CHAPTER XV.

THE WINTER AT VALLEY FORGE.

BRITAIN IN WANT OF TROOPS.

NOVEMBER 1777-APRIL 1778.

WHEN at last Washington was joined by troops from the northern army, a clamor arose for the capture of Philadelphia. Protected by the Schuylkill and the Delaware, the city could be approached only from the north, and on that side a chain of fourteen redoubts extended from river to river. Moreover, the army by which it was occupied, having been reinforced from New York by more than three thousand men, exceeded nineteen thousand. Four American officers voted in council for an assault upon the lines of this greatly superior force; but the general, sustained by eleven, disregarded the murmurs of congress and rejected "the mad enterprise."

With quickness of eye he selected in the woods of Whitemarsh strong ground for an encampment, and there, within fourteen miles of Philadelphia, awaited the enemy, of whose movements he received exact and timely intelligence. On the severely cold night of the fourth of December the British, fourteen thousand strong, marched out to attack the American lines. Before daybreak on the fifth their advance party halted on a ridge beyond Chestnut Hill, eleven miles from Philadelphia, and at seven their main body formed in one line, with a few regiments as reserves. The Americans occupied thickly wooded hills, with a morass and a brook in their front. Opposite the British left wing a breastwork defended the only point where the brook could be easily forded. At night the British force rested on their arms. Washington passed the hours in strengthening his position; and though, according

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to Kalb who was present, he had but seven thousand really effective men, he wished for an engagement. Near the end of another day Howe marched back to Germantown, and on the next, as if intending a surprise, suddenly returned upon the American left, which he made preparations to assail. Washington delivered in person to each brigade his orders on the manner of receiving their enemy, exhorting to a reliance on the bayonet. All day long, and until eight in the evening, Howe kept up his reconnoitring, but found the American position everywhere strong by nature and by art. Nothing occurred but a sharp action on Edge Hill between light troops under Gist and Morgan's riflemen and a British party led by General Grey. The latter lost eighty-nine in killed and wounded; the Americans, twenty-seven, among them the brave Major Morris of New Jersey. On the eighth, just after noon, the British suddenly marched by the shortest road to Philadelphia. Their loss in the expedition exceeded one hundred. The rest of the season Howe made no excursions except for food or forage; and Washington had no choice but to seek winter-quarters for his suffering soldiers; while Gates, with Conway and Mifflin, formed a cabal to drive Washington into retirement and put Gates in his place.

Military affairs had thus far been superintended by a congressional committee. After some prelude, in July 1777, it was settled in the following October to institute an executive board of war of five persons not members of congress.

Conway, a French officer of Irish descent, had long been eager for higher rank. In a timely letter to Richard Henry Lee, a friend to Conway, Washington wrote: "His merits exist more in his own imagination than in reality; it is a maxim with him not to want anything which is to be obtained by importunity;" his promotion would be "a real act of injustice," likely to "incur a train of irremediable evils. To sum up the whole, I have been a slave to the service; I have undergone more than most men are aware of to harmonize so many discordant parts; but it will be impossible for me to be of any further service if such insuperable difficulties are thrown in my way." Conway breathed out his discontent to Gates, writing in substance: "Heaven has been determined to save

