Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  It was that sort of ship.

  Caesar leaned his head against the gun behind him and began to black the cover of his cartridge box, thinking of the future.

  Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 6, 1776

  “I protest, sir! That was my plan, a plan that required subtlety and decision, two properties you will not find in General Sullivan.”

  “General Lee!”

  “Sir, I appeal to your sense of fairness. Was that not to have been my command? Was it not my plan? Is there to be no glory in this war for me at all?”

  “General Lee, this war is not about personal glory. This is a war fought against our mother country to free ourselves from the chains of tyranny. Every man can only contribute…”

  “Spare me, sir. You are the commander in chief. You may direct or subordinate every action. I am on your staff; I have no regiment of my own, and command precious little respect outside this headquarters that I have not slaved like an African to get, riding the lines and browbeating adjutants. I have spent weeks in Rhode Island trying to clear the ground of Loyalists and sympathizers so that we don’t find ourselves outflanked by a fleet in Newport, and I return to find that the one command I might have expected on the actual field of battle has been given to an incompetent bungler who traipsed across the ice in full view of their sentries. I have no right to make this complaint and that I will allow. I admit freely that the good of the service should come first, but a man is allowed a little vainglory, I think, and…”

  “Calm yourself, General.” Washington took a deep breath, distressed at a decision that he had suspected was poor from the start, and doubly distressed that this clash was taking place in front of the staff. He couldn’t apologize. To do so would injure the integrity of the office he held. But he must make amends; he had been wrong, and Sullivan had botched the attempt. “I expect more of you than this shouting. Our people are about.”

  Lee glared, a cat with his back up. He had done yeoman work in Rhode Island—nasty work at the ugly junction where intelligence and politics met—a job no one else had wanted. Washington was again conscious that he had wronged the man, and wounded that he seemed so often to wrong him. There was something about Lee that lent itself to wrong, or a certain injured dignity that seemed the only dignity the man could muster.

  Which didn’t change the fact that he was a good soldier, and that he and Gates were the only two men approaching professionals in his army. They were not easy men. Washington suspected that each felt he might have had the command. They were not easy men again because they had difficult ways; all three of them were accustomed more to being obeyed than to obeying. That had been Martha’s phrase. Perhaps Gates resented it as much as Lee; the thought made Washington wince. He wanted a band of brothers like Henry V. He seemed to be leading a band of squabblers, and there was a fair share of blame with his own name on it.

  “General Lee, I will see to it that you have the next important active command. There is some talk of a southern command in our recent letters with Congress. I will see that you have it, if Congress will agree. Or the command at New York.” This last in an undertone.

  He heard the intake of breath. They all wanted independent commands. He wanted a united army that would serve more than six weeks.

  “General Greene?”

  “I have a new set of returns with new numbers on the regiments, sir. They are lower, as we feared.”

  “Whose returns?”

  “General Sullivan’s. He is not here to defend himself.”

  Lee shook his head, rubbed his face with his hands, and looked up.

  “How low?”

  “Possibly below ten thousand, although word of the king’s proclamation has brought a fair number of recruits.”

  Lee shook his head again, weary disdain mixed with none-too-secret elation on his narrow features.

  “The rumor in Rhode Island among the Loyalists is that the British will stab at New York.”

  Washington looked keenly at the maps in front of him. It was reflex, really; he had looked over the terrain a hundred times. An attack on New York was the only logical step: it was full of men loyal to the Crown; it lay virtually undefended; it had a marvelous anchorage for the Royal Navy.

  “They are certainly preparing to leave Boston. I think we can consider the siege victorious.”

  Washington glowered at Greene, his eyebrows lowering a fraction. “No talk of victory until we have triumphed, gentlemen. I, too, have heard that they are readying a fleet and boats. We must pray it is not for a repeat of Breed’s Hill. We don’t have the lines to stop them tomorrow if they come.”

  “I don’t think they want to.” Lee was more relaxed. “I think my friend Burgoyne has written off Massachusetts Colony. It may be punished later; it may see raids. But the Boston garrison knows they have only foes here. They will go and find greener pastures, like Rhode Island or New York.”

  “And you think the most likely thrust is New York.”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  Washington looked around the table at his staff. Gates, unruffled by the tempers shown, looked as if his thoughts were elsewhere; he often did, but they never were. The others were still a little distanced by Lee’s outburst, but every face was attentive. They were not scribbling figures to balance the latest returns, which was too often the case.

  “New York must be defended. I would like a letter drafted to Congress asking for permission to raise troops and appoint martial authority for that defense.”

  “Sir,” Lee was deferential, but firm. His use of sir had acquired a new proportion, as if it was a substitute for “my lord”. “You do not need the authority of Congress to place New York under defense. Congress made you commander in chief of the entire continent.”

  Washington smiled a little, a smile that didn’t show his teeth. How much he would like to believe that he could exercise such powers! He was satisfied, if somewhat distantly, that every face around the table seemed to reflect approbation for Lee’s words. They were loyal to him, even if fractious among themselves. He no sooner felt the thought than he banished it. If he would not allow Lee his vainglory, no less could he allow himself a hope of dominion.

