Blood Upon The Snow

by Martin Ganzglass

  Almost at noon, she was awakened by the sound of angry voices. She dressed quickly and moved quietly to the top of the stairs. Flattening herself against the wall, she caught a glimpse of John Stoner, standing in the alcove, his hat disrespectfully still on his head. Mary stood before him, looking matronly in her small white cap and apron, short, rotund and immovable, with her hands on her hips.

  “I ask you again, is Miss Elisabeth Van Hooten at home? I demand to see her.”

  “She went to a dinner and dance last night with Captain Montresor. I did not remain awake for her. For the sake of her chastity I presume she returned late and is still asleep.”

  John snickered. “Oh, it is her chastity you are now concerned with? I believe her to be a rebel spy. I can have you arrested for harboring such a person.”

  Mary stood her ground. “She is no more a spy than you are General Howe,” she retorted. “My husband was arrested by order of the Rebel Congress in late September. He is still imprisoned somewhere in southern Virginia. Do you seriously believe I would support a cause that has given me so much grief? Now, leave my house. You have taken up too much of my time already.”

  She took two steps forward and John retreated to the open doorway. “I will be watching you and your Miss Van Hooten,” he said pointing a finger at her. “The slightest misstep and you will be inside the Walnut Street Jailhouse. You may write your imprisoned husband from there.”

  “One more threat from you and I will report you myself,” Mary snapped back.

  “Oh? And to whom would that be?” John said, as he leered placing his face closer to hers. “Superintendent Galloway? You forget, you Quaker traitoress, I am his most trusted aide.”

  “Not Galloway,” she replied, barely hiding her contempt for the Superintendent. “I will report you to General Von Knyphausen. I have treated many wounded Hessians and he is deeply appreciative. As are his officers. Perhaps some of his Grenadiers may accost you on the street one night and teach you some manners.” She made a shooing motion with her hands and barred the door behind Stoner.

  Elisabeth met Mary coming up the stairs and embraced her. “Let us have some tea together and you can tell me what has brought this about,” Mary said. Elisabeth kissed the older woman on her cheek. “You are a dear, dear woman and friend,” Elisabeth said, resolved and greatly relieved to be able to tell someone of her secret and cease pretending even for a little while.

  Chapter 15 - The Return of Friends

  Will reread Elisabeth’s letter, dated the 28th of November. He was puzzled and confused. Addressed simply to Sgt. W of the Massachusetts Artillery it contained no tone of love and affection. She had not even referred to him by name, beginning with a rather formal sounding “My Dear.” She might as well have been writing to a maiden aunt, he thought. There were no hints of information, nothing written in invisible ink, a regretful comment about a dance being cancelled and some silliness about lights in the sky as an omen of a great battle to come. 1 The only part that made sense to him was the repetition of her intention to send him a neck stock and, she added this time, some buttons for the knee bands of his breeches.

  Two days later, he was asked to report to General Knox’ tent. Billy Knox showed him a package, wrapped in a week old edition of the Royal Pennsylvania Gazette. Inside were the promised neck stock and ten cloth buttons in a small embroidered pouch.

  “My brother desires that you examine this immediately.” Will laid out the contents on the General’s camp desk. Billy produced a razor and Will carefully cut the neck stock along the seam and the cloth from each of the buttons. He laid out several long strips of paper, all in the pigpen cipher. With quill and paper he set to decoding the boxes and dots.

