by Ron Carter
Through the sounds of the gigantic camp settling for the night came the tread of a marching command. All three men came erect in their chairs as Fraser turned his head to listen. They heard muffled commands as the sounds drew near, and then the voice of Craig halting his men at the front of the tent. The picket challenged, Craig made his request, and the picket pulled aside the tent flap.
“Captain Craig has returned, sir.”
All three men came to their feet, and Fraser spoke. “Bring him in.”
Sweat streaked, his tunic torn by the branch of a dead tree, Craig stepped in and came to attention. “Reporting, sir.”
“Yes?”
“We were on top. It can be done. Guns up there will command Fort Ticonderoga, Mount Independence, the chute from Lake George into Lake Champlain, and you can see forty miles down the lake.”
* * * * *
In the pale silver light of a waxing moon, Fraser drew out his watch. “Twenty minutes past one o’clock,” he said to Twiss. “Are you all right?”
“Let’s go right on up.”
“I think I can hear the guns coming up behind us. Can you?”
“When the wind’s right, sir.”
The moon ran its course and settled behind the western rim, and still they struggled upward, testing each footstep before continuing, looking ahead to avoid impassable trees and rocks. The first hint of the black heavens turning purple in the east found them cresting the summit and emerging out onto the slightly rounded dome of Mt. Defiance. The two weary men sat down on rocks while Twiss dropped his backpack and opened it to remove two officer’s pistols. With gray creeping across the lake, he finished loading them. Ten minutes later they could define limbs on trees fifty yards distant, and five minutes later they could clearly see the broad expanse of the lake, and the thin, twisting ribbon of the two-mile-long crack in the granite that carried the water from Lake George crashing down whitewater rapids to empty into Lake Champlain, just above South Bay, at the southern end.
Carefully the men walked the perimeter of the mountaintop, judging whether there was room to construct cannon emplacements. They peered outward in all directions, awe-struck at how clearly they could see the inside of Fort Ticonderoga and the defense works on Mt. Independence, across South Bay. Satisfied, they looked at each other and nodded.
“Room, and to spare,” Twiss said. “I’ve never seen such a commanding position for cannon.”
“I agree,” replied Fraser.
“On your orders, sir, do I fire the pistols?”
“You do.”
Twiss walked west to the place where he and Fraser had mounted the summit. He raised both pistols at one time, and turned slightly south to avoid the balls striking their own men coming up from below. He fired the pistol in his right hand first, counted to three, then fired the one in his left, the flame leaping three feet from the muzzle in the predawn gray.
The two men backed away from the rim and sat down to reach for their canteens. They drank long, wiped their mouths, and Twiss dug into his backpack to draw out some cheese and dried beef. “Thought this might taste good about now,” he said, offering some to Fraser. For a time the two men chewed and drank water in silence, with a west wind rising in their faces. They were sweated out, exhausted, bone-weary from the climb through the night, but they did not care. Inside they felt the solid, sustaining glow of having done what others thought could not be done, and with each passing moment they felt the rising conviction that what they had done would impact the affairs of the world. Cheese and dried beef never tasted better.
By eight o’clock, with the risen sun bright on their backs, they could see the heads of the men coming up from below, on the shady, west side of the mountain. The shouts and cursing of the struggling company came clear as the men tightened the two-inch hawsers to lash the block and tackle to another great rock or tree trunk, then commence the backbreaking work of throwing every ounce of strength and weight into hauling the ropes through the pulleys, at a ratio of six to one. For every six feet of rope, the two-ton cannon moved one foot upward.
At ten minutes past ten o’clock, with the west wind raising dust-devils and flying grit, the sweating, exhausted men dragged the first big gun over the crest, onto the top, and at ten-thirty, the second. The west wind shifted toward the north and became a howling gale. The five Indian scouts drew to the south, away from the regulars, to stand by themselves. Among the soldiers, the uniform of every man was torn, either at the knees or elbows. Sweat showed on their tunics between their shoulder blades. The dirt raised by the wind caked at the corners of their eyes and mouths and in their nostrils, and stuck to their sweating faces.
