Cannons for the Cause

by Martin Ganzglass

  “Lieutenant Holmes and I are friends. I was part of the artillery train from Fort Ticonderoga,” he said by way of explanation, unsure whether he should add more to persuade the sentry to let him pass.

  “Ahh. So you were part of the great trek. ‘Twas truly important work you and the Lieutenant did, bringing those guns here. Most of the militiamen in camp have never even seen a cannon.” He snorted derisively. “I heard there were high mountains you went over,” shaking his head in disbelief and not waiting for Will to respond. “Give me the sweet smell of ocean spray anytime.” He was going to launch into a paen to the virtues of the sea but was interrupted by a call from the other sentry. A heavily laden wagon, it’s contents covered by a canvas tarpaulin was approaching the entrance. “Well, ‘tis back to my duty,” he said. “Go on. Pass through,” he motioned with a wave of his hand.

  Will was halfway up the slushy path when Nat dashed down the steps of the Mariner’s headquarters building. When he saw Will, he let out a shout of recognition. They ran forward and embraced, clasping, pounding each other on the back.

  “I am so pleased to see you. No. I mean I’m glad you’re here but there is important work to be done and you are just the one for it.”

  Nat had just ridden in from Salem, a distance of slightly more than 17 miles. A privateer had captured the British brigantine Nancy three days before and brought her into Salem. She was loaded with six and twelve pound balls too numerous to count, racks of muskets, barrels of powder and tons of musket shot and flint. “We need sleds, wagons and teams to bring this fortuitous gift of arms to Cambridge.”

  In no time, Will had Big Red and the mare and two of his father’s eight other horses in their traces and was through the lines heading to the Mystic River. Behind him, was a hastily assembled small procession of sleds and wagons. Nat, riding a fresh mount, caught up with Will after their little train had crossed the causeway and was already on the road to Marblehead and Salem. His horse trotted alongside for a while but the strong wind made talking difficult. At Nat’s suggestion, Will stopped, Nat tied his horse behind the empty sled and joined Will on the seat.

  “It is like when we sat together before Glen Falls,” Nat said, “though I miss a sack of oats for a cushion.”

  “I gather you are now a Lieutenant,” Will said, beaming at his friend.

  “I care not a whit for the rank,” he replied. “It is enough my fellow Mariners approved and voted for my promotion,” he said with pride. “However, it does have its advantages. I am slightly more acceptable in Anna’s father’s eyes.”

  “Where is Anna? Have you seen her?” Will asked grinning.

  “She slipped out of Boston less than a month ago and returned to her father’s farm. Mr. Edes her employer, together with his wife, are in Watertown, with no need for her services in their temporary quarters. I am relieved because in the letters I found waiting for me, she described the conditions in Boston, especially for a single young girl, as especially perilous.”

  “So? Did you see her?” Will persisted.

  “Of course. I was in Salem on Colonel Glover’s orders, outfitting another schooner as a privateer, when I learned she was there. I called on her to see her and to formally ask her father for her hand in marriage.”

  “And,. . . Go on.” Will asked, imagining his friend importuning Anna and she blushing and swooning as when Tom Jones had kissed Sophia’s hand.

  “Well,” Nat continued. “It was,” he sighed, “difficult to speak. Her mother and sisters were in the room. The time was short. Mr. Gibbs came in and upon hearing I had been promoted to Lieutenant made clear while it was a mark in my favor, said I probably would be away more rather than less, having a higher rank and greater responsibilities.” He shook his head. “I could see that he was impressed but not enough. I lost courage and did not ask for his consent.” He saw Will’s look of surprise and disbelief. “It was not the right moment,” he explained lamely.

  Will quickly changed the subject to cover his friend’s embarrassment. He told Nat about the remainder of the trek from Framingham to Cambridge and the installation of the fortification guns on Lechmere Point.

  “I am pleased to be of service now but soon I have to find my brother and decide what to do.”

  “That will have to wait until we liberate Boston. It is too dangerous for you to enter the city. You can write your father and tell him so and also,” Nat paused and nudged Will with his elbow, “Elisabeth to whom you have not sent a word since leaving her in Albany.”

