Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence

by Robert Conroy

  “Awful,” she said thoughtfully. “I suppose it makes some appalling sense from a military standpoint since it would necessarily weaken his enemies, but how absolutely terrible. But how do you know all this?”

  Fitzroy sipped some more coffee. How marvelous it was and how wonderful it was to have someone like Hannah to confide in. He considered himself to be a truly fortunate man. Perhaps the colonies weren’t as uncivilized as he first thought.

  “It began with tavern rumors that we immediately pooh-poohed as coming from loudmouthed drunks either bragging or complaining. After all, who would even think of doing such horrible things? Then several men who had served with the monster in charge of these forays began to speak up. They’d left because they couldn’t stomach being part of the atrocities. Burgoyne heard of them, talked to them, and then confronted Tarleton with what he’d learned.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Tarleton laughed at Burgoyne; absolutely just laughed right in his face. In effect called him soft and an old woman for caring about the plight of civilians. He said the purpose of war was to kill the enemy and it didn’t matter if the enemy was old or young, man or woman, they had to be destroyed. He said that anyone between here and the rebel enclave was presumed to be a rebel and should be hunted down and killed like dogs. Burgoyne was appalled. He asked if Tarleton had heard of a lady named Jane McCrea. Have you?”

  “Of course,” Hannah said solemnly. “She was the young lady who was murdered by Burgoyne’s Indians during his advance to Saratoga in ’77.”

  “Yes, and it didn’t matter at all to the Indians who murdered her that she was a Tory and not a rebel. She was an innocent, and it meant that people thought Burgoyne was hell bent on killing innocents. It inflamed the frontier and brought many hundreds, if not thousands, of undecided Colonials into the rebel camp, which was a major factor in Burgoyne’s defeat at Saratoga.”

  Fitzroy managed a small laugh. “At least it was a major factor in Burgoyne’s mind. He was able to blame the Indians on his defeat rather than his other shortcomings. Regardless, Burgoyne was determined not to let that happen again, and here he finds that Tarleton is doing exactly the same thing and laughing about it.”

  “What did Burgoyne do?”

  “He ordered Tarleton to stop the attacks and call back his wolves. Tarleton said it was impossible. He said they operated on their own and without plans, and he had no idea where they were. He said he didn’t expect to see them until spring. He’s lying, of course. There must be a rendezvous point or some other means of getting messages to those animals.”

  She sprawled out on the bed and allowed the bottom of her robe to open, showing her shapely legs. “But why does that bother you so much, my noble little major?”

  “Because I enlisted the monster who is preying on the innocents,” he said angrily. “His name is Braxton, and back in Albany, I gave him a commission as a militia captain since, as I recall, he already led a group of about fifty armed men. His face was terribly burned and his hands were mutilated and he hated the rebels for maiming him. But I never thought his hatred would cause him to rape and murder when I sent him off to Detroit and Tarleton’s sublime leadership.”

  Hannah walked over, sat on his lap and held his head in her hands, then buried his face in the warmth of her bosom. “Now how could you have predicted what this Braxton would have done, or that Tarleton would give him such odious directions? You couldn’t, my dear major, so please quit blaming yourself for the actions of others.” Curiously, she realized she meant what she’d said.

  Fitzroy took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She was right, of course. She was almost always right and he appreciated that. “You are good for me, Hannah Van Doorn.”

  “I know,” she purred. She undid the strings of her bodice and let her breasts fall free. His lips quickly found her nipples and she felt herself becoming aroused. She would have to get this tantalizing information to Abraham Goldman so he could forward it to Fort Washington, but not right now. Fitzroy’s hands had begun caressing the moistness of her inner thighs, and her body was responding as it always did to his gentle touch. The damned war could wait for an hour. Maybe a couple.

  * * *

  Sarah was surprised and pleased to see Will. “I thought you’d left?”

  “And I thought you’d be glad I’m still here.”

