Prelude to Glory, Vol. 7

by Ron Carter

  Turlock turned his good ear to Billy. “What’s Washington done about it?”

  “Sent the letter on to Congress. Says peace treaties are for Congress, not him.”

  Turlock snorted. “Congress? That bunch’ll talk it to death. We’ll be here another ten years.”

  Billy shrugged. “Washington says the military is going to stay under the control of Congress.” He stopped for a moment, then changed direction. “General Rochambeau is bringing his troops up here somewhere, and we’re moving down to Verplanck.”

  Turlock’s voice was filled with disgust. “What’s down there?”

  “Same as here—a place to wait while a peace treaty is worked out, or we go back to war. Washington’s worried that the letters from Carleton and Digby are a trick, but he’s not sure. If they really want peace he doesn’t want to attack, and if it’s a trick he doesn’t want to get caught unprepared. So he’s going to move closer to New York and be ready, whichever way it goes. That’s why we’re going down twelve miles closer to New York.”

  “Verplanck is across the river.”

  “We’ll cross it.”

  “Soon?”

  “That’s why I came to find you. We start getting ready tomorrow. Tell your men.”

  Both men flinched at the bellow from the cooks, “Mess is on!”

  They stood, and Turlock gestured. “Better git yer bowl. Pork stew and bread.”

  “Can’t. Got to find Captain Rhodes about tomorrow. Crossing the Hudson will take some planning.”

  “Stroud know about this?”

  “Washington sent him down to Verplanck two days ago to be sure there’s no British down there to surprise us. Got back last night. No British anywhere near.”

  Turlock bobbed his head. “Sure you won’t stay for mess?”

  Billy shook his head. “Take care of your men. I’ll eat at the officer’s mess.”

  * * * * *

  The morning star was fading in the east when the camp drummer kicked back his blankets, swallowed against the acrid taste in his mouth, and reached for his drum. For reasons no one could ever determine, the sound of a drum carried further and louder in the hour just before dawn than at any other time in the run of a day. Birds two miles away quieted for a moment, and squirrels darting about gathering the ripe nuts and seeds for winter paused, great bushy tails cocked and curled over their backs, beady eyes searching. Mother raccoons gathered their little broods and cuffed them into a silent line. Deer and elk twitched their long ears and stood silent, nervous at a sound not of the forest.

  The eastern sky was pink and rose when the Continental Army soldiers at Newburgh sat down on logs and stumps to attack wooden bowls of steaming oatmeal mush and molasses. Morning mess finished, the sun was a great brass ball sitting on the tree line across the Hudson River when the men took a deep breath, hitched at their belts, and began. Officers bawled orders, and sinewy men with hard hands moved. Within minutes the great camp was a confusion of sound and motion.

  “New York First, git them crates over here and start packin’ the blankets—Cut out them trees—got to have someplace to put the salt pork barrels—Move them sacks of potatoes an’ cabbages an’ turnips over there and be careful about it—bruises go rotten—Get the salt beef into them barrels and move ’em over there by the salt pork—You men git forty of them wagons and start loadin’ the flour barrels—then the salt pork and beef.

  “All you men in New Jersey Third, get the horses, four to the wagon, and start hitchin’ ’em up—Move the loaded wagons down to the river and unload ’em—We’re startin’ a depot down there—Boats an’ barges’ll be along directly.

  “Massachusetts Second, load the boats an’ barges when they git here an’ take everything down the river to the Verplanck landing.

  “You men in the Pennsylvania Third, start movin’ the gunpowder barrels out of them magazines and be careful. No candles, no lanterns, nothin’ that might set ’em off. Git twenty wagons and hitch up the teams and start movin’ the powder down to the river depot, two hunnerd yards from anything else.

  “New Hampshire Fourth, start movin’ them cannon down to the river, and keep a pole through them spokes—don’t let none of ’em get away. What we don’t need is a runaway cannon bustin’ someone’s legs or back. Git at it!”