  “I am not sure of that. Congress is our master, Charles; we must be wise in choosing our displays of authority.” It was said softly; every man in the room could hear it, but said so, Lee would take it as a personal aside.

  “I honor that, sir. I honor it deeply. But I have the greatest reason to believe, from the most authentic intelligence, that the best members of Congress expect that you would take much upon yourself, as referring everything to them is, in fact, defeating the project.”

  Tempted as he was to ask after the “best members of Congress”, Washington was pleased, but he controlled it as efficiently as he controlled his anger on other occasions.

  “Draft the letter regardless, and show it to me later. General Lee, draw up a plan for the defense of New York. If Congress accepts, it shall be your command.”

  Perhaps Gates flinched; perhaps Greene was jealous. Sullivan was absent. But soon enough, he was going to have to send them, every one, away to lead armies. The war would only broaden. Perhaps Canada would fall; perhaps Great Britain would see sense. Neither seemed likely. He had begun to think it would be a long war, and even as he reached to grasp his first victory, he had begun to feel his own monumental confidence slipping.

  Along the Chesapeake, Virginia, January 28, 1776

  As soon as the governor decided that the peninsula might be suitable for a winter camp, he ordered it scouted. Although the marines were excellent soldiers, they knew nothing of the terrain, and the word came down to the Loyalists, black and white, that scouts were wanted to learn the ground. Many of the Ethiopians volunteered, but Caesar and Jim were taken. They were issued two pistols apiece and sharp knives, a tarpaulin of oiled canvas and a haversack of naval rations.

  The next morning, the two of them were taken ashore with a midshipman from one of the Royal N
avy ships that accompanied the governor. Mr. Harding was nominally in charge and had the knack of making maps, but his small size and urchin’s face did nothing to inspire Caesar’s confidence. But he proved reasonable enough once they were ashore.

  “Captain said I should listen to you, sir,” he said with a civil nod to Caesar. In the boat, the boy hadn’t even looked at him. Caesar felt as if he had become a different person on the beach. Behind Caesar, the sailors splashed in the cold water as the bow oars pushed the keel of the big boat free of the sand. Their mates pulled them aboard, their bare legs flashing in the weak sun, and then the oars were out. With surprising speed, the boat began to grow smaller.

  “Best be getting inland, sir,” said Caesar. He ended the sentence more kindly than he started it; the enormity of being alone on an enemy beach was just coming to the midshipman. He looked a little gray.

  Jim bounded ahead. He was gone into the woodline at the edge of the beach in a second, and Caesar wondered if he was going to have to call Jim back like a runaway puppy. The thought of two days ashore with two boys struck him as less like scouting than minding children. He took a moment at the edge of the beach to gather a pile of driftwood for a fire. Then he pulled a big sheet of old bark over his pile. He thought it looked like rain and he meant to camp near the beach.

  Jim found a big meadow with a stream just to the east of their landing spot. Caesar thought it would make a good camp, screened by trees from the bay and by deep woods from the land. There was a small cabin site, as if the ground had been cleared for a farm that had never succeeded.

  They made their way across the small peninsula in less than three hours by the mid’s watch. They crossed one track, a pair of paths with a low hump of grass between. Mr. Harding walked along it and came back. “No horse on this path for some time,” he said cautiously.

  “We can come back to it, if’n you like,” said Caesar.

  “Aye, that would be best.” He made a mark on his paper and they carried on, walking easily between the big trees on either side. Caesar listened to the white boy counting his paces.

  Jim went ahead, mostly. He very quickly caught the habit and the intention of counting his paces, and he would come back with a bound, reporting the distance he had traveled. He kept going down to the shore. Caesar, watching Mr. Harding, noted that the mid already had the whole coast of the peninsula drawn in great detail, and that every time Jim came loping back, he’d question him until he could determine where on the coast Jim had emerged. Caesar watched little lines drawn across the paper, began to see in his head how the lines corresponded to places they had been. The only maps he’d seen were decorations on walls in rich houses. He understood how a map could show all of Jamaica, or all of Virginia. This was the first time that he or Jim had seen a map made small enough to show something on a more human scale. He liked it, but his enthusiasm was nothing next to Jim’s.

  “That’s the trick!” Jim said on one of his returns. He was perspiring, despite the cool air, but he leaned down close to the white boy, watching the pencil move along a straightedge. The white boy was clearly proud of his accomplishment, and he explained to Jim as he went how he measured degrees with his pocket theodolite, how even Jim’s forays to the beach were along measured lines, and the paces made for distances, so that they slowly covered the ground.

  “Like a net,” said Jim. “It’s like laying a net of us over the ground. We’ the cords o’ the net.”

  Mr. Harding considered this for a moment. It didn’t sound mathematical enough to suit him. His mathematical knowledge was hard won, and he didn’t wish to belittle its power.

  “It’s like it, I suppose.” The white boy couldn’t remain indifferent, however. Jim’s enthusiasm was infectious, and both boys began to work well together.

  Caesar understood well enough, and he relegated himself to guard and make a little coffee when they stopped in the afternoon. The boys drank the coffee, but they were burning to return to the track in the woods and follow it. They saw the whole expedition as adventure. Caesar was oppressed by the emptiness of the peninsula and the constant fear of capture, with the added responsibility of the two boys.

