Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  Washington walked down the rear rank, taking short steps to avoid over-running the much shorter captain. He looked at their faces and gazed into their eyes, this company of blacks who had all, most likely, started the war as slaves.

  He was all but finished when he saw that, in the British way, the sergeants stood in a line a few paces behind the men on parade. He looked back at the sergeant on the right and came to a stop, one foot poised for another step.

  He knew the face so well, and he had thought of it several times since that dinner in New Jersey. He smiled to see the scars over the young man’s eyes. It was a hard smile, in that he didn’t show his teeth, but he stepped closer to the man. He felt a lump in his throat.

  The soldiers were the message, of course. He nodded, sharply, not to anyone in particular, but to Guy Carleton, who was somewhere else. General Carleton was telling him that the blacks would not be sent back to the Congress, and Washington admired the manner of his reply. He found himself standing in front of the man. Caesar. He looked him in the eye. They were of a height, although Washington remembered him as smaller. Caesar carried himself well, and wore a fine uniform and a good sword, and suddenly Washington beamed, one of his rare happy smiles. Hamilton was stunned, and stopped behind him.

  “You are the senior sergeant, Caesar?” Washington asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Caesar answered. He found it difficult to talk, and his voice was subsumed in a whirl of conflicting emotions. He found it difficult not to answer that unexpected smile.

  “Very creditable, Sergeant. Very creditable indeed.” Washington turned to Captain Martin. “As fine a company as I have seen, Captain.” Martin flushed. Sergeant Caesar was smiling fit to split his face.

  Washington walked back to his horse and mounted. He bowed from the saddle to Martin.

  “A very great pleasure,” he said, and Martin bowed. When Martin completed his bow, he called “Shoulder your firelocks!”

  It was well done.

  “No need,” said Washington, and he turned his horse back to the docks. Martin gazed after him in surprise, and Lake and Caesar locked eyes again, and then Lake smiled, and turned away. One of the British officers hastened after Washington, and Martin took George’s sleeve.

  “You must be Major Lake,” he said.

  Lake bowed. “You have the better of me, sir.”

  Martin bowed in return. “My wife has the pleasure of the acquaintance of Miss Lovell.”

  George flushed and smiled broadly as he wrung Martin’s hand.

  “We’re to be wed as soon as I have a pass for the city,” he said. “I hope you’ll attend?”

  “Alas, I will be going to Canada, Major.” Martin gave an ironic smile. “But you have my best wishes, all the same.”

  The British officer had caught up with General Washington.

  “General Washington,” he called. “General, I hope you did not fancy some slight, sir. None was intended, I assure you.” The officer, a major from the staff, was all but pleading for understanding.

  “And I took none,” said Washington. “But I have received General Carleton’s response, and I fully understand it. Please tell him from me that I enjoyed inspecting his troops, and that I accept his response in the name of the Congress.”

  Washington returned to the boat, and he and his staff rowed north. The British staff officers were gone in a moment, and Captain Martin was left looking at the little cloud of dust.

  “Who will believe that, do you think?” he said to Caesar as the company reformed at closed ranks.

  “What does it mean?” asked Virgil. He was searching in his haversack for his pipe.

  “It means we’re free,” said Caesar. He threw his arms around Virgil and hugged him. “It means we’re free.”

  Historical Note

  The Corps of Black Guides is a fictional unit, as is Captain Stewart’s company of light infantry, who lack a regimental number for the excellent reason that I didn’t assign them one. With those exceptions, all the units portrayed in this book are historical. My Corps of Black Guides is founded on a mixture of black units like the Black Pioneers and several others. Captain Stewart himself is loosely based on the character of Captain Stedman, a Scottish officer in Dutch service whose book Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition to Surinam is a tale of romance, adventure, and early protest against the slave trade, and on John Peebles, a Grenadier officer in the Forty-second Regiment whose journals give a very different view of the American Revolution.

  George Lake is an amalgam of dozens of patriotic young men who left us journals to record their feelings and their deeds. If Caesar, Lake, or Stewart seem impossibly heroic, they pale beside the courage of the men, black and white, on both sides, whose deeds sometimes exceed the wildest flights of fancy any writer could produce.

  I have attempted to portray the language of all parties in a manner that will represent the differences in speech caused by race, tribe, culture and social status without making the text illegible, troubling to read or reminiscent of caricature.

  The character of Washington is based on his own letters and Douglas Southall Freeman’s biography. Many of his speeches (and those of other historical personages in this book) are lifted directly from his recorded comments and letters. While it is possible to find him vain, petty, ambitious, and arrogant (because he was, at times, all those things) it is impossible to think him anything but great. It was a pleasure getting to know him.

