Prelude to Glory, Vol. 4

by Ron Carter

  “Redcoats! Behind us.”

  For a split second every man in the American camp froze where he stood, staring west at the red-coated regulars dodging through the trees, beginning to circle the clearing. Then bedlam seized them, except for the command of Francis. Without breaking step, Colonel Francis sang out his orders.

  “Column, by the right flank, march!”

  Instantly the entire column turned to their right, marching directly at the British.

  “Form a battle line, march!”

  The column broke from ranks into a long battle line, muskets primed.

  Then Francis gave the order, “Forward, at double time, march!”

  A battle cry surged from the rebels as they broke into a run straight into the face of the British, a scant forty yards distant. The red-coated regulars were the leading edge of the British regiment under the command of Major Alexander Lindsay, Sixth Earl of Balcarres. Dressed in full uniform, with knapsack, cartridge box, canteen, hatchet, and a ten- pound Brown Bess musket, they had just climbed a strong incline, worked their way through a saddle on the mountainside and found themselves winded, sweating, on the western fringes of the Selleck field at the Hubbardton clearing, facing a stone wall and felled trees and breastworks. They had seen the Americans at the moment the Americans saw them.

  They took one look at the long line of screaming Americans and turned on their heels, sprinting back, over the lip of the incline, plunging back down the hill to join the full regiment behind.

  Francis stopped his men just short of the incline. “Take cover behind that low stone wall and the trees and breastworks. Get ready. When the leaders come over that lip, give them twenty feet, and then fire at will!” he shouted.

  The leading ranks of the British column broke over the crest of the hill onto the flat and too late realized they were staring down the barrels of what seemed an endless wall of rebel muskets. Those behind plowed into the leaders, pushing them forward, and they had gone less than ten feet when the thunder of the American muskets echoed for miles. White smoke rose in a cloud while the Americans each grabbed another cartridge, ripped out the end with their teeth, dumped the powder down the barrel, followed by the paper and the huge lead ball, jammed it home with their hickory ramrods, and leveled their muskets for the next volley.

  All up and down the line, British officers and regulars staggered backward and toppled, dead, wounded, writhing, moaning in pain. The second rank hurtled over them, muskets and bayonets at the ready, charging the breastworks and the stone wall behind which the Americans were crouched.

  The second American volley erupted, and great gaps and holes appeared in the British line as officers and regulars alike tumbled, finished. The third rank of redcoats saw the dead and dying in front of them, and the great cloud of white gun smoke covering the American lines, and they broke. They turned and ran, back against the ranks behind them, headlong, not caring, wanting only to be away from the slaughter up on the Hubbardton flats.

  As the panic-stricken regulars came storming down the slope, General Fraser was coming up, for the first time seized with the fear he had blundered into something far too big for his command to handle. He seized a retreating officer by both shoulders and bellowed, “How many Americans up there? How many!”

  The wild-eyed man stared at him for a moment before he recognized him. “Two thousand. Maybe more.” The man wrenched free and was gone.

  At that moment a panting, sweating officer approached Fraser. “Sir, the Twenty-fourth Foot has run into heavy opposition and are unable to move forward.”

  Fraser made an instant appraisal of his position. His own command was stalled in its tracks, stopped by Colonel Francis’s men. They had stopped his left flank, and at the moment it was in critical danger of folding. To his right, the Twenty-fourth Infantry had slammed into Seth Warner’s command, and had been stopped dead. For one moment Fraser entertained the thought of a general retreat, then stiffened in his resolve. He turned, searching for Major John Acland.

