Washington and Caesar

5

New York, December 22, 1776

Caesar saluted and sank quickly into his en garde, his legs bent and his feet making a perfect L as Jeremy had instructed him over and over for months. He bent his elbow slightly, stiffened his wrist until his point was up, and advanced on his toes. Jeremy met him halfway and they both circled, first one way and then another, until Jeremy chanced a thrust, which Caesar parried. They then exchanged simple thrusts for a minute, back and forth as if they were doing line drills. It was a game. London’s finest maitre, Monsieur D’Angelo, had taught Jeremy. D’Angelo did not teach secret thrusts and twirling parries like some of the fashion fencers and mountebanks, and he insisted that a perfect thrust, well delivered and fast as lightning, could defeat any guard. Indeed, Jeremy did hit Caesar several stunning blows, especially when he varied his tempo or stamped his foot for a distraction. Caesar, in turn, pleased himself immeasurably by planting his foil’s rawhide-bound point high on Jeremy’s breast in a simple attack that was so well executed that Jeremy had to stop to congratulate him on it. So Jeremy and Caesar thrust and parried like mad, until both of them were lightly covered in sweat and they began to make use of some of the feints and caveats that were more the norm in the swordplay of the day. Caesar’s caveat was still too wide, too slow for Jeremy, and he backed up a step and held up his hand.

“That caveat is near to being vulgar, Julius.”

“Vulgar?”

“Can you think of a better word? It is too big and too slow for fashion. I’d call it showy if it had any right to be shown.”

Caesar all but hung his head. He whirled his blade through a smaller caveat.

“Use your fingers, not your wrist! That’s it. Just a tap on my blade and then around. Like this and look! I have hit you again. Tap and hit. And again. I really must teach you the parry to that-this is not the place for a display of temper.” They exchanged parries, and then Jeremy stepped inside his guard, grabbed his wrist, swung his own sword around behind his back and pricked him in the side.

“Oh, well struck,” Caesar said, surprised. Jeremy looked pleased with himself.

When they were finished, they were replaced by Sergeant McDonald of Stewart’s company and an officer of the Highlanders, who looked at them with considerable respect.

“Ah won’t be givin you any trouble, then,” said McDonald to Jeremy, as he passed.

Jeremy laughed and pointed at the wooden baton in McDonald’s hands. “I’d rather not face a broadsword with a smallsword, though.”

“Oh, aye! A duel of broadswords wi’ a fencing master like yourself!” Both the Scots laughed. McDonald waved to Caesar, who nodded back. They had been closer since he learned whist.

“Come on, Caesar. I have to be back before Captain Stewart needs me.”

“You wait on him all the time as it is!”

“Yes, well, he rather needs me all the time.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“I do, then.” They were putting on dry shirts and waistcoats in an outer dressing room. The salle, an open floor in a former warehouse, was another location in the city that was colorblind. Indeed, Jeremy was quite popular. Caesar had heard men-white men-suggest he was the best swordsman in the city. Caesar thought of Washington. He had almost liked Washington, of all the masters he had had. But Washington had owned him. Perhaps it was different if you were a servant, but free.

When they walked back into the Moor’s Head, a group of soldiers was singing.

Simcoe and Stewart were installed in chairs under the map of the northern colonies. Simcoe was in uniform, his gorget hanging loose at his throat, while Stewart wore a neat plaid coat and heavy breeches suited to riding in the weather. They had pipes and cards on the little table between them, but those diversions had been pushed aside.

“He’s done,” said Simcoe. “Look at this bend in the river. Washington has to defend the whole navigable stretch, all the way along the front of Philadelphia. There are four ferries and his front must cover all of twenty-five miles. Grant says that Washington has less than four thousand men. All we require is a cold snap to freeze the river and we’re across. Then Philadelphia falls and we all go home.”

The two men contemplated the extremely serious position in which the American commander had placed himself.

“I had rather counted on a longer war,” said Stewart.

Simcoe cleaned a long clay with his penknife, scraping the inside of the bowl. Then he ground some tobacco between his hands until he liked the texture of it and filled the bowl carefully, pressing the tobacco with his thumb.

