Free The Drillmaster of Valley Forge by Paul Lockhart

England. Second, rumor had it that Clinton would likely evacuate the city within a few weeks. The French alliance troubled him, for if the French managed to gain naval superiority off Chesapeake Bay, then Philadelphia would be very vulnerable. New York City would be much more secure. 4
    In light of these developments, and bolstered by the cautious optimism of his generals, Washington made the decision to allow a small force to probe the British defenses to the north and west of Philadelphia. Lafayette, eager to prove himself, offered to command the expedition, and Washington accepted.
    On the morning of May 19, 1778, Lafayette’s detachment marched out of Valley Forge and toward Philadelphia. The force was substantial: more than two thousand soldiers of the Continental Line, a battery of five cannon, approximately six hundred Pennsylvania militia, forty-seven warriors of the Oneida nation, and a handful of French Canadians who had accompanied the Oneidas from the north. Lafayette had recruited the Oneidas earlier that spring, as he was preparing to lead the abortive invasion of Canada that Congress had pushed upon him. They had arrived at Valley Forge six days before Lafayette’s departure, and their appearance caused quite a stir among the Continentals. Most of the men there had never seen an Indian before. 5
    Lafayette’s motley corps marched about halfway to Philadelphia that day, crossing the Schuylkill at Swede’s Ford, then proceeding along the Swede’s Ford Road leading to the southeast along the course of the Schuylkill. After a march of just under fifteen miles, Lafayette halted his force at the tiny hamlet of Barren Hill. It seemed a good and secure location for a night’s rest. Barren Hill, as its name implied, was a treeless plateau overlooking the Schuylkill to the west, dense forest to the north, and cultivated fields to the south. Nearby was a crossroads, where one easterly road—called the Ridge Road—led directly to Philadelphia.
    Lafayette deployed his men in a defensive posture facing to the southeast, his right flank anchored on the bluffs of the Schuylkill, his left flank hanging, exposed, in the air. “We…placed our guards, sent off our scouting parties, and waited for—I know not what,” recalled seventeen-year-old private Joseph Plumb Martin. To the militia and the Canadians fell the duty of guarding the roads that converged at Barren Hill. The rest of the Continentals relaxed. Private Martin and a couple of Oneida warriors amused themselves by stirring up an enormous quantity of bats that had taken refuge in the eaves of an old house. 6
    The men were blissfully unaware that the British knew precisely where the Americans were. They had walked straight into a trap.
    Clinton and Howe had received word of Lafayette’s expedition almost as soon as it began. The marquis had presented them with an opportunity that simply could not be missed. His force was travelling through open country, within striking distance of Philadelphia but distant enough from Valley Forge that he could not be reinforced quickly. The Schuylkill, swollen and treacherous from the spring rains, would make a rapid retreat to the Forge difficult. And the British had no reason to expect that the Continentals would be any more formidable than they had been in the previous campaign. Howe ordered that preparations should be made to receive Lafayette as a distinguished guest—there was no doubt that he would be taken prisoner.
    During the night of the nineteenth and the early morning hours of the twentieth, the British set their trap. Three full divisions, at least ten thousand British and German troops, marched out of Philadelphia to confront Lafayette’s force, which was outnumbered by more than four to one.
    As the British approached Barren Hill, the three divisions separated and took up their positions. The first, under the command of Gen. Charles Grant, moved northward up the