The Turning of Anne Merrick

by Christine Blevins

  TEN

  Here are laurels, come and share them.

  THOMAS PAINE, The American Crisis

  DECEMBER 17, 1777

  SARATOGA

  “Up-a-daisy!”

  Skirts in a bundle over one arm, Anne grabbed hold of Jack’s hand, and he helped her scramble up the last few steps to a hilltop overlooking the place where Fishkill Creek drained into the Hudson, near the town of Saratoga.

  The wind was brisk, but for the first time since the battle at Bemis Heights, the sun shone bright and unfettered by clouds. Anne tossed back the hood of her red cloak, and took in the view. The clear sky was reflected in the water, turning the river into a blue satin ribbon wending north and south through a beautiful tapestry of trees at the apex of change—iridescent yellow and orange broadleaves mingled with mellow reds and browns, tempered by stands of deep green conifers. “What a grand day!” she exclaimed.

  Jack said, “Looks like we’re the last to arrive to this party…”

  Anne held back for a moment, watching her man as he strode away to greet the others with a shout and a wave. Jack, and the men he fought alongside with, had become woven into the cloth of the colorful landscape spread before her.

  They are the weft to the warp of this weaver’s loom…

  Jack’s dark hair had grown so long and unruly, he took to plaiting it into a single thick braid bound with a leather lace, and even at that, the breeze still managed to coax several strands loose. He wore a length of soft red wool wrapped around his neck against the chill, the loose ends tucked into his homespun hunting shirt. A long rifle was slung over his shoulder, an Indian tomahawk dangled from his belt, and his feet were shod in moccasins he’d made for himself. But the changes most notable were not wrought in his dress. The battles he’d survived had chiseled him stronger—a more thoughtful, cautious strength—a strength Anne knew she could rely on.

  Since their joyful reunion under the stars at the Continental camp on Bemis Heights, they’d managed to snatch only scant moments of time together. Anne and Sally joined the cadre of Patriot camp followers as the Continental Army continued to press Burgoyne’s army to the point of surrender. At last, completely surrounded, severely outnumbered, and without any other recourse, Gentleman Johnny agreed to the terms of an honorable surrender, and on this day, the capitulation would be completed in formal ceremony.

  Grown to number more than twenty thousand, General Gates’s entire force marched across the Fishkill that morning to witness the surrender. Always-prudent and ever-cautious David was unwilling to risk exposing Anne and Sally’s true allegiance to any on the British side, and he deemed it unwise for them to attend the ceremony. Instead, he proposed a picnic, and promised them all a “wondrous sight.”

  Ned and Isaac were sitting before a fire they’d kindled, roasting sausage links on sharp green sticks. The Indians were garbed in full array for the celebration—moccasins, leggings, and breechclouts heavy with beaded embellishments—with trade silver strewn over chests, and dangling from ears. Isaac’s gustoweh was adorned with the bright feathers of a male cardinal, and was edged with a band of wampum beads. As Anne drew close, she was surprised by the friendly design ringing the brim—white figures on a purple ground, linked hand in hand in hand.

  Sally sat beside the Oneidans on a striped wool blanket, cutting a wheel of cheese into slim wedges. Handing each Indian a piece, she said, “It’s good. It’s Dutch!”

  Jack asked, “Where’s David?”

  “Wagin’ war on th’ bramble.” Sally jerked a thumb. “Making ready for the surprise, he says.”

  Saber in hand, dressed in polished black boots and his blue and buff dress uniform, David was hacking away at a bramble, creating a break in the thicket to the north of the picnic site.

  Jack shouted, “Hoy, Captain!”

  David looked up and waved as well, and Anne couldn’t help but smile. It had been some time since she’d seen her brother so happy and carefree. “Lately, I forget he’s but six and twenty,” she said to Jack. “It’s a pleasure to see the boy in him once again.”

  Titus came out of the break, tossing an armful of cut brush into a pile, and he waved to Anne and Jack. Though his clothes were a homespun match to what Jack wore, he sported an elaborate tricorn, pinned with a green silk cockade, edged in silver braid, and topped off with a tall white plume.