  “Major, take your grenadiers and two companies of Balcarres’ light troops. Move out to our right and go to the Castle Town road. Engage and stop any rebel troops moving south on that road. It is imperative. You must succeed. Move out now!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  He turned to Billingsley. “Find the first mounted officer you can and send him back to find General von Riedesel. Tell him we’re under heavy engagement and that he’s to get his men here as fast as they can come. Critically urgent.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Before the eyes of the officers on both sides, the battle disintegrated into half a dozen tangled fronts, each independent, disassociated from the others, following no pattern, no plan. Then, slowly, on its own terms, the sprawling battle began to take a shape of its own. The Americans formed up in a crescent-shaped line eight hundred yards long, north to south, straddling the road coming from Mt. Independence to the west, and dug in, Warner and Hale on the ends, Francis in the middle. With their long Pennsylvania rifles, the rebels had thrown back Fraser’s light infantry and were advancing slowly, moving among the rocks and trees, ever closer to flanking Fraser’s left, and coming in behind him. Fraser saw the danger but had no men to order into the gap.

  At the other end of the long line, the redcoats under Major Acland had slung their muskets and battled their way sweating up a steep incline to high ground. Dirty, panting, they began to move down the slope that would carry them into the left flank of Warner’s command. Warner saw them too late. Instantly he ordered his men to draw back and take up a position behind a log fence that bordered Pittsford Mountain and had a large, open field before it. To reach the rebels, the British would have to cross a hundred yards of open ground, with rebels at the far end, firing from behind the cover of logs.

  Six miles south, General St. Clair paused and turned his head to listen to the faint, unmistakable staccato sound of muskets in the far distance. He knew only one thing. Somehow a battle had developed, and his command was engaged. He turned to Dunn and Livingston, his two aides.

  “Ride to Ransomvale and tell Captain Bellows to march his militia immediately to Hubbardton to support Francis and Warner. Don’t spare your horses.”

  Both men nodded, spun their horses, and had them at stampede gait in three jumps. St. Clair listened to the steady sound of the muskets for a time, his fears rising, then turned back to his own command. They had to move on.

  Within minutes the two aides stood in the stirrups of their galloping horses, startled at what lay ahead. Captain Bellows and his entire militia command were coming toward them, away from Hubbardton, on the Castle Town road. The two majors pulled their horses to a stop, facing Bellows.

  “Captain, General St. Clair sends orders. You are to turn around and return to Hubbardton. Your command will support colonels Francis and Warner, who have engaged a superior British force and are in desperate need of reinforcements.”

  Bellows shrugged, then turned to his men. “You will stop where you are, and turn about. We are under orders to return to Hubbardton and support the Americans there who are under British attack.”

  Not one man turned. Three seconds later the leaders stepped out marching, continuing due south, away from the fighting. In an instant the entire column was marching with them.

  Bellows shouted, “Halt and turn around or you will all be shot.”

  Not a single man swerved or broke step.

  Dunn and Livingston sat their horses, absolutely dumbstruck. Never had they seen an entire command simply ignore orders from a general, and never had they known Americans to so coldly and blatantly refuse to help their comrades-in-arms under attack.

  Bellows shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. A panic has locked their minds. It’s as though they don’t hear.”

  Dunn glanced at Livingston, who shook his head, and without a word the two aides galloped further, looking for any military unit, Continental or militia, whom they might persuade to go to the sound of the guns.r />
  * * * * *

  With gunfire blasting continuously all around him, Colonel Francis rallied his men. “Come on, boys, we can turn their left, and once we get in behind them their line will break. They’ll be ours. Follow me!”

  Francis raised his saber and started forward, with his entire command right behind him, firing, reloading while they walked, firing again. Francis moved among them, shouting encouragement, heedless of the danger, leading his men on against the British. The red-coated regulars slowly began to pull back, unable to withstand the deadly rifle fire that was knocking their officers down all around them. Fraser saw it and he felt the clutch of fear in his chest as he realized that if his left folded, the Americans would be in behind the British lines. Should that occur, his command had little hope of survival. He would lose them all, either killed, or captured, and he with them. He stood stock-still, frantically racking his brain for a way out, but there was none.

  Then, from the west, above the unceasing blasting of the muskets, came the faint, distant sound of a bugle floating on the midmorning air. Officers on both sides turned their heads west to stare in puzzlement, disbelief. Seconds passed, and with the piercing bugle came the unmistakable beat of snare drums, and then the high, sharp trill of fifes. Seconds became a minute, and the sound grew stronger until every man in the battle could make out the melody.

