would soon have the British fleet in the mouth of the East River at their back. Dark thoughts must have gone through the minds of many of them: it had been a noble, even glorious revolution, for there had been days of glory. No matter what happened in the next few hours, the British could never take away the memory of Lexington and Concord, of Bunker Hill, of Fort Sullivan. Freedom—it had been a cause worth fighting and dying for.
But now they had to face the reality of how great were the odds stacked against them. “Put your trust in God,” their ministers had said. “He is with us. He will see us through.” Well, where was He now?
And so they waited and waited. They never knew that God was with them all the time. General Howe, against all military logic, was once again failing to take advantage of the situation and deliver the death blow. And this was not a dull general. His surrounding maneuver had been brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed, taking the Americans by surprise. As afternoon became evening and the night wore on silently and peacefully, it became apparent that Howe was not going to attack. Unbelievable! It was a miracle, a few would begin to say. Yet Howe’s unaccountable delay was only the opening curtain on what would be one of the most amazing episodes of divine intervention in the Revolutionary War.
The morning of August 29 dawned overcast and threatening—but quiet; there was still no movement from the British positions. All that day the Americans, tense and exhausted, continued to wait for the inevitable barrage that would precede the final action. But the British guns remained silent. In the late afternoon, a cold pelting rain began to fall and kept on falling into the night, soaking the tentless, lightly clothed, and hungry Americans. But the rain came on a northeast wind, and that wind prevented Howe’s fleet from entering the East River.
And now Washington had a plan. Actually, it did not deserve to be called a plan, because it depended on the cooperation of many variables over which he had no control. To call it a desperate gamble would be closer to the truth. But surrender was out of the question, and anything was better than the suicidal defense that awaited them in the morning. If only God’s grace would continue to favor them.
Washington called a council of war and informed his senior officers that he had decided to take the entire army down from Brooklyn Heights and across the East River by small boats. Once across, they would proceed down Manhattan to its southern tip, where the main body of American forces (some twelve thousand soldiers) were waiting behind Knox’s major batteries.
Immediately his generals pointed out that it was a full mile across the East River. Once the British fleet got a glimpse of a flotilla of small boats filled with infantry, they would pulverize it. Better to die in the trenches; at least there they could sell themselves dearly.
Washington listened, hearing each one out, and then informed them that he had made up his mind. In his heart he must have been praying earnestly, for only God could prevent the enemy from discovering what they were up to.
The first thing they needed was boats and men who could handle them. By “coincidence,” the last reinforcements to have come over from Manhattan were John Glover’s company of Marbleheaders. Every one of them was an expert oarsman, who had grown up in small boats on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. The general now ordered them to locate the small boats they would need, and they were soon joined by the 27th Massachusetts—Salem men with the same skills.
With every seaworthy boat they could locate, all night long these men made the two-mile round trip. At first, they had to deal with the wind and the storm-tossed chop. But a little after midnight the wind died away, and soon they faced a different challenge—to glide as quietly as possible through the now-still waters. Dipping their oars deftly and silently into the water, they pulled them through without a wash and raised them out clean, ready for another stroke.
While the flat calm enabled them to take more men—the gunwales were barely above the water now—they faced a greater danger. There was no storm, no wind or rain to cover any accidental noise. Now they could ill afford the squabbles that had broken out earlier in the evening as the men had waited in line to be taken off the beach. The officers were vigilant to shut off any argument in its earliest stages, and the impossible evacuation (reminiscent of the miracle of Dunkirk) continued.
The clearing of the night sky now created another problem. It became crucial to maintain a screen of men in the front trenches, so the British would not suspect that a wholesale evacuation was under way. Shortly after two in the morning, however, the two Pennsylvania battalions under newly promoted Brigadier General Thomas Mifflin received orders, apparently from Washington, to quit their posts and proceed to the boats forthwith. Obediently they had done that, when their withdrawal happened to be discovered by the one man who could have known for certain that there had been a mistake: Washington himself. All night long he had been riding along the lines and the shore, and now he quickly redressed the situation and got the Pennsylvanians back into position. Perhaps a full half hour had passed during which there had been not a single defender visible anywhere on the American lines, and the night was so clear and well lit by moonlight that the enemy could be clearly seen, extending their trenches toward the American lines. The British must have been blind.
