Prelude to Glory, Vol. 4

by Ron Carter

  He cavorted on the thick carpet for fifteen seconds, waving the dispatch high over his head, exuberant, shouting. Outside the closed door, the aide stood in shock while butlers and maids came scurrying, not knowing whether to be terrified or overjoyed. Suddenly the door burst open, and the lot of them recoiled as the king ran from his own bedroom, up the hall two doors, and without knocking, threw open the doors to the queen’s bedroom and burst in, waving the dispatch, fairly dancing a jig.

  The queen was dressed in nothing more than a sheer chemise, and she cried out, then grabbed a shawl to cover herself, gasping, terrified, waiting for someone to explain the king’s lunacy.

  He dashed toward her, waving the dispatch, and shouting, “I have beat them! I have beat all the Americans!”

  * * * * *

  Doctor Benjamin Franklin, American Ambassador to France, sat in the breakfast nook of his quarters near Versailles, intermittently nibbling at a plate of scrambled eggs and fried ham and thoughtfully gazing out the window at the rolling French countryside—drenched in mid-morning summer sunlight, splashed with color, lush, beautiful.

  He was wrapped in an old, comfortable, faded wool robe, with worn felt slippers on his gout-ridden feet. He wore no wig, nor did he make any pretense at being other than what he was—a seventy-two-year-old man with an aching, aging body, who found himself in France because the Congress of the United States had sent him. Bring the French into the Revolutionary War on our side, they had said. We can’t win without their help. Their tone had been nearly flippant, as though it could be done by Franklin simply showing up in the court of King Louis XVI in Paris and asking. After all, where in the civilized world was there another man so universally renowned and revered as Ben Franklin—he who had tamed lightning, written Poor Richard’s Almanac, invented stoves and bifocals, and through his writings and wit charmed all of Europe, while proving time and again he was as shrewd, as tough, as the best Europe had to offer? Send Ben, Congress had said, and at age seventy-one the old man had risen to his last and possibly greatest call to service of his country, and the world.

  Franklin forked more scrambled eggs into his mouth, then slowly chewed as he reviewed the few lines scrawled on a slip of paper beside his cup of steaming chocolate. He raised his eyes at the rap on his door.

  “Do come in,” he called. He did not rise.

  The door opened, and Silas Deane, his associate and colleague in the impossible task of bringing France into an alliance with America to oppose the British, entered the room. Dour by nature, Deane walked with shoulders perpetually hunched, eyes furtive, as though constantly suspicious something was going wrong. Franklin brightened.

  “Good morning, Silas. Have a seat. Chocolate?”

  Deane sat down at the breakfast table, shaking his head. “No chocolate. Have you heard about Fort Ticonderoga?”

  Franklin nodded. “Just this morning.” He pointed at the slip of paper at the head of his plate.

  Deane’s eyebrows arched. “Where did you get that?”

  Franklin shrugged. “A source.”

  Deane let it pass. “Vergennes is going to know we lost Fort Ti before the day is out.” Deane referred to Charles Gravier, the Comte de Vergennes, French foreign minister, and clearly the most perceptive, powerful political figure in the French government. King Louis was not going to strike up an alliance with America until Vergennes said so; it was Vergennes they must persuade, not the king.

  “That is likely true.”

  “Things between us and France are fragile right now.” Deane moved, agitated, fearful. “When Vergennes finds out we couldn’t even hold onto Fort Ti, he could cut us off altogether.”

  Franklin’s head moved up and down slowly as he continued working at the eggs. “Yes, he could.”

  “So what do you propose we do?”

  Franklin laid his fork down. “First, we think through conditions as they stand right now.” He wiped at his mouth with a linen napkin.

  “Do you recall the name Choiseul?”

  “The one who was French Foreign Minister sometime before Vergennes? Yes.”