  It was “The Grenadier’s March.” Major General Friedrich von Riedesel’s column of Germans was coming in on the road from Mt. Independence, his brass band blasting out the marching tune with all their strength to give heart to the British forces who at the moment thought they had lost it all. With swords drawn, Captain von Geyso led his green-coated jaegers, with their brown leather breeches, in a frontal attack against the Americans, while his German riflemen kept up a hot, deadly fire. To his right, Captain Maximilian Christoph Ludwig von Schottelius drove in with his blue-coated grenadiers, the sun glinting off the brass facings of their tall hats.

  At that moment, victory was snatched from the hands of the Americans. Hale’s New Hampshiremen could not hold against the fresh reinforcements, who were swarming in from both sides. Hale shouted orders, and his regiment began to fall back, firing as they went, trying to avoid a rout. Warner realized his command was about to be engulfed and quickly ordered his men back across Hubbardton Brook to a hedgerow where they might make a fight of it. Then Warner saw the danger. Past the hedgerow, the only thing left was Pittsford Mountain, steep and rocky. In an instant the men felt panic rise in their throats when they realized that if their only way out was up Pittsford Mountain, few of them would survive the steep climb, during which they would be clear, sitting targets for the German rifles.

  Francis was the first to get his command across the open field to Hubbardton Brook, then to the hedgerow, and to commence firing on the oncoming redcoats and Germans. As the other Americans came sprinting in, the smoke became so thick that the rebels could not see the enemy. The only thing they could make out was the muzzle flashes of the British and German rifles and muskets as they continued their charge against the waiting Americans.

  In the midst of it Francis realized some of the American gunfire was hitting incoming Americans, and suddenly he stood and shouted to his troops.

  “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! We’re hitting our own men! Wait until you can see—”

  It was the last command given by Colonel Ebenezer Francis. A German bullet punched into his chest, and he crumpled, dead when he hit the ground.

  For a moment the Americans stared, unable to accept his death. It was Francis who had led them through it all. They had survived on his courage, his bravery, his brilliance under fire. It had not occurred to them he could be killed. They stood in shock for a moment, and then they broke into a run in every direction, scrambling through the rocks and brush and woods, many of them trying to scale the steep hillside of Pittsford Mountain while the Germans fired at them.

  The Battle of Hubbardton was over.

  Slowly the Germans and British came forward to where Francis lay. In silent respect, they looked down at the man whose courage and cool leadership had nearly defeated them. They looked at him, and memorized the lines of his face, then backed away to let others take their place.

  Some time later, British officers gathered to take the letters and papers from Colonel Francis’s pockets and read them. Captain John Shrimpton of the Sixty-second Regiment was unfolding the documents when suddenly those nearest heard a whack and a grunt, and he went down backward, moaning, “I’m wounded badly.” Then they heard the crack of a distant American rifle. All heads turned instantly to the face of the mountain. From a lone tree, part way up, they saw a trace of drifting gun smoke.

  An hour later a squad of men returned to report. “We found no one. Whoever it was escaped.”

  The British and Germans grimly nodded in understanding. An unknown American marksman had reminded them that the loss of Colonel Ebenezer Francis would not be forgotten.

  General Fraser held no illusions. He knew that his command had been saved only by the last second arrival of General von Riedesel and his Germans. Had they been one half hour later in arriving . . .

  Riedesel approached Fraser and spoke in his limited English. His German accent was strong. “General Burgoyne has ordered me to assume command of all forces here.”

  For a moment Fraser struggled to control the instant flare of anger. But then responded, “Yes, sir.”

  Riedesel nodded. “Thank you.” He raised his eyes to look about. Dead and wounded men, British, German, and American, were strung out from the west end of the Hubbardton clearing, past the creek, past the Castle Town road, clear to Mount Pittsford. Their moaning and crying out in pain was constant. For a moment a sense of deep sadness crossed von Riedesel’s face before he spoke.