Now came the greatest peril of all: dawn. As the first wash of pink began to illumine the eastern horizon, the embarkation was far from over. At least three more hours would be needed to get all the men across, and the sky above was cloudless. August 30 would be a dazzlingly clear day. All American eyes were fixed on the eastern sky as it began to redden and the darkness above shrank westward. Though the men remained perfectly silent, one could sense their anxiety mounting, particularly the ones who would be the last to leave.
What happened next should be recounted by one who witnessed it. “As the dawn of the next day approached,” Major Ben Tallmadge would write,
those of us who remained in the trenches became very anxious for our own safety, and when the dawn appeared, there were several regiments still on duty. At this time a very dense fog began to rise [out of the ground and off the river], and it seemed to settle in a peculiar manner over both encampments. I recollect this peculiar providential occurrence perfectly well, and so very dense was the atmosphere that I could scarcely discern a man at six yards distance. . . . we tarried until the sun had risen, but the fog remained as dense as ever.7
It remained intact, until the very last boat, with the general himself in it, had departed. Then the fog lifted. Shocked British officers and troops ran to the shore and started firing after them, but the musket balls fell into the water fifty to eighty yards astern.
Without the loss of a single life, nearly eight thousand men had been extricated from certain death or imprisonment. The Continental Army had suffered a severe defeat, with some fifteen hundred casualties. Yet, thanks to a storm, a wind, a fog, and what the General referred to as “Providence,” there still was a Continental Army.
Once again, Howe inexplicably waited before crossing to Manhattan, this time giving the Americans a precious gift of two full weeks in which to recuperate, replenish supplies, and reposition themselves. Washington had learned the invaluable lesson of withdrawal before vastly superior forces, and it was a lesson that would earn him the grudging respect of the enemy, who would refer to him as a cunning fox. But he still had much to learn about tactics and the strategic placement of troops.
Washington had divided his forces. The main body was stretched in a line across upper Manhattan, along the Harlem Heights. But he had left Knox and his best artillery, along with four thousand men under Putnam, in the Battery, their heavily fortified position at the foot of the island. The east side of Manhattan Island, opposite which there was increasing British activity, was thinly held by local militia. When the British attack came, it came there. The militia broke and ran, scrambling north for the safety of the main lines.
The British landed with comparative ease at Kip’s Bay, their officers proceeding to Murray Hill. As the British had been proceeding up the east side of Manhattan, Putnam and Knox had been making their own way up the west side, without either column being aware of the other. At one point, they were even on the same road, headed toward one another. Dr. James Thacher, surgeon with the Continental Army, describes what happened:
Most fortunately, the British generals, seeing no prospect of engaging our troops, halted their own and repaired to the house of Mr. Robert Murray, a Quaker and a friend of our cause. Mrs. Murray treated them with cake and wine, and they were induced to tarry two hours or more, Governor Tryon frequently joking her about her American friends. By this happy incident, General Putnam, by continuing his march, escaped an encounter with a vastly superior force, which must have proved fatal to his whole party. One half-hour, it is said, would have been sufficient for the enemy to have secured the road at the turn, and entirely cut off General Putnam’s retreat. It has since become almost a common saying among our officers that Mrs. Murray saved this part of the American army.8
God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.
The pattern of Washington tarrying but Howe tarrying even longer was to repeat itself a number of times that fall. The Continental Army withdrew from Manhattan and began a long retreat down the length of New Jersey, finally forming a thin line on the far side of the Delaware. Cornwallis had bragged that he would catch Washington in New Jersey “as a hunter bags a fox.”9 But the fox proved more elusive than he had anticipated. A British officer described the campaign: “As we go forward into the country, the rebels fly before us. And when we come back, they always follow us. ’Tis almost impossible to catch them. They will neither fight, nor totally run away, but they keep at such a distance that we are always a day’s march from them. We seem to be playing at Bo-Peep.”
The game ended on Christmas night, 1776. Once again, Washington faced the imminent prospect of a vanishing army. Most of the men sent from New York to reinforce him had not reenlisted, and their terms of enlistment were up at the end of the year. If Washington was going to make a bold stroke and take the offensive, it would have to be before then. A bold stroke was desperately needed: the nation’s morale had never been so low. Key representatives in Congress, with no appreciation of Washington’s brilliant husbanding of every soldier, bullet, and ounce of gun powder, were frustrated at an army that refused a “manly” fight. There had even been a conspiracy of jealous generals and congressmen afoot, to replace Washington with his second in command, General Charles Lee. A vastly overrated egocentric, Lee had just recently (and providentially) been captured by the enemy while going for a ride in front of the American lines.
