Will lit the slow match, dropped it down the quill and shouted “Give Fire.” The twelve-pounder roared. It was a long distance shot, maybe fifteen hundred yards. The ball landed short but with enough remaining energy, it bounced into the line of the advancing Grenadiers. Will and the crew fell into a frenzied routine of worming, sponging, loading the charge and ball, inserting the quill and firing. They worked, in the excessive heat with precision and efficiency, the smoke and powder particles burning their eyes, their tongues thick with thirst. Will no longer watched to see where the balls went. It would not matter anyway as a bluish haze enveloped the fields and fences below. He lost count of the number of rounds fired, only noticing that the noise of muskets and artillery seemed duller inside his head. Through all of this, he heard Captain Hadley call for grape shot for the entire battery.
As the twelve-pounder was being loaded with the canvas bags holding up to forty iron balls, Will surveyed the sloping hills and road below. Through patches in the smoke, the green fields were dotted with Grenadiers repeatedly attacking and retreating before the Continentals dug in behind fences and firing down from a few rocky promontories, protecting the hill and his battery. Will estimated the enemy soldiers were about six hundred yards away. The grape shot tore into the advancing Redcoats, cracking into bone and fence posts alike, tearing gaps in their ranks, as Grenadiers fell dismembered or gutted. They recoiled, regrouped and returned to the attack. After firing several more rounds, Will noticed the Continentals on the slope directly below had been forced to give ground and were closer to the summit. The rocky promontories, forming a curving arc thirty yards below the battery, as fortified as a man-built palisade, was the last line of defense for the troops. Looking to the right of the hill, he saw other Continental units falling back, with a long line of red extending far beyond the Americans’ lines. They were about to be surrounded. He fought down a panicky urge to run.
A cannon ball struck just below the top of the earthen works, splattering Will with dirt. Another ball crashed into a tree behind him, shattering branches, raining down leaves and scattering splinters of tree trunk everywhere. They were taking fire from British field artillery. Will heard a scream of pain and fear as he held the slow match to the quill. He steadied the hand holding the match with his other and shouted “Give Fire.” The musket fire, whether from the attacking Redcoats or the Americans was incessant. Balls were pinging off the brass cannon barrels and ricocheting through the air. Will saw the Grenadiers were now less than sixty yards below the summit, maintaining their long battle line, the waning sun glinting off their lethal bayonets, as they clambered over the remaining obstacles of felled trees and reformed their ranks. A thin line of Continentals manned a fence line between the advancing Redcoats and the rocky outcroppings. They were about to be over-run. Will looked to Captain Hadley, who was standing behind Sergeant Otis’ six-pounder, his sword arm raised high above his head. Will was about to shout and ask for orders to retreat, when he saw a spurt of blood emerge from Hadley’s upper arm. He dropped the sword and fell backwards.
“Take charge as gun commander,” he yelled to Chandler and threw him his quill pouch. He dashed to Sergeant Otis’ gun position where Hadley had fallen. The Captain lay unconscious, sprawled on his back, his head lying at an odd angle on a rock. Blood pulsed through his blue jacket sleeve and pooled on the ground. Will knelt down next to him, aware of increased hail of musket balls in the air and thudding sound they made as they struck the tree trunks and boughs behind the battery. He ripped a piece of Hadley’s white linen shirt and made a tourniquet, tightening it with a thick piece of a branch, lying among the debris around the six-pounder.
“We have to save the guns,” he shouted to Otis. “The Redcoats are advancing on our right.” The Sergeant nodded. “The left flank is also crumbling,” he said, waving off in the direction of the other side of the summit. “You go for the horses.” Will took one more look at Captain Hadley’s inert form and left the embattled battery on the hill.
When he returned mounted on Big Red and leading the other horses, the last of the Continentals, perhaps eighty men, had been forced back from the promontories and had taken cover behind the earthen works surrounding the guns. For the moment, their musket fire and the cannons’ grape shot were holding the oncoming Grenadiers at bay.
Will hitched Big Red to the wagon, while Grayson, Tyler and Chandler turned the brass twelve-pounder around and attached it to the wagon’s rear axle. Baldwin ran to Sergeant Otis’ position and hoisting the limp body of Captain Hadley across his shoulders, ran with him and laid him none too gently in the wagon bed.
