All day Friday, when he knew Caesar Winship was to be buried in Salem, Will made the same journey, carrying the same loads, on the busy, frozen rutted road to Roxbury. It was boring, cold, numbing work and despite the anticipation of the upcoming battle, he found himself occasionally nodding once or twice and letting the reins slacken. He focused on composing a letter to Elisabeth. He hoped he would have time to write before the attack on the city. He was not clear whether he would be with the Mariners or the Colonel’s artillery, but he knew he wanted to be part of it and, if possible, in the forefront.
By mid-afternoon the fields behind Roxbury were filled with work teams of soldiers. Some were busy hammering together large rectangular wooden frames of planks or logs. Others were manning bellows at makeshift forges, as skilled blacksmiths welded ten to twelvefoot-long iron chains to barrels and added extra hoops. Militiamen at the site where he deposited the saplings were binding them tightly with leather strips into ten foot long rolls. Will estimated they had a uniform circumference of two to three feet, but he could not see what use they would be, unless the intention was to set them on fire and roll them down on advancing British troops. Roll them down from where, he wondered. And didn’t someone know the green wood would not burn?
On Saturday, the second of March, in the dark cold of the predawn, the Colonel’s brother gave Will a pouch with coins and sent him toward Watertown, together with three other teamsters, to load their sleds with wheelbarrows and return quickly to Cambridge. Local farmers had already provided barrows, but Billy said there were more to be had. Will was to use his judgment in buying as many as possible.
“Why do we need wheelbarrows?” Will asked. “We have good sleds and wagons for hauling.”
“For the wounded, Will,” he said grimly. “Sleds and wagons will not be on the battlefield. General Washington himself ordered them for the care of the wounded,” Billy added as Will mounted his sled. “As we speak, the barracks are being cleared and prepared for the surgeons. I fear there will be much bloody work to be done.” 2
It was close to nine p.m. when Will returned to Cambridge, aching from bouncing over the rutted roads, wishing he had thought to bring a sack or blanket to cushion the hard wooden seat. He was cold and hungry. The sled was piled high with the last of the needed longhandled wheelbarrows, a few with a metal rim covering the wooden wheel, all stacked inverted in tall pyramids behind him.
At Cambridge, after crossing the river, he was directed to continue on toward the Lower Fort. The road was crowded with troops marching in the same direction, moving from Cambridge toward the American lines nearer to Charlestown. This must mean an amphibious assault was imminent, he thought, the ice in the harbor having broken up in the past few days. He wondered if Nat was back from Salem and with the Mariners.
If the troops saw the wheelbarrows on his sled and knew what they were intended for, none acknowledged it. Instead, as they marched briskly in the cold night air, eager to be on the attack after the incessant drilling and boredom of camp life, they joked as Will’s sled passed.
“That must be for us to carry General Howe’s silver dinner plate home,” one yelled out.
“Or for all the fine clothes the Officers’ ladies will have to leave behind.”
“I would rather carry off one of the fine ladies and her behind in a barrow,” came the cry, answered by laughter, followed by the command, “Silence in the ranks.”
It was too dark for Will to recognize the Regiment. It was clear to him, from their accent and ribald joking, it was a Continental unit from New England. He was relieved they were not Morgan’s Rifles.
Will deposited the wheelbarrows in an open field filled with pitched tents. The glow from the soldiers’ cooking fires revealed shadows of the men crouched around the flames for warmth. The aroma of roasting meat reminded Will he hadn’t eaten since dawn. There were some coins remaining in the pouch Billy had given him. Will had thought to buy food at a tavern but deemed it to be a betrayal of the trust placed in him. The money was to purchase wheelbarrows for the wounded, not to spend on himself. He pulled the collar of his brown coat higher and knotted the blue scarf tightly around his throat against the wind.
