“Look!” Jacky said, pointing to the harbour. “The entire fleet is sailing away.”
The sight of dozens of British vessels heading away from us, the Union Jack flapping upon each mast . . . it took my breath away.
“I have heard there are ten thousand, all told,” Jacky said. “The troops are joined by a considerable number of loyalists—Tories—taking passage with their families on board the transports. They bid adieu to their native country, without knowing what part of the world is to be their destiny.”
“Although I grieve for their loss of home, I am glad to see them go. We do not need them left behind to cause trouble.”
Jacky’s eyes were locked upon the departing fleet. “Why don’t we fire upon them? Why do we let them go?”
Although I had no definitive answer, by knowing my husband, I had a probable one. “They are not retreating as in battle, son; they have surrendered. Last week General Howe sent a flag of truce to your poppa. He stated he would leave—and leave Boston standing—providing his army was permitted to set sail without being attacked.”
Jacky nodded. “Lord Dunmore burnt Norfolk to the ground so we could not have it.”
“Lord Dunmore is not a man of honour,” I said. “We have hopes General Howe is.”
We watched a few moments in silence. And it was silent, for it was as if all Boston were holding its breath as ten months of siege came to an end.
Jacky spoke first. “I heard a rumour, an exclamation said to be from General Howe upon seeing the cannons on the Heights. Howe said, ‘I know not what I shall do: the rebels have done more in one night than my whole army would have done in weeks.’”
I felt a surge of pride. These men, my man . . . great men, one and all.
“Where are they going?” Eleanor asked, still mesmerized by the ships.
“George believes they head to New York. He heard General Clinton left days ago for that city. It is where he himself must go next.”
“We are moving?” she asked. Her voice expressed alarm.
I was glad George and I had already spoken of this. “We think it would be best if you and Jacky retire to your parents’ home in Mount Airy for the rest of your confinement. Poppa does not want you anywhere near the fighting.”
“But what if I wish to fight?” Jacky asked. “I am as able-bodied as most of these men. I am not a soldier, but neither are most of them.”
“No.”
I realized I had spoken too quickly.
“Poppa would let me. He admires men willing to fight. I am . . . I am willing.”
“Your poppa will abide by my wishes, and I do not wish that you . . .” I drew closer to him, to appease him, to will him to understand. “You are the last of my children, Jacky. You are coming into your inheritance and need to find a home of your own. I cannot let you risk yourself.”
“And I,” Eleanor said, taking his arm, “I need you with me. I have already lost one child. I need you to help me be strong for this other.”
Jacky looked from her eyes to mine, then back again. I did not know whose held the greatest power, but in the end he acquiesced with a nod—and was there not also a look of relief?
Eleanor kissed his cheek and turned to me. “And you?” Eleanor asked. “Are you going back to Mount Vernon?”
“No,” I said, although the decision had not been made until that moment. “As you follow your husband, I will follow mine.”
I quickly left the room before Jacky could find further argument. I understood his desire to serve. I did. But right or wrong, my mother’s instinct to protect overrode even the sharpest call of cause and country.
*****
I did follow George. Briefly. We settled into the house of a British paymaster, Abraham Motier. But then, in May, hearing of epidemics of smallpox in Quebec and other locales, I chose to leave George behind and travel to Philadelphia to be inoculated from the disease. I hoped to lead others by example—especially my husband. Although he had no fear of the disease—having had it as a young man in Barbados—I thought it a wise move to decree all troops have the procedure. I heard John Adams say pox was ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians, and Indians together.
In Philadelphia, my arm was scratched and pus from a smallpox pustule was rubbed into it. To invite disease into one’s body . . . and yet it proved successful. It was hoped the inoculated—I would say victim but withheld that title for the genuine kind—would develop a mild case, recover, and become immune. Blessedly, it worked as expected, and within a few weeks I was well enough to travel.
But George said I could not come to New York with him. It was far too dangerous. And then, though I wished to be in Mount Airy for the birth of our grandchild, I could not go there, for other dangers hung close. Jacky wrote of British raiding parties that scourged the Potomac area in Maryland. Added to that was the risk of marauding slaves, let loose by Dunmore. Yes indeed, he was their hero. I heard it said there were an alarming number of slave babies named Dunmore.
I was in limbo. I knew George needed me. Through letters and newspapers I heard of grave problems in New York. The British general Burgoyne was threatening the city from the north, while Generals Howe and Clinton did their dirty work close by.
Then a spy was discovered in my husband’s house in the guise of a maid!
And then, he was nearly poisoned by the enemy! He assured me he was fine in both cases, but I wondered if the incidents would have occurred had I been there to care for him and mind the details he was too busy to mind.
