Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory Read Online Free PDF Page A

stepped forward as if to interrupt and Grey looked down at him.
    “You got one, I see,” Grey announced, pointing to Allen’s blade. The crimson blood appeared as black oil in the moonlight. “Good lad!”
    “Sir.”
    André’s hand was on Allen’s shoulder, pulling him back.
    Grey spurred his mount and was off.
    Allen turned on André and shrugged his hand off.
    “It would have served no purpose, Lieutenant,” André said. “He sees you now as one of us. You got your man.”
    “One of you?” Allen replied with astonishment.
    He looked back toward the forest and the burning wigwams. The blood frenzy was abating and he could see a column of prisoners, most of them wounded, staggering out of the woods, prodded along by guards with bayonets lowered. One of the men staggered and fell, and in an instant, two guards were on him, bayoneting him.
    André again grasped Allen by the shoulder.
    “With your damn accent you can’t stop it. Let the fury leave them. By morning more than one will be on his knees to God asking for forgiveness.”
    “And the other side?” Allen asked coldly, nodding westward. “What will be their prayer?”
     
    By the early light of dawn, Anthony Wayne pressed along the road leading west. Staggering behind him was the wreckage of his command. Except for the cries of some of the wounded carried on stretchers or helped along by comrades, nearly all were silent, heads lowered, numbed, dejected.
    Their general, however, boiled with silent rage.
    He had lost a battle, which was shame enough. He had also endured a massacre and he would have his vengeance, he swore to God—if it meant his life, he would have vengeance. Gone forever was any thought that this was a conflict of gentlemen. In his heart it was war as savage as any fought on the frontier, and he would fight it thus until the end.

Chapter One
    Near Middle Ford of the Schuylkill River,
Five Miles Southwest of Philadelphia
December 22, 1777
    A cold and blustery wind blew out of the northeast, carrying with it the promise of yet more snow. Undaunted by the wintry blast, Zebulon Miller faced the rising storm from the doorway of his spacious barn. The pitiful mooing inside was an abrupt reminder of the abandoned predawn milking. As the ominous darkness gave way to a pale dawn light, a startling revelation was now confronting him: The war was coming to his farm, his land, and this time it had caught him by surprise.
    His wife, Elsa, ran from the house and clung nervously to his side. A sudden gust of wind caught her cap, revealing auburn tresses that whipped wildly about her face.
    “We can still try to hide them,” she pleaded breathlessly.
    He shook his head. “Too late,” was all he could say bitterly. His voice trembled with the seething rage that was beginning to erupt within him.
    Over the past four months, Zebulon had unfortunately come to know the paraphernalia and uniforms of this war: the threadbare rags of the so-called Continental Line, the ridiculous foppery of the militias that would turn out boldly enough but then turn and run at the mere rumor of an approaching enemy. What he saw now was a striking contrast, for the men advancing in open lines across his neighbor’s fields were professional solders of the king.
    They were British light infantry, their hat feathers dyed red in mocking defiance of pledges made by the Pennsylvania Line to show them no quarter in battle after the bitter memories of what was now called the Paoli Massacre.The red feathers were a taunt, a statement that boasted, “Here we are, we defeated you at Paoli, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop us.”
    Deployed into open skirmish lines, the light infantry advanced toward Miller’s farm. A mounted troop of dragoons in the center of the formation held the road leading up from Middle Ferry Road and the village of Darby. The synchronized movements of the formations resembled the choreography of a dance; they were leapfrogging forward at the