Suddenly the relative peacefulness of the night camp was shattered with the roar of cannons. He recognized the deeper booming of howitzers from the redoubts on the slopes of Cobble Hill. Eager to see the bombardment close up, Will drove his sled toward Lechmere Point, tied the mare to a tree and walked forward leading Big Red. He recognized a battery of the Massachusetts Artillery and saw the corpulent figure of Colonel Knox riding up and down the line. The American bombardment of Boston had begun. Below them, among the snow capped rooftops and the white on the Common, Will saw lights in buildings of the city and the campfires of the British troops. He noticed a few flashes from the British lines first, followed by the whistle of howitzer shells and the noise of shells bursting harmlessly in the night sky. They fell short of the American artillery. More British cannons joined in and the counter-fire became heavier.
Will could see there were far more guns in the British artillery emplacements than the American army possessed. Their guns blazed in an almost continuous arc beginning at the forts at The Neck, opposite the salt marshes below Roxbury to his far right, and from their floating batteries in Roxbury Bay. In front of him the British cannons on the Commons and along the shoreline to the mount below Beacon Hill revealed their positions with bright yellow flashes of light, before being hidden again in the darkness. Far off to his left, the Continental’s artillery dueled with the British emplacements above Charlestown.
Will stood quietly with Big Red, pleased that the horse neither shied nor pulled away from the booming of the cannons twenty paces away, or from the incoming retaliatory fire of the British. He felt the thrill of being under fire, however ineffective it was. Out of habit, he stroked the horse’s neck, calming himself as well in the process. A few buildings in Boston were on fire. The flames illuminated the smoke pluming upward into the moonlit sky. He thought he could hear human voices, some high-pitched screaming and others deeper, barking orders, although he could not make out any words. The entire British line was now marked by an almost continuous series of bright orange-yellow flashes of flame as their cannons returned fire, followed by the whooshing sound of cannonballs in the air and the whistle of howitzer shells before they exploded overhead.
Will moved down the line following the Colonel’s large caped figure. The moon’s light revealed the artillery men were no longer Knox’s regiment. They wore scarlet coats and pointed dark caps. As they went through the drill of worming, sponging and ramming home the charge, their accents confirmed to him that they were not Massachusetts men. Colonel Knox sat on his horse, talking to their officer and occasionally shouting out encouragement in his deep booming voice. Big Red whinnied, attracted by their horses. The officer turned, pointed at Will and said something to Knox.
“Is that you, Master Stoner?” the Colonel called, just before the vent tender’s shouted of “Primed,” quickly followed by the Gun Commander’s order, “Give Fire.” There was a brief pause as the powder in the quill caught fire, igniting the packed charge, and the carriage of the twenty-four pounder rolled back in recoil.
“Yes, Sir,” Will answered. The Colonel and the other officer watched for the impact. One of the gun crew was already worming the cannon as Will, obeying the Colonel’s wave, walked forward.
“I thought I recognized your horse in the darkness. What are you doing here?” Knox asked.
“I am accustoming Big Red to cannon fire,” Will answered.
“I can see that he is taking to it,” Knox said approvingly. “He will make a fine artillery horse. You may ride with me down the line if you wish,” he said, inviting Will forward. Will walked Big Red over to a cannon and, using a powder box as a step, swung up on the bare back of the tall horse. He bunched the traces in his hands, his feet hanging loose without stirrups, feeling the warmth of the horse beneath him. “This i
s Captain Crane of the Rhode Island Train of Artillery. His men are excellent gunners but we will have to do something about their scarlet coats. When the British advance to attack us, as they must, there can be no confusion as to who are the enemy.”
“The good people of Rhode Island raised the funds to equip our Regiment,” Captain Crane replied. He brushed a gloved hand over his gilded epaulet. “I can see that blue is the color favored by General Washington. In due course we will change. For now, our black leather caps will have to suffice as a distinguishing mark between friend and foe.”
“Your men will be safe enough in fixed artillery emplacements” Knox said, as they arrived at another battery. “Once we drive the British out of Boston and take to the field, your red coats may prove to be a distinct disadvantage.” He shouted encouragement to the gun crew loading another ball into the twenty-four pounder.
“Make this shot count, men. Let those Regulars feel the heat.”