“I have always liked these long pipes,” he said. “They give a cool smoke, and you can light them from a fire without singeing your eyebrows.” He suited his action to his words. While he was stooped over the fire, Stewart waved for another pint of Madeira. When Simcoe returned to his seat, he nodded, as if the conversation had never been interrupted.

“I, too, had hoped for a longer campaign. The action at White Plains was as close as I’ve been to glory, and neither of us managed to get mentioned at all.” It was a sore topic, as Stewart had actually commanded his battalion in action and not been recognized for it despite being the first to take the crown of the hill. Simcoe, with the grenadiers, had been similarly ignored.

“I had expected you to be appointed to your provincial corps ere now.” Stewart toyed idly with a lock of his rebellious hair, which, having escaped from its ribbon, was now living a life independent of its fellows. Simcoe inhaled his pipe.

“As did I.” He looked into the fire. “I had imagined that after Major Rogers proved unsuitable, I would have been chosen, but I gather that there is a list. Perhaps I am third or fourth.”

Stewart brightened. He thought a moment. “Remember the officer who beat Rogers’s camp?”

“Certainly. General Charles Lee, formerly a captain in our service, I believe.”

“Just so. General Charles Lee has been taken prisoner.”

Simcoe shook his head ruefully. “A pretty stroke. Who got him?”

“A party of dragoons. Lee left his camp behind by some miles to stay at a tavern, and a young officer who got word of it rode twenty miles to surround and take him.”

“He was their best man, I think. Mr. Washington seems a master at retreat, but he has yet to face us in the field and win. Lee was the more dangerous man.”

Stewart was silent, as he often chose to be when he disagreed with his friends. Simcoe looked at him carefully, registered his disagreement, and changed the subject.

“I know why I want a longer war, John Julius. But you? You are a prosperous man, I think. What do you want from the army?”

Jeremy came up behind Stewart and replaced the bottle of Madeira with another. He bowed slightly to both men and noticed the sprig of red hair that had escaped from Stewart’s careful sidecurls. With a smile, he slipped away. They heard him calling for Polly before he was out of the common room. Stewart was staring off into the gloom at the back of the room. Simcoe began to think he would not speak.

“Love, I suppose.”

Simcoe straightened his shoulders a little, as if the word made him uncomfortable.

“Oh, my apologies.”

“No, no. It is not anything shameful, merely too common. I pledged my troth to Miss Mary McLean, daughter of a man who fancies himself a great aristocrat in Scotland. My people are in ™ indeed, I was myself until I met Miss McLean. Her father informed me that I might only have her if I did something honorable and covered myself in glory.”

“That seems a trifle old-fashioned, surely?”

Stewart nodded sharply, clearly unhappy.

“How long have you waited?”

“Six years.”

Simcoe whistled softly, and Jeremy reappeared as if by instinct, with Polly close behind and Caesar at a distance. Only a blind person would have failed to note that wherever Polly went, Caesar was seldom far behind. Polly sometimes affected to dislike his suit, but no one believed her. Even her father, whose reputation for rectitude was a byword in the city, seemed to favor Caesar.

“Your pardon, sir,” Jeremy said with his usual half-smile. Polly busied herself at the fire. Caesar went and fetched logs at her request.

Simcoe watched her for a moment.

“Polly, do you enjoy the conquest of the best soldier in New York?”

She hung her head a little, but Simcoe thought he heard a giggle.

Stewart turned in his chair.

“What are you about, Jeremy?”

“Sir, you are not leaving this house with a devil’s horn planted on your brow. Sit still, sir.” He whipped the offending curl open, then combed it and the stray wisp of hair ruthlessly together. Polly handed him a pair of tongs, ready heated, and the smell of burnt hair suddenly filled the room. He held the curl for a moment and then withdrew the tongs.

“Thank you for your kindness, Miss White.”

She curtsied. “Your servant, gentlemen.”

Simcoe stopped Caesar, who dropped a load of logs in the bin.

“Will your Mr. Washington surrender, Sergeant Caesar?”

Caesar looked at Jeremy a moment, trying to imbibe some of his poise. The question might have been serious. It was always hard to tell with Simcoe whether he wanted a short answer or a long one.

“He won’t surrender, sir. He may be beat, but he will not give up.”