  She tapped him on the arm and smiled warmly. “Of course I am. I had just reconciled myself to being without the pleasure of your company while you tramped around the wet and soggy forest looking for Redcoats.”

  “Apparently something’s come up. General Tallmadge wants me to accompany him to one of the hospitals tonight. It seems there’s a very unusual patient.”

  Sarah nodded grimly. “I know and I will be there too. Mr. Franklin has a similar appointment tonight at the hospital and it must be for the same reason. I am to accompany him and make sure he doesn’t get into any difficulties. Sometimes he’s forgetful.”

  That evening the small group assembled in the foyer of the small wooden building they grandly called a hospital. A short and youthful-looking man named Jonathan Young said he was a physician and guided them in. Franklin murmured to Sarah that his name was quite appropriate and she noted that the doctor seemed quite nervous.

  “Not too many beds are occupied right now,” Young said. “It’ll be different when the fighting really starts. Right now all I’ve got are a couple of fevers and some broken bones brought about by brawling and accidents. Nothing that purging, bleeding, and leeching won’t cure.”

  Sarah shuddered. She had no idea just how leeching or bleeding might help a sick or hurt person, but she’d always accepted it on face value because it was such a traditional way of caring for the sick and injured. But purging? Violently emptying her bowels had nearly killed her when she was in the stocks, so how could it possibly help, and particularly if a person was already weakened? She wondered if the same applied to leeching and bleeding. If so, did the medical profession know anything at all about how the human body worked?

  Doctor Young guided them into a small room off the main ward. “We keep sick females in here. When there are no women patients, which is usually the case, we use it for storage.”

  One cot lay in the middle of the room. Boxes surrounded it, there was little light, and the air was stifling.

  Will stepped in front of Sarah as she held back. She didn’t know whether or not she wanted to see what was lying in the bed. Will leaned over and stared at the creature swathed in bandages and blankets.

  “A girl,” Will said, “A child.”

  “A little older,” Tallmadge said grimly and Doctor Young nodded.

  “What happened to her?” Will asked.

  “We’re not certain,” Tallmadge said. “She was found in the woods by one of our patrols investigating rumors of an attack on a settlement. She was stumbling around the ruins, naked, burned and bleeding.”

  “Dear God,” said Franklin, “The poor child.”

  Tallmadge continued. “The patrol located the settlement and found a stack of charred bodies in what might have been a barn. They had been butchered and burned, reduced to a pile of blackened bones and grease. The girl was able to say that her name was Winifred Haskill and that horrible looking white men had destroyed her home. Then she collapsed and hasn’t spoken since then. The men in the patrol weren’t certain she’d live long enough to make it here, but she surprised them.”

  Eyes turned to the doctor who added solemnly, “She turns and moans, but she hasn’t said anything that makes sense. It may be that her brain has been affected. She did endure a savage blow to the head.”

  “And what do you plan to do about her?” Will asked.

  “She is wrapped in bandages because of a multitude of scratches and bruises, including one large cut on her head where someone may have tried to scalp her. I have applied salves to her burns, which, while looking horrible, aren’t serious. Otherwise, her body is that of a healthy young woman. I to
ok a cup of blood from her this morning, and plan to purge her in a little while. A cleansing of the bowels often helps the mind think correctly.”

  Will took one of the girl’s thin, pale arms and lifted it. “I don’t think she has much left to purge or bleed.”

  Sarah looked at him and held back a smile. It was exactly what she was thinking.

  “I believe I understand my medicine, Major,” Doctor Young sniffed.

  “But do you understand women’s medicine?” Sarah injected and enjoyed the confusion on the doctor’s face. “Not only are our bodies different, but the way women use them is different from those of men. Tell me, how many babies have you delivered? How many cases of serious menstrual bleeding have you treated? Or tumors of the breast? Oh yes, how many women have you examined when they were naked?”

