Washington [184]
Whatever his misgivings about Charles Lee, Washington had no time for schadenfreude and could only regret the loss of an experienced general. It angered him that the capture was “the effect of folly and imprudence,” as he privately told his brother Samuel, but he was in no mood for settling old scores.42 Perhaps one side of him was relieved at the removal of a long-standing irritant. “I feel much for his misfortune,” Washington wrote to a Massachusetts legislator, “and am sensible that in his captivity, our country has lost a warm friend and an able officer.”43 One again marvels at Washington’s perfect pitch. He may sometimes have been indecisive as a military leader, as Joseph Reed had alleged, but he always displayed consummate skills as a politician.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Crossing
WASHINGTON WAS NOT SURPRISED that thousands of New Jersey residents rushed to take the loyalty oath offered by the British and scrapped the cause of independence as a foolish pipe dream. Expecting a hefty influx of New Jersey militia, he had entertained hopes of making a brave stand against the British at Hackensack or New Brunswick. “But in this I was cruelly disappointed,” he informed Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull. “The inhabitants of this state, either from fear or disaffection, almost to a man, refused to turn out.”1 He was down to a beleaguered rump army, a raggedy band of a few thousand men. During the trek across New Jersey, they had worn out their shoes and crafted makeshift footwear by slaughtering cattle, skinning their hides, and wrapping crude sections around their bare feet.
It took five days for the disheveled, footsore Americans to cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania near Trenton, a rearguard action designed to protect nearby Philadelphia. Eager to conduct his army to safety, Washington kindled large bonfires onshore, so that boats could ply the waters through the night; he later recalled this anxious time as one of “trembling for the fate of America.”2 His heart sank as he watched his men, supposed saviors of the country, acting like “a destructive, expensive, disorderly mob.”3 One observant spectator of the crossing was Charles Willson Peale, who had painted a younger and happier Washington and now served with the Pennsylvania militia. Studying this “grand but dreadful” sight, Peale noted the hazardous drudgery of ferrying horses and heavy artillery across the water.4 He characterized the spectacle as “the most hellish scene I ever beheld” and left an unforgettable anecdote to illustrate the sorry state of the begrimed troops. As Continental soldiers filed past him, “a man staggered out of line and came toward me. He had lost all his clothes. He was in an old dirty blanket jacket, his beard long and his face full of sores . . . which so disfigured him that he was not known by me on first sight. Only when he spoke did I recognize my brother James.”5
Acting with dispatch, Washington had his men scour the Delaware for sixty miles and commandeer or destroy any boats that might tumble into British hands. For future use, he had all sturdy boats secreted in nearby creeks or sheltered by islands in the river, laying special stress on the Durham boats, bargelike craft, some sixty feet in length, that ordinarily carried iron ore and other freight. These black boats, outfitted with two masts and sails, could be steered in inclement weather by huge eighteen-foot oars or pushed along by long poles—a feature that would make them a godsend on a snowy night a few weeks later. Washington also posted guards along the river to bar the passage not just of British soldiers but of any Pennsylvanians who might smuggle vital information to the enemy.
On December 8 General Howe and his army arrived in Trenton and exchanged fire with American troops on the Delaware.