Simcoe inclined his head politely.

“Even if we take his capital?”

Caesar caught Polly’s eye and felt that he was on parade.

“Sir, my knowledge of war is confined to the management of a company. But it seems to me that Mr. Washington and his army have shown an inclination to survive and retreat after the loss of the continent’s greatest city, and perhaps the loss of Philadelphia will affect them no more. At the very least I will say this, though I only knew him as a slave: Mr. Washington will not surrender while he has the tools to fight. And he’s a man whose quality is only seen when he’s pressed, sir. That much I saw even on the hunt.”

And Stewart thought, They have that in common, then.

Polly smiled one of her rare, quick smiles that showed she was pleased with him. Simcoe and Stewart both nodded to him. Had Captain Simcoe really told Polly he was the best soldier in New York? He bowed and followed Polly to the door, catching sight of the tavern’s proprietor and Reverend White sitting together in a booth. They both bowed slightly to him. White motioned him over.

“You do us credit, sir, both in the manner of your speaking and your message. I have seldom heard a man declare himself a former slave with so much dignity.”

“The ancient Julius Caesar was a slave, if only for a little while,” Caesar replied. “But I thank you for your compliments.”

Reverend White accepted this assay into education with a smile. “Epictetus was also a slave, and that for his whole life, Caesar. And while I honor your choice of books as pertinent to your chosen path, I might have wished you’d chosen a man who led a better life. Caesar made fifty thousand Gauls into slaves, and conquered whole nations. Epictetus founded a philosophy that is with us yet, strong under our Christian ways. Yet he lived and died a slave.”

“I would be happy to attempt Epictetus, if you would lend him to me,” said Caesar.

The innkeep, a portly man with a broad face that totally belied his open and intelligent nature, laughed aloud.

“It is a pleasure to hear the two of you. Julius Caesar! Epictetus! An’ this from two men as black as me! It’s a new world, is what it is.”

Caesar slipped away. Military praise he took as his due with the arrogance of the young, but the praise of Marcus White was another thing entirely, both for itself and for the light it cast on his suit with Polly. Sometimes she seemed taken with him, and other times not interested at all. And Marcus puzzled him on a different plane. Marcus White seemed to know some very powerful men, and to be welcome everywhere. He traveled through the lines with ease, and spoke freely of visits to men in the Continental camp, or in Philadelphia. And he seemed to spend considerable time and energy on Sally. Caesar had thought that the reason might not go beyond the obvious, because he felt that few men would be resistant to Sally’s charms. But Marcus White made no secret of attending her, and even allowed Polly to take messages for her and do her fine sewing, a most remarkable circumstance in a decent girl’s life and one that could reflect on her reputation. It puzzled him.

He found that he had stopped in the hallway to the kitchen by the private room. He had lost Polly while talking to her father, and now he cast about the kitchen, expecting to find her at her sewing, but all he found was Jeremy, drinking small ale with Sally. Virgil sat on the other side, silent. Virgil was almost always silent these days, as it became apparent to him that winning Sally was beyond his means. She wouldn’t be won. Caesar thought to speak to him several times, but Polly, or the equipping of the company, always seemed to be first. So he sat, silent. Caesar sat next to him and grabbed his arm for a moment, and Virgil turned his head and smiled a little sadly.

“That was well said in there,” from Jeremy, who put a hand on his shoulder, so that they were all linked for a moment. “I wish they would consult me on tactics and politics. I’m jealous, Julius Caesar. But well said.”

“I try to speak the way you do, Jeremy.”

“That’s just it, Julius. You do.”

Jim, almost a foot taller than when they met him, hurtled through the big kitchen, chasing a maid, who shrieked, and then they were gone into the snow out the back. Sally smiled into her beer, and Virgil looked at her. She met his eyes kindly, at least for her.

“No, Virgil. It won’t do.”

Caesar wondered what he had missed, but the silence told him it wasn’t good.

Virgil rubbed his nose for a moment, as if someone had punched it. He rose from his bench and started for the door. Then he looked back at Caesar, happy for a moment because he’d thought of something to break the tension.

“I foun’ us a drummah, Caesar.”

Caesar nodded. “I can put him in a coat tomorrow. Where’d you fin’ him?”