Will raced in a crouch to Sergeant Otis’ gun. “You fire first followed from right to left in one minute intervals by the others- fire one round of grape and then hitch your cannon to the horses and retreat,”
Otis looked at him and smiled grimly. “First, the bulldogs assault us from the front, then the curs join in for the kill. Well, we will deprive them of their prize.” He turned back to the touchhole and inserted a quill. “Primed,” he shouted hoarsely.
Will sprinted from one gun commander to the other, repeating the instructions. Musket balls buzzed menacingly through the air around him. They were taking fire from both sides of the summit now as well as from below. The rays of the setting sun, broke through the battle’s haze and cast paths of light pointing toward the Americans’ crumbling positions.
Before mounting Big Red, he looked in the wagon, where Captain Hadley lay, crowded with other wounded soldiers moaning or crying out piteously for water. Baldwin and Grayson sat hunched on the side bench. Chandler and the rest of the crew clung to the gun carriage. Musket fire severed a large branch that fell in front of Big Red. The horse snorted and shook his head. Will tightened the reins to prevent him from rearing, and aware that he was now a more prominent target, crouched low over the horse’s tangled mane and urged him down the far side of the slope, away from the advancing Grenadiers. He hoped the light infantry flanking the battery were not yet close enough to aim accurately or that Jaeger skirmishers had not already cut off their retreat. He had already resolved, if he had to, to abandon the cannon and move the crew into the already crowded wagon. Save the men to fight another day, he thought.
A hail of musket fire, from his left whipped through the lowlying branches, knocking twigs and a shower of leaves to the ground. The balls struck the sides of the wagon with a sharp crack, splintering the pine slats, pinged off the metal latches and hitting human bodies with a soft dull thump. Will felt a sharp pain in his left hand and saw blood ooze from a hole just below his thumb. Big Red staggered and Will cried out, thinking the horse had been shot. He recovered his stride. Will realized he had involuntarily jerked back on the reins when the fragment of wood or metal had struck his hand. He grabbed the reins firmly with his other four fingers and urged Big Red forward, ignoring the screams of pain from behind him.
They galloped down a well-worn dirt path through the wooded slope. At that speed, Will knew the wagon would overturn if it hit a low tree stump in the path. But he was more afraid of an ambush. They had to get away as quickly as possible. Using his good right hand, he pressed his sleeve against the bloody hole just below the thumb joint. The pain was intense, radiating up through his wrist. He hoped nothing had struck bone. He looked back over his shoulder. Some of the wounded lying in the wagon were bleeding profusely. At quick glance, it appeared they had been hit by the last volley of musket fire as they lay helpless in the wagon bed. Baldwin was cradling Grayson with one arm, both of them, now sitting among the wounded. The front of Baldwin’s coat was covered in blood. Behind the twelve-pounder, through the trees, he saw one or two of the brass six-pounders from their battery and thought it was Sergeant Otis on the lead horse.
Ahead, through a clearing was a road. With the sun low in the sky behind him, he knew it led southeast, well inland from the ford he had been at that morning. Blue clad Continentals, running as fast as they could, emerged from the woods on his lef
t. He heard musket fire but did not turn in the saddle to see if Redcoats or green clad Jaegers were in pursuit. He reached the road. On either side, clumps of disorganized troops jogged along.
Further down the road, they came upon remnants of a baggage train, some wagons carrying a grim cargo of wounded, maimed and dying soldiers, blood dripping through the floor boards and staining the dusty ground beneath. A body of troops, about one hundred in number led by a few officers, left the road, and marched resolutely through an orchard toward a rocky hill and back toward the enemy. The loud high screech of bagpipes and the drums signaled the relentless pursuit of the Redcoats.
Will kept Big Red at a fast trot. He switched the reins to his right hand and found the four fingers on his left were cramped in a curled position and blood still flowed freely from the torn flesh below his thumb joint. Guiding Big Red with his knees, he fumbled for and found a piece of cloth for cleaning his ramrod in his saddlebag. He tied the dirty grey rag around his thumb, let his left hand rest on the saddle pommel and held the reins in his right.
