Prelude to Glory, Vol. 7

by Ron Carter

  He drew rein on his horse and loped away with his leaner companion following, to report to their commanding officer: Two suspected Yankee spies discovered, and destroyed.

  Beneath the canoe, Eli counted breaths. Fifty. One hundred. Two hundred.

  There were no more cannonballs, no more distant blasts.

  He continued the count to five hundred before he spoke quietly to Billy, “They think we’re dead. We stay here until we’re past the guns of Fort Washington, then we go ashore on the New Jersey side. Our army holds Fort Lee up on the bluffs. We can go north from there.”

  Notes

  The great fire that burned the waterfront and about one quarter of New York City occurred on September 21, 1776. “Canvas Town” resulted, as described herein (Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, Part 2, pp. 118–19; see also Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 281–82).

  Following the Yorktown victory, General Washington was fearful the Continental Army and Congress would assume America had won the war and become careless. He admonished them to remain alert and watchful. May 9, 1782, he received a letter from British General Sir Guy Carleton, wherein General Carlton wrote that he was “ . . . joined with Admiral Digby in the commission of peace” and most anxious to reduce the needless severities of war, as quoted in this chapter. Washington remained skeptical of the British intent, but soon realized they were not preparing for a summer campaign away from New York, their home base (Freeman, Washington, pp. 495–98).

  The battles remembered by Billy and Eli of August 27, October 28, and November 15, 1776, at Long Island, White Plains, and Fort Washington, are chronicled in Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 262–96.

  For excellent maps of the areas described in this chapter, see Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, pp. 84 and 92.

  For a general description of the peculiar way the incoming Atlantic tides affect the Hudson River, forcing it to “run backwards,” see Ketchem, Saratoga, p. 7.

  Newburgh, State of New York

  May 12, 1782

  CHAPTER VI

  * * *

  In deep, warm dusk, Billy and Eli walked through the campfires of the Continental Army near the tiny village of Newburgh on the west side of the Hudson River. They came steadily—hungry, tired men in tired clothes. They stopped at the front door of the log building with the American flag mounted on the forty-foot flagpole. The windows were dark, and there was but one picket standing his watch, young, smooth-faced, intense. He stiffened at their approach.

  “Who comes there?”

  “Lieutenant Billy Weems and Scout Eli Stroud. We’re under orders to report to the general upon return from a scout.”

  The picket bobbed his head. “The gen’l told me. Wait here.” He did a smart right face, marched four steps, then broke into a run toward General Washington’s quarters. Less than five minutes later General Washington came striding, the young picket with musket at the ready, trotting to keep pace with him. Billy and Eli followed the general into the office and waited while he lighted a lamp and set it on the desk. Billy saluted, and they both sat at the general’s gesture. The yellow lantern glow cast their shadows on the rough-hewn walls.

  “I see you’ve returned. Any injuries?” There was a weariness in the face and eyes of the tall man, but beyond the weariness was the indomitable iron will that drove him relentlessly.

  “None, sir,” Billy said. He leaned forward to lay the two telescopes on the desk.

  “Report.”

  Eli interrupted. “Do you have a map? It might make things easier.”

  Two minutes later a large map of the Hudson River Valley, from Fishkill on the north to Staten Island on the south, was unrolled before them with the corners weighted. All three men studied it for a few seconds before Billy pointed.

  “Starting here”—he moved his finger as he spoke—“down to about here, is a depot two miles long.”

  General Washington studied it for a moment. “On Manhattan Island?”

  “Yes. Just above New York City.”

  “Any detail on what’s there?”

  “Yes.” Again his finger moved as he spoke. “About one thousand tents, both sides of the road, eight regulars each, about eight thousand troops. Here, a parade ground, maybe half a mile square. Here, six hundred wagons, empty, lined, and stored.” He paused, then tapped the map and continued. “About thirteen hundred horses with four or five acres of feed stacked here. Here, about three hundred sixty cannon, in rows with their muzzles plugged. Over here, six separate powder magazines, sunken, with around sixty pickets on duty. Here, I judge about six hundred tons of crated food.”