They didn’t care. They sprawled on their backs on the mountaintop, arms flung wide, and lay without moving for a time. Then they reached for their canteens to drink long, not caring that some of the water ran down their chins to make additional dark spots on their tunics.
After a time, Lieutenant Charles Digby wiped his chin and stood to face his men. “On your feet. We have to position and block these guns.”
At ten minutes before noon on July 5, 1777, the two, twelve-pound British cannon were in position, their muzzles thrust out northeast, directly in line with Fort Ticonderoga. Their wheels were blocked against any movement forward and allowed four feet of movement to the rear to take the recoil when the heavy guns were fired. The guns in place, Digby walked to General Fraser. His face was covered with sweat and dirt, his uniform torn and filthy, but there was a look of triumph in his eye as he saluted and reported to Fraser.
“Sir, the guns are in commission. Powder in the budge barrels, cannonballs in the lockers between the trails.”
Fraser nodded. “Extraordinary, Lieutenant. My compliments. I want to address your men.” He walked past Digby and stood before his men.
“Remain at ease, men. I do not know what will come of this, but I do want you to know you have done what no others have dared try. I commend each of you. I will be sending a letter of commendation to General Burgoyne for this command. I am also sending orders that the entire army is to receive a ration of rum tonight, and a double ration for each of you.”
Tired, sweated out, sitting on a mountaintop with a hot, high north wind shrouding them in dirt and grit, the men rose as one and gave three resounding huzzahs for their general. None of them noticed that the five Indian scouts, twenty yards south of them, had lighted a fire to signal their chiefs far below that they had reached the mountaintop. The big guns were in place. Fort Ticonderoga was theirs.
* * * * *
The hot north wind sweeping down the Lake Champlain–Hudson River corridor swirled and eddied over the walls of Fort Ticonderoga, raising clouds of dust and sending it stinging into the faces of the Americans as they hurried from their work assignments to the mess hall for their noon meal. Eyes squinted against the wind, they walked with shoulders hunched and heads lowered to stand in line, waiting to get inside the doors, away from the blow.
Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin, engineer in charge of repairs and maintenance of the old fort, marched southwest from his office across the parade ground toward the large shed used to store the tools and equipment on which his work depended. Building good breastworks required axes and shovels, and in his hand he clutched a report that there were twenty-two axes and thirty shovels with broken or split handles. If the report were true, six men were going to spend the afternoon knocking the broken handles out, and fitting new ones in. His crews were digging trenches and throwing up breastworks outside the fort at a fevered pace; he could not afford a work stoppage because of broken equipment.
He was twenty feet from the building when movement atop Mt. Defiance caught his eye. He slowed, then stopped to raise a hand as a shield against the noon sun, peering upward nearly one mile at the crest of the mountain. It appeared that a wind-whipped smudge of black smoke was blowing south. He wiped at his eyes to look upward once more and saw the smoke thicken.
Smoke? How? Lightning? There isn’t a clo
ud in the sky. The faintest voice of alarm began in his brain. He stood rooted, staring, and suddenly there was movement in the trees and brush on the mountaintop—a flash of crimson against the emerald green. While he watched, the barrel of a heavy cannon rolled into view, stopped, and tiny red-coated figures scurried about blocking the wheels. Moments later a second cannon rolled in beside the first, and the British regulars positioned and blocked it. Sunlight glinted off the gun muzzles, and Baldwin realized they were lined squarely on the parade ground of the fort, within yards of where he was standing. For a moment he stood paralyzed by shock, then pivoted and broke into a run toward the office of General Arthur St. Clair. He pounded across the boardwalk and threw the door open, slowing to let his eyes adjust inside the dimly lit room.
St. Clair jumped the moment the door burst open and was half risen when Baldwin blurted, “The British have guns on Mount Defiance!” St. Clair jerked erect and Dunn came off his chair in an instant. For two seconds the men stared at each other before St. Clair came around his desk at a run, out into the blowing dust, Baldwin and Dunn right behind. He shaded his eyes with both hands while he stared southwest at the mountain.