  “Let us attend the casualties.”

  The day wore on while the living looked after the dead and the dying. Somber and silent men dug shallow graves and lowered bodies wrapped in their blankets into them, then covered them with the rich black soil. Others went to the sounds of the wounded, carrying water, bandaging when they could, carrying them to the Hubbardton cabins for amputation of limbs too shattered to mend.

  They stopped for their evening meal, then returned to their grisly work until darkness forced them to stop. They sat around campfires, silent, trying not to hear the moans and cries and pleading of the wounded men still in the forest. With the rising of the moon in the southwest came snuffling sounds in the woods, and the men reached for their muskets, not knowing what was lurking in the blackness. Then they saw the yellow eyes reflecting firelight as they moved among the trees, and they knew.

  A thin, eagle-faced, veteran corporal quietly said, “Wolves.”

  They came down from the mountains in packs, working through the timber, feasting on the dead and the dying, clawing at the graves.

  * * * * *

  John Adams reached to stifle a yawn, then stretched to ease muscles too long in one position. He had spent the morning at his desk in the chambers of the Continental Congress in heated, vituperative debate with all other representatives of the thirteen states. He could not immediately remember passions or tempers running so violently, so high, for three hours on a single issue. They had recessed for lunch, but few men had left the square, austere room, stifling in the sweltering July heat. Rather, they had gathered in small cliques and bunches while they exclaimed and gestured, and the debate went on.

  Abandon Fort Ticonderoga? Preposterous! Unthinkable! What general? St. Clair? Impossible. Surely not Arthur St. Clair. Treason! When will his court-martial be heard? When will he be hanged? Who else needs a taste of good Yankee rope?

  A page circulated among the men, laying copies of the newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, printed in Worcester, on each desk. On the front page was an edited copy of a letter written by General St. Clair to Governor Bowdoin of Massachusetts, wherein St. Clair had taken great pains to truthfully explain his reasons for abandoning Fort
Ti. It was to save the army to fight another day, in a battle they could win. It was not known if Governor Bowdoin had submitted the letter to the newspaper by accident, or on purpose, or whether it was purloined by an unethical, politicized reporter. It was only known that St. Clair’s letter was published, and beside it, a lengthy, unsigned editorial that hacked St. Clair’s explanations, and his reputation, and his life, to shreds.

  The unnamed editor KNEW that St. Clair had at least four thousand healthy, able-bodied soldiers ready and anxious to defend the fort and liberty; the British had scarcely six thousand men. St. Clair had only to ask for more men if he believed his command was too small; there were ample supplies and gunpowder within the walls of the fort to sustain a lengthy defense if necessary. St. Clair’s account of events had to be mistaken; and if not mistaken, then deliberate inaccuracies.

  Adams read the letter, then the editorial. A familiar hand dropped a second newspaper over his shoulder, and without looking back, Adams picked up a copy of the Pennsylvania Evening Post. On the front page was the text of a letter written by a soldier under St. Clair’s command at the fort, and Adams quickly scanned it.

  “Had we stayed at Ticonderoga, we very certainly would have been taken, and then no troops could have stood between the enemy and the country. Now we are gathering strength and re-collecting ourselves.”

  Adams swung around to face Enoch Trabert, a reporter for the Post. “Is this your opinion on the subject? St. Clair did the right thing?”

  Trabert shrugged and gestured to the article. “Opinions are for you congressmen and the generals. I only report them. That soldier was there, and he saw it the same as Alexander Scammel. Scammel’s a Continental officer who was there, too.”

  Adams shook his head emphatically. He had informed himself of the facts. He had thought it through. He had reached his conclusion. And with typical Adams finality, he was ready to announce to the world the only right and correct view that could be taken of the humiliating, embarrassing national scandal that had erupted with the abandonment of Fort Ti. He locked eyes with Trabert and pronounced the Adams verdict.