by Howard Fast
She led them upstairs to a tiny room where a small boy lay on a trundle bed. “Every other place is taken. Can you sleep on the floor here? There is a chamber pot, if you need it.”
“The child?” Feversham wondered.
“You won’t wake him.” She spread a quilt on the floor. “It’s a warm night. Will you want a blanket?”
Feversham shook his head.
She left them, and the two men pulled off their boots and lay down on the quilt. Feversham fell asleep almost instantly, but for the next hour, Gonzales stared into the darkness. Then he, too, slept.
JUNE 18, 8:00 A.M.
Evan Feversham awakened in response to a gentle pressure on his shoulder and a soft whisper in his ear. He opened his eyes to a room lit by diffused morning light and saw Mrs. Cook bending over him. “Forgive me, Dr. Feversham,” she said softly, “for waking you when you need your rest so much, but Abraham Watson is downstairs and says he must see you.”
Gonzales, sprawled face down on the floor, still slept. Feversham struggled to his feet, every muscle in his body aching. He told Mrs. Cook that he would be downstairs in a moment or two, wondering who Abraham Watson might be. She whispered in his ear that Mr. Watson was a member of the Committee of Safety. This information puzzled Feversham, since the day before, on Breed’s Hill, he had not heard a good word spoken about the Committee of Safety.
He came downstairs a few minutes later, rubbing his beard and wondering where he might shave and from whom he might borrow a razor, or did he have one in his saddlebags? He was met by a tall, gray-haired man of middle age who Mrs. Cook introduced as Mr. Watson. They went through the holding room, still crowded with wounded men, some asleep, some awake and in pain, to a table in the yard outside. There they found a crowd of men, women, and boys: relatives of wounded and missing men, militiamen with their muskets slung over their shoulders, women desperate to find their husbands, boys and girls who should have been in school but were a part of the general disruption.
Watson motioned to the bench at the table, and Mrs. Watson brought them two steaming mugs of coffee.
“I have heard good things about you, Feversham,” Watson told him. “Prescott says you are not a fearful man.”
Feversham gathered that this was praise in spite of Watson’s misuse of the term. “If you mean that I am courageous, let me disabuse you.”
“I like a man who will not speak well of himself. Let me get to the point. They have taken a round number of our men prisoner, exactly how many we don’t know, but the indication is that most of them were wounded. The committee chose me to go to Boston with a white flag and to plead a doctor’s attendance to our men who are their prisoners. I am told that you are the best surgeon we have and that you have years of experience with military wounds. Will you come with me?”
Feversham felt a cold chill in his heart, and he took a long moment before he said, “I am British, you know.”
“I know that,” Watson said. “Do you think you might be recognized?”
“I don’t know. I have never met any of the officers whose names I heard spoken, and it is full seven years since I left the British army.”
“If you refuse, I shall understand.”
“The trouble is,” Feversham said ruefully, “if I refuse, will I understand?”
“Sir?”
“I would want to shave,” he said, rubbing his beard, “and find my horse and my instruments. It will be best if you do the talking. I feel a proper fool when I try to cover my accent. I’ll want a jug of rum and a couple of skins of fresh water.”
“Then you’ll come with me?”
Feversham said, “I don’t feel hopeful about it, but I’ll come with you.”
An hour later, Feversham, shaved and with a clean waistcoat, rode with Watson down the Boston turnpike and through Roxbury to the Boston Neck. They led a third horse, loaded with water skins and jugs of rum. Where the land narrowed, at the edge of Roxbury, the American fortifications had been set up—a stone and dirt wall, with embrasures for five cannons, eight-pounder field pieces. The cannons were loaded with grapeshot, gun crews in attendance. In a field nearby, a large force of militia, at least two thousand men, were encamped. Feversham reflected that a hundred men could have defended the position. The sight of this army sitting around their cook fires or lounging in the shade of the trees evoked bitter memories of the day before. He felt a surge of anger at the thought of Ward’s plea that he needed his army of twelve thousand men to keep the British bottled up in Boston, while less than a thousand fought to the death on Breed’s Hill.
Captain Appleton, in command of the fortification, welcomed them without enthusiasm. “God’s will that the bastards don’t shoot you down. The gossip is that they’ve a raging hate for the damage done yesterday. Were you there, sir?”
“Dr. Feversham was on the hill,” Watson said.
Captain Appleton voiced his admiration. Watson took a staff from the packhorse. A white banner was attached to the staff. Watson anchored the pole in his stirrup, and the two men rode through the opening in the wall and on across the Boston Neck. For a quarter of a mile there was nothing but marsh grass and sea gulls, and then, suddenly, the British fortification came into view; a few hundred yards down the road, rock and sand and cannons, houses beyond the wall, and the cross of St. George flapping in the breeze. They walked their horses slowly, coming into view, and drew up forty or fifty feet from the fortification. They could see the faces of soldiers now and the place in the wall where a gate had been constructed.
They sat on their horses and waited.
“What now?” Watson wondered. He was a calm man, Abraham Watson, not an easy thing when there was a reasonable chance that the British might decide to blow them out of existence. “Will they let us sit here and ignore us?”