  “Anything at White Plains? Long Island?”

  Eli shook his head and leaned over the map to point. “White Plains, sixty tents—about four hundred eighty regulars. Twenty officers’ tents—maybe one hundred officers. One hundred thirty-four horses, half saddle mounts, half draft horses. Twenty cannon near the horse pens, lined, muzzles plugged. Sixty wagons, empty, stored. Gunpowder stored above-ground, maybe forty barrels, fifty pounds per barrel. About one ton altogether. Some crated food, but not much.”

  He straightened for a moment, then continued. “On Long Island, here, there were only ten campfires burning. Almost nothing there. Same with Staten Island, over here. Three campfires. Nothing else.”

  For several seconds Washington studied the map, making mental calculations. “General Carleton has about eleven, maybe twelve thousand men down there, altogether. Mostly on Manhattan Island. Any indication he’s preparing a major move?”

  Billy shook his head. “There are eleven British warships anchored in the harbor and none of them look like they’ve been in battle. Their West Indies fleet is somewhere else. There are near one hundred transports, all with sails furled, riding at anchor. All the ships are high in the water, empty. None of them loaded. Skeleton crews. There are no smaller boats taking stores or munitions to them. The work on the docks is all for business ships. Commercial. From all over the world. No sign of one British ship preparing to load and leave.”

  Washington straightened to peer into their faces. “You were down on the docks?”

  Eli nodded but said nothing.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Daylight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dressed as you are now? With your weapons?”

  “Yes.”

  “You weren’t caught?”

  A slow grin slid over Eli’s face. “It got a little close there for a few minutes, but they didn’t catch us.”

  “How close? Was there shooting?”

  “We got away in a canoe. Rode the incoming Atlantic tide up the Hudson. A British cannonball turned the canoe half over and we helped it the rest of the way. Stayed under it while it drifted north, up to Fort Lee. They thought the cannonball got us.”

  Washington listened intently, then shook his head once. “Anything else?”

  Billy answered. “Yes. We walked down Post Road, the length of Manhattan Island. Farmers with all kinds of farm produce were selling to the British. No sign of concern about the British leaving. Normal business day.”

  Washington released the weights on the corners of the map and it rolled up loosely as he spoke. “I think you’ve answered my questions. It appears that the British fleet has either remained in the West Indies, or has returned to England, or partly both. If they intended coming north to blockade our rivers, they would have done so by now, and it has not happened.”

  He paused for a moment while he put his thoughts in order. “There is nothing suggesting General Carleton intends making a major effort to leave New York for any reason. If we’re right on both questions, then we have much more freedom to finish our plans for the coming summer campaign.”

  He heaved a great sigh and for a moment fingered the papers on his desk. Then he came back to the two men before him and spoke directly to Billy. “There’s reason to think the war will draw to an end soon. We are beginning with a plan to muste
r out the officers in the Continental Army. I’ve assigned that to General Lincoln. I do not know where your name appears on his lists, but you will be advised.”

  Billy’s mouth fell open for one split second before he spoke. “Discharged? Going home?”

  “Yes, in the next few months.”

  “What about the enlisted? Eli?”

  “Soon after.”

  Washington picked up the loosely scrolled map and began tightening it. “Is there anything else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you for your report. Dismissed.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Billy saluted, Eli did not, and they turned on their heels to walk out into the warm night and the sounds of crickets and frogs and the faint whisper of wings overhead. Evening campfires burned as they walked on.

  There was excitement in Billy’s voice. “Going home in the next few months. I can hardly think what it will be like to walk up the street in Boston and see my home. Mother. Trudy. I can hardly think of it.”

  A quiet wistfulness fell over Eli, and Billy caught himself short, remembering that Mary, the light of Eli’s life, was gone.

  Eli said softly, “I’ll get to see Laura. Wonder how big she is now. She was so small when I left. Little ones grow fast. Too fast. I wonder if she’ll remember me.”