  “When France lost the Seven Years’ War back in ’63, they gave up all claim to America. It humiliated them, stained their honor before the whole world. Choiseul swore he would find a way to reclaim their lost territory, regain their honor. He predicted the time would come when the colonies would rise up, and when they did, France would join them in overthrowing the British. Recall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Choiseul fell to political intrigues against him. Vergennes shared his vision, and as fate would have it, succeeded Choiseul. That simply means, Vergennes is still waiting for the time France can come into our war as our ally. He doesn’t think France can conquer England alone, at least not right now, but if we show ourselves to be strong enough to make a fight of it, France will likely come in to tip the scales in our favor. Have I stated all this correctly?”

  Deane’s face darkened, wondering where the nimble, unpredictable mind of the old man was taking him. “Yes.”

  “Vergennes was grieved when Washington was defeated so badly in New York, then rejoiced when he struck down the British at Trenton and Princeton. And, his willingness to help us secretly has fluctuated up and down according to our fortunes and misfortunes. He even went so far as to turn the crew of an American ship over to the British not long ago, and those poor men are still in a Dunkirk prison.”

  Deane nodded.

  “At this moment, if Vergennes is what I think he is, he’s caught in a crosscurrent that is tugging him two directions at once. I think he’s still struggling to complete the vision of Choiseul, which requires him to become our ally, and at the same time, he’s afraid to become our ally until he’s convinced we can either win this war, or at least bring it to some sort of standoff. Only when he believes that French forces will ensure a victory will he enter on our side. Fair? Have I stated it fairly?”

  “So far as I see it.”

  “All right. Let’s stand in his shoes for a moment. He can’t yet declare an alliance with us, and at the same time, he can’t sever all relationships and be rid of us. In short, he’s in a very difficult place. He can’t join us, nor can he afford to offend us.”

  Deane leaned back in his chair, waiting for something from Franklin that would bring it all to an understandable conclusion.

  Franklin picked up his fork. “If you were in his place, what would motivate you more than anything else? Maybe even frighten you?”

  Deane shook his head, but said nothing.

  “Let me tell you what I think I’m going to do. I think I’m going to the office of the British ambassador today—Lord Stormont—and I’m going to ask for the papers to apply for a passport to visit England.”

  Deane jerked forward. “You’re going to what!?”

  Franklin forked a chunk of ham into his mouth. “Apply for a British passport. A mission of peace. Open talks with the British to negotiate a settlement to our unfortunate differences.”

  Deane’s mouth dropped open. “Peace talks with the British?”

  Franklin stopped chewing his ham and smiled. “Yes.” He resumed chewing for a moment. “I’ll be attending a banquet and ball tonight in honor of the birthday of Lady Julienne. She’s the wife of a dignitary—the ambassador, I think—from Holland. Both Stormont and Vergennes will be there, along with emissaries from many—maybe most—other European states.”

  Deane was hanging on every word.

  “I think a mention or two of my intention to visit London to open peace talks will reach Vergennes, and presuming that happens, I imagine it will have a salutary effect on his thinking toward us.”

  Deane was incredulous. Since their arrival in France in February, Franklin had studiously attended every ball, every banquet he could find, so long as heads of state or their emissaries would be in attendance. While all others had worn wigs coifed to a magnificent perfection, he had worn no wig, but had brushed his thinning hair straight back and let it h
ang. While they had adorned themselves with gowns and jewels that cost a fortune, he had appeared in a plain, simple, brown homespun suit with no jewelry to detract from it. While they wore head coverings and bonnets that were breathtaking, he had worn a simple round hat made from the fur of a marten.

  And Europe had loved it. Ladies flocked to him, surrounded him, fawned over him, drowned him with attention, while men remained aloof in dignified envy and disgust. He could not meet all the ladies during the banquets and balls, so he had begun to receive them and their consorts in his quarters, often in the morning while he was still in his bed. Tailors all over Europe were swamped with orders. I must have a brown suit identical to that of Franklin. Can you duplicate that charming little fur hat? Can you create a wig that looks exactly the way Franklin wears his hair?