  I have included here a rough chronology of historical events that relate to the book that may not be so well known.

  June 22, 1772—The Somerset Case decides that slavery has no legal status in Great Britain. (This is one of those cases that dealt with a minor issue but were transported by public interest.) It was widely reported on, and involved the forcible recovery of a “slave” in London. It was discussed in America, and was taken to mean that any slave who reached England was free. American and West Indian slave owners took note of this legal development, as did abolitionists. Period pamphleteers saw this as a clear sign that the slave trade would be made illegal, and the idea that England was considering the abolition of slavery was included in colonial grievances.

  November 8, 1775—Governor Dunmore of Virginia issues a proclamation freeing any slave whose master is in rebellion against the king, and who join the Loyalist forces to support “his Majesties Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedy reducing of this colony to a proper sense of their duty.”

  Late November 1775—British regulars of the Fourteenth Regiment and Loyalist black soldiers of the Loyal Ethiopian Regiment attempt to storm the rebel fort at Great Bridge and fail with heavy casualties.

  1776—Several corps of black Loyalists raised to support the British Army in North America. One, the Black Pioneers, becomes a “provincial” unit on the establishment (like Butler’s Rangers, the King’s Royal Regiment of New York, etc.) while others remain in various combatant states without full pay, like Colonel Tye’s “Black Brigade,” several units of black partisans and horse, The “Black Rangers” raised in South Carolina, etc. (These informal or partisan units were not regularly paid, but served for rations and in some cases, plunder, like Brant’s Volunteers and scores of white Loyalist militia units.)

  1776-82—At least 11,000 blacks served with the British Army or served as auxiliaries, boatmen, sailors in the Royal Navy (by far the most egalitarian of the services) or laborers. Another 10,000-16,000 blacks followed the army in various capacities, as servants and cartmen, digging entrenchments, as camp followers, etc.

  1783—The Continental Congress is asked as part of its treaty obligations to help restore land and property taken by “patriots” from “Loyalists.” In response, the Congress demands that the British return all the freed slaves in New York, numbering 11,000-16,000, because they represent an enormous “property loss” to their owners. Sir Guy Carleton, the British commander, refuses despite heavy pressure, and arranges that EVERY black in New York gets special manumission papers and
passage to Nova Scotia. Despite this, many blacks remain to form the nucleus of the modern black population of New York.

  Some of the historical players in this unexamined side of the American Revolution include:

  JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE—Volunteered to raise a company of black soldiers in Boston in 1775, and was instrumental in the raising and equipping of several black units in New York, often using them as scouts and guides for his raids into the New Jersey countryside. Simcoe (famous in Canada and virtually unknown outside it) was a captain of grenadiers at the outset of the war and went on to command the elite Queen’s Rangers, who still exist today as the Queen’s York Rangers in the Canadian Army. Simcoe went on to pass the first uniform laws against slavery in the British Empire in Upper Canada (1792).

  COLONEL TYE—Commanded the “Black Brigade,” a unit of as many as 600-900 blacks who served as partisans in New Jersey and New York from 1776 to 1782. Tye was viewed as a respectable and honorable adversary by his foes and had several escapes worthy of fiction. He died of a wound in 1782.

  SGT. THOMAS PETERS—The senior black soldier serving in a regular provincial regiment, Peters ended the war in the “Black Pioneers” and, with Colonel Tye, is the model for the fictional Caesar. Peters was a slave, escaped to join the British, served in both the Loyal Ethiopians and in the Black Pioneers. He became the senior black Loyalist in Nova Scotia, and when conditions there became untenable, he led a delegation to London in 1790 that resulted in many Nova Scotia blacks settling in Sierra Leone, where he became one of the colony’s leaders.

  GEORGE WASHINGTON—Most of Washington’s slaves ran off to the British during the revolution, although some were recovered. However, at some point between 1772 and 1796, Washington underwent a dramatic reversal in his views on slavery, and despite being a very successful slave farmer, he came to agree with Lafayette before he died that the system was pernicious and a blot on the liberty of America.

  Select Bibliography

  This represents a list of works that readers might enjoy if they feel that their sense of the history of the period has been challenged or seek to know more about slavery or warfare or the philosophy of the day. It is by no means exhaustive, but represents works that exerted a greater influence on this book.

  Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America 1754-1766. Vintage Books, New York, 2001.

  Caesar, C. Julius. Commentaries on the Wars in Gaul (Translated by William Duncan). London, 1779.

  Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of… London, 1789.