  The entire round trip between Cambridge and Salem took two and a half days. There were many willing and able hands in Salem to load the wagons and sleds. The crew of the American privateer, pleased the Nancy’s cargo would help the cause of the Revolution and more pleased with their anticipated shares of the prize money, eagerly told their story of the quick chase off the coast of Cape Ann and the short exchange of cannon fire which had made the Nancy theirs.

  “They were lucky,” Nat observed, seated beside Will on the sled, as they rode back to Cambridge. “If Admiral Howe had anticipated we would outfit privateers, he would have sent escort vessels from the fleet lying in Boston harbor. We would have been hopelessly outgunned.”

  “What happens if our men are captured?” Will asked.

  “They will be hung as pirates or imprisoned, which may be worse,” Nat replied.

  “Would you go privateering? You said the prize money is good.”

  “It is tempting. I would be Captain and receive the major portion of any prize money, after the backers and outfitters had been paid properly, of course.” He pulled his cloak higher over his neck against the northerly wind at their backs. “But now I am betrothed to Anna. I will continue to serve in the Mariners and not put to sea as a privateer.” He grinned at Will’s surprise.

  “When did you ask her father for her hand?” Will said.

  “The morning after you and I arrived in Salem.”

  Nat described in detail how Colonel Glover had ridden with him to Anna’s father’s farm both in their dress uniforms. The Colonel, a gentleman very well respected in Salem, had vouched for Nat’s character and seriousness of purpose, and had not left until Mr. Gibbs had given his consent. Colonel Glover and Anna’s father had sealed their understanding with a bottle of brandy, brought by the Colonel and generously left behind as a token of his appreciation for Mr. Gibbs’ acceptance of Nat’s formal request.

  “And now I’m to be wed and Colonel Glover has assigned me to Salem for the outfitting of two more schooners as privateers. Even working at our fastest, which we most assuredly will do, I will be there until mid March. I cannot tell you Will, how happy I am to know I will be with my Anna.”

  The teamsters delivered the Nancy’s captured treasure of cannonballs and musket shot to the Cambridge Powderhouse, a tall stone tower capped by a conical roof, where the powder for the artillery and guns was stored. The muskets and flint were unloaded at the main armory. The drivers, as if by pre-arranged signal, drove their now empty sleds and wagons to Cambridge’s outskirts and assembled in the cold, outside a paymaster’s tent of the Massachusetts Militia. Will was about to follow Nat.

  “Where do we go now?” he inquired, turning to watch his friend untie his horse from the rear of the sled.

  “Are you so wealthy you will forego your pay?” he asked Will.

  “I thought I was helping the Colonel, Colonel Knox, I mean,” he said confused.

  “You are. The Colonel paid your father for your services to bring the cannons to Cambridge. It is now your turn to be paid for your own services in bringing the Nancy’s cargo from Salem. Come to the Mariner’s Headquarters, and wait for me there if I am gone.” He put his hand to his tri-corn and rode off.

  An hour later, with ten shillings, the first money he had ever earned for himself, tied securely in a small leather pouch inside his haversack, Will left the militia encampment and drove his sled down the road back toward Cambridge. A crowd of off-duty soldiers dressed in a va
riety of uniforms were standing behind a line of riflemen leaning nonchalantly, almost carelessly, against a few stacked hay bales. Will stopped his sled and stood up on the seat. He recognized the frontiersmen as MacDowell’s Rifles. He watched as one of the rifleman paced off a distance and drove a rectangular board on a wooden peg into the ground with his tomahawk. He affixed a square piece of white paper in the center. The man loped effortlessly back through the light powdered snow.

  “That is two hundred yards,” he announced to the onlookers, barely short of breath. “Each of us will fire once from here, behind these bales. Then we’ll run forward a bit, fall to the ground and shoot. There are ten of us, firing twice. There should be twenty holes in that paper out there.”

