Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  It was a passable effort and would not have disgraced most companies of volunteers in England. The sergeant let it go with a head motion that showed his gentle contempt for their best effort.

  “FIRE!”

  The volley, fired with blank squibs, was quite crisp. He did not praise it.

  “Prime and load! Quickly! Faster, you idiot! You, the long one, step over, damn you. Cover your file leader! Faster. Six, five, four, three, two…Make ready!”

  Most of them got it right. The white sergeant noticed that all the new recruits in the back were on the right foot, had their bodies in the right position. Perhaps King was coaching them, but what of it?

  “Present! Do you want to shoot your mate in the back, Coneyhead? Yes, you, you great gowk! Lock up! FIRE!”

  He walked back to King, who was standing behind Caesar in the rear rank.

  “Pretty sorry, King. But given a few years, we’ll make soldiers of the survivors.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That very tall fellow needs some, shall we say, strong measures? He’s going to be an embarrassment in the field. He’s afraid of his musket.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well then, King. Bring them along. We’re parading with the battalion in a few minutes.”

  King paced out to the head of the company.

  “Company will form column by wheeling to the right by subdivisions!”

  A murmur in the ranks as the men who knew what this meant communicated it to the ignorant. King was wise enough to wait it out.

  “By the right wheel! MARCH!”

  With surprising precision, the company split in two, and each small block wheeled through a quarter-circle to stand in a column. They shuffled uncertainly to a halt. King shook his head, chagrined. He should have told them to continue marching once the wheels were performed, but he couldn’t admit it in front of the sergeant from the Fourteenth Regiment.

  “At the quickstep! March!” The little column started forward.

  In the rear rank of the second subdivision, Private Julius Caesar of the Loyal Ethiopian Regiment set his face and marched. His body was beginning to respond correctly to the commands, and he felt the first gleams of hope since the endless drill had started. Days of clumsy fumbling had reduced him to a deep frustration and anger, the more so as the white sergeant seemed to have no method of teaching but impatient repetition. He never called them niggers, but his contempt for them was not very well buried. He seemed to resent even having to drill them. Caesar felt it, and he knew that King and many of the others felt it, too. The drill was difficult enough without the added sting of the contempt that made every evolution seem like a test.

  But as he began to master the drill, he began to understand better why it mattered. He could see how the big volleys of fire would replace the inability of most of the men to aim well, and he could feel how terrifying the volleys would be even aside from the execution they would reap. He began to enjoy drill. He also savored the changes in himself, wrought by daily exercise that included rest, good sleep, and regular food. The mattock wound in his leg was finally just a memory, and he thought he might get his speed back in time. His arms were filling out. He stood straighter than he had since the swamp. Girls looked at him when he strode by. And he wasn’t alone. Virgil seemed stronger, and Jim had gained an inch and was filling out like an animal being fattened for market. Most of them had hats, now, and their clothes were better.

  Williamsburg residents still treated them like a raree show, coming to their doors or windows every time the battalion paraded there. The catcalls were mostly gone, although many of the residents made sure that every black soldier knew that they resented the arming and freeing of so many slaves. It was getting harder to find a slave in Williamsburg, and few of the middle-class families had avoided the consequence. Most of them had lost quite a bit of “valuable property”.

  Caesar’s corporal, the well-spoken man, had been butler and major domo to Peyton Randolph. Other men in the ranks with Caesar had been field hands or blacksmiths or house slaves belonging to Loyalists. None had been reluctant to join the British Army to leave slavery. Governor Dunmore had hoped to raise a regiment of whites and a regiment of blacks, and the black regiment was growing faster, though it did alienate some of the white Loyalists. The whites were not coming so quickly, and the governor’s detachment of regulars and marines was stretched thin trying to cover all the possible lines and train the new recruits.

  Caesar glanced under his hat and saw that they were well up the green by the governor’s palace and that two other companies of blacks were already drawn up there, as well as a detachment from the Fourteenth Regiment. Sergeant King halted them when they were aligned with the front marker of the second company.

  “Company will form line from column by wheeling to the left by subdivisions.” Caesar was prepared for this, could already see the result in his mind. These maneuvers were becoming clear to him, and their purposes, though many of them seemed slower than simply telling the men where to go. It was all about harnessing and controlling the firepower of all the muskets. Caesar understood that to the marrow. He still wondered about the power of individual men aiming carefully, but so few of the blacks were trained in the use of arms that they were unlikely to make good marksmen, and observation of the white militia had suggested that they weren’t much better.

  They were halted in line with the other companies. A white officer, not one he recognized, in an elegant brown velvet coat and a bright green silk sash, walked smartly to the front of the parade. He began to read from a proclamation and general order from the governor about martial law. Caesar understood it, but it didn’t seem to have much to do with him. He spent a few moments thinking about “clubbing”, or reversing the company, and why that was such a bad thing. His attention snapped back to the white officer when he coughed and his tone of voice changed.

  “I do require every person capable of bearing arms, to resort to his Majesty’s standard, or be looked on as traitors to his Majesty’s crown and government, and thereby become liable to the penalty that the law inflicts upon such offences, such as forfeiture of life, confiscation of lands, and etc. And I do hereby further declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining his Majesty’s troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedy reducing of this colony to a proper sense of their duty, to his Majesty’s Crown and dignity.