  “He certainly has a fondness for hats, our Titus,” Anne said.

  “He’s amassed a collection,” Jack said. “That one’s plundered from the German redoubt.”

  “Come here, everyone! It’s time!” David waved them over to the promontory. Once assembled, he announced, “From this vantage point, we will be able to see what no other Patriot eyes are allowed to see by order of the final Treaty of Convention—the vanquished British army grounding its arms.” David handed Sally and Anne each a spyglass. “Aim toward the flats by the river.”

  Anne could already hear the roll and thump of the regimental drums and the trill of fifes carried on the breeze. With the aid of the spyglass, she could see a throng of red coats assembling into ranks, blue coats in formation marching in, and she was able to pick out General Burgoyne on horseback, looking very handsome in his splendid dress uniform, reviewing his vanquished army.

  It was a massive assemblage, more than five thousand soldiers. As she panned across the ranks, Anne thought she might spy a familiar face or two, but other than Burgoyne, she couldn’t find any of the significant faces she hoped she might see.

  “Do you see any you know?” Ned asked.

  “I dinna see any I cared for. Do you, Annie?” Sally said

  “No.” Anne shook her head. “I don’t.”

  “They all look the same, don’t they?” Titus said, his glass to his eye. “Sad and grim.”

  Jack took the glass from Titus and had a look. “We sure know that feeling, don’t we?”

  Row by row, the soldiers came forward to surrender their arms. Infantrymen tossed muskets and cartridge boxes into growing piles. Artillerymen brought the cannon forward. Officers relinquished sidearms and swords, and even the drummers stacked their drums. Then General Burgoyne led the entire parade north, beyond their sight, to where he would meet with General Gates, and hand over his sword in defeat.

  Titus was the first to snap his spyglass shut. “There it is. We beat him. Beat Burgoyne with all his Germans and Indians. Beat him bad.”

  David’s grin was wide. “The French are bound to sit up and take notice of us now…”

  “French!” Sally yelped and ran off to the campfire. She came running back brandishing a green bottle and a stack of tin cups. “Champagne filched and carried over hill and dale for just such an occasion,” she said, passing around the cups. “Compliments of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne!”

  “Perfect! Give it here!” David opened the bottle—whacking off wire bale, cork, and all with one swing of his sword. They all swooped in, giggling and laughing, trying to catch the spilling froth. Even reserved Isaac shouted, “Oho!” and captured a share.

  Anne said, “Raise your cups!”

  Jack held his high. “To us here—and to all who peril their lives for Liberty—’tis to Glory we steer!”

  Part Two

  VALLEY FORGE

  Then cheer up, my lads, to your country be firm

  Like kings of the ocean, we’ll weather each storm!

  Integrity calls—fair Liberty see,

  Waves her flag o’er our heads,

  And her words are “Be Free!”

  Hearts of oak we are still;

  For we’re sons of those men

  Who always are ready—

  Steady, boys, steady—

  To fight for their freedom again and again.

  HEARTS OF OAK, AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  ELEVEN

  These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks
of man and woman.

  THOMAS PAINE, The American Crisis

  JANUARY 1778

  ON THE GULPH ROAD IN PENNSYLVANIA

  “What a pretty snow!”

  Big, buoyant flakes floated on the frigid air, much like loose down from a burst featherbed. Slouched inside a cocoon of woolen garments, Anne swayed with the motion of the mule-drawn wagon in time to the creak and turn of the wheels. She pulled down the muffler tied over nose and mouth and, with a giggle, caught a single snowflake with the tip of her tongue.

  Jack laughed and pulled at his muffler, trying to catch some snow in similar fashion without any success. Anne brushed away the fluffy flakes that clung to his black mustache and beard like burrs on a hound dog. “Best cover up, or your beard will be ice again.”

  “Don’t fret for my beard.” Jack pointed ahead. “See those hills rising up at the crest of the road? Valley Forge and the promise of a warm fire lay just beyond…”

  A crash of musket fire cut through the peace of the snowfall, the discordant echo ringing as lead shot pinged off the iron-banded wheels on their wagon. “What the… ?” Jack twisted around, trying hard to maintain control over the agitated mule team and see beyond the hooped canvas cover protecting their cargo.