  Billy mused, “She’ll be a beauty. She won’t be long remembering.”

  Ahead, the raspy voice of Turlock reached them. “I was startin’ to fret. You took long enough gettin’ back. You all right?”

  Billy leaned his musket against a log. “Fine. Anything left from evening mess?”

  “You’re supposed to eat with the officers, or have you fergot? Well, no matter. Kept some pork an’ potatoes over there by the fire. Git your bowls.”

  They sat on a log with the dancing firelight making shadows and lines on their faces, Billy and Eli eating in ravenous silence, while Turlock talked.

  “Heard about the officers? Gen’l Washington says the war might be nearly over. They’ll be startin’ to send the officers home, and then the enlisted. Can’t hardly get hold of the idee I’ll be out of this army some day. Don’t know what I’ll do with myself after six years of this.”

  Billy stopped chewing for a moment. “You’ll figure out something.”

  “Likely. Maybe move on west. Hear they’re goin’ to open new land out there. Get my hundred acres of prime forest land like they promised. Raise some vegetables and rabbits on a few acres, and leave the rest to the deer and raccoon.” He looked at Eli. “You goin’ back up north to your family?”

  Eli shrugged. “Likely. Better get my discharge first, though. Ought to be some money come with it, and that hundred acres.”

  “What’ll you do with a hundred acres of forest?”

  Eli stopped for a moment. “Maybe give it to my sister and her husband. If it’s close enough to where they live. We’ll see.”

  Turlock turned to Billy. “What you figgerin’ to do with your hundred acres?”

  Billy laughed. “Me? In Boston? Sell it. Give it away. I don’t know.”

  Turlock turned back to stare in the fire. “Only thing is, they haven’t told us yet where this land is. I sure hope this isn’t like some of them other promises Congress made. We was supposed to have pay this past two years, but we haven’t seen hardly any of it. I got over a hunnerd dollars comin’. I sure hope I get it.”

  Billy nodded. “They’ll have to do something, or there’ll be trouble.”

  Eli glanced at him. “It has me worried. Congress can’t get money. No power. All they can do is ask the states, and if the states refuse, Congress can’t force them. It worries me.”

  Turlock rubbed his gnarled, callused hands together and stared into the fire wistfully, but said nothing.

  They finished their food, washed their bowls, and walked back to the fire.

  Billy clapped Turlock on the shoulder. “Thanks for the hot food. First we had since yesterday.”

  “Sometime you got to tell me about what you saw down there.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Git to bed.”

  Eli followed Billy to his quarters and stopped at the glowing coals of the spent fire in front of the tent. “You still have those letters you been writing to the Dunson girl?”

  In an instant the face of Brigitte flashed in Billy’s mind—the hazel eyes, the nose, the mouth, and a remembrance of the way it felt to hold her, the day he left and she threw her arms about him and held him close as the friend she had known from earliest memory. Friend, not sweetheart. Billy gestured. “Inside with my things.”

  Eli paused for a moment. “When you get home, give them to her.”

  There was surprise in Billy’s voice. “What brought that on?”

  Eli took a few moments to pick his words. “Nothing else in life more important than what can be between a man and a woman.”

  For a time Billy looked into Eli’s face and saw the pain of what he had lost when Mary died in his arms. He saw it, and his heart ached.

  “I’ll think on it.”

  Eli shook his head. “Do it.”

  “She won’t have me. Not me. Look at me. She’s a lovely lady. She gave her heart to that British captain—Buchanan. He’s dead, and she grieves. I’ll always be a friend, but that’s all.”

  “Give her the letters. If you don’t you’ll always wonder what might have come of it. Do it.”

  “I’ll think on it.”

  Notes

  All pertinent notes appear following chapter 5.