The stroke was to be a surprise attack on Trenton. Once again, the Americans had the unseen aid of their strongest Ally. Rapidly developing the shrewd discernment for which he would become famous, Washington decided to attack in the predawn hours of December 26. The Hessian garrison in winter quarters there could be counted upon to be most heavily asleep, particularly if the schnapps had flowed as liberally as was their custom on Christmastide. As Washington’s troops loaded into the small boats at three different places on their side of the Delaware, a violent snowstorm and hailstorm suddenly came up, reducing visibility to near zero. The thick ice floes on the river prevented two of his three battle groups from crossing, and when Washington’s remaining troops finally got under way, the march was four hours behind schedule.
As the night wore on, the storm grew even more violent. In the words of Boston fifer John Greenwood, “it alternately hailed, rained, snowed and blew tremendously.”10 But by the mercy of God, the Americans lost only two men, who froze to death after becoming weary and dropping out of the line of march.
About five miles from Trenton, Washington divided his forces, planning a simultaneous attack from both the south and north ends of town. The troops were still several miles away from their objective when the coming of daylight threatened to erase any possibility of surprise. But the storm continued long after sunrise, keeping the sun obscured behind thick clouds.
The Hessians were not unprepared—an unauthorized American raid the night before had kept their outposts on full alert. But at the moment of attack, a sudden snow squall covered both of the advancing parties, north and south, enabling the Americans to catch the enemy entirely by surprise.
The Hessians fought bravely, but the ferocity of the attack, the weather, and a flawlessly executed battle plan made for a complete rout. Henry Knox was there, and as he described it in a letter to his wife, “The hurry, fright and confusion of the enemy was not unlike that which will be when the last trump will sound.”11
In forty-five minutes of fighting, almost a thousand prisoners were taken. American casualties? Aside from the two unfortunates who had fallen out and frozen to death on the march, only three soldiers were wounded. The news electrified the young nation. Washington, having finally taken the offensive, had won a stunning victory. “Never were men in higher spirits than our whole army is,” wrote Thomas Rodney, and he spoke for much of the rest of America as well.
Was it a fluke, as Washington’s detractors, themselves now in disfavor, muttered? Or was it, as Knox wrote, that “Providence seemed to have smiled upon every part of this enterprise”?
Cornwallis, in charge of the British campaign in New Jersey, had been convinced that the front had stabilized for the winter and was about to sail for England to see his ailing wife, when news came that Trenton was lost. He was ordered south with heavy reinforcements. When he reached Trenton on January 2, he rejected the advice of his officers to attack Washington at once, observing that he could just as well “bag the fox” the next morning. His quartermaster general retorted, “My Lord, if you trust those people tonight, you will see nothing of them in the morning.”12
Leaving his campfires burning and muffling his artillery wheels, Washington slipped away to Princeton. While driving back a support column that was on its way to join Cornwallis, he sought to steady his force of wavering recruits by spurring his large gray sorrel, which he had named Nelson, to a spot in front of his troops, within thirty yards of the British line. At six foot, three inches, Washington stood a full head above the average Continental soldier—an inviting target. Yet miraculously he survived the first volley. At the sight of him, the Americans rallied and went on to take the town and hold it until the General learned that Cornwallis was approaching.
This victory, following so closely on Trenton, made up the minds of those Americans still wondering about whether or not to volunteer. As Nicholas Cresswell, the caustic British gentleman traveler, would note, “Volunteer companies are collecting in every county on the continent, and in a few months the rascals will be stronger than ever. Even the parsons, some of them, have turned out as volunteers, and pulpit drums—or thunder, which you please to call it—summon all to arms in this cursed babble. Damn them all!”
With the coming of summer, the game of Bo-Peep resumed. Never having enough troops to launch a major offensive, Washington nonetheless continued to wear down and frustrate the British. It was a race against time, for once again America’s patience with the General was wearing thin.
