Christian Cameron - Washington and Caesar

Virgil pointed with his chin at the main camp, where the long lines of wagons were moving out to the north. Caesar nodded again.

“I see them.”

“So it won’t be no big battle. The line regiments is already movin’.” Virgil, a great respecter of the British line, thought it unfair that the British generals seemed to fight their battles in America with only their lights and grenadiers.

“If’n they never use them boys for ought but replacements, they’ll be sorry soldiers when the day comes.”

Caesar looked at Virgil, a little surprised, as it wasn’t Virgil’s usual line of thought.

“What day, Virgil?”

“The day when them Continentals is ready for a proper battle.”

They marched and countermarched in the heat, and the British artillery played on them like a deadly cloud of insects, the big balls emitting a deadly whine as they flew, or rolling and bouncing ominously over the hard-packed ground. Despite the moisture in the air, the ground seemed as hard as rock, and it reflected the heat like a great brown mirror. George had already lost two men to the cannon, but he had lost five to the heat.

And they hadn’t come to grips yet.

He saw the distant columns of red come together and shake out into a line and he watched with professional admiration as the British came on, rounding a little bend in the road with their columns behind. Two of their sixpounders set up at the head of the near column and fired a round of grape into the battalion next to George, and it gave ground. It didn’t run, like in the old days, but just fell back a little, giving the British the crest of the hill.

George ran to his commander, Colonel Weedon. “Are there any orders, sir?” he asked, pointing at the British grenadiers.

“None since we marched this morning, Captain.” He looked at his watch and then down at the British. “Last I heard, we were attacking.”

“Guess no one told them,” said George. He turned and found Caleb Cooke at his side.

“I’m holding this position until General Lee should choose to honor me with his commands,” said the Yankee captain. His bitterness was obvious.

George ran back to his company in time to see the head of the British column start forward up the hill aimed at the space to his left. He marched his company forward a few paces until they had a clear shot down the hill and ordered his sergeant to open fire. Companies to his right were doing the same. Colonel Weedon was pushing two companies a little down the slope to fire into the flank of the attack when the woods in front of them erupted with more grenadiers. George had never seen an attack like it. The British were in no sort of line, and he watched a group of their officers run into the little patch of swamp at the base of the hill to his right and wade through, a dozen grenadiers pushing along strongly in their wake until the whole group was across. The two companies that had gone forward to flank the first column were now caught in the flank by this second group. Despite outnumbering them heavily, they were so caught by the initial surprise that they ran, with fewer than twenty grenadiers pursuing them to the top of the ridge. In a moment, both his flanks were lost and the hilltop was a sea of red jackets.

He wanted to stand and gape unbelievingly. This wasn’t some superior performance by the British, but massive incompetence by his own.

“Get them back!” he yelled to his sergeants, and then pointed at his new bugler, a little black boy of twelve or so that he had found in a cottage. “Sound retreat.”

Washington rode forward, listening to the sounds of musketry in the heavy air and concerned at its volume and direction.

“Surely that sounds closer than the last,” he said to Lafayette.

He began to gallop and his staff followed him forward. They began to pass panicked men and deserters, and the junior officers of the staff set themselves to round these up. Then they passed a trickle of wounded men moving to the rear.

“Damn the man,” Washington said aloud. These were his very best troops, the light companies of the old Continental regiments and the rangers and riflemen, as well as whole battalions of crack veterans. Off to the left he could see a column of Massachusetts men standing to, drooping in the heat. He turned to Fitzgerald.

“Tell whoever commands that column to get those men out of the sun. What is he thinking of?” He rode forward, his horse lathered in sweat but still full of spirit. Washington didn’t seem in the least fazed by the oppressive heat. Lafayette was invigorated by his burst of energy, and the little flow of breeze generated by the gallop had helped.

He rode into the middle of a rout. The whole of the road was choked with disorganized units trying to force past each other, with officers striving to rally their men, and men too panicked to be rallied. A battery of guns had cut their traces and left their pieces sitting on the hard-packed road to get away on the horses. Washington fumed. He rode back and forth, suddenly everywhere, cautioning a colonel, soothing a jittery captain, praising the efforts of the men who suddenly found themselves in the rearguard. All his staff flew about like demons, riding from unit to unit, bringing up clumps of men who seemed willing to return to their duty, in some cases simply giving men heart who had lost it, or telling commanders to make their men drink water. It all helped, and little by little they turned the shambles back into the cream of the army.

Through it all, Washington looked for Charles Lee. He found him sitting quietly on his horse amidst his small staff, gazing at a distant hilltop where a battalion of British grenadiers were putting themselves in a state of defense.

“What are you about, sir?” asked Washington, as soon as he rode up. Lee looked as if he had been struck.

“I told you they wouldn’t stand,” Lee said bitterly. “Those grenadiers rolled the so-called elite of our army off that hill like so many children. They won’t stand.”

Washington looked at him with something pretty near loathing.

“Sir, they are able, and by God they shall do it! Your retreat is a disgrace. Do me the favor of accepting responsibility for your own errors and not blaming the men who sought to serve you.”

Lee rounded on him. “There’s irony for you, sir. You are going to criticize my command?”

“I am. I can see that the scale of this operation was beyond your grasp.” Washington turned aside as a trooper of the light horse cantered up and saluted, presenting a message. Washington read it. Lee made no attempt to see it, but sat fuming.

“Was it your intention to attack the enemy rearguard from both flanks?” Washington asked.

“Once I had lured them with a feigned retreat.”

Washington looked at the reforming army.

He turned his horse so that he was nose to tail with the messenger, scanning the distant hill where the grenadiers could be seen. He beckoned to Hamilton and looked at a map for a moment.

“I’m taking command,” he said. Lee was clearly stunned. He rode off a distance and sat quietly. Perhaps he had mistaken his man.

Washington finished his map study, lining up features visible in the endless heat shimmer with marks on the map. He turned back to the messenger.

“Attack!” he said.

George Lake’s men were not beaten. They made that clear by cheering Washington as he rode up to them in the full heat of the afternoon, despite their parched throats, and the cheer was taken up along the line, even by men who had run from a handful of grenadiers an hour before. They cheered and cheered. Washington smiled a little, hiding his teeth but visibly pleased. Lake stepped out of his spot at the head of his company and caught at Lafayette’s bridle. The young general smiled down at him.