From the vantage point of being mounted astride Big Red, Will surveyed Boston under bombardment. Artillery to the south near Roxbury and beyond were bombarding the forts at the Neck and guns near the Commons with a steady fire. He watched the howitzer shells arc high in the sky, sometimes falling short of the British cannon emplacements and showering the city’s buildings with fiery debris. The roofs of some were already on fire, the flames a constant deep red glow against the darkened city.
Will could tell when a mortar was fired. Its trajectory was lower and the first shots were ranging ones, falling short and moving progressively closer to the chosen target as the gunners added more powder to the charge. In the moonlight he saw a church steeple crumple under the impact of a cannonball, the triangular top blown off, leaving a truncated jagged wooden stub, like a broken tooth, poking up above the stone gum of the main building.
The massive bombardment and counter-shelling by the British continued for several hours. They had completed riding the line, and Will had followed the Colonel back to the Massachusetts Artillery batteries on the northerly end of Lechmere Point. The Colonel pointed to a cannon in its emplacement being loaded with a ball. A fog of blue smoke and the smell of gunpowder hung in the air around the battery. Beyond them, further up the line, were the howitzer emplacements.
“Remember that one, Will? It is The Albany. I wish the good people of that friendly city could be here now to see her in action.”
Will thought there was only one person from Albany who he wanted by his side at this moment. He watched as one of the crew lit the gunpowder in the quill. He spoke softly to Big Red and waited for the explosion of the charge. The horse barely twitched at the roar.
Then, as if by predetermined signal, the American guns fell silent. The British continued their fire for a few more minutes and it was over. Will looked around, aware in the night’s silence of shouts and cries for help. Smoke spiraled up from a howitzer emplacement where the gun had been. Pieces of smoldering wood from the carriage lay on the ground. Large chunks of the iron firing tube were scattered at a distance.
“The piece simply exploded,” the Lieutenant said. He was standing next to the charred site as Colonel Knox dismounted. “It just happened. We lost three of the crew, ” he said, pointing in the darkness toward a wooded area behind the emplacement. “The howitzer had been firing all night. There must have been a weakness in the metal.”
Will peered in the direction the Lieutenant had indicated. He didn’t see any bodies but smelled an odor of seared flesh. It was familiar, reminiscent of when his father castrated their cattle and cauterized the wound. He shuddered.
“Will, where is your sled?” Colonel Knox asked.
“It is behind the second battery, sir, along with the mare.”
“Be a good lad and fetch it and harness up your team,” he said soberly. “I need you to perform a grim service for me tonight.”
Will walked Big Red back, put him in traces and slowly returned with the sled. Reluctantly, he approached the small group of soldiers who were placing the bodies of the three dead men on blankets. Will had seen dead people before. They had been in their beds where they had died, laid out in their clothes, their eyes closed, as if in a deep sleep. They had always been whole as if they were still alive, except for their pale color. The bodies of the gun crew were in pieces. One was missing half his head, the top of his skull blown off from below the cheek and across to his nose. His one remaining eye was open, staring at the evergreen branches heavy with snow, bending down to embrace him like angels’wings. His brains had spilled out onto his shoulder, as if he were wearing a grey cloth on one side, over his blue coat. Another had been almost cut in two by the flying metal. Will stared at the reservoir of blood in the man’s stomach cavity. The pale coils of his intestines protruded from a sea of red. The soldiers had already covered the third man.
Will felt his belly contract and hurried off to the side of a thick tree. He dry heaved, vomiting up nothing because he had not eaten since the morning. He tasted the bitter acid in his mouth, reached up for a handful of crusted snow from an overhanging branch, and washed his mouth. By the time he returned, the soldiers had placed the three bodies head first on the sled and covered them with blankets. The dead men’s boots were the only part of them exposed to the cold.