It wore a lot thinner with the loss of Fort Ticonderoga on July 8. The fort fell to Burgoyne, who was pushing down from Canada, planning a union with the forces that Howe was supposed to have dispatched up the Hudson from New York. But General Howe had now developed another strategy. In an effort to deal a heavy blow to the rebels, he struck out for Philadelphia, their largest city and the seat of government. Once again, he moved with ponderous slowness, badgered by Washington all the way.
As the summer faded into fall, up in northern New York, Burgoyne, without the aid of an attacking force coming up to meet him, was left to force his way through the wilderness. It went as badly for him as it had gone for Arnold, when the latter had attempted to take Canada. In the end, finding himself outmaneuvered and surrounded, he was finally defeated at the Battle of Saratoga on October 17—mainly by the heroic leadership of none other than Arnold himself. Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne and seven thousand troops surrendered in the Continentals’ greatest single victory of the war.
But the solitary bright moment soon passed, and gloom returned to enshroud the American cause. A month earlier, the Continental Army had been mauled at Brandywine, as it had tried in vain to stop the British march toward Philadelphia. Saratoga may have cost the British seven thousand troops, but more than twice that number had arrived to replace them. America’s chief city had now become an armed British camp. Liberty and independence, once almost within grasp, were a fading dream. For the first time, Americans were confronted with the hard facts of their circumstances. Locked in a desperate struggle for survival, they were slowly being backed toward the precipice of surrender by a more powerful adversary. Though they contested every inch of ground, there was now a real question as to how long America’s will to resist would hold firm.
Such thoughts may have weighed heavily on Washington’s mind as he sat astride Nelson and watched his troops file silently past on that cold and dismal afternoon of December 19. They were on their way into Valley Forge, the site the General had chosen for their winter encampment, because Trenton was too dangerous and Wilmington, Lancaster, or Reading would have afforded the British access to too much uncontested territory. Valley Forge was barely fifteen miles from Philadelphia; situated in the fork where Valley Creek ran into the Schuylkill River. It was easily defensible, and with open fields nearby for drilling and ample wood for fuel and shelter, a better strategic location could not have been found.13
Few of the men who shuffled past him through the snow had ever heard of Valley Forge. Nor did they care; they were exhausted, hungry, freezing—and had long ago given up hope of meat for supper, a warm bed, and a dry pair of stockings. Many did not have a pair of stockings left. Their footgear consisted of strips of blanket wound around their feet. All too quickly the blanket would wear through, and they would be walking through the snow barefoot, many of them leaving behind bloody footprints. In the dwindling army of eleven thousand, few were properly equipped for the terrible winter that lay ahead.
As they passed by, their heads bowed against the icy wind, no drumbeat marked the cadence of their steps, nor did the General attempt to encourage them. They knew he was there, and that was enough.
Though he did not speak, the tall figure on horseback was concerned for his men. For now would come their time of testing. The Refiner’s fire would bring the dross to the surface, where it would be skimmed away.
Valley Forge would be America’s crucible of freedom.
The rest of December was cold, with the daily temperatures varying between a high of thirty-seven degrees and a low of six.14 And when January brought persistent snow and rain, the need for hard shelter became a matter of desperate urgency.
Washington himself had designed the log huts they would sleep in—eighteen feet long, sixteen feet wide, and six feet high. They would be easy to heat and could shelter a dozen men on four triple-decker bunks. With shake shingles, no windows, no flooring, and holes under the eaves for ventilation, they were so simple that they could be gotten up quickly by soldiers not possessing carpentry skills.
Every able-bodied man at Valley Forge was put to work on them, and upward of seven hundred cabins were erected in less than a month. Not until the last soldier was thus quartered did Washington quit his own patched and leaking field tent for the relative comfort of Isaac Potts’s stone house, which had been rented for his headquarters. Doctor Thacher and the General’s staff must have been immensely relieved at this move, having dreaded to think what would become of the army—and the nation—were their leader to be felled by influenza. Disease was taking a fearful toll that winter; they would lose more than one in four to flu, camp fever, smallpox, typhus, and exposure.
In this pitched battle between life and death, the General’s wife, Martha, became a ministering angel. Every day that was free from rain or snow saw her making her way from hut to hut, bringing comfort and care to the sick and needy.
