Victory at Yorktown: A Novel by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich

fight an irregular war. So now he is stuck with having to resort to the kind of bloody head-on confrontation that we gave him today, a damn good bloody fight. His only recourse now is either to fall back to Wilmington, and wait for a fleet to pull him out, which he will never do, for it would be a full concession of defeat, or to turn north to link up with that renegade Arnold, and somehow make all this look like a victory in his reports.”
    “Will you follow him north?” Peter asked.
    Greene smiled and shook his head.
    “I will demonstrate south as I have already said, making it clear to Cornwallis that if he should try to regain Charleston he will have to fight every inch of the way, burdened with hundreds of wounded and no supplies. I want him to go north, to reinforce Arnold, perhaps even think he is winning there, while I retake the Carolinas and Georgia that he perforce must abandon.”
    Greene smiled.
    “Convey to General Washington what I have told you and to him only. Cornwallis moves into Virginia thinking to secure that state now, but with God’s good grace, come summer or fall, General Washington, perhaps even with the support of our supposed French allies, can move into Virginia, join forces with Lafayette who is opposing Arnold, pin Cornwallis against the Chesapeake, and finish him.
    “Achieve that,” Greene said excitedly, “and the entire British designs for the South collapse. Collapse those designs that they can at least win back some of their former colonies, then broker a temporary peace, and they will be forced to concede the whole thing. They know they can never conquer New England without garrisoning every city and village with an additional fifty thousand men. With New England holding and New York, too, once outside the city, then Jersey and Pennsylvania will hold out. Their last remaining hope was to split us off and I think, young sir, that we just might have dashed those hopes today. I hope you do not think me full of hubris, but do report clearly to General Washington my thoughts, that we could be on the verge of winning this war if he can take the gamble I am suggesting.”
    Greene looked at Peter, eyes filled with fire and belief.
    “Get a good night’s rest, Peter. I want you off before dawn. I’ll roust out a good mount for you and an escort of several of Dan’s men to ride with you, at least as far as Wilmington, Delaware.”
    Peter left Greene in a state of confusion. He was calling what looked to be a defeat a victory. He had laid out a plan that would cover hundreds of miles of marching even if Washington should see a hope in this. Either they were all mad, or maybe, just maybe, there was a real hope of ending this war, after so many bloody years of stalemate that would lead to inevitable victory.

 
    Four
    ON THE POSTAL ROAD, TEN MILES SOUTH OF PHILADELPHIA
    MARCH 20, 1781
    Peter Wellsley, dressed not in formal uniform but instead in the brown hunting frock and leather breeches of a Virginia rifleman, had been in the saddle nonstop for over four days, from the battlefield of Guilford to here. As ordered by Greene he traveled in secret, to report only to General Washington; other couriers riding at a somewhat slower pace would carry official word to Congress of events in North Carolina.
    Exhausted, begrimed with mud because of the cold spring rain that had soaked and turned the post road into a quagmire, he was now amazed to learn that somehow word had raced ahead of him of the battle.
    Stopping in a tavern to given his exhausted mount an hour’s rest and himself a quick predawn breakfast, a real meal of roasted mutton and boiled corn, all the tavern was already swarming with those seeking news, all abuzz about the “defeat at Guilford.”
    He wanted to scream with outrage, to announce he had been on that stricken field, and though retreating, Greene had dealt Cornwallis a crippling blow that forever ended him as an offensive force. Cornwallis would have to either fall back