The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (42 page)

There in the February snow he saw—and felt—the stirring of pride.

On their way back to their hut after the remarkable morning, the trio of Massachusetts men discussed the bizarre drillmaster.

“I think maybe the man has a touch of genius,” Philip said.

“Fucking maniac,” was Breen’s contribution.

Royal Rothman said, “I think he’s both. I like him.”

So did the rank and file of the army, as it turned out. Except with those officers such as Gil, who considered the baron’s methods both unorthodox and degrading, von Steuben was soon the most popular commander in the camp after Washington.

The German ignored the jealous jibes and rumors circulated about him, and kept working. As the winter wore on, leavened at last by a growing trickle of supply wagons that brought in foodstuffs and clothing, the baron’s original hundred taught new contingents of a hundred. Those hundreds taught hundreds more. By early March, Philip and even Breen had become busy and proficient instructors of all of von Steuben’s lessons:

The new musket drill.

The new cadences that smoothed the execution of flanking and counter-marching by masses of troops on the move.

The new marching formation—four abreast, instead of the traditional single or double file. This, the baron had explained, would allow the regiments to enter or retreat from a battle zone in an orderly way, as well as faster. Another obvious innovation, yet quite astonishing when it was suddenly introduced into an army that had never thought of it before.

The German also insisted that bayonet drill be taught—and demanded every soldier have one. Philip could imagine how that order alone increased business at George Lumden’s forge back in Connecticut.

Uniforms began to look a little sharper. Although few had been completely replaced, the men took to maintaining them more carefully, sewing and patching them instead of letting them simply fall to pieces. When wagonloads of soap became available, the men washed their clothes as well as themselves. It struck Philip that had von Steuben not arrived when he did, the next engagement of the army might have brought total anarchy—wholesale refusal to fight. Now there was actually talk of wanting to face Howe’s soldiers; of wanting to discover how well the new techniques worked in battle.

Henry Knox expressed it when Philip encountered him one day in March:

“I thought no one could create a military force out of this rabble. But I do believe that strutting, egotistical German’s done it.”

The long, dark night of the winter seemed to be ending. The calendar ran on toward spring. Only one grave concern still infected Philip’s waking thoughts and haunted his sleep.

He still hadn’t received a single reply to his letters to Anne.

At a special evening muster in the company street, Captain Webb read the message sent to all the troops from the gray fieldstone house near the Schuylkill:

“Headquarters, Valley Forge. The commander-in-chief takes this occasion to return his warmest thanks to the virtuous officers and soldiers of this army for that persevering fidelity and zeal which they have uniformly manifested in all their conduct. Their fortitude not only under their common hardships incident to a military life, but also under the additional sufferings to which the peculiar situation of these states has exposed them, clearly proves them men worthy of the enviable privilege of contending for the rights of human nature and the freedom and independence of their country—”

Philip noticed Breen wearing a smug smile. And the older man joined with all the others in a round of cheers when Webb concluded.

Tramping along to the sutler’s after the formation broke up, Philip said to his messmates:

“I don’t think it makes a damn bit of difference what they say about his losses in the field. If we win the war and the general had ambition to be king of this country, he could ask and it would be done.”

No one disagreed.

Attendance at divine worship every Sunday was, supposedly, mandatory. But skimpy crowds in the log chapel usually testified to the lax enforcement of the commanding general’s order. The last Sunday in March was an exception. The eleven o’clock service was to be held on the parade field because a bigger than usual crowd was expected—without duress.

The predictions proved correct, solely because of the identity of the preacher. Even Breen went along to listen.

The morning, although gray, wasn’t excessively chilly. Philip and Breen found places in the huge crowd of seated men—two or three thousand at least, Philip guessed. In front of the gathering, regimental drummers had stacked their drums into a three-tier platform, on top of which boards had been laid.

The regular chaplains presided over the hymns and prayers. But the men were clearly waiting for the sermon, to be presented by one of Washington’s most loyal and hard-driving officers, General Peter Muhlenberg, the Pennsylvania-born commander of the Virginia line.

When Muhlenberg mounted the drum platform with a Bible in one hand, a wave of surprised comment raced through the crowd. The general wasn’t wearing his uniform today. Instead, he wore the somber black robes of his former calling.

There was hardly a man at Valley Forge who didn’t know a bit of Muhlenberg’s story: his training at a theological school in Europe—which he found too dull; his military service with the dragoons in one of the German provinces; and—this part was told most often—the Sunday morning in January of ’76.

Ordained at last and tending to a small parish flock in the Blue Ridge, Muhlenberg had mounted his pulpit while his congregation thundered
Ein Feste Burg.
As the hymn faded away, he flung off his black robes to reveal a colonel’s uniform. Then he launched into a blistering sermon directed principally at one sinner—King George III. That was his last official message to his congregation before leading the Eighth Virginia off to war.

A powerful, commanding figure against the gray sky, General Muhlenberg leafed through the front of his Bible. The tactic had its effect; the last talk quieted—though Breen still whispered questions:

“What kind o’ preacher did you say he is, Philip?”

“Lutheran. It’s a German denomination, mostly,”

“Well, I hope he’s good, ’cause I don’t usually hang around this sort o’ function—why, look yonder! What’s he doin’ here? His church don’t meet on Sunday.”

Philip peered past the men seated nearby, saw Royal Rothman lingering at the very back of the crowd, darting glances every which way, as though anticipating some kind of trouble. Philip smiled, shrugged:

“I suppose he wants to hear the general as much as we do. No law says he can’t.”

The sermon of the preacher-turned-soldier was very much worth hearing. Philip soon realized Muhlenberg had chosen his text with care. It came from the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, and was perfectly fitted to the mood of the troops—especially their growing sense of becoming an army worthy of the name.