  “Three cheers for his Britannic Majesty George the Third and an end to tyranny!”

  “HUZZA!

  “HUZZA!

  “HUZZA!”

  Caesar looked at Tom, who was beaming, and at Virgil, who looked very serious indeed. Jim was too far away, in the front rank, to be reached with a glance, but Caesar could see a little of his smile tightening the skin at his temples. They were free men—and soldiers.

  4

  Great Bridge, Virginia, December 9, 1775

  Caesar had an eye for ground and a head for tactics, and he never doubted that they would be beaten. He could see that most of the white troops, the soldiers of the Fourteenth Foot, felt the same. They were quiet, looking at the enemy entrenchments across the bridge. No one seemed to doubt that they would be ordered to storm those lines, or that even the ragged militia would be able to kill them in the long narrow defile of the bridge. Caesar couldn’t understand why they had to try, but he waited with the others in the cold morning light, where the dew was so heavy it seemed like rain. Everything was wet. He wiped his lock again, directed his file mates to do the same. Caesar was now a file leader in Corporal Peters’s section; everyone said he would be a corporal soon enough. He liked that, and he tried to look out for his own. His file consisted of Tom and Virgil; Jim was next to him at the flank of the company, a place he held by both his small size and his competence.

  The handsome officer in the brown velvet coat who had read the proclamation was from the third company. Peters called him “Mr. Robinson”, and the two seemed to kn
ow each other. Caesar hadn’t thought to ask, but the man seemed a good officer and his company was the best appointed and the best drilled. Their own officer, Mr. Edgerton, was not as wealthy, and seemed more interested in books than in war. He was still in Williamsburg, down with the fever. That left King to command the company, a situation fraught with complication, as he was not invited to the meetings the white gentlemen held.

  Mr. Robinson could be seen arguing vociferously with the two white officers of the regulars, a very young man and an older one. Both of them kept their voices down. King watched impassively.

  “They gon’ send us ovuh the bridge fuhst!” someone commented from the rear rank.

  King glared back. “So what?”

  “It’s madness,” Caesar murmured from the front rank.

  “Their powder might be damp. They might be so scaret they can’t shoot. Anything might happen. I done seen it at sea, boys. You don’ know what the fight will be till you in it, and then it’s too late to change you mind!”

  He looked over at Caesar and nodded. “Course, it does help to have a better plan. But we ain’t doomed.”

  Both men watched the movement of the militia over on the far bank. They didn’t look scared.

  Mr. Robinson came up to them and ordered the sergeants to wheel the Ethiopians on to the road, so that all his men were facing him. There were only about a hundred, less than a third of the regiment. The rest had been left in Williamsburg, for reasons not stated.

  “Boys, we are going to follow the Fourteenth Foot across the bridge. They are regulars and better used to standing the fire, but I expect you to follow them with a will and fire as soon as you form line on the far side. I will lead you off myself. If I fall, you must look to Mr. Cowan and your sergeants. The Fourteenth officer is Mr. Cowse. Follow him as you would me. Remember that you fight for your king, and consider that your honor is the honor of your race. Please form the battalion in a column of half-platoons formed from the right, and remind the men of how to form to the left. Carry on!”

  The noncommissioned officers moved through the ranks, reminding the men of what the maneuver would be if they crossed the bridge: each half-platoon marching up to the left to form on the one beside it. It was one of dozens of maneuvers they had practiced, and Caesar thought that if he had been in command he would have made the men practice it again. Although the verbal reminder helped all but the dullest, Caesar knew that most of the men in his platoon had only the shadiest notions of marching to an incline. He shook his head. It was interesting that the regulars were going first.

  It was, to some extent, his second battle, and he was much better prepared than he had been for his first, far away at home against a sudden attack of slavers. He looked to the right and left at the men in his section and platoon, and smiled a little, because he was young and such things touch the heart. He had been a leader since the swamp, and that meant that he had to wonder how many of them would die.

  The regulars formed on the road ahead of them, and did it in a way they had not been taught; Caesar watched it curiously. They marched off by files from the center so that they were only two men across. Caesar couldn’t see how they would reform in a hurry, but they certainly looked crisp. Most of the men had reversed their hats and let down the back cock, so that they had a shade for their eyes; it made them look more like scarlet farmers than the usual crisp soldiers. They also talked more at the moment of battle than they did on parade. One fellow near the back turned and waved at Caesar and his men.

  “See that you follow us, blackie! No shirkin’!”

  Caesar remained silent as befitted a good soldier, a little ashamed that the white regular should have broken discipline, but Virgil leaned forward and shouted: “Leave some for us, lobsterback!” For some reason, the insult caused a number of the other white soldiers to turn and wave. It was an odd moment of camaraderie. Caesar wondered distantly where the white Loyalist militia was. Clearly they were less expendable than either the regulars or the blacks.

  “We all gonna die,” said one man from Robinson’s company. “But I like that them white boys is gonna die first.”