  Will stamped his feet to keep warm and hugged his arms to his chest, tucking his hands under his armpits. The bitter cold did not seem to bother the riflemen, who stood quietly waiting their turn. He watched as the first man knelt in the snow, rested his rifle on the hay bale, fired and stepped back to reload. Will couldn’t see whether his shot had hit the paper, but when the tenth man had fired, there was a large black ragged mark in the paper. The riflemen ran toward the target for about twenty or thirty yards, flung themselves on the ground and fired rapidly at the paper. When the last one had finished, one ran the remaining distance, pulled the board and stake out of the ground and brought it back to the watching soldiers. A cheer went up as the board was passed from hand to hand.

  “That one on the edge of the paper is mine,” one of the riflemen confessed, his voice tinged with disappointment. “I hit my elbow when I fell down to fire and my arm was a tad numb,” he said by way of apology.

  The soldiers clamored for more demonstrations as others from MacDowell’s rifles wandered down from their encampment in the tree line. Will wanted to stay but knew he should not keep Nat waiting. He stopped at a barn to retrieve the other four horses and hitched them to the empty sled.

  He made fast time with the eight-horse team on the road to Cambridge and was waved through by the sentries at General Washington’s headquarters. Following their directions, he pulled his team into a barn in the far corner of the stone-fenced property. He placed them two to a stall. Big Red and the grey shared one enclosure together. Will knew the food for his eight horses would not be given free. He would have to arrange to pay for it, maybe by labor as a stable hand in exchange, he thought.

  He scraped the mud and frozen slush off his boots on a low iron bar outside the door to the Mariner’s Headquarters. Inside there were many men, most in uniform, seated on long wooden benches, chatting or waiting their turn to be admitted upstairs to see Colonel Glover. An orderly in charge of the process looked at him quizzically.

  “I am here to meet Lieutenant Holmes,” Will said in a firm voice, trying to overcome his shabby appearance. “My name is Will Stoner.” He took off his battered hat, thinking it would make him seem more respectful.

  The orderly smiled in recognition. “Ah, the Lieutenant mentioned you would be by. He said you were to be made comfortable and extended every courtesy as his friend. You can wait for him in that room over there with the fireplace.” He pointed to his left.

  Will walked into the warm room, removed his haversack and blanket and sat down on a bench in a bay window. He was embarrassed his boots had left tracks from the entrance into the room. Several men, some tradespeople, some officers, overflowing from the crowded entrance hall were seated in armchairs closer to the fire. They ignored him. The civilians were carpenters, sail makers or riggers with proposals for modifying sloops into privateers. The others were merchants anxious to sell provisions for the voyages.

  The officers talked more of when and where General Washington would order an attack on Boston, and what role the Mariners would play in ferrying the troops across from either Charlestown or the marshy ground below Cambridge.

  “It will have to be a night assault, when the tides are ebbing,” one said. “He will order landings at Barton’s and Hudson’s points, on either side of Mill Pond, and attack the center of the city from two sides.”

  “Nonsense,” another responded. “There will be no need for us and our boats. The General will wait for the ice to freeze on the bays below Cambridge and Roxbury and move the troops across the Pond with a simultaneous straight frontal attack at Boston Neck. 3 It is the only way to neutralize the British Navy’s firepower.”

  “And why is that?” asked the first man.

  “Because if our troops at the Neck give close pursuit to the Redcoats, their ships will be unable to fire for fear of hitting their own men.”

  “They will simply blow our troops to bits as they march down from Roxbury to the Neck,” another said. “And it will not just be broadsides from His Majesty’s warships. Those forts on the Neck have twelve and twenty-four pounders. It has to be a surprise attack by water. The problem is how to amass the bateaus without the British being alerted.” Will listened to their back-and-forth military talk, envisioning the city as he had seen it from Lechmere Point. A battle was certainly coming. He wanted to be part of it.

  Nat stuck his head in the room and beckoned to Will. He nodded at the other officers as Will jumped up from the bench and grabbed his hat and haversack. It was dark outside as they went, almost at a run, past the sentries and down Brattle Street toward Colonel Knox’s house. The Colonel had been in Roxbury and Nat had met him, purely by chance, as he crossed the Charles River. Nat had mentioned bringing the shot from Salem and Will’s role, and the Colonel had asked to see him. An orderly from the Massachusetts Regiment of Artillery, resplendent in his clean white breeches and dark blue coat, directed them to the Colonel’s quarters upstairs.