  They stopped at noon to eat salt beef and fried bread dough, then dropped into the grass to lay like dead men for twenty minutes before the officers shouted them onto their feet once more. At sundown, exhausted men in sweat-damp clothes ate their evening mess in ravenous silence, then went to their blankets with the western sky still showing daylight.

  Days blended into a blur of loading crates and barrels into wagons that moved in a continuous line down the incline to the river and returned with sweating horses lunging into their horse collars, shod hooves tearing into the dark earth for the climb back. Slowly the massive Newburgh camp dwindled, while the new camp twelve miles down and across the river at Verplanck grew to take form and shape.

  A hundred men dug new powder magazines and covered them with logs and two feet of earth. Each regiment laid out their section of the campground and dug their latrines. Crude log huts with mud and moss chinking went up in a day for the officers’ headquarters. Rows of tents appeared, and firepits were dug and lined with rocks. Almost unnoticed, summer became fall, and the great forests of the Hudson River Valley were transformed as by magic from a carpet of green as far as human eye could see, into a wild, crazy quilt of endless colors that stopped hardened men while they stared at the indescribable beauty and felt their own smallness in the face of the handiwork of nature.

  October brought the first heavy frosts, and the first freeze in November found the great campground at Newburgh a vacant clearing with only the dead, brown, frozen leaves of summer blowing in the early winds of winter among the abandoned leavings of an army. The men in the last few wagons turned to look and felt the strange, haunting sadness that broods over a place that was once alive with the sounds of life and living, now littered with only discarded fragments of the lives of those now gone, and silence.

  They turned their faces to the river, pulled their ragged coat collars up higher, and started the wagons down the incline toward the spiderweb ice on the riverbanks. They came back on the reins, and the horses set their front feet digging, stiff-legged, and dropped their hindquarters as they held the wagons back while they worked down the grade to the waiting barges.

  In early December, a gentle snow began to fall in the stillness of a late afternoon, huge, wet, heavy flakes that weighed down the branches of the pines and caught in the hair and shaggy brows and beards of the men. It held through the night, and in first light of day the world had been transformed to a white so pristine bright that the men squinted as they set about clearing away eight inches of snow from the firepits and dragging the heavy iron cook kettles to the tripods for morning mess. Midmorning, the deep gray storm clouds thinned and the snow slackened, then stopped. By noon there were patches of blue overhead, and the quiet, steady dripping of melting snow was a soft undertone through the camp. By evening mess, the grounds were crisscrossed with slushy trails tromped from and to places where the business of the army had to be done.

  Turlock was stacking fresh-cut, dry firewood near the evening cook fires when he was surprised by the familiar voice from behind.

  “Sergeant, got a minute?”

  Turlock pivoted. “Lieutenant! Didn’t hear you comin’. Sure I got a minute.”

  The little sergeant followed Billy away from the fire, into undisturbed snow near a stand of pines, and Billy spoke quietly, eyes narrowed, intense.

  “Heard anyone talking hard against Congress? Maybe stirring up trouble?”

  Turlock’s eyes widened. “No. Not about Congress. A lot of talk about not gettin’ paid for a year or two.”

  “More than usual?”

  Turlock scratched at his beard. “Hadn’t thought on it. Yes, more than usual. We was told we’d be mustered out month
s ago, but we’re still here, and we aren’t gettin’ paid. The men are startin’ to disbelieve they ever will.”

  “Any officers saying such things? Anyone trying to organize a committee or some sort of group to make a protest?”

  “Haven’t heard of it. Why? You heard otherwise?”

  “Not me. But others. Will you watch and listen?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Billy started to turn, then stopped. “General Rochambeau and his army stopped at Newburgh yesterday. On their way south to get on the French boats to return to France.” He paused for a moment, eyes downcast. “They’re good soldiers. Turned the war in our favor. General Washington went up to bid them farewell. He admires Rochambeau and Chastellux. I’m glad he went up to pay them honor.”