Muhlenberg first read his text:

“Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not. For he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him
—”

Then, skillfully, Muhlenberg began to weave military propaganda into his theology. He likened the Lord’s angel to an army commander whose every order must be executed without question. Discipline and obedience—whether he who followed was a lowly private or one of the Children of Israel—would surely bring the desired rewards. Muhlenberg saved the biblical version of those rewards for the end, rolling them out from the drum pulpit to his rapt, wide-eyed audience:

“But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites
—

“And I will cut them off!”

It required only a moment’s mental translation for the men to understand the real names of the enemy: the light infantry; the grenadiers; the Hessians. The sermon’s conclusion brought the soldiers jumping to their feet to applaud, embarrassing Muhlenberg and provoking the other chaplains to what amounted to glares of envy. No one ever applauded
their
sermons.

Breen admitted to being “a mite excited” by the message, and confessed he’d never quite considered obeying a superior to be as vital as Muhlenberg claimed.

But the sermon had still left him thirsty. Even though it was Sunday, he announced with a wink, there were ways—

Losing track of the older man in the crowd, Philip made a point to catch up with Royal Rothman:

“Didn’t expect to see you, Royal. How did you like the general?”

“He’s every bit as fine a preacher as I’ve heard. Though I must say, Philip, I was startled by the concept that General Washington—or Captain Webb—could be considered as important in the scheme of things as an angel.”

“Still, it was pretty stirring stuff.”

Royal nodded with a shy smile. “By the way—I’ve been meaning to say something to you. About an idea I’ve had for several weeks now. This printing house we’ve talked about—where you’re going to publish a deluxe edition of Mr. Paine’s
Crisis
papers—” He hesitated. “You haven’t forgotten—?”

“No, Royal. Seeing my family again is the first thing I want when this war’s over. My own business is the second.”

“Good! Where do you plan to set it up?”

“In Boston.”

“I mean where in Boston?”

The extremely serious tone of the question checked Philip’s impulse to chuckle. “Why, I don’t know, Royal. I hadn’t thought that far. At the start, I’ll have to rent space—”

“That’s my idea. Rothman’s is the second largest chandler’s in the whole town. My father always has extra loft room. I’m sure you could strike a good bargain for renting some of it. My father’s conscious of the value of a penny, but he’s fair, and—” Royal almost blushed. “—I’ve even taken the liberty of writing him about you and your plans. I think he’d do anything for you, after—”

“After what?”

“I must confess I described how you and Lucas helped out when Adams was baiting me.”

A vivid memory of Mayo Adams dying in the ditch after Brandywine stained Philip’s thoughts a moment, destroying the high excitement and good feeling the sermon had produced. He forced the ugly recollections away, said:

“Royal, it wasn’t necessary to say anything to your father. Or to extend special thanks of any kind.”

The young man’s brown eyes were round and intense. “I felt it was.”

“Well, then, I think your idea’s a capital one.”

“Do you? Honestly?”

“I do. I’ll need a good place to operate my press—but I won’t be able to pay much. Loft space sounds first rate. I’ll tuck the thought away and take it out again at the right time—”

The recurrent streak of pessimism that plagued him produced a final thought:

“—if we all survive this business.”

“We will,” Royal Rothman declared as they reached the edge of the parade field.

“If we follow that angel, eh?”

Royal appeared embarrassed. “My father is a very religious man, Philip. He’d scold me ferociously for saying this. But if it’s a choice between trusting an angel or General Washington, I’ll favor the latter.”

Philip laughed. “You don’t have to make the choice. I’d say at the present time they’re one and the same person.”

“The shad are out! The shad are running upriver!”

The cry in the company street one April morning brought Philip and his messmates tumbling outside. Excited soldiers were racing through the camp with the news:

“Thousands of shad—”

“Running right now!”

Under a chilly sky of pale blue, Philip, Breen and Royal located whatever implements they could—a pitchfork, a shovel, a broken tree branch—and joined the hundreds of men streaming toward the Schuylkill River. Some carried barrels, baskets or the all-important salt. The human tide poured down to the Schuylkill’s banks, where an incredible sight stunned Philip:

The river was dark, almost black with the bodies of thousands of fish swimming toward its headwaters like a second, living surface underneath the first. The whole river seemed to churn. The passage of the immense schools filled the air with a strange, whispery hum.

All along the bank, men rushed into the shallows, clubbing and stabbing and grabbing with their bare hands while they yelped and swore like profane children. Fresh fish to be cooked or salted away was a miracle whose importance was almost beyond reckoning.

Philip peeled off the new shoes supplied him only a week earlier, darted into the water, felt the eerie movement of the shad around his ankles. He slashed downward with the pitchfork, brought up two fish on the tines. He raised the fork to show Royal, but the young man was flailing at the water with his tree branch, oblivious to anyone’s delight but his own.

A major of dragoons galloped by on the bank, headed upstream to plant his horsemen in the river to turn back the fleeing fish. The strategy worked. The Schuylkill shallows soon boiled white with frantic shad trying to swim back downstream against thousands of others still heading the opposite way—

The starvation of the Valley Forge winter ended in the largest fish banquet Philip had ever seen.

That night the Pennsylvania air reeked of broiled shad and rang with singing, a sound unheard for months, except in protest. As the smoke of cook fires climbed to the sky, Captain Webb purchased an extra gill of rum for each of his men, and reported an item of camp gossip about Martha Washington.

Mrs. Washington had joined her husband at the Potts house in February. Since then she’d been a regular visitor to the camp hospitals—when she wasn’t busy taking instruction from a neighborhood farm woman on how to darn the general’s stockings. Tonight, Webb declared with tipsy pride, he knew for a fact that the lady too had served shad.