Victory at Yorktown: A Novel Read online

  “Benedict Arnold,” he whispered under his breath, paused and then added “damn your soul, damn your soul.”

  These were was words he so rarely used. He rarely felt such even toward those whom he saw as his mortal foes, men such as the British Howe, who did attempt to fight an honorable war. Even the now pathetic Hessians, who when they first arrived here had shown such haughty arrogance and brutal treatment to his captured wounded, but now were terrified of their own shadows for fear of falling into the hands of a Rebel, who might remember the slaughter on battlefields past and slowly take revenge.

  But Benedict Arnold? Here was a man he had clasped to his heart like few others. This was the man he had met back in those first heady days of 1775, detailing him off to try to capture Quebec and bring a fourteenth colony into their cause. Arnold had set off, leading six hundred gallant men, through the autumn storms of Maine and the freezing cold of a Canadian winter, nearly dying in the assault on Quebec with a bullet in his leg. He was captured and finally exchanged, but eager for more action.

  Arnold had fought the British in their campaign of 1776 down Lake Champlain to a standstill. Fought them throughout 1777, while saddled, thanks to the politics of Congress, with the self-serving Gates as his superior. At the climactic moment of the struggle around Saratoga, Arnold, who technically was under arrest for having dared to argue with Gates, and stricken with illness, had risen from his bed when word came that the battle, typical of Gate’s actions, was turning in the wrong direction. He mounted his horse and dashed to the front. Then in a mad display of bravado, he had charged straight at the British lines, screaming for any and all with courage to follow him in. He had rallied the men, led them to a smashing victory, only to be wounded at the supreme moment in the leg, the ball striking nearly at the same spot as his wound at Quebec.

  He had saved the battle and created victory. That victory had swayed France into the fight. It had saved the Revolution, for at nearly that exact same moment Washington’s own army was being hammered to pieces by Howe and forced to abandon the national capital of Philadelphia. The news of Saratoga arrived in France before word of his own defeats, and had given Benjamin Franklin the argument to bring France into the war. Arnold, in that one gallant moment, had saved the Revolution.

  Tragically, it was Gates who had galloped south from Saratoga to parade before Congress, aggrandizing unto himself the glory of Saratoga while Arnold languished for weeks, arguing with his doctors, refusing to let them hack his leg off. He had survived, kept the leg, but needed months, more like a year or more, to slowly recover. He was no longer fit for command in the field when Philadelphia was taken back from the British. As Washington looked out across the Hudson he remembered that moment all so well, the joy of recalling Arnold to some form of duty and without hesitation slotting his friend into that strife-torn capital as its military commander. Given the politics of Congress, he knew he could trust Arnold in all things, unlike Gates, and made it clear that if a bullet or disease should end his own command, his nomination for commander in chief would either be Greene or Arnold. He firmly believed, that given another six months to a year for Arnold to recover fully, he would be ready to again take the field and create yet more victories.

  With the British all but driven from New Jersey in 1778, and the theater of war shifting to the Hudson Valley, leaving Arnold in the rear, it most likely had begun. He had heard rumors about the young woman Margaret “Peggy” Shippen. One of his more effective and gallant spies in that captured city, a brave lass believed by most to have Tory leanings, had been able to use her friendship with Peggy to smuggle out information regarding British plans. Especially the crucial news that they were preparing to abandon Philadelphia, thus giving him the lead for the long anticipated confrontation that climaxed at Monmouth Court House.

  While the British occupied Philadelphia during the winter of 1777, this “Miss” Shippen, at seventeen, had an affair with a well-placed Major Andre, but after the British abandoned the capital in 1778, her attention, if not her loyalties, suddenly shifted to the new military governor, Benedict Arnold. As a gentleman he never communicated to Arnold his concerns about who he had chosen to fall in love with and had even sent along a silver tea set as a present from Martha and himself when they were wed in 1779. To his growing concern, the spy had passed along warnings that she believed that “Miss Peggy” was still in touch with her alleged lover, Andre.