“Queen’s Rangers brought him in. Got him off some Germans.”

“He big enough to take the shilling?”

Virgil smiled a thin, strained smile not at all like his usual easy grin. “He hates the rebels worse ’an us, Cese. They killed his family.”

Sally winced. Caesar just nodded. He pulled open his day book.

“Got a name?”

“Sam. Sam Carter, I think.”

Caesar wrote the name in his book. “Get him a coat. An’ give him a shilling.”

McKonkey’s Ferry, December 26, 1776

“What are we doing now?” asked one of the new men.

George Lake made no reply. The remnants of the Third Virginia had been awake the whole night, moving to the ferry and then filing on to narrow, evil-looking boats that were slowly picking their way across to the Jersey bank of the Delaware. The trip looked dangerous, and the men were already cold. They all feared that they would be soaked to the skin by the time they reached the far bank. George walked along the ranks and made sure that men tied their hats to their heads, and those with tinder kits or tobacco put those items in their hats first. He looked at their cartridge boxes and made sure that their muskets were empty. A wet gun could be dried, but a gun with a soaked load of wet black powder in the barrel would take an hour to clear and dry.

Bludner stood apart, speaking quietly to Captain Lawrence. George knew that he and Bludner were in a state of quiet hostility, and that Bludner would attack him to Lawrence at any chance. George wasn’t used to this kind of warfare, and he felt that he was slipping behind. Captain Lawrence no longer sought his opinion on anything, no longer sent for him to lead special patrols. In fact, Bludner had been sent across the river last night, and had already seen the town they were supposed to attack. He had apparently done well. George tried not to resent Bludner’s success.

They had the company up to thirty men, and they had a drummer again. George Lake had been to Philadelphia twice, looking for their recruits from Virginia, and quietly soliciting local men where they could be got. Other regiments had begun to recruit free blacks. George didn’t think that he was ready to put Bludner in the way of that kind of temptation.

He decided to light his pipe, and he pulled up the collar of his greatcoat. His eye caught Bludner and Lawrence, who were both watching him. His stomach flipped a little, and then he turned his back and started trying to get a patch of char to catch a spark. In a moment he had a little coal going, to the envy of his company, and after a deep inhalation, he handed the pipe to Corporal Bent, who took it gratefully.

“Sergeant, where are we going?” asked another recruit. “Is the war lost, Sergeant?”

“Silence, Rogers,” George said, his voice low. Most of the men thought they might be going to surrender. It was a sad comment on the army. George had figured out where they were going by inference, but he wasn’t saying until they were across the river. Once across, no one would desert.

In the handsome stone house by the ferry, George Washington sat at a plain cherry table and took the messages that members of the Philadelphia Light Horse brought without enthusiasm, hiding his feelings. Colonel Reed sent that Israel Putnam could not be moved to commit his command across the river to support any sort of attack. Horatio Gates had left the army to go to Congress. It seemed possible that he had left to avoid being present when the army was destroyed. He had Mercer and Lord Stirling, of the older men who had been his best resources since he took command at Boston. Putnam, the hero of Bunker Hill and the commander of the Philadelphia district, would not commit to the plan and Washington would not order him to. Charles Lee had gotten himself captured, a sharp blow even if Lee was waging a subtle campaign against Washington himself. Washington smiled bitterly at that recollection, because this reckless gamble had its roots in that damnable letter and those comments about his indecision. He was not so small-minded as to be driven to excess by the opinions of others, but the sting of those unjust words was still with him. And now, in this one attack, his generals were choosing their paths. Some were staying clear. Others were eager to take part. So be it. The ones that wanted to play a role had been briefed in detail about the attack, in stark contrast to his earlier style.

“Boats are starting to cross, sir,” said an aide.

He had a little fewer than twenty-five hundred men to challenge the British Army. He couldn’t possibly defend twenty-five miles of riverbank if the current cold snap lasted and the river froze to any depth. His men would be spread at the rate of a hundred per mile, and Cornwallis, or Clinton, or Howe would sweep across, encircle those not immediately destroyed, pin them against the river, and end the war.