On one occasion she brought with her a young sixteen-year-old neighbor girl, who later remembered entering the hut of a dying sergeant who was attended by his wife. “His case seemed to particularly touch the heart of the good lady [Martha], and after she had given him some wholesome food she had prepared with her own hands, she knelt down by his straw pallet and prayed earnestly for him and his wife.”15
Although the General spent most of his waking hours writing urgent letters to Congress and various governors, desperately trying to obtain food and supplies for his soldiers, he would often ride from one regiment to the next, talking with the men. As Dr. Thacher commented, “The army . . . was not without consolation, for his excellency, the Commander in Chief . . . manifested a fatherly concern and fellow-feeling for their sufferings and made every exertion in his power to remedy the evil and to administer the much-desired relief.”16
Yet there was precious little that even the General could do beyond writing letters and praying. Congress, comfortably ensconced some ninety miles to the west in York, no longer benefited from the leadership of men like Adams, Franklin, Jay, Hancock, and Livingston, who were all vitally employed elsewhere. Their places had been filled by people of lesser talent and vision. Consumed with petty bickering and prone to jealousy of Washington, they convinced one another that his needs were exaggerated. Instead of sending the wagons of victuals and winter clothing for which he pleaded, they would merely print more Continental dollars. With these he was supposed to pay his troops and purchase what he needed. They chose to remain oblivious to the reality of the situation, which was that after several months of both armies feeding off the land, the countryside was exhausted. Many local farmers hid their wagons and livestock in the woods to avoid having to surrender them to the Valley Forge foraging parties in exchange for promissory notes or worthless paper dollars—hence the expression “not worth a Continental.” What scant provender remained was finding its way into Philadelphia, where the British paid in silver and gold.
From the beginning, life in Valley Forge was grim. The huts were smoky and dark, and the newest men in each hut were given the bottom bunks closest to the door—the ones that got cold first when the night fire burned low. In the morning the men took turns fetching buckets of cooking water from the frozen creek. Meal after meal, their food consisted of “fire-cake”—wheat or cornmeal poured into a kettle of water, mixed, and ladled out on a big stone in the middle of an open fire, where it baked. Sometimes there was a bit of salt pork, too, or beef or dried fish, when the wagons got through. As for winter clothing, it was in such scarce supply that Washington had to issue a General Order threatening punishment to anyone cutting up a tent to make a coat out of it, for they would need every tent next summer.
As the winter wore on and the list of sick and dead mounted, life in Valley Forge became a nightmare. Now there were men who were almost naked, without coats and their clothes in tatters. A committee from Congress (finally sent in the middle of February) was shocked to find how many “feet and legs froze till they became black, and it was often necessary to amputate them.”17 Exposure to the elements combined with a woefully inadequate diet to create optimum conditions for the diseases that now ravaged the camp.
Washington himself, throughout his life given to understatement, wrote:
No history now extant can furnish an instance of an army’s suffering such uncommon hardships as ours has done, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude. To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as with; marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day’s march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till they could be built and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled.18
The nightmare grew worse. When the entire camp was down to its last twenty-five barrels of flour in mid-February, Washington wrote: “I am now convinced beyond a doubt that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place . . . this army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things: starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence.”19
And on February 16, a civilian named John Joseph Stoudt would write in his diary:
For some days there has been little less than a famine in the camp. . . . Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery, that they have not been excited ere this by their suffering, to a general mutiny and dispersion. Indeed, the distress of this army for want of provisions is perhaps beyond anything you can conceive.20
This, then, was the miracle of Valley Forge. That the soldiers endured was truly amazing to all who knew of their circumstances. But the reason they endured—the reason they believed in God’s eventual deliverance—was simple: they could believe because the General believed.