Details such as uniforms for the men. Many of our troops looked like bedraggled beggars. George planned to ask Congress to properly clothe them, and sought my advice. After all, I regularly clothed hundreds of slaves. Bearing through the heat of summer in Philadelphia myself, I had trouble even imagining the heavy wool uniforms. So I thought . . . why uniforms? We had one advantage. The Indians had taught the French and the French had taught us that shooting a gun while hunkered behind a tree or bush wearing a hunting shirt and breeches was far wiser than standing in a formed line, being shot at while wearing a brightly coloured uniform—a uniform that was restrictive of easy movement.
So . . . why not provide hunting shirts which were cool in the heat, and could be made warm by adding clothing under them when needed? Plus, making such shirts and breeches would be economical and easy enough for most seamstresses. George pointed out another advantage. Since the British opinion of us had moved from total disdain to fear that the men, as woodsy hunters, could shoot the gnat off a wart, we needed to take advantage of such misconceptions. Although the legend of sharpshooters may have been true for those coming from rural areas, the truth was, our city-based soldiers had trouble hitting the side of a house.
And so, for the first time in the history of European war, the uniform of an entire army was to be nonceremonial yet functional. George and his officers would still wear their blue regalia—for we both knew decorum and sophistication were required for those in charge—but George requested funds from Congress for the new soldier gear.
I was also not there when George received a commendation from Congress for his great success in Boston. He made light of it in his letters to me, and was far more proud of an honorary degree Harvard College bestowed upon him. He valued education, and if there was a weakness in his confidence, it stemmed from his lack of it.
And more news . . . as of July 4, 1776, we were no longer the united colonies but the united states of America. Congress signed a document here in Philadelphia that boldly stated we wanted no part of allegiance to another nation. This Declaration of Independence was written by none other than our friend Thomas Jefferson, that young soft-spoken Virginian who served with George in the House of Burgesses. I read its content more than once when it was printed in the newspapers. Its simplicity and eloquence were impressive:
We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . .
George had it read aloud to the troops in New York City, to great cheers.
I must admit it made my throat tighten and my heart beat a little faster. Yet in spite of its stirring words, it also elicited a somber reaction: there was no turning back. There would be no end to this conflict but victory or defeat, no taking it back and asking Britain to return to the world we had before.
That world was gone forever.
Yet supposing victory—praying for victory—what kind of country would we have? Who would be our new king? What laws would govern us? Would our new way be a better way? If we were victorious, there would be incredibly much to do . . . .
The future was daunting.
The war was daunting.
The loneliness was daunting.
I wanted to go home.
*****
I missed the birth of our second grandchild.
A granddaughter: Elizabeth Parke Custis—to be called Betsy—was named after Eleanor’s mother, and carried the Parke name to appease that ancient and pesky appendage of a will by the Parke family that insisted on the name in order to receive the inheritance. George and I were named godparents.
Each morning when I awakened in Philadelphia, alone in my bed, so far from my family, I reached for the letter from Jacky, needing to buoy myself with that lovely news:
Mount Airy August 21st 1776
My dearest Mamma,
I have the extreme Happiness at last to inform you, that Eleanor was safely delivered this Morning about five o’Clock of a fine Daughter. I wish you were present You would be much more pleased, if you were to see the strapping Huzze. Her Cloths are already too small for Her. She is in short a fine a Healthy fat Baby as ever was born.
Poor Eleanor had a very indifferent Time, her pains were two Hours long & very severe. She is now thank God as well as can be expected and the Pleasure her Daughter gives Her compensates for the Pain. I wrote to the General the last two Posts.
I cannot pretend to say who the child is like. It is as much like Doctor Rumney as any Body else. She has a double Chinn something like His, in point of Fatness with fine black Hair, & Eyes, upon the whole I think It is as pretty & fine a Baba as ever I saw. This I not my opinion alone, but the Opinion of all who have see Her—I hope she will be preserv’d as a Comfort, and Happiness to us all.
Happiness to us all . . . I took comfort in the obvious fact that Jacky and Eleanor were happy, and indeed made for each other. It was a good thing we allowed them to marry. That our doubts had proved false was a relief.
But then, in my joy, I brought to mind new family pain. My brother William had recently died, drowned in the Pamunkey River. That cursed river of my youth! To have taken two of my brothers, one at seventeen and one at forty-two. Add to that this cursed war which prevented me from attending his funeral.
To add further to my woe I heard Mother was not doing well, and two of my sister Nancy’s three surviving children were ailing . . .
And what of Mount Vernon? Lund was doing his best, and I knew he sent weekly reports to George, but with no master or mistress present, and by the cause of my taking the best servants north, I knew there was little incentive present for anyone to do much of anything. In what state would I find our beloved home when I did manage to return to its beloved halls?
My worries contained issues of a larger scale. Things were not going well for George. A bit at a time he had lost New York: first Long Island and then Manhattan, Harlem Heights, White Plains . . . He had been slowly forced back through New Jersey. Morale was low. Confidence waned. He himself wanted to quit. I do not know what plan of conduct to pursue, he had said in one of his letters. I never was in such an unhappy, divided state since I was born.
