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

times, and placing spies in turn into the British lines.
    He wanted to raise this point but Greene interrupted him.
    “Since our victory at Springfield, the enemy has pretty well conceded Jersey as their ground to raid upon, holing up in Elizabethtown with a quick line of retreat to Staten Island if we should push them hard enough. Winter is setting in, Jersey is secure. Clinton is too timid to try yet another winter overland campaign against Philadelphia. Jersey is secure, your work for the moment nothing more than that of a watchman.”
    He wanted to reply that after all that had transpired, perhaps a winter of relative peace would be a blessing. On the journey South there would even be time to see Elizabeth. “The general and I have decided that we would like a personal liaison we both can count on, especially with such a distance between us. It might entail but one journey, perhaps several, but we want someone savvy enough to know the grounds of New Jersey to pass safely, who both of us trust to personally carry dispatches to be handled by no other. Old Gates will try to derail my efforts and might even stoop to intercepting sensitive communications and twisting it to his own use. He will not give up easy. Cornwallis as we both know from the campaigns of 1776–77 is a wily foe, but by God I think I have his number and know how to beat him. When that time comes, I want you with me, to observe and be able to report back accurately, without distortion, to General Washington back here in New York.
    “Will you take the job, sir? By the way, a promotion to colonel comes with it,” he offered, smiling.
    After such a tragic day, filled with dark foreboding, this man had just offered him an escape, a hope, a belief, and an honor of trust as well.
    He nodded and gladly clasped hands with the Quaker turned general.

 
    Part Two
    THE BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURT HOUSE
    NORTH CAROLINA
    MARCH 15, 1781

 
    Three
    IN FRONT OF GUILFORD COURT HOUSE, NORTH CAROLINA
    MARCH 15, 1781
    AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN
    “Gentlemen, are you certain you all know your positions?”
    Nathanial Greene looked about those gathered before him. Peter stood silently to one side, saying nothing.
    When he had ridden South with Greene last fall, there had been days of simply cantering alongside this imposing man, often just engaged in casual conversation. His own years on Washington’s staff, essentially in command of part of Washington’s spy network, had taught him a certain degree of reticence. Answer a question when put directly to him by his general, otherwise just sit back, listen, gauge, and remember.
    Greene talked of his strategy, glad that Peter had some knowledge of classical history when he referred to “Fabian Tactics.” He was drawing his inspiration from a Roman general, who, facing Hannibal, knew that Hannibal had the better trained troops, and he could not beat him in a stand-up, knock-down fight, but he could wear him down to exhaustion.
    Cornwallis was deep inside the Carolinas, unable any longer to hold a supply line hundreds of miles back to Charleston thanks to the efforts of irregular fighters like Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” who regularly pillaged the British line of supply. It was forcing the British to live off the land, which meant they had to keep moving, because five thousand hungry mouths and several thousand horses and mules could strip a county clean within a few days.
    So like Fabius, his plan was to avoid a full pitched battle, unlike Gates, and instead, when Cornwallis advanced, he’d retreat farther back into the hinterlands, but as he did so, he would strip the countryside clean, leaving empty barns and fields in his wake. It was a strategy that would win few allies for the Revolution after his army had passed, stripping out the countryside and handing back “vouchers” for payment after the war, but that could not be his concern of the moment, even for one such as he, raised as a Quaker. It was about driving