  They knocked and found Colonel Knox immersed up to his shoulders in a large deep wooden tub, washing himself. William Knox was seated at a desk, quill in hand. He smiled, waved at them and continued writing. Nat took the vision of the naked Colonel in stride. Will felt his face flushing and couldn’t help but stare at the rolls of white fat around the Colonel’s middle. A clean uniform was laid out on the bed.

  “Ah, Will,” Knox said. “Forgive me for not getting up.” He laughed at his own joke. “I have been at Roxbury for two days and nights, mucking around in the mud of the fortifications, and now am wanted at a staff meeting by General Washington. I thought it appropriate to be presentable.” He eyed Will’s appearance. “You, Master Stoner, are in need of a bath as well. And perhaps some clean clothes. Billy can you see to that?” He turned his head to his brother, who nodded. “The clothes I mean,” he said chuckling to his brother. Billy laughed heartily.

  “Now, Will. I am in need of your able assistance,” the Colonel said, rinsing his shoulders with a sponge. “My Regiment is constantly moving supplies across our entire lines. Balls, shot, powder, flint, victuals and firewood for the men, and hay and oats for the horses. These goods, which are in great demand by every militia unit, have a way of either disappearing or coming up short weight when they arrive.” He stood up dripping and wrapped a tan blanket the size of a small tent, around himself, rubbing his body vigorously. Will noticed the last two fingers of his left hand were mere stubs.

  Knox caught Will staring. “This is my secret,” he said quickly covering the disfigured hand with a corner of the blanket. “A duckhunting accident in Boston Harbor in July of ‘73. The musket exploded and blew away parts of my fingers. It is no matter any more but I keep my hand hidden in public. It makes me uncomfortable when people stare.”

  Will looked away and stammered an apology.

  “No need, Will. No need. Now, where were we? Ah, yes,” he said, “the supplies. I need trustworthy men to deliver these goods to my Regiment. You will be hired as one of the teamsters. Billy will make the arrangements. And if you happen to see or learn anything untoward, report to me, or Billy if I am unavailable.”

  “I will certainly do that, sir.” Will replied, feeling more at ease now that Colonel Knox had put on his white breeches and was buttoning his shirt.

&n
bsp; “How many of your father’s horses did you bring?”

  “Four span.”

  “Well, eight are too many for the weight of our supplies. Are you willing to rent the extra horses out?” he asked. Will nodded, intending to keep Big Red and the grey mare for the sled.

  “Good. Billy will find haulers or others in need of horses and conduct that business on your behalf. I should think two shillings per week per horse would be fair.” Will nodded. He had no price in mind for the horses, having no idea whether they were scarce or plentiful in the area. “And you of course,” the Colonel continued, “will be paid the going rate for teamsters for your hauling, plus five shillings a month for being my eyes and ears.”

  Will recalled the Colonel’s speech to the Massachusetts teamsters before the ascent to the Blandford Summit and the campfire talk in Salem among the local wagoners that the Colonel had paid for the trek from Ft. Ticonderoga to Cambridge out of his own pocket, more than 500 pounds. He felt he had to speak, to contribute to the cause, to acknowledge the Colonel’s generous spirit and patriotism.

  “Sir. If you think it is fair, pay me for what I do as a teamster. But I would do that and more without pay to help you. As for the five shillings, I . . .” He was uncomfortable accepting money from the Colonel for what he regarded as his duty to report anyway, but was too unsure of how to express himself further.

  “Nonsense,” Knox said, silencing him with a wave of his hand. He sat down on the bed, which sagged under his weight and grunted as he pulled on one of his high black boots. “You are performing a service for me and my Regiment, and deserve to be paid for it. It is less than half the monthly wages of a Continental and you,” he pointed at Will, “unlike them, have to pay for your own food and housing. Where are you quartered, Will?”

  “He is staying with the Mariners on the grounds of the General’s Headquarters,” Nat interrupted before Will could answer. “There is room. Our ten companies are not up to full strength in Cambridge,” he explained. “Some of our men are away outfitting schooners as armed naval vessels.”