  Arnold, a brilliant battlefield commander, was no political general. He was besotted with a girl less than half his age, and soon ran afoul of the politics of Congress in the city he was meant to govern in time of war. Repeated charges of financial chicanery were brought against Arnold, but never proven. He languished in frustration, like a fighting bear locked in a gilded cage, openly took to drink, and finally begged for a transfer that Washington had readily granted his old friend as commander of the garrison and fortifications at West Point.

  Then, at last, it unraveled. At some point Arnold, after losing the laurels of his victory at Saratoga, the rumors that the pain in his crippled leg were so severe he had taken to laudanum, his marriage to Peggy, and his growing rage and frustration with Congress, had turned coat.

  Only by the slenderest of margins had the plot been discovered at the very last minute. Arnold had opened communications, via Peggy, with Andre. He had been promised a generalship, the command of his own forces, and after the Revolution was suppressed, title, rank, and high position in the postwar government of the Americas. He had succumbed, offering back secret maps for the approaches to West Point, the stripping out of troops from the position on the day the British would launch the surprise assault, and to Washington’s disbelief at first, Arnold had even offered him as a prize, promising to lure him into the trap just before it was sprung.

  An untrusting sentinel had caught Major Andre, in civilian garb, carrying the final details of this elaborate plot and trying to slip through the lines as a courier from Arnold. It would have been sprung before the end of the month. As for his own fate, Washington cared little. He had assumed more than once that he was fated to die in this war, but if by so doing, he could inspire the cause to continue, he would gladly lay such a sacrifice upon the altar of his country. The fall of West Point, the guardian and barrier of all of upstate New York, while at the same time, the commander in chief was killed resisting capture? The war most likely would have ended here, especially after the unrelenting series of debacles Gates had suffered in the Carolinas.

  Arnold had not only betrayed him, he had betrayed his country, and that action Washington could never forgive.

  Now the orders that he hesitated to sign were lying upon his desk. By all accounts, Major Andre, the contact for Arnold, was a man of honor, though caught out of uniform while behind enemy lines. By two thousand years of military tradition the doomed man could face but only one fate. Yet all of those who sat at his court-martial, even General Greene, had made appeals for some form of clemency rather than death by hanging, so impressed were they by Andre’s soldierly bearing, his personal sense of honor, and display of gentlemanly behavior. They saw him almost as a victim of Arnold as well, caught up in a web not of his own making, and on the night of his capture simply doing what any officer would do to further the cause they fought for, even at the risk of being caught out of uniform. As he looked out across the river Washington mused that he, too, had knowingly sent more than one of his own to such a potential death. When in desperate need of intelligence, he sent agents under his direct order straight into the heart of Manhattan to ascertain what the enemy might be planning. If Andre had been on his staff, he might have ordered him to do such a risky deed and from all that was said of the man, he would have followed orders without hesitation.

  Washington stood atop the knoll looking out over the Hudson, the surface of the river dark as the night sky above. It looked as if not a ship was upon it, a river that had swarmed with traffic night and day, before the war, but they were out there. His own picket boa
ts and a light schooner armed with four pounders, and at times British boats would slip up on the tide to try to take one of his pickets by surprise, raise havoc with an alarm, or as happened but a few days ago, slip an agent ashore. He could barely see Hamilton standing off to one side, pistol out, looking down toward the river, most likely filled with anxiety that Arnold’s plot had not yet been fully laid to rest and an attempt would still be made upon “the general.”

  He disdained the concern, but then again, if he was to sink so low as to attempt to assassinate his opponent General Clinton in New York, what better time to attempt such than after a plot had been unmasked, followed by a week or so of alarms, followed by a gradual lowering of guard.

