The Glorious Cause - Jeff Shaara [272]
It was devastating enough for Washington to consider the sudden wave of problems in the Carolinas. Now he had to confront a new problem closer to home. The morale of the army along the Hudson River had suffered from their inactivity, and many of those with expiring enlistments had gone home. There had been almost no new recruits, the states around New York lapsing into a bored complacency that was shared by the congress. With word of the disaster in South Carolina, morale had plunged even lower, a new tide of hopelessness that drove bored men to desert. The British and Hessians in New York numbered better than ten thousand soldiers, yet Washington’s defenses along the river could muster barely three thousand men fit for duty.
The congress had evaded the responsibility for raising troops by throwing the job back to each individual state. Washington launched a new wave of pleas to Philadelphia, as he had done so many times before, begging the congressmen themselves to return to their home states to exercise their influence directly on the state assemblies, imploring them to send whatever volunteers they could muster. Almost no one complied.
Washington watched New York carefully, fearful that Knyphausen would discover the weakness of his enemy just across the river. The colonial troops made a show of parading along the palisades on the Hudson in regular drills, large clusters of campfires lit in patches of open ground all down the coast. It was a feeble effort at deception, to convince Knyphausen that Washington could still defend the coast with great numbers of troops, an army that could well pose a serious threat to the city itself if Knyphausen was careless. But the effect was the opposite of what Washington intended. Instead of staying put, Knyphausen answered the threat by launching an assault from Staten Island. Washington was not certain of Knyphausen’s ultimate plan, but knew he had no force to put in Knyphausen’s path. With no fight to be had, the Hessians had occupied themselves with pillaging the farms, yet another plague on the civilians who remained in the area. Washington could only watch from the highlands around Morristown, had no idea if Knyphausen had some larger goal in mind. The answer came quickly, and Washington was surprised and relieved to see the Hessians suddenly pulling away, crossing back over to Staten Island. Then he heard from his scouts. Clinton had returned, and Knyphausen had been ordered back to the city. Once again the enemy would settle into their base in New York, while Washington could only wait for some new plan to reveal itself from the mind of Henry Clinton.
IT BEGAN AS SO MANY RUMORS BEGAN, FROM FEAR AND SPECULATION. With the collapse of Lincoln’s army at Charleston, many of the continental troops along the Hudson began to hear talk that Washington would soon be marching to the Carolinas with those troops who could be spared, or whose homes were closer to the new threat. But the defenses along the Hudson were far too weak to drain them of any more strength. Washington had already called for the troops in Philadelphia to march northward, an agreeable strategy suggested by Benedict Arnold. Arnold had been insistent on leaving the city, on returning to the field where he might perform a more valuable service. Washington had to agree, Arnold having already proven himself in every campaign he had participated in. Arnold was even quite specific on the duty he wished to receive, and Washington had complied. Arnold was now in command of West Point, the crucial outpost upriver that prevented the British from opening a clear route into Canada. More importantly, West Point was the strongest fortification for many miles, the first major obstacle to the British should they once again attempt to divide the nation in two.
Washington rode along the palisades with Greene, had to address a new wave of verbal assaults on his quartermaster. Most still came from the Board of War, and even Greene knew that his outbursts of anger