New York - The Novel

greater gift arrived in the new year. And if Lafayette had brought a touch of Gallic charm to Washington’s army, the Baron von Steuben was to change it entirely.
    Baron von Steuben was a middle-aged Prussian officer and aristocrat. He’d served under Frederick the Great. A lifelong bachelor, he turned up with an Italian greyhound, a letter from Franklin, and an offer to give the ragged Patriot troops the same training as the finest army in all Europe. And in his own eccentric way, he was as good as his word.
    For now at Valley Forge, first in the snow and slush, then the mud,then in sight of the snowdrops and finally during the sunny days when the green buds appeared on the trees, he drilled them as they had never been drilled before. Instead of the motley collection of manuals from different militias, he produced a single, classic drill book for the whole Continental army. Next he trained a cadre of men who would act as instructors. Then, in full dress, he would stride from one training ground to another, supervising and encouraging them all with a stream of curses in German or French, which his orderlies would precisely translate—so that by the end of their training, every soldier in the Patriot army possessed a broad vocabulary of profanities in three languages.
    At first they thought him mad. Soon they came to respect him. By the end of spring, they loved him. He taught them to drill, to march, to maneuver in battle, to rapid-fire. Finding that hardly a man knew how to use a bayonet, except to roast meat over the fire, he taught them the bayonet charge and told them: “I will teach you how to win a battle without any ammunition at all.”
    By the time he was finished, they were good, by any standards. Very good.
    “We needed a German to teach us how to fight the Hessians,” Washington remarked wryly to James one day in spring.
    “The British can employ Germans, sir,” James answered with a smile, “but we’re the real thing.”
    “I’m getting word,” Washington told him, “that we may soon expect fresh recruits who’ll sign on for three years.”
    But the news that really ended the agony of Valley Forge came soon after this conversation.
    Ben Franklin had done it. The French had declared war on Britain. At Valley Forge, on Washington’s instructions, Baron von Steuben organized a huge parade.

    Grey Albion’s invitation to Abigail came on the first day of May, in a letter to her father from Philadelphia.
    “He confirms the rumor I’ve been hearing. General Howe’s been recalled.” Master shook his head. “It’s a shameful business. When London heard about the Saratoga surrender, Parliament was so furious that the ministry employed newspaper writers to blame it all on Howe. So now he’s recalled. It seems that Howe’s young officers in Philadelphia are determinedto honor him before he goes. There’s to be a ball, and I don’t know what else. Even a joust. Albion’s one of the knights. He wonders if you’d like to go.”
    The invitation was so unexpected that she hardly knew what to say. With all the pretty girls in Philadelphia to choose from, she was surprised that he should have thought of her, but she had to acknowledge that it was kind of him. And indeed, when she thought of the festivities, and the joust, and the chance to be in gracious Philadelphia, she decided that perhaps there would be no harm in going.
    But by the next day, her father had had second thoughts.
    “It’s a long way, Abby, and you never know who may be out there on the road. I can’t easily go myself. Who’d go with you? If you encountered Patriot soldiers, I don’t think they’d do you any harm, but I can’t be sure. No,” he concluded, “it’s kind of young Grey to think of you, but it won’t do.”
    “I expect you’re right, Papa,” she said. If Mr. Grey Albion wants to ask me to a ball, she thought to herself, he’ll just have to do it again, some other time.

    If the catastrophe at Saratoga the previous October, and the entry of the French against them this spring, caused despondency among the British, for loyal John Master, the world began to change during that long summer of 1778. It was a subtle change. He did not even see it coming. It took place in his mind and heart.
    The war seemed to have entered a period of stagnation. Down in Philadelphia, after the departure of poor Howe, General Clinton had taken over, and now that there was danger of invasion from a French fleet, the British