“Or kill us.”
“Do you think so, Doctor? I have heard that they abide by the rules of engagement. We come under a white flag.”
Still, they sat and waited.
“I think,” Feversham said, “that a captain or possibly a lieutenant would be in command here at the gate. He’d probably decide that it’s not his to judge, and he would send someone back for a higher rank. They’ll guess that we’re here for the prisoners, and there would be some talk on that score.” He took out his watch and looked at it. “If only we had something to bargain with.”
“They have a sense of decency.”
“What makes you think so?” Feversham asked. “It comes down to class, doesn’t it? A gentleman deals with a gentleman. It’s their credo. We don’t have a knight, a lord, or a duke among us.”
“I consider myself a gentleman,” Watson said. “I consider you a gentleman.”
“That’s generous of you,” Feversham replied.
And still they sat and waited.
“Should we ride up to the gate?” Watson wondered.
“I don’t think so. They might consider that a provocation.”
“Or dismount?”
“No!” Feversham said sharply. “Please, sir, do not think of those bastards as men of honor. If they should take it into their heads to shoot us down, we have a chance on horse.” He looked at his watch again. “Ten minutes.”
“Can they ignore us?”
“I don’t think so. Plain curiosity will bring them out sooner or later. For all they know, we come to surrender the whole army.”
“Really, Doctor?”
“It would not be inconceivable. Mr. Watson, when you introduce us, would you call me Dr. Smith? It’s a long chance, but someone might recognize my name.”
“Of course. I should have thought of that. If they did recognize you, what then?”
“They’d take me and hang me,” Feversham said simply.
“God willing, they won’t.”
Looking at his watch, Feversham said, “Twenty minutes.”
The gate opened, and two men on horseback rode through, walked their horses up to a point a few feet from Feversham and Watson
, but made no move to dismount. They wore the red coats and cocked hats of the light infantry. From the insignia, Feversham recognized one as a major and the other as a captain.
“I am Major Butler,” the senior officer said coldly. “This is Captain Selkirk. What business do you have with us? Have you come to surrender?”
Feversham’s lips twitched in spite of himself.
“I am Abraham Watson, member of the Committee of Safety, and this is Dr. Smith.”
“We recognize no Committee of Safety, Mr. Watson.”
“Nevertheless,” Watson said evenly, “I represent the patriot army which holds Boston in siege.”
“I know of no patriot army, as you call it. A mob of lawless men hold this neck of land until we see fit to sweep them aside.”
“Will you allow me to state my case, Major?”
“If you wish. Tell me why you have come here under a flag of surrender?”
“It is a flag of truce, sir.”
“Whatever,” Major Butler said.
“Would you be kind enough to tell me how many Americans you hold as prisoners?”
Major Butler took a few moments before he answered. “Thirty-one,” he said.
“Many of them, I presume, are wounded?”
No reply.
“Major Butler,” Watson said, “I speak not of war now but of human suffering and Christian mercy.”
“A mob that resisted the lawful progress of British troops on British soil can hardly speak of mercy.”
“I will not argue legalities, sir,” Watson said softly. “I ask only that you allow Dr. Smith here and myself to give medical aid to brave soldiers who fought under the rule and orders of the Continental Congress, which is convened in Philadelphia and was duly elected by the American people. Like the soldiers of the king, they are enlisted and did their duty.”
“I recognize no Continental Congress,” Major Butler said shortly.
“Will you allow Dr. Smith to attend their wounds?”
“That is impossible.”
Watson took a deep breath. Watching him, Feversham had new respect for his restraint and courage.
“Major Butler,” Watson said, “there are rules and practices of civilized warfare.”
“Warfare, Mr. Watson? A mob of criminal bandits resisted arrest and fired upon the king’s troops. If you wish to render medical aid, you can surrender yourselves and join these criminals in Boston jail.”
“Is that you last word, sir?”
“It is.”
Watson turned to Feversham. “Come, Doctor. There is no more to say to these men.”
They drew their reins and turned their horses. After a few paces, Feversham said, “Slowly, sir. Don’t let those bastards see us run.”
They rode along the Boston Neck, back to the American barricade.
In the early evening of that day, having found himself a bed and shelter in the home of Rev. Gideon Cooper at Cambridge, and having completed his rounds of the wounded, Dr. Evan Feversham
sat down to write to his wife. Reverend Cooper was kind enough
to offer the use of his desk and his study. Feversham, shaved and
bathed and moderately rested, was able to contemplate, more or less
objectively, what he had been through during the past few days. “My dear and beloved Alice,” he wrote.
I have written to you a few days ago—it seems like months—but I am afraid the letter is lost. In any case, now, on the evening of the eighteenth, I am well and whole, unwounded by the grace of God, although what I have done to deserve such fortune, I do not know. If God is love, as my mother used to tell me, then perhaps my love for you defended me, although in all truth I struggle mightily for any belief.
When I came to Boston and to this army of militia that surrounds it, I was taken into the trust and confidence of a wise and thoughtful man, Joseph Warren by name, a physician, who won me immediately not only by his grace and courage but by agreeing with me that raw liquor poured into a wound, in spite of the pain it causes at the moment, will prevent festering, but you know my arguments on that score. In the few hours I knew Dr. Warren, we became close, a kind of closeness that binds men in battle. He is so loved by the Boston folk and the people here about that they made him a sort of honorary commander of the army, but he went into the redoubt built here on Breed’s Hill as an ordinary soldier and surgeon, and there he died. Two brave boys who climbed the hill, slipping past the British, found his body, stripped naked, and it lies in some nameless grave, tossed there by our enemies.
I speak of Warren thus because I recall how often you would accuse me of being cynical and disbelieving, in God as well as other things, but all I know at this moment is that I have been witness to such nobility and courage on the part of plain people as I have never known and also witness to a terrible display of the madness we call war.
The town of Boston here is a peninsula, and alongside of it, separated by half a mile of water, is another peninsula called Charlestown. Of course, you have heard of both these places, but they were new to me. The British had occupied this peninsula, a hilly piece of land a half a mile wide and about a mile long, which overlooks Boston town, and then for some reason, they abandoned it, and the Committee of Safety decided to occupy it and mount guns on the hills, which would have made Boston town untenable for the British.
But instead of placing a significant part of their militia army on the hills of Charlestown, they sent a few hundred men to build a redoubt and hold the main hill, Breed’s Hill as it is called, while the main American army, perhaps thirteen thousand men or more, remained camped around Boston. There are at least eighteen surgeons and leeches with the militia, but only four, including myself, were willing to join the defenders of Breed’s Hill. Two of them, Dr. Warren and a brave Welshman named Bones, died in the fight on the hill. The other surgeon, Gonzales, who comes from Providence, survived. How I survived without even a scratch, I do not know. Perhaps God took mercy on a disbeliever and answered your prayers. Gonzales, who is a Jew, did his duty with quiet courage. I must say that he is highly regarded here, so different from the hatred directed against those people in Europe.
The British, who, I am told, have some three thousand men in Boston, used almost their entire army in the attack upon the few hundred men who held the peninsula, and in spite of all the pleading of Colonel Prescott, who led the defense, and Gen. Israel Putnam from Connecticut, Artemus Ward, the commander of the militia, refused to reinforce them, an act of either filthy treachery or monumental stupidity. The battle for the hills, which lasted only a few hours, was the bloodiest and most awful conflict I have ever witnessed. The British lost fully half of their army in dead and wounded, and the militia losses were equally awful, an agony which makes me shudder even as I write. It was a battle with no victor, only death and suffering, as terrible and senseless as war ever is. The position and expectations of the militia army are no better or worse than before the battle took place. The leaders of the few hundred men who defended the hills, a Col. William Prescott, a man named John Stark from New Hampshire, Maj. Thomas Knowlton, an engineer by the name of Richard Gridley, and old Putnam fought with the kind of cool courage that defies description, putting me to shame with my own fears and doubts.
I have always hated war, feeling that the settlement of a dispute by killing those who disagree makes us little better than animals. Our presumed Christianity is washed away in the insanity of our decisions, and precious reason and compassion, which are all that makes us human, are cast aside. This morning, I was persuaded by a member of the Committee of Safety, one Abraham Watson, to go with him to the British lines in Boston and plead with the British to allow me to attend the wounds of the thirty-one prisoners they have taken. It was a piece of gross stupidity for me to allow myself to be persuaded, for the British would have surely hanged me had I been recognized as a onetime surgeon under British orders and oath, but shame and pride made me go with him. The British officers we met sneered at our request
and damned us as a band of outlaws. So much for Christian compassion.
Forgive me, my dear, my bitterness. In time I will wake up from this nightmare and be my old self. I trust I will return to Ridgefield and be with you within the fortnight. I must, for the time being, stay with our wounded. There are a great many of them, and they desperately need what crude care I can offer. After that, we shall see what the future brings out of this strange rebellion. Meanwhile, I reassure you that my health is good and my love for you is undiminished.
I remain, your loving husband,
Evan Feversham
AFTERWORD
While this account of what has come to be remembered as the Battle of Bunker Hill is cast in dramatic form and while I have taken certain dramatic license, I have attempted to hew as closely to the known facts as possible. As with any event of this kind, there are many contradictory accounts, and one must simply choose that which appears most likely. I have come to this view with a lifetime of colonial study and writing behind me, and in all cases I have tried to strike a balance between what would be archaic and what would be modern. I have used modern spelling for the convenience of the reader, as for instance, spelling gaol as jail. To avoid confusion, I omitted the names of many minor characters in this drama.
For those readers who are curious as to the subsequent role of the major characters, I submit the following:
Col. William Prescott continued as a leading officer of General Washington’s army through the Revolution. A solid, loyal, unshakable man, he was valued and honored.
Col. John Stark and his New Hampshire riflemen became the stuff of legend. Again and again, they held a lost field, and Stark emerged from the war with honor.
Maj. Thomas Knowlton gained an enviable reputation for cool thinking under fire. Washington increasingly depended upon him, and when Knowlton was killed in the battle for New York, Washington wept. His death was a great loss to the American struggle.