  One strip revealed: first battalion of loyalists raised in city queens rangers under maj simcoe enlisting new companies four hundred men to date 2

  Another, when decrypted stated: one hundred and eighty waggoners hired beef and flour bought up by suttlers farriers working night and day shoeing horses

  carpenters repairing wagons

  Still another strip read: abled bodied wounded taken from hospitals for sentry duty in city

  soldiers in redoubts reduced in number

  Billy became more and more excited as Will laboriously decoded the messages and handed them to him. The one hidden in the neck stocking read: from mrs l friend several long staff meetings at gen howes headquarters more dispatch riders than usual

  on the 27th light infantry left city in direction of germantown much activity at hessian barracks 3

  Will handed him the piece of paper and lowered his head to the thin strips to better see the number of the dots, some of which were tiny and barely visible. He smiled at the thought of instructing her to write her cipher in bolder ink.

  your brother is asst to supt g

  accused me of being rebel spy because of my father has visited mrs l home

  believe i am being followed and watched he knows nothing of you and i

  protected by maj a and capt m

  be careful in your responses

  best not to include your name

  sign letters capt h

  Will reread the message he had translated and almost crumpled it in his hand in frustration. They were twenty-two miles from Philadelphia. He could be there in less than three hours. Billy read the last slip of paper.

  “I must bring these to my brother,” he said and rushed out of the tent. Left alone, Will overturned the canvas campstool in frustration and paced back and forth within the tent. He went outside into the cold and then remembered the cipher papers. He rushed back inside, burned the narrow strips of her coded messages in the candle flame and brushed the ashes to the ground, crushing them with his heel into the dirt. Then, he scooped the buttons up in his hand, wrapped them in the neck stocking and wandered the camp aimlessly, distraught and anxious for Elisabeth’s safety.

  On the second of December, the Army moved out of the gloomy, wet woods and occupied a series of high ridges, only sixteen miles from Philadelphia. The next day, British troops arrived and took up positions opposite them.

  Will stood on the heights of the ridge for a second frigid night, staring across the valley at the fires of the British Army. The campfires of the Americans flickered to his right and left for a continuous line extending three miles. The day had been marked by only light skirmishing in the valley below and probing attacks by British Light Infantry on the Americans’ right flank. I pray to God they come on tomorrow, Will thought, clenching his fists. Let them storm up the hill and be annihilated. Then we will drive them back through Germantown and from there to Philadelphia. He intended to ask General Knox to be reassigned to some forward unit. He could be among the first to enter the city. Once there, he would search for Elisabeth.

  He fingered the new neck stock Elisabeth had sent him, feeling the rough replacement stitching he had made along the seam. It was hard for him to concentrate, so great was his fury at his brother and his fear for Elisabeth. May it please God to direct the British to leave their fires in this coming morning and assault the ridge, he prayed. He did not sleep that night and at dawn, Chandler found him staring across the valley. A light fog and smoke from the campfires obscured the British lines.

  “They will not attack here,” Chandler said, pointing to the battery of ten cannons at the center of the line. As if to prove his point, they heard the sound of musket fire on the far left of the American lines from the densely wooded area sloping down into the valley. “Light volleys those,” Chandler said. “More probing I suspect.”

  By mid-morning, when no general attack had been launched, Will became increasingly irritable. He paced the battery from one cannon to another like a caged wild animal. The combination of musket and rifle fire had continued on the left flank but the volume remained the same, a clear indication that no massive assault was underway. When the firing petered out shortly after noon, Will was beside himself. A victorious shout erupted from the American lines as it became clear
the British were abandoning their positions across the valley.

  Will could not believe his eyes. The entire British Army was marching back toward Philadelphia on this clear bright December day, as if they were returning from field exercises. Perhaps it was a ruse he thought. To draw our army after them. Into the open. He waited for the orders to hitch up the cannons and give pursuit. There were no such commands. By nightfall, when the temperature plummeted, the soldiers emboldened by the British retreat from the field, tore down the barricade of sharpened tree trunks and branches in front of their own lines and used the logs as fuel for their cooking fires.