  A far look came into Turlock’s eyes. “I doubt I’ll ever forget those Frenchmen diggin’ those zigzag trenches to put Yorktown under our cannon—or that morning we stormed those British guns at redoubts nine and ten. Those Frenchmen dressed way too pretty, but when it came right down to it, they were real soldiers. Real soldiers. Charged right into the muzzles of those cannon and muskets at number nine. Real soldiers.”

  Billy nodded. “I remember.” He turned. “Keep your ears open. Let me know if you hear anything.”

  An unexpected thaw set in at midnight, and by afternoon the following day the camp was a swamp of mud and dirty puddles. What little snow remained lay in small patches on the north side of tents and the log cabins and trees. Turlock slogged his company through the chores of the day, quietly listening to their talk and banter, hearing their usual grumbling and murmuring—cursing bad food, bad officers, bad duty, bad pay—all the things he heard every day. The following evening he gathered with his men for mess.

  “Awright, you lovelies. Git yer bowls and brace yerselves for this feast.”

  “Beef brisket an’ cabbage? A feast?”

  “That just looks like brisket. It’s really prime beefsteak. Done just right. And look at this here bread. Golden brown and fluffy, just like yer mother made.”

  “That’s fried dough!”

  “Trouble with you men is you don’t have no imagination. You’re just naturally missin’ half of life. Eat and be glad you got it.”

  Turlock was working with his bowl of steaming food when the quiet words from four nearby enlisted men reached him.

  “ . . . and he said they’re going to write it down and take it to Congress.”

  “Who’s going to write it down?”

  “Likely McDougall himself.”

  “ You mean General McDougall? Alexander McDougall?”

  “The same. Heard he got arrested by Gen’l Heath a while back because he made a deal with a company named Comfort Sands for supplies, and then mishandled it real bad and the supplies never got delivered. So Heath arrested him and it went to a court-martial.”

  “McDougall got court-martialed? What happened?”

  “Nothin’ much. Never does with them generals. Just told him to be a good boy and not do it again.”

  “What’s this about McDougall goin’ to write down somethin’ and take to Congress? Write down what?”

  “Complaints of a lot of officers, and maybe make some demands.”

  “Demands about what?”

  “The officers haven’t been paid, and they’re fearful now that Congress can’t get the money to pay ’em, and they’re goin’ to demand it or else.”

  The four men stopped eating. “Or else what?”

  The speaker shrugged. “Maybe a revolt. Mutiny. Rebellion. That’s what I heard.”

  The men looked at each other in near disbelief. “Gen’l McDougall doin’ somethin’ like that? You musta heard wrong. Yeah, you musta heard it wrong.”

  Turlock slowly walked over to the group, still working at his bowl of corned beef and cabbage. “Where’d you hear all this?”

  “All what?”

  “McDougall, writing down something.”

  “Just talk.”

  “Who?”

  The man pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. “New York First. Just talk.”

  “Any officers sayin’ this?”

  “Yeah. A captain. Maybe a major.”

  “Well, you let the New York regiment talk all they want. Just don’t get it started here. Talk like that can make trouble.”

  The quarter-moon was hanging low in the east when Turlock found Billy walking from the log cabin headquarters of Colonel William Schott toward his own tent. Vapors rose from their faces in the darkness as Turlock spoke.

  “Just heard talk at evening mess. Rumors from New York First are that Gen’l McDougall and some other officers might be stirrin’ up trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Gatherin’ up complaints. Gettin’ ready to write out some demands and take ’em to Philadelphia to Congress.”

  Billy spoke slowly. “Rebellion? Revolt?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You heard about McDougall? And Heath?”

  “Yeah, I heard. Heath arrested McDougall and got him court-martialed.”

  Billy drew and released a weary breath. “Bad blood there. I’ll let Colonel Schott know what you heard.”

  Turlock paused for a moment. “Any such things from other regiments?”

  “A few. General Washington’s concerned.”

  Turlock shivered. “I’ll keep an ear open.”

  Billy turned to go, and Turlock stopped him. “You worried pretty bad about this business of officers complaining? The McDougall thing?”

