The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [117]
Lt. George Ewing, of New Jersey, described the daily drills that commenced in April with genuine affection. He wrote, “This forenoon the brigade went through the maneuvers under the direction of Baron Steuben. The step is about halfway betwixt slow and quick time, an easy and natural step. I think [it is] much better than the former. The manual also is altered by his direction. There are but ten words of command.”23
Von Steuben’s condensed set of commands for battlefield repositioning and firing were much easier to understand and could be speedily implemented. The contests between the men escalated and within a few weeks the men were even practicing drills and marching maneuvers on their own, without any supervision, determined to do better than other regiments.
On May 6, 1778, the morale of the men at Valley Forge received an enormous boost when it was announced that France had recognized the United States as a sovereign nation and later would come into the war on its side. Louis XVI would supply muskets, cannon, thousands of men, and part of the French fleet to assist the Americans.
The announcement was greeted by a day-long celebration. At precisely 10 a.m. a cannon was fired to alert the brigades. A short time later a second cannon boomed to signal their movement to the parade ground. There they were greeted by a roaring salute by thirteen cannon, one for each state. That salute was followed by the traditional Fue de Joy, in which every man fired his musket three times, one after the other, giving anyone near the camp the joyful sound of more than thirty thousand shots fired into the morning sky. Between each of three Fue de Joys the thirteen cannon boomed again. After the first, the soldiers shouted, “Long Live the King of France.” At the conclusion of the second round of cannon they shouted, “God Save the Friendly Powers of Europe.” And at the end of the third, they shouted, “God save the American States.”24
The musketry and cannonading was followed by two receptions, one for the officers and another for the enlisted men. General Washington attended the officers’ reception, mingling with as many of his lieutenants, captains, and colonels as he could. Then His Excellency walked to the reception area where all of the thousands of enlisted men were gathered. To their delight, Washington had some food and drink and mingled with them.
Late in the afternoon, Washington left the reception with all eyes on him. He mounted his white horse and reined him to one side. As he did, without prompting, the eleven thousand some men then enrolled in the first American Army cheered him. Genuinely moved, the general turned the horse around, faced the men, took off his hat, and waved it at them in salute. Now they roared, clapping their hands together as fast as they could and then, almost in unison, the soldiers took off their hats and tossed them high into the air as the general rode off.
George Washington marveled at the good cheer of the army. In a letter to his cousin he recounted all of the hardships of the winter, but ended by telling him that “yet the army is in exceedingly good spirits.”25
James McMichael enjoyed the reception and cheered the commander as loudly as anyone else, but he yearned for his wife. Five days later, on May 11, probably at the repeated urging of Susanna, Lieutenant James McMichael, his time up, finally left the Continental Army after two full years of service. He had participated in some of the greatest battles of the conflict at New York, Brandywine, and Germantown and had survived the harrowing winter at Valley Forge. He wrote that he headed to his wife’s home in Stony Brook, New Jersey, on a pleasant spring day filled with the sounds of birds and “their notes of melody in the highest branches of the lofty cedars.”
On the night before he departed, McMichael wrote a long, epic poem describing the history and battles of his regiment. In the middle of it, describing the army