  Doctor Young was flustered, and seemed embarrassed that such would be discussed in mixed company. “None at all,” he admitted.

  “Then let me propose a solution to this dilemma,” she said, suddenly aware that Abigail Adams had entered the room and was standing behind her, nodding grimly. “Remand her to my care and I will treat her, woman to woman.”

  “And I will assist,” said Abigail.

  The doctor bowed and Sarah sensed his relief. “I accept your collective wisdom.”

  “And where will you treat her?” asked Franklin. The look of dismay on his face said he already knew the answer.

  “She will sleep in my room,” said Sarah, “and I will sleep on a cot.”

  “And I will be there every day to help,” Abigail said and patted Franklin on the cheek, “so you will not lose out on the skills of your precious and indispensable clerk. I am certain that other women in the camp, such as Mistress Greene and Mistress Morgan will be more than willing to aid us.”

  Daniel Morgan and his wife, along with several dozen riflemen, had recently arrived. Even though he too was ill, Morgan was a welcome addition to the list of general officers.

  Doctor Young managed a smile. “I am thoroughly delighted as well as outranked.”

  They took a cot from the hospital and transported the unconscious Winifred the short distance to Franklin’s quarters. Abigail Adams walked alongside the cot and gazed sadly on the injured young woman. Sarah walked behind, with Will.

  “The doctor meant well,” she said.

  “Doctors are bloody useless unless they can stitch a cut or fix a broken bone,” Will said. “When they start to think, they become dangerous because they feel they know so much and they truly don’t.”

  Sarah slipped her arm in his. It seemed so natural and comfortable. “Now when are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow. I should be back in no more than six weeks.”

  “Will you be seeing young Lieutenant Wells?”

  His mission was not public knowledge, but why not tell her? “I expect to meet with him somewhere near Detroit. Why?”

  “Because my silly cousin Faith is fond of him and wants him safely back.”

  “Do you want me safely back?” Will asked.

  Sarah smiled and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Very much so, Will Drake.”

  * * *

  From Fort Washington to Detroit was about three hundred miles. A lean and strong woodsman could stride out at four miles per hour for ten hours a day, which meant that he could make the trip in less than two grueling weeks.

  Unfortunately, Will was still not in as good a shape as he once had been, and the route taken was not a straight line conducive to quick journeys. It took him several days to even begin to be able to sustain the long, loping stride of a true woodsman. Then he forced himself and the others to make up lost time. Their goal was the farm of a man named Jean Leduc.

  Leduc’s farm stood directly across the river from Detroit. Like others, he owned a strip of the riverfront where he docked a small boat and a canoe. His actual farmland ran in a narrow band inland and well into the woods. From his cabin and barn, anyone could see much of what was going on across the river in Detroit, half a mile away.

  Jean Leduc was a small, thin man about fifty. His hair was wild and scraggly and his eyes burned with hatred for the British. They had killed his brother on the Plains of Abraham in 1757 and wounded Jean in the same battle, which caused him to walk with a limp.

  His left hand was mangled. He’d been briefly captured by Joseph Brant’s Iroquois, and a squaw had happily chewed parts of it off while he screamed in agony. This had greatly amused the Iroquois braves.

  Leduc had no great love for the upstart Americans, either, but decided that anyone who wanted to kill British soldiers was the lesser of evils. At least the Americans alleged to tolerate Catholics, while the British often persecuted them. He had to admit, however, that the British had left his coreligionists in Quebec pretty much alone.

  When Will arrived at the farm, he made sure he did so after crossing the river at night and downstream from the British fort and town. There were few people around, but why advertise his presence until and if it became necessary.

  Leduc greeted him without much warmth and made him get into a barn where he waited with a surprised Owen Wells.

  “Is this our prison, Owen?”

  “No sir,” Wells grinned. “It’s just Leduc’s way of showing us this is his place and he’s in charge. It also means he’ll help us but he doesn’t love us. Although he doesn’t want too much attention drawn to us, he’s not really worried.”