  Holding tight to the edge of her seat, Anne leaned out as far as she could to see a company of red-jacketed horsemen with sabers drawn, closing in at full gallop—long madder-dyed horsehair tails snapping from the top of their leather helmets like pennants in the wind.

  “Dragoons!”

  “Goddamn it!” Jack tossed the reins into Anne’s lap and tugged one of the pistols from his belt.

  Anne shouted, “HYAH!” sending their two-mule team into a full-on gallop with a hard smack of leather.

  Spinning around in his seat, Jack made his way to the very back of the wagon bed in a lurching half crawl, half bumble over the load of crates, barrels, and meal sacks, tearing down the canvas cover as he went.

  With the cover down, Anne could see Sally right behind in the second wagon, the hood of her cloak flung back, red braids flying, as she urged her team to speed while Titus with his stubby blunderbuss slung over his back struggled to get to the rear. Anne shouted over the rumble of wheels and jangling harness chains. “Mind you don’t shoot Sally or Titus!”

  “Mind your driving!” Jack shouted back. Situated in a semi-crouch with legs acting as springs to absorb the bumps and jerks as the wagon clattered across the frozen, rutted road, he tugged a few meal sacks into a pile. Dropping down behind this rough cover, he used it to prop and steady his aim as best he could in the bouncing wagon. Anne steered the mules around a bend in the road, giving Jack a clear shot at the pursuers. He fired, shouted, “Blast!” and ducked down immediately to reload, pouring powder and ramming shot down the barrel of his weapon. “Ride’s too rough—target’s too swift.”

  Titus’s blunderbuss boomed. Jack whooped and yelled, “The blunderbuss knocked Titus back on his arse, but knocked a Redcoat onto his as well!”

  Soon a riderless horse came bounding off the road to their left, racing—wild-eyed, mane, reins, and tail flying—surpassing them all.

  Titus bellowed, “Down!” and another shot rang out. One of the dragoons managed to fire his pistol on the run, sending a flurry of shot thunking into wagon boards and whistling overhead—one buzzed past Anne’s ear like an annoying fly.

  Jack popped up, shouting, “You all right, Annie?” as he fired off another shot.

  Anne rose up to her feet and encouraged her mules with another “Hyah!” and a snap of the reins. “I think I can see the Continental earthworks.”

  “I hope our fellows can see us…” Jack tossed his spent gun and tugged the other pistol from his belt. “Those dragoons are relentless—and they’re closing in.”

  As if in answer to Jack’s wish, rifle fire flashed along the line of Patriot entrenchments like a lit string of crackers, the welcome noise crisp in the cold air. Jack clambered back over the cargo and regained his seat beside Anne. “Let’s test their mettle in range of Patriot sharpshooters.”

  Anne handed over the reins, and checked over her shoulder. “The dragoons are drawing to a halt—”

  Titus whistled and shook his fist in the air, and Sally screamed, “Huzzah!”

  With much relief, Anne watched the Redcoats growing smaller and smaller, until, with a swing of his saber, the dragoon captain wheeled his company around, and they headed back to the British winter camp in Philadelphia.

  The two wagons careened through the opening in the hills, following the road into a wooded valley. “Whoa!” Jack tugged on the reins, easing his team into a canter. He and Anne waved and shouted, “Halloo!” to the sentries manning the fortifications, and the soldiers whistled and cheered with guns raised overhead as the wagons passed by. The mules slowed, their lathered sides heaving and great puffs of steam spewing from their noses. Anne turned in her seat and shouted to Sally, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m nothin’ but grand since those dragoons turned arse about,” she replied. “But poor Titus lost his hat to the wind…”

  “Not the Canadian one with the fur?”

  Sitting beside Sally with his muffler tied over his ears, Titus nodded and called, “I’ll go back later and see if I can find it.”