He rose to his not inconsiderable height, pulled on his greatcoat and gloves, and settled his hat. Billy had tied his hair very tight against the wind, at his request. It pulled at the corners of his eyes, a comfortable sort of pain. Billy put up with a great deal. George Washington was not a dramatic man. If he had been in his youth, then a middle age of farming and married life had driven such notions from him. But as he walked to the ferry followed by his staff and his horse, he thought about the great Roman, Julius Caesar, leading his army to the bank of the Rubicon River. Perhaps just such a night as this, with snow and wind. Caesar had said something like “the die is cast”, meaning that he was taking a great risk. Washington toyed with saying some such as he sat in the boat, looking at the enemy shore and trying to guess whether he should prepare the army to form to the right or the left once they encountered the Germans. He tried to imagine where their posts would be today, or whether they would patrol with Christmas still ringing in their ears. He tried to imagine whether the British dragoons would be out on the roads, ready to report his column as it moved up the road. In the end, he said nothing, except to ask an aide for the map as soon as they got off the water.

By the time they had the army across, they were two hours late. Any chance of dawn surprise was lost. Washington considered briefly the consequences of loading the men back in the boats and recrossing, and he could not imagine what would happen to the army if the British caught it here against the river, or how demoralized his men would be if the whole of their Christmas had been given up for nothing.

He looked around in the early dawn light, nodding to Greene and Sullivan and Mercer and Stirling. He didn’t call a council; every one of them looked at him with a happy resolution that made his heart rise, as if the warm sun had broken through the snow. He didn’t think of Caesar and his wars in Gaul and Italy, but of Henry V on the field of Agincourt, and again he was almost moved to say something to his captains about “we happy few”, but the drama wasn’t in him. Yet they were with him in a way that Putnam and Lee never had been, and he gave them all a rare smile.

“Gentlemen, I think you know the plan.” They bowed from the saddle to him, somber yet somehow elated. They were attacking. It was a heady thing. He felt that they wanted him to say something to mark the occasion, but he couldn’t find the words, and instead he simply pointed east.

“Gentlemen,” he said, looking from man to man. “Let’s be about it.”

The crossing was damp and cold, indeed, but not so bad as he had feared. George Lake got himself free of the boat on the far side and watched the muskets handed up to willing hands. The men scrambled out on the low ferry pier and began to form. The darkness was full of men. He hoped they had sentries out somewhere.

“Sergeant, where are we going?” The same voice, or perhaps a different one. He didn’t know all the new men yet.

“You call that a line?” he said, but quietly. They would know soon enough, and in the meantime he wanted them focused on the details of soldiering. “Mr. Clarke, do you have your worm? Get some tow and start wiping the locks and the barrels. Every man is to pick his touch hole and see that Mr. Clarke has his weapon dry.”

Men grumbled, because most of the weapons were already dry, but George Lake intended only that they be busy. He knew that the army was late, and he knew the sun was not far off. If they were going to be caught on this open shore by the ever-vigilant British, he thought that his men should be unaware of the possibility until it was upon them.

The snow came in gusts, and the flat countryside of Pennsylvania began to be clearer as the light grew. But soon enough, almost too soon for the busy Private Clarke, the columns began to form and move. Some troops went up the main road to Pennington, and others went with General Sullivan on the more direct route to Assunpink Bridge. Once the column stepped off, they moved briskly, and it warmed their feet and gradually made all their various discomforts into one dull ache. At least they were moving. The snow began to fall a little harder, and George noted that Bludner’s hat was developing a little triangle of the stuff, like the top of a grenadier’s hat.

They halted for a spell, and the men began to be cold again. Bludner stayed with Captain Lawrence and seemed to have little interest in the company, so George sent out two files to watch the ground beyond the road and tried to cudgel his mind for other ways of keeping the men busy on the march. As he began to consider having them collect wood, the column formed up quickly, and he had to race to recall his pickets before they moved off.

In another mile, they turned a corner. It was almost full light, and they could just see the village of Trenton laid out before them in the middle distance. Then another gust of snow hid the little town of stone houses.

In Washington’s experience, war consisted mostly of waiting to see how well other men had understood their orders. The waiting was interspersed with brief flashes of danger and action, usually caused by his attempts to repair his own defects, or those that others had added to his plans through inattention or neglect. He was not confident in this plan, a complex series of three converging columns that depended on luck and timing and the quality of his generals. It was dictated by the shape of the village.