At dusk, they passed several houses clumped around a crossroads. Weary and exhausted men lay everywhere and those able to stand were crowded around the one or two wells, eagerly drinking and dousing their heads in the buckets while those behind them clamored for their turn. Will decided there would be no help for the wounded and the place would probably be overrun by British troops in the morning. They continued on, following wagon loads of wounded, accompanied by the sounds of insects, the soft moans of soldiers and the occasional piecing scream of a man unable to bear his pain any longer.
After another three miles in the gathering dark, they came to a crossroads and headed almost due east. Lights from the windows of several buildings twinkled ahead. Whatever this place was, Will determined they must rest here. Lanterns hung from tree branches illuminated several fenced in yards. It was quickly clear, from the pile of amputated limbs and the screams of agony from within, that two of the out buildings were being used as field hospitals. Will wearily eased himself from the saddle, stiff and exhausted and limped back to the wagon.
“Grayson is dead,” Baldwin said, still cradling the powder handler in his arms. “Took two musket balls through his back. He passed about an hour ago.”
Will sighed. He wondered whether he could have done anything differently during the retreat from the summit to better protect his gun crew. Hadley lay with his head on the thigh of another wounded soldier. His eyes were closed and his chest moved slightly as he breathed.
“Help me get the Captain out of the wagon,” Will said. Baldwin gently leaned Grayson against another man, bent down and lifted Hadley upright. The Captain’s face, even in the dim light looked ashen gray. His eyes fluttered open and he moaned softly. Will draped Hadley’s good arm over his shoulder and with Baldwin supporting their Captain from the other side by his waist, they moved slowly toward the light of the shed.
“Do not let them take my arm, Will. Promise me,” he said hoarsely, his chin almost resting on his chest.
“I will do my best,” was all Will could say to reassure him. The Captain’s mouth formed a small smile. “I rely on your promise.”
Mercifully, Hadley, lost consciousness and did not see a bloody hand and forearm sawed off below the elbow sail through the shed’s window onto the pile of already amputated limbs. 7
Chapter 11- Philadelphia in Turmoil
“I will not remain idle in this city one day longer,” Mercy Ford
said vehemently. Elisabeth nodded in agreement. They were sitting in Mrs. Knox’s large drawing room, sorting through bolts of linen and cutting them with sewing shears into strips for bandages. With the rich draperies pulled back, the mid-morning sun streamed through the floor to ceiling glass French doors, which were opened a crack to permit some fresh air to enter. The busy work barely distracted Elisabeth from thinking about Will.
“Dr. Rush himself has left to tend to the wounded, as have several other medical men. Or should I say, men who claim to have the necessary experience,” Mercy added. “As if there are no women who have set bones, stitched wounds, staunched blood and God knows what else to repair the damage men have done to others or to themselves.” 1
Elisabeth had not been taught those skills at her family’s home in Albany. Will had told her of Miss Mercy’s efficient and capable help in tending to the wounded in Morristown. She was certain she could learn from her, or at least be of some help. Anxiously, on September 11th, she along with the people of Philadelphia heard the sounds of the battle. Some wondered what it meant for their cause. The cannonades and musket fire seemed to ominously boom throughout the entire day. When the firing ceased, around 6:30 at night, it was as if the entire city held it’s collective breath.
News of the disaster reached Philadelphia mid-morning the next day. Tidbits of information, from those who had heard something from someone who had read a dispatch, grew into the most dire accounts, as rumors first spread among the wealthy in their mansions on Society Hill down to the laborers at the wharves by the river. 2 The city was divided between grim patriots fearing the worst and Loyalists barely concealing their joy.
“I am anxious for my dear Harry, perhaps horribly wounded or lying dead in an open field, unburied and left for crows and . . .” Lucy Knox’s voice trailed off as she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I had such vivid nightmares with ghastly images of him.” Elisabeth had heard her crying in the night, alone in the canopied bed. Her red puffy eyes were proof of her distress this morning.