While Washington was quite reticent about expressing his Christian faith, he occasionally referred to it openly.* In May 1778, a General Order issued at Valley Forge called for divine services every Sunday and included this statement: “To the distinguished character of a Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian.”21
Henry Muhlenberg, the pastor of a nearby Lutheran church, noted the General’s faith with approval:
I heard a fine example today, namely, that His Excellency General Washington rode around among his army yesterday and admonished each and every one to fear God, to put away the wickedness that has set in and become so general, and to practice the Christian virtues. From all appearances, this gentleman does not belong to the so-called world of society, for he respects God’s Word, believes in the atonement through Christ, and bears himself in humility and gentleness. Therefore, the Lord God has also singularly, yea, marvelously, preserved him from harm in the midst of countless perils, ambuscades, fatigues, etc., and has hitherto graciously held him in His hand as a chosen vessel.22
When it came to prayer, Washington must have prayed earnestly and often that winter, but because he preferred to pray in private, there is only one supposedly eyewitness story of someone discovering him in prayer at Valley Forge. It concerns the General’s winter landlord, Isaac Potts, and because there are several differing accounts, some modern historians are inclined to doubt its veracity. However, Potts’s biographer, Mrs. Thomas Potts James, felt strongly that Potts’s daughter Ruth-Anna’s handwritten and signed version of the story (which James obtained from Potts’s granddaughter) was authentic. Presbyterian minister Dr. N. R. Snowden also related the incident, claiming that he got it from Isaac Potts himself. Though the accounts differ in some details, they agree on the facts of the event.
Potts was a Quaker and a pacifist, who one day noticed Washington’s horse tethered by a secluded grove of trees, not far from his headquarters. Hearing a voice, he approached quietly and saw the General on his knees at prayer. Not wanting to be discovered, he stood motionless until Washington had finished and returned to his headquarters.
Potts then hurriedly returned to his house and told his wife Sarah, “If George Washington be not a man of God, I am greatly deceived—and still more shall I be deceived, if God do not, through him, work out a great salvation for America.”23
Something else happened that winter which says much about the quality of Washington’s faith. A turncoat collaborator named Michael Widman was captured, and at his trial it was proven that he had given the British invaluable assistance on numerous occasions. He was found guilty of spying and was sentenced to death by hanging. On the evening before the execution, an old man with white hair asked to see Washington, giving his name as Peter Miller. Miller had joined the pacifist German Seventh Day Baptists and had become a member of their Ephrata Cloister. He was ushered in without delay, for these Ephrata “Dunkers” were giving hospital care to the army’s sick and wounded, including soldiers from Valley Forge who had come down with camp fever. Miller now had a favor to ask of the General, who nodded agreeably.
“I’ve come to ask you to pardon Michael Widman.”
Washington was taken aback. “Impossible! Widman has done all in his power to betray us, even offering to join the British and help destroy us.” He shook his head. “In these times we cannot be lenient with traitors; and for that reason I cannot pardon your friend.”
“Friend? He’s no friend of mine; he is my bitterest enemy. He has persecuted me for years. He has even beaten me and spit in my face, knowing full well that I would not strike back. Michael Widman is no friend of mine!”
Washington was puzzled. “And you still wish me to pardon him?”
“I do. I ask it of you as a great personal favor.”
“Why?”
“I ask it because Jesus did as much for me.”
Washington turned away and walked into the next room. Soon he returned with a paper on which was written the pardon of Michael Widman. “My dear friend,” he said, placing the paper in the old man’s hand, “I thank you for this.”24
Such charity did not weaken him in the army’s eyes; the troops loved him for it, as did the officers. No one who had served with him could understand why there were generals and congressmen who wanted to see him replaced. But then, the public did not know how it was at Valley Forge. “The greatest difficulty,” said the young Marquis de Lafayette, “was that, in order to conceal misfortunes from the enemy, it was necessary to conceal them from the nation also.”25
Despite the necessity for secrecy, across the nation pastors were beginning to sense the tremendous spiritual struggle being waged at Valley Forge. More and more sermons were likening Washington to Moses. There were the obvious parallels, of course, but there was also the similarity in his choosing to partake of the same hardships as his men: “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt” (Heb. 11:24–26 KJV). Thus did Washington covenant himself with his men in the suffering of Valley Forge, while a day’s ride away, the British sat warm and full-bellied, enjoying after-dinner brandy by the fireside.
In the crucible of freedom, God was forging the iron of the Continental Army into steel. And now there was a new strength and determination in the camp, as revealed in this comment by an anonymous Valley Forge soldier, which appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet: “Our attention is now drawn to one point: the enemy grows weaker every day, and we are growing stronger. Our work is almost done, and with the blessing of heaven, and the valor of our worthy General, we shall soon drive these plunderers out of our country!”26
The soldiers at Valley Forge were being tempered into the carbon-steel core around which an army could be built.
*For further evidence of Washington’s Christianity see Appendix Two.