  Fielding, Sarah. Xenophon’s Memoirs of Socrates. London, 1762.

  Freeman, Douglas Southall. George Washington Vol. I-V. Scribners, New York, 1948.

  Gerzina, Gretchen Holbrook. Black London: Life before Emancipation. Rutgers University Press, 1995.

  Gronniosaw, James Albert Ukawsaw. A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of…W. Gye, Bath, 1792.

  Hodges, Graham Russell, ed. The Black Loyalist Directory. Garland Publishing, London, 1996.

  Houlding, J.A. Fit for Service: The training of the British Army 1715-1795. Oxford University Press, 1981.

  Nash, Gary B. Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America. Prentice Hall Inc. Brunswick, New Jersey, 1974.

  Nosworthy, Brent. Anatomy of Victory: Battle Tactics 1689-1763. Hippocrene Books, New York, 1990.

  Pulis, John W. ed. Moving On: Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World. Garland Publishing, London, 1999.

  Rees, Sian. The Floating Brothel. Headline Books, London, 2001.

  Stedman, Captain J. G. Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition…Imprint Society, Barre, Massachusetts, 1971.

  Stevenson, Captain Roger. Advice to Officers on the Conduct of Detachments…London, 1769.

  Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997.

  Walker, Ellis. The Morals of Epictetus made in English. London, 1716

  Acknowledgments

  The research for this book has spanned so many years that I can’t guarantee to remember all those who have every right to my thanks. I beg the forgiveness of any who have been forgotten. I have benefited from the research of hundreds of people, from articles on eight-eenth-century warfare in West Africa to articles on prostitution in early America. I hope that their hard work is reflected here, and can only insist that any historical errors are entirely mine.

  From the first, I have had the support of many members of the revolutionary war reenactment community. Beyond their priceless knowledge of material culture and period life, their ranks contain many professional and amateur historians who have unearthed a great deal of data vital to this book. Jevon Garrett, a close friend from university and a reenactor who portrays a black Loyalist, set me on this road. Todd Braistead (whose article on black Loyalists appears in Moving On noted below) provided signal assistance, as did Jim Corbett, whose detailed knowledge of the staff officers and internal politics of both armies I have only inadequately represented. I would also like to thank the men and women of the British Brigade, the Brigade of the American Revolution, and the Northern Brigade. Dozens of units deserve special praise, but I’ll limit mine to several recreated units for their constant enthusiasm and help on details of the period; Gavin and Nancy Watt and the King’s Royal Regiment of New York; Fil Walker, Tom Callens, Elizabeth McAnulty and all the members of Captain Fraser’s Company of Select Marksmen, the Sixty-fourth Regiment of foot and Mike Grenier, their commander; the Fortieth Regiment and Roy Najecki, and Daniel Gariepy and the members of his baroque dance classes. I’ll close my praise of reenactors with my thanks to the Queen’s Rangers of Canada, both their recreated unit and its commander, Jim Millard, as well as the original and continuing regiment, the Queen’s York Rangers of Canada, whose historian, Captain Bob Kennedy, has opened their armoury and regimental museum to me many times.

  I’d like to thank many museums and research institutions in the United States, Canada and Great Britain, most especially the Metro Toronto Reference Library, the National Archives of Canada, The National Army Museum in Great Britain and Brendan Morrissey, the City of London Museum, the Society of the Cincinnati in Washington, D.C., Mount Vernon, and Fort Ticonderoga and Chris Fox, for access to their libraries and their collections over the years.

  Bob Sulentic (another old friend from university) and Vivian Stephens provided signal help with research, especially quotes from classical authors in eighteenth-century translations.

  Special thanks to the first readers of the manuscript, Nancy and Gavin Watt and Jevon Garrett, all noted above; Allison McRae, who proofread the initial draft (a daunting task), and my incomparable editor in England, Tim Waller. Bill Massey, my American editor, added excellent advice at the last lap, and Fil Walker, Doug Cubbison, Bob Sulentic and my wife, Sarah, provided a last read for detail and accuracy. Sarah also remained cheerful despite many opportunities to be otherwise as I finished this manuscript in the midst of our wedding preparations.

  And finally, for my father, Kenneth Cameron, to whom this book is dedicated and without whom it never would have been started, much less finished.

  Washington and Caesar

  A former officer in the US Navy, Christian Cameron is a novelist and military historian with a lifelong interest in the American Revolution. Along with Kenneth Cameron, he is also the co-author of the novels Night Trap, Peacemaker, Top Hook and Hostile Contact – published under the pseudonym Gordon Kent.

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2003

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