The Glorious Cause - Jeff Shaara [123]
Cornwallis said, “Forgive me, sir, but if he chooses not to confront us . . .”
“General, if he does not confront us, then he will enable us to pursue the second goal of this plan. He may sit on his hills all the while and enjoy the spectacle of this army crossing into Pennsylvania and capturing Philadelphia!”
The word flowed through the room, each man digesting it, and the response was muted, not what Howe was expecting.
“Gentlemen, do you not see? It lies there as a great ripe plum, guarded by the most fragile of militia! The rebel capital! It is the one positive advantage we can gain from General Burgoyne’s mission. The rebels must stay focused northward. Mr. Washington may perhaps divide his army and send reinforcements to their people around Albany. We can perhaps make a feint, move ships upriver toward the Highlands, drawing their attention in that direction. But any move the rebels make will come to naught! Once we are in Philadelphia, the heart of this rebellion will be crushed. How can these rebels wage war if their capital is conquered?”
CORNWALLIS HAD FINALLY SEEN THE LETTER FROM BURGOYNE, THE plan spelled out in enormous detail. There was no confusion as to either the line of march or the ultimate goal. Burgoyne insisted that with Howe’s strength added to his own, their combined armies could devastate any rebel opposition and subdue all of New England in short order. There was one confusing gap in the plan, and Cornwallis was still not certain how the two armies were to join, whether Burgoyne expected Howe to advance farther northward than Albany, or whether Howe was to remain in New York and wait for Burgoyne to summon him up the Hudson. In either case, Howe did not seem concerned, his own orders from Germain granting him the discretion to march on Philadelphia in the manner he chose. Howe had settled the disagreements with his subordinates, reassuring Grey and the others that once the rebel capital had been secured, they could return to New York in plenty of time to join forces with Burgoyne.
If both armies were successful, Cornwallis believed the combined loss could crush the rebel spirit out of every colony, and he began to spread Howe’s enthusiasm to his men. Finally, after so many months of waiting, the army would resume their march.
They embarked from the wharves at Amboy on June 12, began to march inland over the same roads that had carried Howe’s army to Trenton six months before. As Cornwallis led his men along the southern banks of the Raritan, he tried to share their high spirits. It was, after all, the soldiers’ opportunity for revenge, to sweep away the disasters of winter. But his gloom was returning, and he scolded himself, his enthusiasm dampened by the cold image in his mind, another great column of men and equipment, three hundred miles to the north, beginning their march as well. The grand strategy required cooperation and timing between two separate armies who were too distant from each other to communicate, and Cornwallis knew that no matter how sound the mission, how complete the plan, each army was led by a commander whose eyes were firmly focused on his own place in history.
Howe ordered him to maneuver as far west as Hillsborough, Cornwallis leading one wing of the army while Knyphausen’s Hessians moved on a more southerly