The Glorious Cause - Jeff Shaara [331]
He spurred the horse, could still see the man out in front of him, the horse carrying the man around a corner, disappearing past a small house. Lafayette followed him into the town, moved his horse into the wide hard street, saw more lanterns, a crowd of people surrounding a cluster of men on horseback. He pushed the horse forward, curious now, and the faces began to turn toward him, more people emerging from the houses, lining the street. He could see the horsemen clearly now, the uniforms, saw the big man now moving out in front, walking the horse toward him. Lafayette reined the horse, felt a hard lump in his throat.
“Good evening, Mr. Lafayette.”
The fear, all the nervous uncertainty was gone now. Washington had arrived.
56. WASHINGTON
SEPTEMBER 28, 1781
THE ARMY HAD MARCHED TWO HUNDRED MILES IN FIFTEEN DAYS. AFTER their brief parade through Philadelphia, Washington had led them to the Head of Elk, the uppermost reaches of the Chesapeake Bay, where French transports had boarded the men and ferried them the rest of the way to the James River.
The route of his surprise march had angered many of his troops, New Yorkers in particular, who had no desire either to see Virginia or to fight there. But Robert Morris had come to his rescue, had negotiated an agreement with Rochambeau. The French provided hard specie so that Washington’s entire army could receive back pay. As they marched out of Philadelphia with silver in their pockets, the mood of the men was significantly improved. The morale was heightened further by rumors that their mission to Virginia was aimed specifically at the capture of Cornwallis himself.
Washington led them out of Williamsburg through a soft green countryside that he had known as a child. But the beauty of the land, low rolling hills, patches of deep woods, had been changed by the war, farms abandoned, fields unattended. This time of year, the harvest would be near, and the land would be ripe with the bounty that made Virginia such a marvelous place for a young boy. But now, the wide road carried them through desolation and destruction, some of the houses reduced to burnt timbers. It was the result of the raids, the same horror he had seen in New Jersey. There it was the brutality of the Hessians, but this had been done by Englishmen, Tarleton probably, and the sights sickened him. There was always sadness for the families, the innocent who must suffer this devastation, but he was sickened as well by the thought of the soldiers with their axes and pikes and torches, asking himself what kind of civilized men could do this.
The horse carried him past a house that had been battered and broken, no glass in the windows, the doors ripped away, walls punched through. Every piece of furniture was smashed and scattered, every piece of clothing ripped, every mirror shattered. It was all the pieces of one family’s life cast about the yard with calculated design. He stopped the horse, stared for a long moment, the house familiar, some place he had visited a long time ago. The army continued its march behind him, men calling out to him, reading his emotions.
“We’ll make them pay, sir!”
“We’ll take it to them, sir!”
He stared at the destruction for a long moment, felt Tilghman beside him, said, “There is nothing of war in this, nothing of strategy and tactics. This is no more than barbarism, inflicting permanent scars on the innocent. It is the