The warm spring weather, and General Greene’s good management as
quartermaster, brought us warmth and better diet. The Conestoga wains
rolled in with grain and good rum. Droves of cattle appeared, and as the
men were fed the drills prospered. Soldiers and officers began to amuse
themselves. A theatre was arranged in one of the bigger barns, and
we--not I, but others--played “The Fair Penitent.” Colonel Grange had
a part, and made a fine die of it; but the next day, being taken with a
pleurisy, came near to making a more real exit from life. I think it was
he who invited Jack Warder to play Calista. Lady Kitty Stirling had said
he would look the part well, with his fair locks and big innocent blue
eyes, and she would lend him her best silk flowered gown and a fine lot
of lace. Jack was in a rage, but the colonel, much amused, apologised,
and so it blew over. His Excellency and Lady Washington were to see the
play, and the Ladies Stirling and Madam Greene were all much delighted.
“The Recruiting Officer” we should have had later, but about the latter
part of May we got news of the British as about to move out of my dear
home city. After this was bruited about, no one cared to do anything but
get ready to leave the winter huts and be after Sir Henry. In fact, long
before this got out there was an air of hopeful expectation in the
army, and the men began, like the officers, to amuse themselves. The
camp-fires were gay, jokes seemed to revive in the warm air, and once
more men laughed. It was pleasant, too, to see the soldiers at fives,
or the wickets up and the cricket-balls of tightly rolled rag ribbons
flying, or fellows at leap-frog, all much encouraged by reason of
having better diet, and no need now to shrink their stomachs with green
persimmons or to live without rum. As to McLane and our restless Wayne,
they were about as quiet as disturbed wasps. The latter liked nothing
better this spring than to get up an alert by running cannon down to the
hills on the west of the Schuylkill, pitching shot at the bridges, and
then to be off and away before the slow grenadiers could cross in force.
Thus it was that never a week went by without adventures. Captain McLane
let neither man nor horse live long at ease; but whatever he did was
planned with the extreme of care and carried out with equal audacity.
The army was most eager for the summer campaign. We had begun, as I have
said, to suspect that Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe, was
about to move; but whither he meant to march, or his true object, our
camp-fire councils could not guess as yet.
Very early in the evening of June 17, I met Colonel Hamilton riding in
haste. “Come,” he said; “I am to see Wayne and the marquis. Clinton is
on the wing, as we have long expected. He will very likely have already
crossed into the Jerseys. Will you have a place in the foot if his
Excellency can get you a captaincy?”