  And then the regular officer raised his hand, and the column began to cross the bridge.

  It was far worse than Caesar had imagined, because they didn’t even get across the bridge the first time. They made it a little over halfway, and the wall of fire stopped the regulars. They took hits and slowed to a crawl, then stopped and began to fire back, sporadically. No one ran, but no one seemed to be getting any farther. Caesar didn’t even have his foot on the bridge yet. His impatience soared, sure, in his strength, that he could make a difference. After a few minutes of ineffective return fire, the regulars retreated in good order. They had lost men, and several were wounded. They were angry.

  The Ethiopians were placed in front, but Robinson’s company was first, and though they did a little better, moving faster across the bridge, they too were stopped by the volume of fire from the far side. Men were killed, or maimed, and they screamed. Caesar made it on to the bridge this time, and began to hear the bullets making their whirring noise as they passed close enough to cause other men to duck. He couldn’t fire, while other men in the column seemed to be shooting at the water, or nothing at all. The smoke actually gave them a little cover.

  And then they retreated again, called back by their own officers when it was clear that they weren’t going any further. Both regiments had brought back their casualties, who were now lying in rows on the dry ground well to the rear, their calls for water and the mercy of God clearly audible above the fifes of the Fourteenth Foot and the popping of musketry from the far bank. The officers had a conference and the older regular officer, his arm in a sling, led his company to the front of the column. The men stripped off their packs, loaded their muskets, and looked grim.

  King pointed to a young officer and an ensign with a handful of men from the Fourteenth.

  “Know what they call that, Caesar?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s a forlorn hope. Them boys is gon’ run across as fas’ as they can an’ draw fire so that the rest of that company can get across.”

  Caesar watched them with wonder. The men were pulling off their coats and putting their waistbelts over their shoulders, giving all of them a faintly piratical look. The officer, barely old enough to be called a man, was whistling tunelessly and stabbing at things with his smallsword. He didn’t seem afraid, and Caesar loved him for it, because he was certainly going to die. He seemed almost happy. He was fencing with a patch of ferns, showing off his skill, and he lunged, just decapitating the nearest of the plants, then turned and caught Caesar’s eye. Caesar smiled uncertainly, and the boy smiled back, turned and trotted to the head of his men.

  There was no longer any joking among the men, and the redcoats were as silent as they had been in Williamsburg on parade. When the order was given, the young officer dashed across with his little party of men on his heels, and then the rest of the Fourteenth followed at the double. Caesar couldn’t see what happened because he was in the column, but although the volume of enemy fire increased, the column didn’t slow, and suddenly Caesar could see figures in red on the ground in front of the entrenchments. He moved on to the bridge himself, and then continued to jog forward. There was a sudden crash and as it sounded like one of their volleys, he thought that perhaps the Fourteenth was across and firing. He was halfway, and the bridge was slick with blood from the men who had fallen in the first and second attempts. And the whole column slowed, but they seemed barely under fire. The enemy had a real foe to face now, he thought, and no time to waste on the bridge. The amount of blood on the bridge was a surprise. A man held about as much as a deer, it seemed.

  The Fourteenth fired again, precise as on parade and fast, and then the column leapt forward for a moment and stopped, with Caesar and the front of his platoon right at the edge of the land. And just under him, his fine boots caught in the bridge, was the boy-officer, dead. His
sword was gone, and one hand seemed to clutch the bank of the swampy ground.

  The Fourteenth had formed well, and they were firing steadily, but both they and the entrenchments were so shrouded in smoke that neither seemed to offer any targets. The Ethiopians, whether from indiscipline or native spirit, had formed a loose line instead of the tight line of platoons they had been taught; and they were all intermixed, their ranks and files lost as the men had tried to push forward through smoke to fire their rounds. Caesar didn’t hesitate, but led his own men to the left so that the line would continue to form. Mr. Robinson was simply encouraging men to load and fire, and not trying to form them up, so Caesar ran to his flank, stopped near a man from Robinson’s company, and began to fire into the smoke.

  The triumph of the rush across the bridge was shortlived. Inaccurate as the militia fire was, their superiority in numbers and the advantage of their entrenchments quickly began to tell. Caesar saw men fall around him, some hit badly enough to go down without a groan, a few unlucky ones screaming in anguish, and others, perhaps wiser, taking minor wounds and moving off quietly to the rear. The fire of the enemy never slackened, and Caesar began to doubt that they were hitting any of the rebels. He looked through the smoke and saw a regular officer go down, then stand again clutching his shoulder. He and Robinson stood together for a moment. Then Caesar’s attention was brought back to his own narrow frontage, where it was obvious that too many men were down.

  They were going to break and run.

  A few, mostly younger men, began to edge back, some of them lightly wounded. When they reached the water’s edge, they began to move more quickly to the bridge. Sergeant King stopped them.

  “Stand still, you bastards. If’n you run, slavers will take you. Stay and fight!”

  Caesar hadn’t left his spot, determined to die. He cast his musket about crisply and rammed another round down the barrel. The younger men forced themselves forward, although most seemed to lie down or kneel, and few of them were firing. The fire of the Fourteenth Foot had slackened too, and then it stopped.