  Casual mention by Franklin at the banquet and ball that night, that Franklin proposed a visit to London to open peace talks with the British would spread like wildfire. Every person in the building would know it within ten minutes. Dispatches by nearly every ambassador would be on their way to kings all over Europe by four o’clock a.m., carried by messengers on galloping horses.

  Deane exclaimed, “That will be the end of it. If Vergennes hears you’re going to treaty with the British, we’ll be ordered out of this country within forty-eight hours.”

  Franklin sipped at his chocolate. “To the contrary. I think it’s the one thing he fears most. Do you really think he’s ready to give up the French dream of regaining what they lost in their surrender to England in 1763? Do you think he would dare tell King Louis that the honor and glory of France are not to be regained?” Franklin shook his head. “Regardless of how bleak it looks at this moment with the loss of Fort Ticonderoga, Vergennes needs us as much as we need him. If he thinks he is about to lose us, I think we’ll hear from him soon enough. Discreetly, at a distance perhaps, but we’ll hear from him, and between the lines he will be asking us to carry on for a little longer while he matures affairs in France to the point the French can ally themselves with us to drive out the British.”

  Deane leaned back in his chair, eyes wide, struggling to believe Franklin’s audacity.

  Franklin reached for a slice of bread and said, “Would you be so kind as to pass that pot of apricot jam? The French do such wonderful things with jam.”

  Notes

  Unless otherwise indicated, the following is taken from Ketchum, Saratoga, on the pages identified.

  The hot north wind that arose the night of 4 July continued, gusting, blowing grit and dust, hindering the men.

  On 5 July 1777, having seen the British cannon atop Mt. Defiance, General St. Clair immediately called a war council including generals Poor, Fermoy, Paterson, and Long, and informed them of the catastrophic discovery. The council agreed the only rational course was to abandon Fort Ticonderoga, since to remain could only result in the total destruction of the fort, along with most of St. Clair’s army. Orders to abandon were instantly given.

  There were two locations yet unoccupied by the British: one was a long peninsula near East Creek, and the other was the narrows known as South Bay. The long peninsula near East Creek gave the Americans access to Hubbardton Road, and South Bay gave water access south to Skenesborough. If those avenues were taken by the British, the Americans had no way out, and Hubbardton Road was the only practical way to move out. The greater number of American bateaux were anchored at Skenesborough, leaving only enough at the Fort Ti docks to transport the wounded, infirm, and select parts of the goods and records that were of prime importance. With the strong wind coming from the north, it would not be feasible to sail the bateaux at Skenesborough up to Fort Ti, into the wind.

  Each officer was to begin preparing his men and their baggage for departure, without telling them what was going on, since it was feared an announcement of the imminent danger would spark a panic. All sick, wounded, women, children, medicines, tools, cannon, muskets, the fort treasure chest, fort records, and other necessaries were taken to the docks to be loaded on the bateaux for transport down to Skenesborough, where it was intended that the army, marching overland, would rejoin them.

  By afternoon some of the soldiers had figured out that they were abandoning the fort, but did not know why. They became surly, critical of being denied the battle for which they had worked so hard and were altogether willing to enter. St. Clair had two thousand eighty-nine soldiers, one hundred twenty-four unarmed workers, and nine hundred militia just arrived, who needed to leave very soon, with which to fight about eight thousand British troops. When St. Clair told his artillery officer, Major Ebenezer Stevens, of the plan to abandon, Stevens, just recovering from a severe fever, exclaimed it was “reason to curse the day I ever put my feet into the country, there being so much retreating.”

  In the late afternoon St. Clair told a New Hampshire soldier named Cogan the British had the guns on top of Mt. Defiance and simply informed the men he had but two choices: he could save them for a fight they could later win, or, he could sacrifice them all right then. Either way, the British would have the fort when it was finished. Cogan said, “Such a retreat was never heard of since the creation of the world.” Later, St. Clair stated that he knew he was entertaining a court-martial for abandoning the fort, but said he had two choices: he could go down in history as a butcher if he stayed, or a coward if he abandoned. He chose to save his men to fight later.