“Surely, if General Washington penned a note to warn the Congress, my dearest would have had the time to inform me of his status. Unless he is dead or suffering from some awful wound,” Lucy said. She rose anxiously at the clattering of hooves on the cobblestones outside, stopped despondently as the sound of the rider passed by down the street and sank her large rear back into the sitting chair. “It tries my very being to be so near to a battle in which my beloved Harry is involved. Better to be far away in Connecticut or even Boston where his letters would reach me the same time as news of victory or defeat,” she bemoaned.
“Writing is usually not an activity one immediately engages in while in retreat,” Mercy observed. “He may have been captured,” she added to soften her reply. “I am sure it will only be a matter of time before you hear from him. The British will treat a general officer with courtesy.”
Elisabeth glanced at Mercy. She, like Elisabeth was worried about the fate of a loved one but would not reveal her inner feelings. Elisabeth now thought of Will as one whom she loved. Dear God, having recognized her love would it now be destroyed by this terrible battle. Mercy was right. Sitting idly by doing nothing except accumulating bandages for soldiers in need was intolerable.
“We must go to the wounded to help treat them and not wait for them to be brought here,” Mercy said, waving her arm around the room and rolling her eyes at the luxury surrounding them- silken wall paper and matching embroidered drapes, a tea table, a massive highboy, and a dining room table, all made of polished dark mahogany highlighted with lightwood inlays adorned with brass handles. “We need transport- a carriage or wagon,” Mercy said, giving voice to Elisabeth’s thoughts.
“I will ask Judge Shippen,” Elisabeth said, abruptly standing up from the bright yellow upholstered Grecian couch.
“Yes,” Lucy said bitterly. “A man who does not hide his Loyalist leanings very well will have no need to flee the oncoming British Army.”
“He will not refuse transport of medical supplies and assistance. Philadelphia has not yet fallen and if it does, our cause will still triumph,” Mercy said. “He will be shrewd enough to prepare himself for that day as well. While Elisabeth calls on Judge Shippen, I will seek help from another quarter.”
“Be careful, my dears,” Lucy said. “With all this uncertainty, rough sorts may be emboldened to take advantage and the streets may not be as safe as usual. I would join you but I must remain here with our daughter and word may come at
any moment from my dear Harry.”
By the mid afternoon, Elisabeth and Mercy left the city in one of Judge Shippen’s carriages, not his finest but well suited to the road, and driven by one of his employees, a brawny teamster who would discourage any mischief. They were accompanied by Mary Lewis who, when asked by Mercy had without telling her husband, gone to one of his warehouses and simply commandeered a horse, driver and wagon which was now filled with crates and trunks of bandages, blankets, new and used, and clean clothes for the wounded.
As Judge Shippen had insisted, they did not proceed directly toward the Brandywine battlefield, a distance of fifteen miles to the southwest. The Judge’s information was that the army had retreated in the direction of Chester, more to the north. The largest concentration of wounded would be there. Mercy was no longer certain of that. Before they left, a rider had delivered a letter to Lucy Knox, sent from a “Camp near Schuykill” assuring her Harry was safe. 3 It bore that day’s date, the 13th of September. With the army on the move, Mercy said, the wounded may have been sent away and perchance were on their way to Philadelphia.
“Perhaps, we should stay and tend to those who do arrive,” Mary suggested.
Mercy shook her head. “We have begun the journey. There definitely will be wounded to attend to and a need for our supplies when we arrive. We must continue on.”
Elisabeth only vaguely heard them as she sought to quell her desperate panic. General Knox had not mentioned Will as he had in prior correspondence. The absence of a comment was an ominous sign for her. The General was kindly sparing her the worst of all possible news, she concluded. Will must be dead. No, she thought. Until I am told I must believe he is alive somewhere.
Just before dusk, they arrived in the small town of Darby and learned that the army was indeed on the Schuykill and had left the wounded in this place and in small hamlets and at farms stretching from here south to the battlefield. A light rain had begun to fall as the three women, raising the hems of their dresses, walked through the mud of a churned up yard, toward the barn that served as a makeshift hospital. Wounded men lay outside, shivering the cool evening air, seeking any available bit of shelter. Some huddled against a horse trough, others had burrowed into a hayrick, their boots protruding like well shod scarecrows.
Blood Upon The Snow Page 21