your country, or a weak general and bad counsellors would have ruined it." The correspondents of Gates did not scruple in their letters to speak of the commander-in-chief with bitterness or contempt. "This army," wrote Reed, "notwithstanding the efforts of our amiable chief, has as yet gathered no laurels. I perfectly agree with that sentiment which leads to request your assistance." On the seventh, Mifflin, leaving his office of quartermaster-general, of which he had neglected the duties, yet retaining the rank of major-general, was elected to the board of war. The injurious words of Conway having through Wilkinson been made known to Washington, on the ninth he communicated his knowledge of them to Conway, and to him alone. Conway in an interview justified them, made no apology, and after the interview reported his defiance of Washington to Mifflin. On the tenth, Sullivan, knowing the opinion of his brother officers and of his chief, and that on a discussion at a council of war about appointing an inspectorgeneral Conway's pretensions met with no favor, wrote to a member of congresss: "No man can behave better in action than General Conway; his regulations in his brigade are much better than any in the army; his knowledge of military matters far exceeds any officer we have. If the office of inspectorgeneral with the rank of major-general was given him, our army would soon cut a different figure from what they now do." On the same day Wayne expressed his purpose "to follow the line pointed out by the conduct of Lee, Gates, and Mifflin." On the eleventh, Conway, foreseeing that Gates was to preside at the board of war, offered to form for him a plan for the instruction of the army; and, on the fifteenth, to advance his intrigue, he tendered his resignation to congress. On the seventeenth, Lovell of Massachusetts wrote to Gates, threatening Washington "with the mighty torrent of public clamor and vengeance," and subjoined: "How different your conduct and your fortune! this army will be totally lost unless you come down and collect the virtuous band who wish to fight under your banner." On the twenty-first, Wayne, forgetting the disaster that had attended his own rashness, disparaged Washington as having more than once slighted the favors of fortune. On the twenty-fourth, congress received

the resignation of Conway, and referred it to the board of war, of which Mifflin at that time was the head. On the twentyseventh they filled the places in that board, and appointed Gates its president. On the same day Lovell wrote to Gates: "We want you in different places; we want you most near Germantown. Good God, what a situation we are in! how different from what might have been justly expected!" and he represented Washington as a general who collected astonishing numbers of men to wear out stockings, shoes, and breeches, and "Fabiused affairs into a very disagreeable posture." On the twenty-eighth, congress, by a unanimous resolution, declared in favor of carrying on a winter's campaign with vigor and success, and sent three of its members to direct every measure which circumstances might require. On the same day Mifflin, explaining to Gates how Conway had braved the commander-in-chief, volunteered his own opinion that the extract from Conway's letter was a "collection of just sentiments." Gates, on receiving the letter, wrote to Conway: "You acted with all the dignity of a virtuous soldier." He wished "so very valuable and polite an officer might remain in the service." To congress he complained that his correspondence had been betrayed to Washington, with whom he came to an open rupture. On the thirteenth of December congress, following Mifflin's report, appointed Conway inspector-general, promoted him to be a major-general, made his office independent of the commander-in-chief, and referred him to the board of war for the regulations which he was to introduce. Some of those engaged in the cabal, “which had its supporters exclusively in the North," wished to provoke Washington to resign his place.

This happened just as Washington at Whitemarsh had closed the campaign with honor. The problem which he must next solve was to keep together through the cold winter an army without tents, and to confine the British to the environs of Philadelphia. There was no town which would serve the purpose. Valley Forge, on the Schuylkill, but twenty-one miles from Philadelphia, admitted of defence against the artillery of those days, and had more than one route convenient for escape into the interior. The ground lay between two ridges of hills,

and was covered by a thick forest. As his men moved toward the spot, they were in need of clothes and blankets and shoes, as well as tents, and were almost as often without provisions as with them. On the nineteenth they arrived at Valley Forge, with no covering. From his life in the woods, Washington could see in the trees a town of log cabins, built in regular streets, and affording shelter enough to save the army from dispersion. The order for their erection was received by officers and men as impossible of execution; and they were astonished at the ease with which, as the work of their Christmas holidays, they changed the forest into huts thatched with boughs in the order of a regular encampment,

Washington was followed to Valley Forge by letters from congress transmitting the remonstrance of the council and assembly of Pennsylvania against his going into winter-quarters. To this reproof Washington, on the twenty-third, after laying deserved blame upon Mifflin for neglect of duty as quartermaster-general, replied: "For the want of a two days' supply of provisions, an opportunity scarcely ever offered of taking an advantage of the enemy that has not been either totally obstructed or greatly impeded. Men are confined to hospitals, or in farmers' houses for want of shoes. We have this day no less than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men in camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and otherwise naked. Our whole strength in continental troops amounts to no more than eight thousand two hundred in camp fit for duty. Since the fourth instant our numbers fit for duty from hardships and exposures have decreased nearly two thousand men. Numbers still are obliged to sit all night by fires. Gentlemen reprobate the going into winter-quarters as much as if they thought the soldiers were made of stocks or stones. I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent."