by Ron Carter
Prelude to Glory
Our Sacred Honor
Volume 1
Ron Carter
© 1998 Ron Carter.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 30178. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This series is dedicated to the common people of long ago who paid the price.
* * *
America was discovered, colonized, and made into a great nation so that the Lord would have a proper place both to restore the gospel and from which to send it forth to all other nations. As a prelude to his coming, and so the promised work of restoration would roll forward, the foundations of the American nation were laid.
—Bruce R. McConkie
This volume is dedicated to my wife, LaRae.
Table of Contents
Chronology of Important Events Related to This Volume
Part One
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Part Two
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Our Sacred Honor
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. . . . And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
—Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
Chronology of Important Events Related to This Volume
* * *
1765
Parliament in Britain passes the Stamp Act, which requires payment of a tax on many goods used by the people of the thirteen British colonies in America. The colonies have no representation in the British Parliament.
1766
Because of hot colonial opposition, the Stamp Act is repealed.
Parliament then passes the Declaratory Act, which declares Parliament’s right to enact laws for the thirteen colonies.
1767
Parliament passes the Townsend Acts, which require the colonists to pay taxes on such products as glass, paint, and tea.
The colonists protest that the right to tax them without representation is the power to destroy them, and they retaliate with a boycott of British goods.
1768
England sends soldiers to maintain the peace in the face of rising colonial opposition to Parliament’s actions.
1770
March 5. In Boston, colonials harass British soldiers and throw snowballs. A fray ensues in which the British shoot and kill five colonials. It will be dubbed the Boston Massacre.
1773
December 16. In protest against the Tea Act, colonials disguised as Indians board British merchant ships and throw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The event will be known to history as the Boston Tea Party.
1774
Parliament enacts what the colonists will term the “Intolerable Acts.”
September. The First Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia.
1775
April 18. Paul Revere and William Dawes make their midnight rides to rouse the colonial militia and minutemen to arms against the British, marching that night to Concord, Massachusetts.
April 19. The first shot is fired at Lexington, Massachusetts, and the Revolutionary War begins.
June 15. The Continental Congress appoints George Washington of Virginia to be commander in chief of the Continental army.
June 17. The battle of Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill is fought, which the British win at great cost, suffering numerous casualties before the colonial forces abandon the hills due to lack of ammunition.
1776
February-March. Commodore Esek Hopkins leads eight small colonial ships to the Bahamas to obtain munitions from two British forts, Nassau and Montague.
March 17. General William Howe evacuates his British command from Boston and moves to New York to engage and destroy George Washington’s army.
July 4. The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence, and it is delivered to the public.
October 11. General Benedict Arnold leads a tiny fleet of fifteen hastily constructed ships to stall the British fleet of twenty-five ships on Lake Champlain. The hope is that Arnold’s forces can at least delay the movement of thirteen thousand British troops south until the spring of 1777 and thus save George Washington’s Continental army.
1779
September 23. Commodore John Paul Jones, aboard the Bonhomme Richard, engages the larger British man-of-war Serapis off the east coast of En-gland in the much-celebrated night battle in which Jones utters the now famous cry, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
Part One
Saturday, April 15, 1775
Chapter I
* * *
The sharp, urgent rap came unexpected at the front door. With the small brass shovel still in her hand, Margaret Pulsipher Dunson straightened, stared at the huge hand-carved clock in the center of the heavy fireplace mantel and then at the calendar beside it, and brought her racing thoughts under control.
Nine forty-five p.m. Saturday, April 15, 1775.
Late . . . no one but the British comes this late in Boston . . . which one of us are they after?
She had been banking coals in the great fireplace to save for the Sabbath morning fire, and now she hung the small brass shovel back on its peg and turned to peer at her husband, seated on his work stool in one corner of the big room behind the oak dinner table.
John Phelps Dunson raised a warning hand to stop all sound, all movement in the room, and the others waited in silence. His eyes narrowed and his breathing slowed as they sat in the yellow lamplight, the tension rising while John lowered his face to concentrate.
Margaret glanced at the door, then back at John as she worked with her thoughts and fears.
Do they want John? . . . what about Warren and Thorpe and the others on the committee? . . . have they already got Adams and Hancock?
Seconds passed while Margaret waited and watched her husband sitting motionless on his work stool where he had labored to become a master clockmaker and gunsmith. Steady, deliberate, strong, six feet in height, large nose, cleft chin, dark eyed, dark brown hair pulled back and tied behind his head with a leather thong. Elected to the Massachusetts Provi
ncial Congress and placed on the single most critical committee in the entire colony—the Committee of Safety—which was assigned to provide for the safety of the colonial citizens against British oppression. The British had openly vowed to arrest everyone on the committee and hang them all for treason. Only fear of reprisals had prevented it, for at that moment the tenuous, trembling peace was as an open powder keg, waiting for the spark that would explode into an all-out war in the streets and on the farms.
Her breathing slowed as she studied him, and the familiar stir rose in her heart as it always did when he was near.
She pursed her mouth, and for a moment her eyes narrowed to fine points of light.
If they want John, there will be trouble.
She brought her fears under control, and her thoughts continued, shifted.
Or have they come for Matthew?
She glanced at her tall son, sitting at the dining table with a large Mercator sea chart spread before him, just coming into his full man’s frame at twenty-one, with his serious, dark eyes and strong, regular features. Home five weeks from Cambridge, he had graduated from Harvard, where he studied naval navigation and international commerce and the sea and stood third in his class. He had spent two summers working on frigates for Franklin Shipping, Ltd., learning the complex currents and winds of the Atlantic coast from Greenland to the West Indies.
She knew the British had need for good navigators, and fear surged as her mind raced.
Have they come to take Matthew? . . . like young Phillip Alsop fourteen months ago . . . just four blocks away? . . . they needed a ship’s carpenter . . . took him at bayonet point . . . no one has heard from him since.
Or do they want Brigitte?
She glanced at her daughter, turned eighteen two months ago. Heart-shaped face, blue eyes, light brown hair which she wore long and pulled back by a ribbon, the best student in school. It was she who had secretly drafted a request, which some of the girls in school signed, and presented it to the schoolmaster, Horace Stallings.
Horace had pursed his lipless mouth, tipped his head back to peer through the bifocals perched on the end of his nose, and read it. Horrified, he convened a special public meeting of the school board and the Boston Ecumenical Society and read it aloud in the square, austere assembly hall. The nine men on the board had recoiled, white faced. Young women suggesting they abandon their God-ordained place as wives and mothers to enter colleges? What next? the right to public office and the vote? They blustered, red faced, but in the end they condescended to dismiss the entire confrontation, attributing it all to the misguided energies of children not yet matured, and the matter faded and died in the face of intransigent Boston puritanism.
Or do they want Caleb, or Adam and Priscilla, asleep in their beds?
She slowed her racing thoughts and turned her eyes back to John and waited for him to take charge. Always, always, since the day they married, he had been there to stand between trouble and her nest.
John raised his face to her and silently asked her the question.
She gave her head a nearly imperceptible shake. No. I do not know who is knocking or why. But if the British have come to take you or Matthew, there will be trouble.
John shifted his eyes to Matthew with the same silent question.
Matthew shifted his eyes from the door to John and shook his head slowly, mouth a straight line, dark eyes hot. I don’t know who it is, but if it’s the British here for you or me, there will be a problem.
Brigitte sat facing the fireplace in the carved oak upholstered rocking chair. She lowered the embroidery hoops that held the red rose design and waited for her father to turn his inquiring eyes to her.
She shook her head. I don’t know who it is. If it’s the British, I have a few things to say.
“Margaret, are the other children in bed?” John asked in a hushed tone.
“Yes. Asleep.”
Quickly he slipped the musket trigger assembly he had been working on into the large drawer in his workbench, along with the tiny gunsmith’s file and the strip of emery cloth. In one movement he closed the drawer and slid the inner workings of a clock onto the work space before him, along with the delicate tools of a master clockmaker.
He drew a breath. “Act normal and go on with what you were doing,” he said with forced calm. “If it’s the British, I’ll talk. If they’ve come to arrest me, do nothing. I’ll go with them.”
Margaret gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. “You will not go with them,” she hissed. “They mean to be rid of you—you and the others.” Her voice rose. “If you go with them in the cover of night, we’ll never see you again!”
John rose to his full height and glanced about the large, austere, well-ordered parlor, searching for anything that would hint of the seven muskets he had crafted and hidden beneath the floorboards of the pantry, wrapped in oilcloth and tarp against the dampness of a Boston winter and spring. Hidden muskets intended to arm the rebellious militia would be enough evidence for them to throw him into the deepest cell in the hold of the next ship sailing for England, where he would die in an English dungeon. Satisfied there was nothing visible to hint of the hidden muskets, he walked across the bare, stone-sanded, polished hardwood floor, heels clicking in the silence.
