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

sank with those words.
     
    He owned twenty acres of woodlot to the north. In the center there was a deep hollow cut formed by a creek that meandered down to the Schuylkill. With considerable effort, he had dug into the bank and covered its approach with deadfall. With each appearance of armed men, he had been able to conceal his prize team of draft horses, his breeding bull, two of the milk cows, and the last of his sows, old Beatrice. Elsa declared Beatrice would never be slaughtered; the old grotesque thing had become like a pet to her.
    Up until this moment, he had managed to keep enough hidden to see them through the winter and into the planting and breeding time of spring.
    But this time, war came without warning.
    He turned anxiously to look back into his barn. Before this damn war started he was planning to add on to the barn, built by his grandfather, who had cleared the land fifty years ago. Two years ago he owned thirty head of dairy cows, creating a thriving business of selling the milk in the city. Each year rich litters of pigs were slaughtered in the autumn, smoked or salted down, barreled and sold to the ships that docked in the busiest port of North America. His orchard yielded hundreds of bushels of apples to be pressed into cider and sold in the city as well.
    He had prospered until the coming of this damn war. After Brandywine, he lost the herd of dairy cows, along with most of the harvest. It was a war in which he saw no part for himself. The cries about taxation and liberty? What taxes had he ever paid, other than what the local commissioners extorted for his rich farmland? As a young man, the call of adventure enticed him to serve with the militia, along with a promise of simple garrison duty without any prospect of fighting. He had never ventured farther than the east bank of the Susquehanna for the tedious duty garrisoning a fort, and then returned home satisfied that he had done his service to his king.
    The young soldier who confronted him slowly lowered his musket.
    “Why are you still here?” Elsa snapped angrily. “Your thieves of men have left, and they’ve stolen our breakfast!”
    “Orders,” he responded sharply.
    “Whose orders?”
    “The officers will inform you.”
    “Support line! Forward at the double!”
    The young soldier looked toward Middle Ferry Road. A sergeant, with his short musket raised, was pointing westward.
    “Stay here and don’t move,” the soldier commanded. As if pulled along by some vast machine, of which he was but one cog, he took a deep breath, exhaled, and sped off, running past the barn and into the orchard.
    Zebulon and Elsa stood aghast as the soldier retreated.
    “Can we still hide something?” she whispered.
    “Too late,” he replied despondently. Down on Middle Ferry Road, a company of heavy infantry was advancing at the double; a sergeant urged them forward with obscene cries. Behind them was a company of mounted troops,uniforms blue and green. He gazed at them coldly. These were the mounted Hessian riflemen, the dreaded Jaegers.
    A long, sinuous column of dozens of wagons followed. Mounted troops covered their flanks. Several of them turned off the road into his neighbor Snyder’s farmyard.
    The lead wagon in the column reached the pathway to his farm and turned in, followed by two more.
    “Three wagons in here,” announced the leading officer, as he dismounted and stretched, tossing the bridle of his horse to a waiting private. He studiously ignored Zebulon and Elsa for the moment; his gaze swept the farm with the air of a buyer contemplating an offer of purchase, or an overseer inspecting his property.
    He finally turned back to Zebulon.
    “Lieutenant Peterson of the Commissary Department of His Majesty’s Army,” he announced languidly, as if already bored with the proceedings.
    Behind him, the wagon drivers dismounted; several soldiers in the back of each wagon jumped down to join them.
    Zebulon knew that it was not customary to