  But he felt no fear. If fated to die, he had trained himself long ago to believe that such things were ordained by God and to leave fear behind. He had gone into every battle of his life, now nearly countless, with that fatalistic assumption, which he found calmed his soul while other men, brave men, inwardly fretted and thus could not concentrate upon the life and death decisions to be made, in an instant and without hesitation. To die here though, by an assassin’s bullet while standing silhouetted upon the knoll, would be a useless, ridiculous fate.

  Nevertheless, he stood silent for about five minutes, just gazing off, pondering the order that rested on his desk.

  “Damn war,” he finally muttered, and turning, headed back to his headquarters, a much relieved Hamilton trailing just behind him. Returning to his office he saw that someone had started a fire, set a light snack of bread and two eggs on a plate and, of course, closed the window. It was a standing order that his servant, Billy Lee, had received from Martha years ago, and that it was senseless to argue against.

  He picked up the document, written out in Hamilton’s neat hand. It concurred with the findings of the court-martial and ordered that Major Andre, found guilty of espionage and behind the lines of a belligerent while out of proper uniform, was therefore condemned to death by hanging. Earlier in the day he had received a missive from General Clinton appealing for leniency in the case of Major Andre with an offer of exchange of several score prisoners of rank held by the British in New York. To which he had replied that the only exchange he would consider was that of the traitor Benedict Arnold for Andre.

  He looked down at the appeals sent privately by every member of the court-martial, asking for him to find some way to at least spare Andre’s life temporarily. Though not driven by vengeance now, he thought of the foolish young Nathan Hale, and how he was hung without delay or ceremony, and left to dangle at the end of the rope for an entire day.

  He tried to tell himself his decision had nothing to do with the shock and rage that still burned over Arnold’s betrayal, made even more base by the manner in which he fled, leaving his young strumpet of a wife behind at West Point, and Andre to face his fate alone. Regarding “Miss” Shippen, who had wailed with terror that she knew nothing about the plot, he of course let her go to rejoin her husband, though before leaving, her luggage was taken apart piece by piece, and several reputable ladies of the camp had searched her carefully for any hidden documents. She shouted indignations that such effrontery and treatment of a proper lady would soon be the talk of all of America and the courts of Europe. He was told that when she was asked if she had any feelings for the fate of Andre, she reportedly gave a shrug of dismissal and announced it was none of her concern. He prayed word of that did not fall on Andre’s ears before his ending. At least let the man die with some illusions intact.

  For it certainly must be an ending he now realized. There was no room for hesitation. Though privately he wished different, he was as bound by military law as any other general; though he took no pleasure in this act, it had to be done. Placing the document on his desk, he drew the pen out of its inkwell and signed the order with a firm hand. He let it dry, then crossing the hall back to Hamilton’s office he handed it to the Colonel.

  “An extra day should give him time to set his heart and spiritual concerns in order, any longer would simply be an act of torture,” Washington said.

  Hamilton nodded in agreement.

  “Sir, a courier just came in. There was a communication at the picket line,” and he handed a folded note to Washington who opened it.

  He scanned it quickly and put it down on Hamilton’s desk.

  “No need for a reply. I approve.”

  “Sir, that is letting a British officer into our lines?”

  “According to this note he’s actually a Loyalist. I’m familiar with his name. He is reported to be an honorable man and will not violate the rules of war by reporting anything he sees while within our lines other than to witness the formalities of Major Andre’s…” and he paused.

  “His fate. Besides it would be unchristian to deny Andre the comfort of a man this note states is one of his closest friends.”

  “Sir, there could be some secret communication between them,” Hamilton replied forcefully. The fact that part of Arnold’s plot had been either the capture or death of Washington by a ruse rather than on the field of combat had filled him with a rage. It was evident that Hamilton, unlike most of his other officers, held little pity for any involved in it.

  “I have come to believe everything said about Andre. Besides, I want you to assign one of our staff to be with this visitor the entire time he is within our lines. It should prove to be an interesting matchup and might even bear fruit for us.”