He wanted a complete victory. His idea of victory required that he take or kill the Hessian garrison of Trenton, the dreaded German regulars that his men feared. Their outposts routinely injured his own, and their Jaegers were the scourge of his lines. He was not attempting an easy target, but a very difficult one, and his chosen enemy was not much less in men and guns than his own small army.

Where was Sullivan? He waited as the light grew for discovery, or news. He no longer expected General Ewing’s column to show at all. They had been intended for a different ferry, and as he had not directed their operation in person, he had little confidence in them. At this point, in the growing light and the snow, he had little confidence in the whole plan. He began to dread what would lie around each turn of the road. The feeling was unaccustomed. He tried to shrug it off.

His horse was warm, because he kept moving along the column. The men were silent.

A dark, wet man was brought to him near the head of the column, a messenger from Sullivan. He sighed with inward relief. Sullivan was moving well, but concerned about his wet muskets. Washington had watched some Virginians using tow to wipe their muskets dry at the ferry and wondered that the whole army hadn’t performed this simple operation.

He nodded his thanks to the messenger and turned to young General Greene, who was waiting on him.

“Let us go as rapidly as we may, General Greene,” he said, and pushed his horse ahead. Close by him, a company commander caught the order and raised his voice.

“March-march!” he called. The men began to shuffle along at something like a trot.

George Lake’s company was in the center of General Greene’s column, and it began to move faster and to expand, as columns do when they change speed. As each company and each platoon heard the order to trot, they went off, increasing the distance to the next. George left his place on the front right of his company and began to run down the column, coaching the corporals and sergeants to close up and keep their intervals. The Third Virginia began to form again. He ran back up the column, passing Bludner, who looked at him dully.

“In a hurry to get beat?” asked Bludner as he ran by. George didn’t spare him a reply. He raced for the front of their battalion and passed the word up to the last sergeant in the Fifth Virginia, a man who knew a little, and that man headed off to close his men.

It was the sort of detail that officers generally overlooked, even when they were veterans. The newer ones wouldn’t even know how vital a few moments could be in bringing your column up to a line and beginning to fire, had no idea how hard simple maneuvers would be in the blowing snow.

He was sweating now, and his feet were warm. If he had a particular friend left, he would have shared the irony with him, but they were all gone now, and so he kept it to himself, and they trotted on.

There was a flutter of firing ahead.

Washington watched the Hessian outpost form rapidly, fire a volley, and vanish in the growing storm of snow. It was well done, as the men fulfilled their duty to provide an alarm and then ran for the town. Washington was quietly impressed by their quality. But his own men moved past the post, a cooper’s shop a little outside the town, and began to trot forward again. None of them had been hit.

He trotted his horse along the verge of the road, careful to keep clear of the column. The men seemed afire with enthusiasm suddenly, every one of them racing forward, faster and faster, the column beginning to resemble a giant race, at least in the vanguard. Back in the main body, Washington could see that the companies were moving well, better closed up, which would be vital if the plan was to work. Greene’s entire column would have to form line to the right, a complex maneuver. He watched them for a moment, and then heard the welcome sound of musketry from the direction of Sullivan’s column. The alarm was sounded. Any surprise was over. Now it would be a battle, and in truth, the die was cast.

George Lake had plenty of time to watch the last moment of the preparation, as a flaw in the wind cleared the snow for a moment. Off to the south, Sullivan’s column was a dark mass on the low road, and his own column lay ahead and behind him. And then in an instant, all the order was chaos as they reached the outlying buildings. Mercer’s men began to hurl themselves at the stone houses, and there were scattered shots. He had no idea who was firing or at what. He could hear the head of the column cheering, cheering like madmen, and his own men began to press forward. He hadn’t heard such cheering in all his time in the army. He pressed them back with his musket.

“Keep your intervals!” he bellowed.

A scattering of shots came their way, and he heard one whicker past. It made little impression on him. The head of the column was trying to form in the narrow streets, and Captain Lawrence was shouting for them to “form front by company”, but George could see that the guns which the army had moved with so much labor from across the river were trying hard to reach the front.