  A cloud crossed Billy’s face. “These troops spent the past seven years winning a fight we should have lost. The country owes them. If Congress can’t keep the promises it made to pay them, what becomes of it all? Do we lose everything we gained?”

  Turlock saw and felt the fear and the pain in Billy’s heart. “Maybe we outsmarted ourselves.”

  There was a pause before Billy answered. “How?”

  “Thought winning the war was the answer to everything. Didn’t understand that getting our freedom—independence—might bring worse troubles than we had before. We knew who our enemy was before—they was wearin’ them red coats. Who’s our enemy now? Who do we shoot at? Our officers? Congress? Ourselves?”

  For five full seconds the two men stared at each other in the dark while the terrifying thought settled in. Then Billy turned and quietly walked back in the direction from which he had come, toward the log cabin headquarters of Colonel William Schott.

  Notes

  August 4, 1782, Washington received a second letter from British General Carleton and Robert Digby, again suggesting peace negotiations. Washington forwarded the letter to Congress, stating that only Congress could conclude peace. Congress then ordered General Nathanael Greene to remain in the South with his command. Suspicious the British letters were a ploy to gain them time and advantage, Washington moved most of his Newburgh army camp twelve miles south, down and across the Hudson, to a small village named Verplanck, to be nearer the British stationed at New York. In December, French General Rochambeau did visit Newburgh on his way to the ships that would carry his army back to France, where he and Chevalier Chastellux were greeted most warmly and with great honors by General Washington. Rumors began to circulate about mounting dissatisfaction, and then anger, among the officers of the American army because they were not being paid, nor was there any prospect that they would be. General Alexander McDougall did enter into a supply contract with a company named Comfort Sands & Co. and quickly came to sharp disagreement over the terms, resulting in a violent argument, following which General William Heath arrested General McDougall for misconduct and brought it to a court-martial in which McDougall received a mild reprimand. Then General McDougall began agitating among the officers to create a writing to be submitted to Congress, making demands for the pay and land they had been promised (Freeman, Washington, pp. 498–99).

  Philadelphia

  Early January 1783

  CHAPTER VIII<
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  * * *

  Congressman Joseph Jones, wiry, round-shouldered, cavernous eyes and jutting chin, threw the thick, stiff parchment document down on the small corner table, clenched his teeth, and jerked out of his chair. He strode to the door of his tiny rented room on the second floor of the boardinghouse two blocks from the Pennsylvania State House, then back to the fireplace, then back to the door, driven by the rising realization that Congress was caught between two gigantic forces that were headed for a cataclysmic collision for which there was no solution and no escape. He pivoted and strode again back to the fireplace, then to the door, then to the small window that overlooked the narrow, winding Philadelphia cobblestone street below that afforded a view of the back wall of Independence Hall. He snatched the curtain back and stared at the brick building two blocks away, obscured by the gray light and blowing snow.

  Three terms in that building, and now it all comes down to this.

  He turned to look at the document as though it were something alive and deadly.

  They’re right! Those officers are right! McDougall is right! We made them the promises when we needed them, and they stayed and fought, and now they want their pay. They’re right!

  He walked back to his chair and plucked up the document to glance once more at the twelve pages, with more than fifty signatures of Continental Army officers, ranging from generals down to majors. He skimmed some of the requests, then the demands, then their brief statement of the devastating consequences if Congress should fail to keep its promises. He shuddered and threw the document back, skittering across the table to hit the wall.

  We made the promises, and we knew we did not have the power to keep them if the states failed to make their contributions. Well, they failed! We don’t have the power to force them to do anything, and we don’t have the money to pay as we promised. Nor the land! One hundred acres each.

  He paused and by force of will brought his anger and fear under control. Slowly he settled in the worn, upholstered chair before the table, and forced some semblance of reason to his thoughts. For a time he stared at the yellow glow of the lamp, then turned to listen to the quiet moan of the wind drawing in the chimney, and watch the flames dance in the fireplace. He glanced at the clock on the desk and shook his head.