  “Who is that, sir?”

  “Our visitor’s friend from before the war. Find Major Wellsley, brief him that he is assigned as an escort for this visitor, that if possible to pick up what information he can and to insure none is transferred from Major Andre.”

  Washington returned to his office, looked at the tray Bill Lee had set out. He had no appetite tonight. Unbuckling his belt, he doused out the candles and stretched out on his cot, but sleep would not come. Too many thoughts raced about. Arnold, his decision regarding Andre, a wish that Martha was here, even if just to talk about the entire affair, and then with it, all the other issues that had bedeviled and haunted him across five years of war, the ever-constant worry about supplies, food, shoes, pay, and the near-daily humiliation of begging officers and men to stand firm in spite of all privations with not even a real shilling of payment in way of thanks from their nation. Now all this was compounded by the debacle Gates had created in the Carolinas and his decision to remove him from command, regardless of the repercussions from his friends in Congress.

  To think, I volunteered for this task, he thought with a wry smile, but then again, that was precisely why he would see it through to the end. It was not just that he had volunteered, it was, as well, his duty to see it through, regardless of outcome, and to face it honorably. Such thoughts did not still the racing of his mind, and he would lie awake most of the night.

  One

  NEAR TAPPAN, NEW YORK

  OCTOBER 1, 1780

  Despite the sun shining brightly through the autumn leaves on the Hudson Valley, he felt cold, cold and weary. They had given him a mission, and it was almost a curse that it should have fallen on him. Since this damn war had started for him, nearly four years ago, he had never felt as alone and depressed as he did now.

  Major Allen van Dorn was posted to the staff of General Sir Henry Clinton, commander in chief of all of His Majesty’s forces in North America. He looked over at his sole escort, the rather nervous sergeant riding beside him.

  “Sergeant O’Toole, keep that white flag up high, and be waving it, not hanging limp,” he sighed. “We’re most likely inside their lines now. You want one of their militia to blow us out of the saddles and only then figure they made a mistake?”

  “No, sir, sorry, sir.” The sergeant took to waving the white banner with exaggerated vigor as they continued along the road to Tappan on the Hudson.

  It was a path well known to Allen, a scene of near-daily skirmishing since the two armies had settled into what appeared to be positions of permane
nt standoff and waiting. The British army in New York City faced off against the Continental army, which was under direct command of George Washington and garrisoned near West Point. The land in between was often fought over, but never with any serious intent. Both sides were waiting on events transpiring seven hundred miles away in the South. The emphasis of the war had shifted to the South after the reversal at Monmouth Court House over two years ago, after the splitting off of a significant number of Clinton’s best troops, who were placed under General Cornwallis to try an alternative plan to break the deadlock. They had realized that New England, the birthing place and hotbed of this rebellion, could never be taken by the British with the forces at hand. The campaign to take back upstate New York in ’77 had turned into a debacle under Burgoyne. Clinton realized that pressing a campaign into Pennsylvania, as tried three years ago, would degenerate into a wild-goose chase with Washington forever drawing back deeper into the hinterland and the wilderness beyond.

  The British leaders had concluded that the South was now their best chance. Reports indicated that a high percentage of the residents were, at heart, if not outright Tories, at least wishing to be loyal to the Crown and see this bloody stalemate come to an end. Split the Southern states off and bring them back to the Crown, offer freedom to slaves if they would fight, close the war off there, with Loyalists in control in the field, they reasoned. As they restored colonial governments, they thought, the Middle States would crack wide open and collapse as well. That would leave just upstate New York and New England. With their allies to the South gone, the northern states would finally seek agreement. Unfortunately, the French were now in this as well, expanding it to a global conflict. It was all madness.

  It felt on this day like it would just go on forever. He was tired. He was cold, though the sun shone warmly, and he dreaded what the day ahead might bring, though Clinton had dispatched him with some little hope that all might yet be well.