  For Will, the next several days were an agony of dashed hopes, freezing rain and hunger. Each time the Army marched, he hoped they were moving into battle. Instead, they seemed to aimless roam the barren countryside, already despoiled of everything edible by the strong foraging parties the British and Hessians had sent out from Philadelphia. Every time, when he realized they were moving further away from Philadelphia, Will fell deeper in despair, imagining John knocking on Mary Lewis’ door, pushing her out of the way and grabbing Elisabeth to drag her off to some prison. His brother’s face dissolved into a caricature of evil, his eyes burning bright with lust and power, his mouth open in an triumphal laugh, with Elisabeth screaming for help all the while. Chandler, noticed Will’s wild eyed, gaunt face and once asked him what was wrong. Will could not respond without revealing his secret, so he rudely told Isaiah to mind his own business. The rest of the gun crew, aware of his sour mood, left him alone. Will felt he would go insane from anxiety over Elisabeth and his overwhelming sense of helplessness. Only an accidental meeting with Billy saved him from his severe depression.

  Will remembered being seated inside the General’s tent, relatively dry on that cold, rainy day and listening to Knox’s deep voice, gently tell him, the information Elisabeth had sent corroborated that received from others. The planned surprise attack at Whitemarsh had been thwarted, the Americans had held the field and it had been the British who had retreated. The morale of the Redcoats and more importantly the Loyalists in Philadelphia was low. The depredations of the British in wantonly destroying crops and orchards, setting fire to homes and barns and leaving nothing standing, had alienated those who were undecided and strengthened the resolve of those already committed to the cause.

  “Your Elisabeth has helped to preserve the Army to fight another day.”

  “My Elisabeth,” Will said miserably, “is in immediate danger of being found out by my brother John and thrown into prison. And I can do nothing to protect her.” He broke down crying. “Worse things will be done to her, I know,” he shouted, in anguish.

  Knox waved away a sentry who had burst into the tent at Will’s loud voice.

  “Will, my boy,” the General said. “Elisabeth is an extremely clever and resourceful young lady. You cast doubts upon her intellect and ability by worrying so. That your brother has revealed himself, and she knows this, is something she will turn to her advantage.”

  “That is a comforting thought, Sir, but does little to alleviate my immediate misery and sense of foreboding. My brother is more vindictive and mean spirited than my father whom you last met in Great Barrington.”

  “True, Will. I did meet your father and bested him in the bargain having gained a fine young soldier and one I now regard as my own son.” Will looked up and managed a smile through red-rimmed eyes. “Let me go to her, Sir,” he pleaded. “I will disguise myself as a farmer, drive a wagon to Market Street this Friday and bring her to safety. It will be an easy matter to reach our pickets.”

  Knox leaned back in his camp chair and shook his head. “Your plan has little chance of success, Will. There are Loyalist Tory patrols on all the roads. If you are captured, it will further endanger Elisabeth.” He looked at Will sympathetically. “I understand your feelings of fear and desperation. I too felt that way when my dearest Lucy and I fled Boston and again when the British fleet arrived off of New York. Yet, distraught as I was, I placed my duty above my love for her, which I readily admit has no limits and can never adequately be described in my letters. You must do the same, Will and persevere.”

  He knew the General was right. There was no other practical course other than to wait. “Sir. Is there nothing else to be done?” he asked.

  Knox contemplated Will’s miserable expression. “I am at liberty to tell you we have others in Philadelphia who can be of assistance to Elisabeth if necessary. I will instruct them to contact her and make their presence known. We can bring her to safety when necessity demands it. For now, with the high ranking protection of Major Andre and Captain Montresor, I truly believe she is above and beyond reach of your brother.”

  The next day the Army moved to its winter encampment, a valley with a creek and the ruins of a burned ironworks, destroyed by the British before they captured Philadelphia. The urgency of constructing shelter channeled Will’s pent up anger and frustration from his mind to his shoulders and arms. The shrapnel wound in his hand, received during the retreat at Brandywine, had healed although there was residual stiffness in his thumb. He ignored it. From dawn well into the December winter darkness, Will led a squad of twelve men felling trees to construct log huts, each one built to the same specifications- fourteen feet wide by sixteen feet long, with slab shingled roofs. 4 He swung his axe in a steady rhythm, the long arcs biting huge, thick wedges from the trunk, occasionally seeing his brother’s head in the bare white wood before landing the blade either in a slashing blow across John’s skull or a straighter cut across the throat. His anger obliterated his hunger through the first few weeks, even though they were on half rations and sometimes for periods of four or five days, without bread and the another week, without beef or pork.