  The spirit that inspired the common soldiers in the fort was akin to “the search for the holy grail,” so imbued were they with a lust for freedom. They were truly patriots, ready and willing to lay down their lives for liberty, respect, a voice in determining who their leaders would be, and the power to determine their own destinies.

  The officers and men worked frantically into the night, trying to complete the evacuation before the British discovered them. They moved back and forth across the Great Bridge built across the narrows between Fort Ticonderoga and the Mt. Independence landing, carrying tons of goods and supplies. The wind raised high waves on South Bay, and St. Clair sent the two hundred loaded bateaux south as soon as possible to avoid damage to the boats and the docks. Leaving a few men near the fort to make a show of an American presence there, St. Clair moved nearly all the troops across the Great Bridge to the docks on the Mt. Independence side of the narrows. The marching order was supposed to be Poor’s command leading in the van, Paterson’s brigade next, then de Fermoy’s command, and finally a rear guard of four hundred fifty men under command of Ebenezer Francis.

  Then, in the middle of the night, on the north face of Mt. Independence, General de Fermoy, drunk, set his own quarters on fire for reasons never explained, and suddenly the wind-driven flames illuminated most of the area. Panic broke loose among the Americans, since the entire American evacuation became silhouetted for the British cannon across the narrows. The men began running east on Hubbardton Road. St. Clair ordered them to stop, they paid no heed, and he spurred his horse to the lead, slowed them, and forced some organization into the retreat. For reasons unknown, the British cannon never opened fire.

  The men left behind, on the Fort Ticonderoga side of the narrows, left their positions just before four o’clock in the morning—with the gray of dawn showing. Leaving four men to man a cannon to stop the British when they tried to cross the Great Bridge in pursuit, the rear guard followed St. Clair’s column. The four men left behind to operate the cannon found a cask of Madeira wine, drank it, and were unconscious when the British came (see pp. 172–184).

  The rather comical incident wherein a lone Indian wandered up to the cannon the drunken rear guard had failed to fire, picked up the smoking linstock, and set off the gun, then ran, is factual (see p. 192).

  When news of the abandonment of Fort Ticonderoga by the Americans and the occupation of it by General Burgoyne reached King George III in London, he ran down the hall to the bedroom of his wife, Queen Charlotte, threw the door open, and catching her standing embarrassed in little more than a chemise, sho
uted, “I have beat them! I have beat all the Americans” (see p. 206).

  In general support, see Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 387–88.

  Hubbardton Trail

  July 6, 1777

  CHAPTER XXII

  * * *

  The hot wind died an hour after sunrise, and the sun became a huge brass ball pounding heat into the sweltering dead air of the Hudson River valley.

  The rebel soldiers came frightened, exhausted, cursing, sweating, filthy, empty-bellied, stumbling on the narrow winding trail hacked through forest so thick the only sky they could see was directly overhead. Piles of felled trees and stripped branches rose above their heads on either side. They swore at the endless ragged tree stumps and the heavy tangle of roots that caught at their feet to slow them. They struggled on, hot with gut-wrenching anger, teetering tenuously on the ragged edge of rebellion against their officers for having been ordered to pack what they could and abandon Fort Ticonderoga, like cowards in the black hours of a windswept night. The young, untried, green militiamen were sick to death of it. Singly, in pairs, threes, they bolted away from the column, into the woods, plunging headlong for home, unable longer to stomach the humiliation of the retreat or the soul-draining grind of the insufferable trail, winding toward Hubbardton, then Castle Town.

  Repeatedly the soldiers turned their heads, dreading the first glimpse of red dodging through the trees behind them. Strung out for more than a mile, marching single file, they knew they were nearly defenseless. If General Simon Fraser and his British regulars engaged the rear guard, and flanked the column, the fight would be over almost before it started. It would be a massacre. The single, unanswered question that rode heavily on every American was how far behind are they? It drove them on, past exhaustion, until they knew only one thing: place one foot ahead of the other. They’re coming. Keep moving. Keep moving.