  And that was the beauty of the operation. As a semi-cripple, Leduc was always hiring men to help work his farm. Thus, the presence of one, two, or even three men was not unusual. Nor was it strange that they were generally transients who never stayed long. Leduc had a reputation as a bad-tempered Frenchman and a selfish bastard who frequently tried to cheat his help out of their wages.

  They went to the barn’s second floor loft and looked out across the river onto Detroit. A number of distant buildings had lamps or candles glowing faintly through the night. They were close enough to see people walking around, and the superb Royal Navy telescope given him by Tallmadge brought them into even more detail. Outside the fort, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of campfires twinkled and flickered and showed the dim shapes of a multitude of white tents. It was an impressive display of British might. More than a score of flatboats or barges were arrayed along the riverside and others were under construction.

  Wells said. “It’s even better in the day, Major. There will be thousands of Redcoats marching around.”

  “It’s amazing we’re safe here.”

  “Oh, I think they know someone’s watching them, it’s just that they don’t think there’s much we can do, regardless of what we see, and then there’s the fact that his lordship, Bloody Tarleton, doesn’t want to piss off General Haldimand in Quebec by coming over to this side and roughing up the farmers.”

  Prior to the colonist’s revolution, frontier areas like Detroit had fallen under the jurisdiction of the British governor in Quebec. After the war, the boundaries had been redrawn so that anything south of the Great Lakes fell under Cornwallis in New York. Therefore, the land across the river from Detroit was considered part of Quebec-controlled Canadian territory. Haldimand, no admirer of either Tarleton or Burgoyne, had let it be known that no British soldiers other than his would be permitted to operate on the Canadian side of the river. So far, Tarleton had been cowed by Haldimand and it was presumed that Burgoyne would obey the rules as well.

  “Tarleton and Haldimand,” Owen said, “It sounds like a theatrical group.”

  “And a bad one at that,” said Will. “By the way, my men are camped with yours.”

  Neither man had arrived alone in the area, but had shown up alone at the Leduc farm. Another ten men awaited their return a few miles into the woods. They were near a tavern owned by men Tallmadge said were sympathizers to the American cause.

  “Sir, did you see Faith?”

  Will couldn’t stifle a grin. “I did, and she said to tell you she misses you and wants you to come bac
k as soon as possible.”

  “Would it be all right if I left right now?”

  Will laughed and punched him lightly on the arm. “It would not. Now tell me, what will farmer Leduc have us do tomorrow?”

  “We will work in his fields and take frequent breaks just like the shiftless bastards he usually hires. This will enable us to observe the comings and goings as best we can from over here.”

  Will thought of Tallmadge’s request for information and still more information. “Any chance of our actually getting into Detroit?”

  Now it was Owen’s turn to smile. “He and I have been talking about it. He does cross the river on occasion and likes the thought of insolently parading American soldiers inside a British fort.”

  Will yawned. The rigors of the journey were catching up to him. “I like the idea, too. However, I think we should get some sleep if we’re going to have to pretend we’re farmers.”

  * * *

  “The girl takes nourishment, but doesn’t speak,” Sarah said and Franklin nodded thoughtfully. She ran her hand through the wispy hair on the Winifred’s bandaged head. Sarah and Abigail had cut it extremely short to make it easier to treat her cuts and burns, and it made her look even more skeletal then she was.

  Sarah continued. “She takes broth and even mushy solids and seems to be gaining strength. Her bruises are going away and the cut on her head is healing. Sometimes her eyes open and she seems to be looking at me, but then she closes them and goes back to sleep. I worry that we may be losing her.”

  Franklin reached down and took Winifred Haskill’s small hand in his. He marveled at the fact that it was colder and frailer than his. “When you are sick, doesn’t it feel better when you awaken after a good, long sleep?”

  “Of course. Are you saying that this deep sleep is a natural way for the body to heal itself?”