“Will. Follow Lieutenant Hadley back to our barracks. He will tell you what to do,” Colonel Knox said. Will nodded and climbed up on the seat, turning the sled onto the narrow road leading from the battery. The Lieutenant rode ahead, two of the soldiers riding silently on the sled, until they reached the Regiment’s camp. Will brought the sled to a halt in front of a one-story brick building, which had been set up as a hospital for the surgeons. He shivered in the dark night, made colder for him by the three bodies on the sled behind. He wondered if the men were still bleeding or whether the frigid air coming in contact with their open wounds had frozen their blood. He started to imagine the wounds of the third man, envisioning body parts missing and internal organs exposed. He forced himself to think of anything else. In his mind, he saw Elisabeth next to him on the sled seat. Agnes was not with them. He and Elisabeth were on the sled, hauling the bodies of the three men to a cemetery.
“No need for you to take them any further,” Lieutenant Hadley called out from the barracks steps. “We have wheelbarrows for that.”
Will watched the soldiers transfer the blanketed bodies into a wooden wheeled barrow, piling the dead men on top of each other. Each one grabbed a handle. They grunted as they struggled through the snow to the rear of the temporary hospital. In the moonlight, Will could make out the irregular dark stains of the congealed blood on the wood planks of his sled.
“Colonel Knox instructed me to find you lodging and food. He wants you here tomorrow with the Regiment instead of at Cambridge,” the Lieutenant called to him from the doorway. “The next building down is a barn for the Regiment” he said pointing. The Lieutenant’s horse, tied to a post in front of the barracks, pawed the snow with its front leg and turned to watch Big Red and the mare move down the compacted snow toward the shelter of the long low wooden shed.
“Return here when you are finished,” the Lieutenant called out before closing the door.
Will left the sled alongside the shed, unhitched the horses, led them into a single stall and gave them hay and water. There were a few other horses inside. Not a bad place to sleep if he had to, he thought, realizing how tired he was. He estimated it was close to midnight. For no particular reason, he put a few handfuls of oats in his pocket and trudged across the frozen ground to the barracks. Before going in, he fed some oats to the Lieutenant’s horse, feeling the warm snuffling breath on his palm.
The barracks were empty, except for rows of cots up and down each wall. Piles of neatly folded linen for bandages were stacked at the foot of the beds. Long wooden tables, used for eating when the barracks had been full of men, lined the center of the room. This is where the surgeons would operate. Will hesitated in the doorway, visualizing the broken bloody bodies o
n the tables. He imagined the surgeons sawing through mangled limbs, the pulpy stumps of arms and legs pulsating spurts of blood onto piles of severed limbs around the tables.
“Shut the door,” the Lieutenant shouted from the back of the room. “There are sick men in here. The cold will do them no good.”
Will saw a half-dozen cots grouped around the large stone fireplace at the rear. The Lieutenant was standing before the hearth warming his hands. He had unbuttoned the red facing of his blue coat. His white breeches were stained with soot and gunpowder. His black tri-corn rested precariously on the mantle’s corner.
Will’s boots echoed on the wood floor as he walked the length of the room. “The only food I can offer is the leftover soup in the pot. And what is your name?”
“Will Stoner, Sir,” he said facing the Lieutenant with his back to the fire. He let the warmth seep through his wool coat and creep up from his lower back to the ache in his shoulders. He turned and looked into the iron pot hanging from a hook over the fire. The contents were barely bubbling.
“I am Lieutenant Hadley. Samuel Hadley.” They shook hands. He followed Will’s gaze. “It may be a little thin,” he said. “The company cook will be by in the morning with breakfast for these men. I will inform him to supplement the rations to include you.”
As tired as he was, Will squatted down and put two small logs on the fire. He peered into the pot and thought he saw a beef bone, bare of any meat, through the thin gruel. He reached into his pocket and threw the remaining oats into the broth. As he stood up, he studied the men lying under blankets on their cots, arranged so they shared the warmth of the flames. Most of them were feverish, their damp hair matted on their brows, their tongues occasionally licking their dry lips. The faces of the two nearest to him were covered with pustules, small rounded bumps as if there was bird shot buried under their skin. The bumps continued down their necks until hidden by their shirts. He looked at the others who were similarly afflicted.
Cannons for the Cause Page 18