Even with the gale winds and the flying dust, the redcoats could be seen moving about the big guns on the northeast rim of the mountaintop. St. Clair turned to Dunn. “Get my telescope,” he barked, and in two minutes Dunn returned to jam it into St. Clair’s trembling hand. With his glass extended, St. Clair studied the mountaintop for thirty seconds, then handed the instrument to Baldwin, who looked then passed it to Dunn. For long moments the three men stood looking at each other in stunned shock, faces white, eyes wide, staring.
Then St. Clair gave orders to Dunn. “Get generals Paterson, Long, de Fermoy, and Poor. No matter what they’re doing, have them in my office in ten minutes.”
Notes
Unless otherwise indicated, the following facts are taken from Ketchum, Saratoga, on the pages listed.
On the morning of 3 July 1777, General Simon Fraser was discussing the ongoing sound of the cannon with Alexander Lindsay, sixth Earl of Balcarres, commenting on the natural tendency of men to duck at the sound of cannon, even if they are not in the line of fire. A cannonball passed over both their heads, and they instinctively ducked. In this conversation Balcarres mentioned he knew men with eyes sharp enough to track a cannonball in flight. That morning the Americans did fire a feu de joie, which is a military custom of firing muskets, or cannon, in predetermined numbers to commemorate or celebrate a notable military or historical event—in this case, the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—as well as the arrival of Seth Warner with seven hundred troops, cattle, and sheep.
Immediately following the conversation, Fraser noticed Mt. Defiance, and for the first time wondered if cannon atop the mountain could reach Fort Ticonderoga. With a young engineer named Lieutenant William Twiss, Fraser climbed the mountain and saw instantly it commanded both a view and a field of fire covering both Fort Ticonderoga and Mt. Independence, across the narrows of Lake Champlain. The distances were fifteen hundred yards to Fort Ti, fourteen hundred yards to Mt. Independence.
Excited, Fraser sent a lieutenant named Craig, with men, to see if cannon could be moved up the back side of the mountain, and it was determined they could. The night of July fourth, two cannon from the ship Thunderer were hauled up to the top, and the morning of July fifth, they were in place and ready to fire. Indians who accompanied the men who hauled the cannon up the mountain set a fire on the mountaintop, and it was seen by the Americans (pp. 170–71).
It will be remembered that one year earlier, Lieutenant Trumbull, Benedict Arnold, and Anthony Wayne had informed generals Gates and Schuyler that it could be done; further, American cannon were fired from the fort toward the top of Mt. Independence, demonstrating that they could not reach all the way to the top. Thus, cannon atop Mt. Defiance could not be reached by American cannon in Fort Ticonderoga (p. 117).
Leckie, in his work George Washington’s War, states that the cannon were taken to the top overnight by use of block and tackle, a very arduous undertaking (p. 387).
On 5 July 1777, Jeduthan Baldwin saw the smoke from the Indian fire atop Mt. Defiance, then saw the two cannon muzzles. He took the news to General St. Clair, who instantly saw that Fort Ticonderoga was indefensible against the British cannon. He ordered a war council that was attended that afternoon by generals Poor, Fermoy, Paterson, and Long (pp. 171–72).
Morristown, New Jersey
Early July 1777
CHAPTER XIX
* * *
Mary Flint dragged the large cotton bag full of putrid, blood-stained bandages and bed sheets from the back door of the long, low hospital building to the center of a ring of piled rocks and sprinkled a jar of alcohol on one side. She opened a small metal tinderbox, emptied the smoldering ball of shredded linen onto the bag, and watched the blue alcohol flames spread while black smoke rose into the clear, early morning sky. She wiped her hands on her apron, slipped the tinderbox back into the pocket, and walked back into the hospital. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of carbolics and alcohol, infected flesh, and too many men too closely packed and unbathed. She refilled the alcohol jar from a keg in the apothecary room, set it on the shelf, the empty tinder box beside it, then walked out into the great room of the crude log structure where cots with sick and wounded men stood end to end in rows.
Short, stout, balding, Doctor Leonard Folsom dropped his jowled chin to peer over his spectacles at Mary. “You’ve finished your shift. Go get some rest.” He studied her for a moment, and his forehead wrinkled in concern. “I’m worried about you. You’ve never really gotten over that nagging pneumonia, and you’re working too hard. Will you go to your quarters and rest today, or do I have to order it? Good nurses are in short supply around here.”
