Victory at Yorktown: A Novel Read Free Page B

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 boats 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