  After coffee, he buried his fire and they walked back to the track. Jim loped off, following the track toward the sea. Caesar took out his pipe and filled it. He had little tobacco left and few pennies with which to buy more. He’d saved a coal from his coffee fire and he used it to light the pipe. Harding looked over at him and Caesar held out the pipe.

  The boy shook his head. “Mids aren’t allowed to smoke.”

  Caesar thought about that, about all the rules they lived with. Harding could give him orders, but he couldn’t smoke. That had some humor to it. Caesar looked at the locks of his pistols and changed the prime out of the little horn from his bag. He looked at the sky.

  “I think we’re going to have rain,” he said.

  The white boy nodded.

  Jim came running back, his energy still a tangible thing.

  “Four hundred fifty-five each way. Curves to the north. Nice even curve, I think.”

  Harding took a note. Then he drew on his sketch. “Like that?”

  “Yessuh.”

  Caesar didn’t like the track. “I think it’s a plantation track to the beach for loading.”

  “Let’s go find the plantation, then,” said Harding cheerfully, and they were off.

  An hour later, their packs were feeling heavy and the rain was imminent. Indeed, the first cold drops had already fallen around them in spurts, as if the sky was indecisive. The track had crossed two fence lines, and they could see fields in the middle distance. Darkness was not far away.

  “We need a camp.”

  “We’re a long way from the beach,” said Caesar. “I had thought to camp on the beach, where the boat could see a signal.”

  The two boys looked at him. “It’s a long way back,” said Jim.

  “An hour.”

  “We’ll be wet through by then.” Harding was less cocksure, now. He was tired. “And I want to see the plantation, get a sketch of the house. The governor will want to know. We’re here.”

  “If we camp here, we’re a damn sight surer of gettin’ caught, suh. Sir.” Caesar tried to look for alternatives. Getting the boys back to the beach, building them a shelter, then coming back here? It seemed possible.

  “We’ll make camp here.”

  “No fire then,” said Caesar. Jim nodded. Harding seemed surprised when Jim joined Caesar and looked at him reproachfully. Caesar took both of them by the sleeve and pulled them off the little track and into the shadow of some trees.

  “We ah’ standin’ in the open. We are standing in the open.”

  Jim looked at Harding apologetically. “We been hunted in ground like this. Smell of a fire carries a long way. Suh.”

  Harding looked like he was going to be angry, then thought better of it. “You’re the scouts. I want to see that plantation. What do we do?”

  “We go to the plantation, quick as we can. Then we go back to the beach to camp. That’s what’s safe.” Caesar was already looking at the ground between his stand of trees and the fields. “Don’t want none of the slaves there to see us.”

  “Won’t they protect you?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not, too. An’ if’n they see you, might be different.”

  “I’m willing to take the risk, Mr. Caesar.”

  Caesar stopped watching the fields and turned back to face Harding. The boy looked earnest.

  “Mr. Harding, if’n you get took here, you’ll be a prisoner for a few weeks, kept in houses by folk. If’n Jim or me gets took, we’ll be hung up dead on the spot, or made slaves. I don’ wan’ you to think we’re afeared, but I wan’ you to know what you ah’ askin’ us to risk to take a look at that house.”

  The rain began in earnest.

  “I’ll go alone, then,” said the white boy. “I’m sorry. I had forgotten.”

  “That’s wrong, too. Jim an’ me’ll go. You
stay here and stay dry an’ keep our packs.”

  “But you said…”

  Jim sank down on his haunches next to Harding. “We’ good at this, suh. We’ll take a little peek an’ be back in no time.”

  Harding looked miserable. “I’m in command. I should go.”

  Caesar felt himself admiring the boy a little. “Good for you,” he said. “But you got to know we can do this bettuh…better than you.”

  He didn’t wait to argue with the boy. The boy spoke quietly to Jim and handed him something. Jim nodded. He and Jim checked their pistols again and moved off across the ground, now wet. They walked up some dead ground to a creek bed, and then followed the creek bed through a few fields until Jim, crawling up the bank, could see the chimneys of a big house. Caesar worked his way farther along the bank and then came up himself.

  The plantation was a fine one, although small. The main house was solid brick, with five large windows on the top floor front over four windows and an elegant entrance with a fanlight. Brick outbuildings stood to the right and left. Even in the gray of winter’s evening, the building had some warmth to it, and the lit windows glowed orange as if inviting cold men to come inside and be warmed.

  Behind the warm house lay the slave quarters, two rows of dark huts. None of them had an orange glow to them. Without servants to keep fires going all day, the fires went out on cold afternoons, and the huts were always cold.

  A proper road ran from the front of the house off to the north. A great stand of trees grew at the northern edge of the fields, which stretched for half a mile. Caesar nodded to himself. The plantation was too far inland to make a good headquarters, but it was too close to ignore. He understood that much. He crawled back to Jim and found Jim sketching the positions of the buildings. His heavy, clumsy strokes were very different from Harding’s, but his eye was sure and the heavy square of the house was proportionate to the two barns and rows of slave cabins.