  Anne secured the woolly muffler she used to keep her felt hat from blowing away, tucking the free ends down the front of the Brunswicker coat she wore. She stuffed each gloved hand up the opposite sleeve, forming a makeshift muff of the big cuffs. Not given the time to alter the too-long sleeves and too-wide girth, Anne had not relished wearing one of the heavy officer’s coats Titus had scavenged for her and Sally back in Stillwater. But in traveling the miles from Albany to Valley Forge by river and road in the dead of winter, she’d grown to appreciate the volume and quality of the dense German wool. With a combination of wool and flannel layers beneath the coat, hot bricks at feet, and hooded cloak thrown over all, the women weathered the worst of the journey bundled in good comfort.

  As the wagons passed deeper into the Patriot army encampment, the rolling landscape flanking the Gulph Road became crowded with hundreds and hundreds of little log cabins. Like the buttons on a general’s coat, the cabins were situated in neat rows.

  The woodsmoke tumbling from the multitude of mud and timber chimneys hovered between the earth and the cloud-heavy sky, stinging her eyes. Anne swiped at tears, shifting around in her seat, looking in all directions. “It feels like it will storm soon. Everyone must be hunkered in.” Washington’s winter quarters housed more than eleven thousand soldiers and officers, but there were not many within sight. The American camp seemed almost deserted.

  Jack slowed the mules to a trot, and the new pace matched the slow motion of the odd world they’d entered. Up ahead, situated amid a legion of tree stumps, they could see a few bundled figures huddled around a large fire and a steaming cauldron.

  Anne sniffed the air, crinkling her nose. “Soap making.”

  A few men in shirtsleeves filtered out of doorways, waving and shouting greetings. Anne and Jack waved back. They passed by cluster after cluster of the little log cabins, the mule hoofbeats plodding to a steady metronome of ax steel biting into wood—the noise of construction—the thwack, thwack, thwack resounding from either side of the road. One ax was halted by shouts, and followed by the distinct popping, crackling, and crash of the tree falling somewhere in the distant woods to their left. Anne could only imagine how many trees were felled to build this miniature city in a wilderness where practically nothing had existed the month before.

  Jack pulled his team to a halt, giving way to a man tugging a heavy sled loaded with deadfall across the rutted road. Once across, the man stopped in the knee-deep snow to catch his breath, and Jack urged the mules forward with a double click of his tongue.

  Anne could not help but stare. Bandaged against the cold, the man’s face was wound in strips of wool torn from a dingy blanket, leaving nothing but his eyes exposed to th
e icy wind. The rest of his costume was a raggedy puzzle of parts and pieces that even the poorest beggar on the meanest street in New York would be shamed to wear. This tatterdemalion wore a flannel nightshirt beneath a frazzled-edged jacket cut from blanket wool, the pieces of which were sewn together with thick, coarse thread in stitches big enough for Anne to see at a distance of ten paces. Rather than britches, he wore loose trousers patched together from tent canvas of varying hues, and the entire ensemble was topped off with a tasseled nightcap pulled down low to cover his ears.

  The man pulled aside the scraps of wool tied over his mouth and nose, and called out, “Got any shoes in them wagons?”

  “No shoes,” Jack answered. “Meal, beans, salt pork, and blankets.”

  “All good, and we are grateful for it, but what you brung there is but a fart in a gale wind, mister. We’ve no meat. No shoes. No clothes. No pay. Naught here but fire cake to eat and misery aplenty.” The soldier grasped the leather harness strapped over his shoulders with hands chapped pink and raw and renewed his trek.

  Jack called, “Wait!” He reached back into the wagon bed and tugged a blanket free from one of the bales, and tossed it over. “Take this, friend. Come find me and I’ll make certain you get a fair share of what we brought.”

  “I will find you, mister. Thank you—thank you, kindly.” He twirled the gift over head and shoulders. As he trudged away, they could see his feet stepping in and out of the snow were shoeless and bound in a few filthy strips of wool.

  Jack snapped the reins, the muscles in his jaw set tight. “It’s a crooked and fretful country that treats its fighting men with such disregard.”

  They passed the army’s artillery park—piles of shot and shells alongside rows of cannon foundered in the deep snow. Anne eyed one of many odd hummocks dotting the open flats along the roadside near the artillery park. The wind had swept the snow away from one to reveal a fuzzy dark patch—an equine head. Her brow furrowed. “Horses?”