Mary started to protest but then nodded. She drew the white scarf from her dark hair to let it fall freely and walked out the front door of the building into the heat of the oncoming day. She ran her hand through her hair and slowed to watch the great, unfolding panorama of the remaining part of the Continental army striking its sprawling Morristown winter camp. Over one thousand officers and enlisted men milled and marched in all directions. The din of human voices filled the air with shouted commands and shouted answers. Hundreds of wagons picked their way through the mass confusion, stopping, moving, going to get a load, or deliver one, with the drivers working the long leather ribbons as they bawled orders to the horses, working their way through the congestion. Men with fourteen-foot whips drove great, patient oxen with massive oaken yokes heavy on their thick necks as they plodded, splay-footed, pulling the huge Canadian carts on their two, broad, seven-foot wheels.
Teams of soldiers pulled the ridgepoles out of the officers’ tents, then jerked the pegs out of the ground to throw the tieropes free while they stepped back to watch the tents slowly deflate and collapse into a heap. They swarmed onto the canvas to jerk it flat, square it, double it, double it again, and fold it into a bundle to be lifted into a wagon by a team of sweating men. With the long, hard winter behind them, and months of rest and regular meals to heal their bodies and spirits, a feeling of readiness, anticipation, a need for action, ran strongly in the men. When General Washington ordered the army to be prepared to march in two days, they had turned to the task with a will and strong, ready hands.
Weary from ten hours in the heat and the heady smell of the hospital, Mary untied her soiled apron and carried it folded in her hand as she picked her way southwest through the men and wagons and animals, watching ahead for the Massachusetts regiment. She raised a hand to shade her eyes as a feeling of nostalgic sadness rose in her heart to linger for a few moments, then recede. They’re all leaving—all the familiar faces—the morning reveille call—the noon meal—the evening mess call—the drummer sounding taps—lights out—the pickets calling out the time—all’s well—the good things and the bad—the little time we’ve shared—gone. T
onight the camp will be deserted—deserted—not a sound—all gone—all gone. Will I ever again belong to a place and have a home and a family?
She set her chin and took control of the panic that surged, concentrating in the mixed mass of men to find an officer in the Massachusetts regiment, or the sharp face of Sergeant Alvin Turlock.
“Pardon, ma’am, are you looking for me?”
Mary turned to the familiar figure of Turlock coming in from her right side, swaying slightly with his bow-legged stride.
Relief flooded through Mary. “Yes, I am. I’ve been asked to stay here at the hospital to help for a time. No one has said how long the army will be gone. Do you know?”
Turlock shook his head. “Permanent, I think.”
Mary caught her breath. “You won’t be coming back?”
“Doubtful, ma’am. You worried about seeing Billy and Eli?”
“Yes.”
“They might never show up here. It’s likely word’ll get to them we left here, and they’ll come lookin’ for us wherever we are. And that won’t be here.”
“Where are you going? Do you know?”
“Wherever General Howe goes, and right now nobody knows where that is. You see, ma’am, when General Washington took Trenton from the Germans and then snuck around Cornwallis and took Princeton from Mawhood, King George was vexed. He sent General Burgoyne to come down from Canada on the Hudson River and come in behind us and then told General Howe to send some soldiers on over to meet Burgoyne and cut the thirteen states in two, right in the middle.”
Turlock shifted his feet for a moment while he ordered his thoughts, then raised his eyes once more. “Problem is, General Howe seems to have some strange ideas of his own, and nobody knows what they are. He’s been sendin’ out patrols like he’s goin’ south, then he gets ships and acts like he’s headed up the Delaware, and then he sends men like he’s going on to Elk’s Head, and now he might be thinkin’ of comin’ straight on south, maybe to take Philadelphia.” Turlock shrugged. “No way to know. That’s why General Washington sent those regiments over to Middlebrook a few days ago. He’s got to stay close and stop Howe from gettin’ over to Burgoyne, and he’s got to try to protect Philadelphia if he can.”