  By mid-January, the Army camp at Valley Forge was laid out in neat rows of log huts, with the officers’ cabins at the front of each row, kitchens at the rear of the line and behind them, the latrines. 5 Will still kept mostly to himself. On some clear, cold days he would take Big Red and ride out towards the forward pickets and beyond where he knew there were skirmishers in hopes of seeing a glimpse of the spires of Philadelphia, twenty-five miles away. In the absence of any further letters from Elisabeth, he imagined her seated in Mary Lewis’ front parlor, writing to him in guarded terms and glancing nervously out the window at the approach of each red-coated patrol.

  He returned one day in the late afternoon before dusk from his melancholy ride and led Big Red into a stable the Regiment had constructed for the artillery horses.

  “Will Stoner. They told me I would find you here,” a familiar voice said from the darkness within. Will immediately recognized the broad Bostonian accent.

  “Nat. Nathaniel Holmes? Is that you?’

  “It is indeed, trying to keep warm while waiting for you.” Nat emerged from the shadows and grabbed Will by the shoulders.

  “It has been a long time, almost an entire year since we last saw each other.” Will looked down at his friend’s smiling face, a little more careworn but still the same genuine, straightforward countenance he remembered. “Tell me, are you now a father?”

  “My son will be a year old in three weeks. He has been christened John Henry Holmes,” he said, the pride obvious in his voice. “Named for Colonel Glover and General Knox. I hope he will grow up with their attributes of character. More good news is that Anna is expecting our second. I left her in Salem almost three and a half weeks ago, in excellent health but dreading our being apart. And you,” he said, grabbing Will’s forearm in his two hands. “You look more gaunt and haggard. You must tell me of the battles you have been in since Trenton but first, do you still correspond with your dear Elisabeth?”

  At the mention of her name, Will croaked, a sound between a sob and acknowledgment. He looked around at others in the stable tending to their horses. “I will tell you everything,” he said determined to reveal Elisabeth’s service as an American spy and the helpless anguish he felt. “We need privacy. Saddle your
horse and ride with me a ways.”

  Nat looked reluctantly at his mare picking at some moldy hay in her stall. “My sea faring bones are still jarred by the long trip from Massachusetts.” He covered his reddish brown hair with his tri-corn. “Yet,” he sighed, “for the friendship I bear you, I will accept this additional pain.” Will patted Big Red on his shaggy mane and led him outside where they waited in the cold.

  They rode past the newly constructed redoubts and beyond the first line of pickets, huddled around a log fire that illuminated the frozen road. Will talked quietly of the joy he felt when Elisabeth professed her love for him, his fear when she agreed to remain behind in Philadelphia, his daily agony, knowing his brother was watching her every movement, intent on arresting her as a spy, and his overwhelming feeling of helplessness and inability to protect her.

  Nat listened. Without responding directly, he recounted his three voyages as Captain of a privateer out of Salem. At the start of each cruise, leaving Anna behind on the dock waving until his fast twelve gun sloop was out of sight, of days spent searching for unescorted British merchant ships coming down from Halifax, of outrunning armed British schooners and hiding from the faster twenty-four gun frigates that prowled the Atlantic sea lanes. They had captured five ships in those three voyages and his share had made him a wealthy man.

  “Yet every time I sailed away from the dock, seeing my Anna standing there, I was filled with a fear that if I were killed or hung as a pirate, she would be alone in the world, without me to protect her and our infant son.” He reached across the space between their two horses and gripped Will’s arm with his gloved hand. “I could not bear that thought any longer. I spoke with Colonel Glover. He has remained in Massachusetts, in command of a militia to be near his wife who is in poor health. 6 He recommended I do the same and offered me a position in his regiment.”

  Will stopped Big Red and peered at the flickering flames ahead, marking the position of the outer line of pickets. “Obviously you did not take his advice”