I ached to be with him, to console him, to encourage him.
To do something for someone.
But there I sat. Alone in Philadelphia. Unable to help husband, grandchild, niece, nephew, mother, home—or country.
Helpless and of little worth.
*****
In spite of the danger, I returned to Mount Vernon, the threat that the coming winter could strand me in Philadelphia causing me to brave the journey.
Besides, Philadelphia was no longer considered safe, as the British had pushed George and his troops back across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Congress, panicked, moved its meeting place to Baltimore.
They doubted George’s ability to lead.
George doubted himself. The troops he had remaining from the seventeen thousand in Cambridge were a small number—down to a bit beyond five thousand, with a full third of those too sick or needy to be of use. The men were tired and wanted to go home, for they had farms to run and family to see.
As did George. He longed to be home . . . in peaceable enjoyment of my own vine and fig tree, as he’d put it.
I longed to have him there. For he had been gone eighteen months, and I a year. Never, in our worst nightmare, did we imagine being absent so long. And when I returned to Mount Vernon—’twas to a different nightmare.
One of my worst fears.
The house was in disrepair. I walked from room to room, my head shaking in disgust. I ran a finger along the furniture, leaving behind a marked trail. On the table of the west parlour, I wrote my condemnation: Dusty! The portraits of family—including a young version of myself, peered down at me, accusing me of dire neglect.
The young Martha Custis would not have allowed her home to be in such a state.
I went upstairs and found the bedrooms stale and dismal, the bedding untouched and uninviting. Even the mirrors seemed veiled by the dust.
Lund accompanied me. “Sorry, Martha. I can see now things could have been done here, but with the house empty . . .”
I put a hand on the blue paint of the doorway leading to our bedroom—our new bedroom in the addition we had built two years before. George had only had a few months to enjoy it, as well as enjoy his study directly below before cause and country had taken him north. I looked at the brown-and-white-checkered wing chair by the fire and could remember him sitting there, removing his boots, leaning back with a sigh as he transformed from the public George to the man who was mine alone.
“Martha?”
I blinked the memory away and addressed George’s cousin. “I know things were difficult in our absence, Lund. I do not blame you. You had the farm to run. The house was of least concern.”
“A farm to run with fewer slaves. When Lord Dunmore made the offer of freedom for fighting, we lost enough to matter.”
“Has Dunmore honoured his promise to them?” I asked.
“I doubt it. They will probably be left wandering, away from their families, without means to survive.”
My mind rattled with a list of things to do. “We must up the production of the spinners. The soldiers need shirts and stockings.” I looked to some silk cushion covers that seemed far frivolous at such a time. “If need be, perhaps we could unravel these and rework them with the homespun. Can we do that?”
“We will do our best.”
It was all any of us could do. I put my hand upon the leather key basket that daily accompanied me upon my domestic rounds. “The world is indeed turned upside down, Lund.”
“For all of us,” he said.
I set to work, reclaiming this house as our home.
*****
I shivered my
self to wakefulness.
I drew the covers close, but realized my body was not reacting to cold, but to something else.
I shivered not for the good news recently received of American victory in Princeton—news that was eagerly heard—but for the stories of how George had spent his Christmas crossing the Delaware River, in the dead of night, in silence, moving his entire army to the Hessian stronghold at Trenton, New Jersey, for a surprise attack. Although most Americans relayed the story as one of heroic magnitude, I knew that beyond the heroism it was an act of desperation. Our soldiers suffered horribly in Pennsylvania and needed supplies and indoor lodging. George relied on the fact that waging battle in the winter was simply not done. Both sides holed up and waited for better weather.
George could not wait. And so he arranged for his entire army to cross the icy river at night, march the eight miles up the snow-packed road to Trenton, and surprise the Europeans, who were hung over from Christmas merriment. And as the Almighty had saved Mount Vernon and me from Dunmore’s warships by creating a storm in the Potomac, so God once again used nature for our side’s benefit, creating storm enough to send the Hessian guards inside to get warm. Leaving the coast clear for our victory.
I shivered to wakefulness at the thought of our poor men, traipsing through the snow—many shoeless, leaving trails of blood upon the icy white. I shivered at the thought of George crossing a dangerous river . . . with the drowning deaths of two brothers, I would never be at ease at the thought of crossing water.
I turned on my side and put a hand across the pillow that should have cradled my husband’s head. Last I’d heard, he was in Morristown, New Jersey, where there had been an outbreak of smallpox. As the men were not in tents, but were staying in homes and businesses, the townspeople were none too keen on the close proximity of such an illness—or the dysentery that was a constant cloud upon our soldiers.
The outbreak was so severe—with nearly a fourth of the town’s residents dying from these diseases—that George overturned his previous order against inoculation. He intimated that my bravery at getting such a procedure for myself helped spur him toward his reversal. The trick was to inoculate without the British finding out and taking advantage during the period when the men were laid up in recovery.
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