“Stand fast!” Lake bellowed. He pointed at the guns. Lawrence froze for a moment with a look of pure hatred on his face and then it cleared as he saw the guns moving, and he nodded sharply. The Fifth Virginia detached men to move the guns faster, and suddenly there were heavy bangs and the heady smell of sulfur. The column shuffled forward again. The guns were commanding one street, but it seemed that the Germans were forming on another and suddenly, unexpectedly, George Lake was in the front rank facing them. The rest of the column must have suddenly gone down the other road. An arm’s length away, a four-pounder fired, the canister of little metal balls cutting men down in tens. The noise made his ears ring. Captain Lawrence sprang to the front.

“Follow me!” he yelled. Instantly he took a ball and went down. The men, most of whom had taken a step forward, shuffled. It was a moment of hesitation, and Lake wouldn’t have it.

“At them, Virginians!” he yelled, and his company followed him forward. Behind the little screen of German infantry were two of their battalion guns, three-pounders that could shred their company in a heartbeat. Screaming their huzzas, the Virginians raced down the street as the German gunners struggled with the high wind to get the touch holes of their guns primed. George Lake watched it all, his whole being focused on the man placing a quill of powder in the touch hole and then stepping back. The Germans were afraid, caught unprepared in the street, and the man with the linstock that could fire the piece was slow, he fumbled his movement a little and George was there, atop him, sweeping him off his feet. He rolled off the man and hit him in the breast with his musket butt and before he could move to another enemy, the guns were taken.

He picked himself up slowly, covered in the nasty slush and mud of the street, to find that he was standing at the feet of General Washington’s horse.

“Well done, Virginians,” Washington said, and rode off.

“What’s your name, Sergeant?” asked an aide, riding up.

“I’m George Lake, an’ it please you, sir.” Lake suddenly felt old and tired. The officer looked calm, comfortable, and elegant, all things that were beyond George Lake this morning. The officer saluted him, raising his hat, a gesture that he never expected, and rode off. Lake turned on his men, busy looting every German in sight.

“Form on me!” he yelled.

Victory. Not since Boston had he had this feeling, this gentle elation of spirit that held him above the earth as if floating along in a gallop. They had taken nearly the whole garrison of Trenton, three regiments, and more driven off in the snow without their guns. He had a further gamble in mind, a quick lunge against the British concentration at Princeton a few miles away to break up their timing and disrupt their attempts to attack him. It was a technique that every fencing master taught, to attack into your enemy’s preparation. He thought now that he had timed it well, that he was across and into the enemy with something like total surprise. He felt his confidence return, and he could see on every face around him that they were confident as well. Indeed, Mercer’s men looked like they were drunk, so great was their flow of spirit. But they were under control soon enough, and he would have his attempt on Princeton. More men would come across the ferry today. The word of the victory would spread, and the sunshine soldiers and summer patriots who fought at convenience would suddenly appear to bulk his forces.

There in the snow, surrounded by the adulation of his staff and the cheers of his men, he saw that it would only take a few such victories to put the chance of defeat behind him. The British had to defeat him. He had only to survive.

General Greene, flushed with the success, took his hand in Quaker directness.

“Give you the joy of your glorious victory, General,” he said. Washington smiled broadly, his rare bad-tooth smile that he hid from all but Martha.

“Their enlistments still run out in four days, Nathan,” he said. Greene shook his head, and Sullivan sneered.

“Let the faint hearts go home. After this, men will flock to us.”

And Washington rose in his stirrups, looked at the men about him, and waved to his escort commander to start down the road.

“Perhaps, General Sullivan. But in any case, they will need to be trained, and fed, and clothed, and we will spend another winter building the army.”

Greene touched his arm, a contact Washington had used to resent.

“You sound tired, sir.”

“Tired?” Washington held in his horse. The big stallion was unwinded by the morning, restless, his ears pricking for new adventure. “Perhaps I am tired, Nathan. But I now see why they chose a farmer to lead this army. Farmers are used to having to start anew every spring. And farmers know that before you begin a job of work, you have to build your tools.” He looked at his staff, his generals, his army. The tools were there. He had trusted them, and they, him. And they had won.