  Newburgh, State of New York

  September 1782

  CHAPTER VII

  * * *

  With the setting sun casting long shadows eastward, Sergeant Alvin Turlock, Massachusetts Second, pointed, and six privates dumped huge armloads of cut firewood next to the tall tripods from which huge, dented, thirty-gallon, fire-blackened kettles hung on chains. Wisps of steam were beginning to rise from the mix of diced pork from three shoats, chopped fresh cabbages, cut turnips, chunks of potatoes, and creek water. Turlock watched as the four men assigned to cook the evening mess dipped worn wooden spoons to test the mix, and began the process of adding salt—stirring, tasting, adding, tasting, adding. Sad experience had taught them one cannot unsalt the stew. Too much salt, and the mess crew would answer to angry, hungry men. The cooks tested one more time, smacked their lips through heavy beards, nodded to each other, and put the salt bucket down.

  Turlock watched as the two men in charge of the two clay bake ovens opened the heavy, black iron doors creaking, and hunched their heads down to squint inside at the forty-eight loaves of bread just beginning to turn golden on top. They used pads of burlap to clang the doors shut and drop the iron crossbars into their slots, then walked to the stacks of cut firewood. Baking bread added two more basic rules to preparing mess: don’t burn the bread, and, sift the flour before you mix the dough. Every man in the Massachusetts Second had ravenously eaten bread riddled with weevil in the harsh winters of ’77, ’78 and ’79, but now, with the shooting ended and soldiering having become a matter of mindless monotony, all tolerance for weevil had vanished. Sift the flour and get rid of the weevil, or take your punishment.

  Turlock heaved a sigh and sat down on a rung of firewood near the tripods, his thoughts running.

  Things is getting edgy—near a whole year with nothin’ but that drum gettin’ us up in the mornin’, mess, drill, cut firewood, mess, drill, shoot fer practice, clean yer weapon, cut more firewood, sit around in the evenin’, and wait fer that cussed drum to put us to bed. Most folk see somethin’ glorious in this soldierin’, but they’re the ones that don’t know most of it is just the boredom of doin’ the same thing over until you’re like a plow horse—don’t have no thought but the harness—doin’ today what you done yesterday and what you’ll do tomorrow.

  He paused for a moment, then let his thoughts continue.

  Gen’l Washington said they’re goin’ to muster us out, but they sure haven’t done it with t
he Massachusetts Second. I expect they’ll get around to us, but in the meantime these men are gettin’ surly. Lookin’ to either get into a battle to end this war, or just get up and go home.

  He shifted his weight to relieve the ache in his lame right leg.

  I reckon soldierin’s been like this forever. Even back there when them Greeks and Romans fought it out. I guess it was the Greeks and Romans. Greeks and somebody. I seen them pictures in a book—wearin’ them skirts and fightin’ with them stubby little swords.

  A thought brought a wry grin to his bearded face.

  I bet them soldiers got froze good wearin’ them skirts in the winter. But maybe they don’t have winter over there, wherever it is. But I bet them soldiers got edgy just like us, sittin’ around waitin’ for somethin’ to happen. Skirts or not, winter or not, I bet they got edgy. I reckon soldierin’s been like this forever. I wonder if Adam had an army. Adam and Eve. If he did, I bet they got edgy, too.

  Turlock reached for a stick and stirred at the fire. Sparks showered, then settled, and he stood, calling to the cooks and bakers.

  “This mess ready?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.”

  The tip of the stick had caught fire, and Turlock stubbed it out in the dirt before he tossed it back onto the kindling pile. He was walking toward the bake ovens when he saw movement on the trail to his left, and paused to look. He brightened at the sight of Billy Weems walking toward him.

  “Lieutenant, you comin’ for evening mess?”

  Billy shook his head. “Been over at the colonel’s tent with the other officers. Just got orders. We’re moving camp downriver to Verplanck.” He sat down on a log worn smooth from where the men sat to eat. Turlock’s eyebrows arched as he sat down beside him.

  “Somethin’ happenin’ at Verplanck?”

  Billy shook his head. “No. General Washington got a second letter from the British General Carleton and Robert Digby a while back. They want a peace treaty.”