“Calm yourself,” he said quietly to Margaret. “Gage wouldn’t dare imprison us. He might arrest us to show power and then release us, but not prison, nor England.” He studied her for a moment while he waited for her to settle. Blue eyed, deep blonde hair, high cheekbones, nose straight and slightly turned up, full mouth, average height. Twenty-three years of marriage and six children—including the one they lost—had taken their toll, but John always saw her as she looked the day in June twenty-three years ago when he peered across Boston Common and she was there, in the full bloom of her eighteenth year. His eyes softened as they always did when he looked at her.
He spoke to Matthew as he reached the door. “If I have to go with them, wait a few minutes and then go find Tom Sievers and have him tell Warren what happened. Understand?”
“I understand, but it’s wrong.” Matthew half rose from his chair. “Resist them!”
Brigitte suddenly leaned forward, knuckles white as she grasped the embroidery hoops. “What right do they have to pound on our door at this hour?”
John raised a hand in caution. “Settle down. We’ll resist, but we’ll pick the time and place, and it won’t be here and now. If they’ve come to arrest me, they’ve brought enough men to do it.”
“You’re going to let them take you?”
“We’ll see.” John waited until Matthew settled back onto his chair, rigid, ready.
John raised a finger to his lips, drew a heavy breath, and opened the door several inches. The chill of the night air washed over him with the familiar brine smell of the salt sea of Boston Harbor. A thin wet fog was rising from the ocean and beginning to swirl. The light from the room behind caught his hair and haloed his head.
“Who’s there?” he called, squinting into the night. Behind him, no one moved nor breathed as they waited.
“It’s me, Tom Sievers,” came the low, rough voice from the gloom.
John exhaled loudly and his shoulders sagged as he swung the door wide and stepped to one side. Behind him, Margaret grasped the fireplace mantel to steady herself as she released her held breath, and Matthew leaned back in his chair and tipped his face toward the ceiling with his eyes closed. Brigitte relaxed her death grip on the embroidery needles and rounded her cheeks to blow air. Margaret strode to John’s side to peer out past his shoulder.
“Tom!” John exclaimed. “Come in. Hurry!”
Tom appeared as a shadow from the fog and stood outside the threshold with hands clenched at his sides. Damp, matted hair hung loose past his shoulders. His frayed woolen coat and cotton shirt showed stains and dirt, and an eight-day gray beard stubble moved as he spoke. The handle of a knife and the iron head of a tomahawk bulged the coat at his waist. His ey
es glowed from beneath shaggy brows like embers in his thin, hawk-nosed, narrow face, with an upper lip that was too long. A slanting scar forced a small gather at one corner of his mouth. Smells of rum and sweat and unbathed body reached John as Tom spoke.
“It would not be seemly for me to come in, the way I am.” He raised his deep-set eyes, and his seamed, craggy face glowed earnestly in the shaft of light gleaming from the open door and making a small rainbow in the fog. “Come out. We got to talk. There’s movement on the Back Bay.”
John tensed.
The Back Bay! The body of water the British had to cross to get from the Boston Peninsula to the mainland. If they intended to move a force onto the mainland, they had to either cross the waters of the Back Bay or march their troops south over the Neck, the narrow strip of land that connected Boston to the continent. Movement on the Back Bay by the British could be the beginning of war.
John turned to Margaret. “I’ll be outside for a while with Tom.”
“Put on your coat,” she said sternly. “It’s cold and foggy. And stay in the yard. The British have eyes everywhere in the night.” She lifted his coat from the carved and polished coat tree next to the door and handed it to him, and he slipped it on as he stepped out into the wet chill.
He led Tom from the door to the white gate in the front-yard picket fence, near the oak post with the large sign, on which was carved “John Phelps Dunson, Master Clockmaker and Gun-smith” and beneath that the likeness of a mantel clock and a musket. They stood motionless and listened intently to the sounds of the night to be certain they were alone.
The sound of distant bells came clanging as British warships moved cautiously through the fog-shrouded Boston Harbor. To the north, the streetlamps of downtown Boston and the wharves and docks of the Back Bay glowed dull gray in the swirling mist. From somewhere far away came the rhythmic cadence of marching men. Someone bawled indiscernible orders and the marching stopped, then continued. Faint, fragmented sounds of human voices drifted from the town, sometimes muffled, sometimes strangely clear and loud as the drifting, swirling fog worked its magic. Raucous laughter came queerly, and elsewhere someone cursed. Closer, a dog barked; there was a grunt and a sound, and the dog yelped in pain and the sound stopped. Across the narrow dirt street, something small scurried in the veiled darkness and was gone.
