a sheet of dry paper wrapped inside an oilskin, a gift as well from General Greene.
He spread the paper on the head of the drum and now, though he was still a bit drunk, there was no hesitation.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of every man and woman.”
So he would write through the night.
McConkey’s Ferry
7:00 P.M. December 25, 1776
The sleet against the windowpane sounded like the tinkling of a shower of broken glass . . . and then an explosion.
George Washington, drifting on the edge of sleep sat up with a muffled cry, the others gathered around him by the fireplace in the ferry house were silent, giving him furtive glances but saying nothing. He suddenly felt embarrassed. In the warmth of the fire he had drifted off to sleep for a few minutes, and was awakened by a loose shutter slamming closed.
He had been dreaming. Back on the Monongahela River with Braddock. A strange dream had haunted his sleep for twenty years. In the dream he already knew the ambush by the French and Indians layahead. In some ways, though, it was not a dream, not a nightmare, at all. On that terrible day, on that Pennsylvania frontier near Pittsburgh, a column of more than two thousand British troops and colonial militia was all but annihilated. On that day, everyone familiar with life beyond the frontier had sensed the trap. Throughout the morning, as the lengthy column pushed through the forest, those who knew the land were reporting in, and Braddock was ignoring them. After all, they were only rabble, foul-smelling colonials who came bearing warnings, and he was a professional soldier from Europe, immune to rumormongering and panic.
Scouts ranging around the advancing column of British and colonial militia reported signs, a low-hanging bough broken, sap from the white pine tree oozing from the break and not yet solidifying, leaves scuffed up to reveal the damp mulch underneath, mushrooms trampled by a human foot, a tree someone had urinated against. No Indian would be so stupid as to do that; it obviously had to be a Frenchman. There was even a particular scent in the air, that scent of unwashed human bodies that lingered long after men had moved on. Anyone who lived on the frontier could tell the difference between an Indian and a Frenchman a hundred yards off; some even claimed they could tell which tribe. Anyone, at such a moment, foolish enough to be smoking tobacco, could be sensed a hundred paces away if the wind was right, and more than a few claimed they had smelled the tobacco the French were fond of smoking, along with gobs of spittle from those who chewed it.
In the dream he was riding forward to try and convince Braddock to halt the column, form a defensive position, send scouts out to probe, and in the dream he already knew the haughty response. A British officer taking advice from a colonial officer? Impossible. “Why, thank you, my good man, I’ll note your diligence,” and the subtext, not spoken but revealed by a glance, a slight curl of the lips, “I’ll remember you are a cowardly bumpkin and note it in my reports.”
In that dream, that damned recurring dream, it was all so real, the frustration, the sense of impending doom . . . and the rage. Hewas as good a man as any British professional officer, and still they looked down on him. He did not quite know how the latest fashion in London dictated that one held a teacup in camp at the evening mess. His accent was pronounced, clear evidence of a colonial, even if he was an aristocrat, but only of the Virginia aristocracy and so lacking in that certain hauteur of London, Cambridge, and Oxford. He was not to be taken seriously, nor ever would be taken seriously, even at this moment, in his world, in these forests of the western frontier, when in a few seconds they would
He spread the paper on the head of the drum and now, though he was still a bit drunk, there was no hesitation.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of every man and woman.”
So he would write through the night.
McConkey’s Ferry
7:00 P.M. December 25, 1776
The sleet against the windowpane sounded like the tinkling of a shower of broken glass . . . and then an explosion.
George Washington, drifting on the edge of sleep sat up with a muffled cry, the others gathered around him by the fireplace in the ferry house were silent, giving him furtive glances but saying nothing. He suddenly felt embarrassed. In the warmth of the fire he had drifted off to sleep for a few minutes, and was awakened by a loose shutter slamming closed.
He had been dreaming. Back on the Monongahela River with Braddock. A strange dream had haunted his sleep for twenty years. In the dream he already knew the ambush by the French and Indians layahead. In some ways, though, it was not a dream, not a nightmare, at all. On that terrible day, on that Pennsylvania frontier near Pittsburgh, a column of more than two thousand British troops and colonial militia was all but annihilated. On that day, everyone familiar with life beyond the frontier had sensed the trap. Throughout the morning, as the lengthy column pushed through the forest, those who knew the land were reporting in, and Braddock was ignoring them. After all, they were only rabble, foul-smelling colonials who came bearing warnings, and he was a professional soldier from Europe, immune to rumormongering and panic.
Scouts ranging around the advancing column of British and colonial militia reported signs, a low-hanging bough broken, sap from the white pine tree oozing from the break and not yet solidifying, leaves scuffed up to reveal the damp mulch underneath, mushrooms trampled by a human foot, a tree someone had urinated against. No Indian would be so stupid as to do that; it obviously had to be a Frenchman. There was even a particular scent in the air, that scent of unwashed human bodies that lingered long after men had moved on. Anyone who lived on the frontier could tell the difference between an Indian and a Frenchman a hundred yards off; some even claimed they could tell which tribe. Anyone, at such a moment, foolish enough to be smoking tobacco, could be sensed a hundred paces away if the wind was right, and more than a few claimed they had smelled the tobacco the French were fond of smoking, along with gobs of spittle from those who chewed it.
In the dream he was riding forward to try and convince Braddock to halt the column, form a defensive position, send scouts out to probe, and in the dream he already knew the haughty response. A British officer taking advice from a colonial officer? Impossible. “Why, thank you, my good man, I’ll note your diligence,” and the subtext, not spoken but revealed by a glance, a slight curl of the lips, “I’ll remember you are a cowardly bumpkin and note it in my reports.”
In that dream, that damned recurring dream, it was all so real, the frustration, the sense of impending doom . . . and the rage. Hewas as good a man as any British professional officer, and still they looked down on him. He did not quite know how the latest fashion in London dictated that one held a teacup in camp at the evening mess. His accent was pronounced, clear evidence of a colonial, even if he was an aristocrat, but only of the Virginia aristocracy and so lacking in that certain hauteur of London, Cambridge, and Oxford. He was not to be taken seriously, nor ever would be taken seriously, even at this moment, in his world, in these forests of the western frontier, when in a few seconds they would
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