Prelude to Glory, Vol. 5

by Ron Carter

  The startled helmsman spun the wheel, and the pilot boat leaned to starboard as she turned hard to port, slowing as she came around and straightened. The first mate barked orders, and the small crew began the tricky task of handling the sails as the helmsman began the slow, zig-zag course of tacking into the crosswind and against the current.

  Time lost meaning for the captain as the boat crept up the river. He walked the deck with telescope in hand, searching every cove, every inlet, for any sign of heavy British ships, but there was none. In the late afternoon, clouds covered the sun, and a warm, heavy summer rain fell until midnight. The crew took four-hour shifts, eating and sleeping, then taking their rotation on the sails and lookout. At two o’clock in the morning the captain went to his cramped quarters to sleep until five o’clock, when once again he was on deck, pacing, still searching in dawn’s first light for any sign of the British armada. They labored past the Red Bank Redoubt, the Schuylkill River, then Philadelphia, through the normal bustle of river traffic that was unimpeded by any sign of British men-o-war.

  Twenty-four miles above Philadelphia the lookout on top of the cabin sang out, “There, sir, port side, American soldiers on shore!” Instantly the captain was at the bow railing, telescope extended, holding his breath as he glassed the northwest bank of the river. They were gathered there, under the stars and stripes, men, cannon, horses, and wagons, preparing to march southwest toward Philadelphia.

  The captain called to the helmsman, “Hard to port,” then turned to the first mate. “Bring her to within one hundred yards of shore and drop anchor. Launch the lifeboat and wait.” He trotted to the deck door down to his quarters and disappeared. Ten minutes later he burst back through the door onto the deck just as the lifeboat touched into the brown waters of the Delaware. The first mate straightened as the captain thrust a paper to him, sealed with wax.

  “I am not to be seen contacting any American military, so you’ll have to take that to General Washington. In his hands only. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Take one man to row the boat and get ashore as fast as you can. Insist that you deliver that to General Washington yourself. Then return and report.”

  One hour later Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens was observing the confusion of an army that had spent nearly two days crossing the Delaware River and was now trying to assemble itself into a marching column. He cast a puzzled glance on a knot of agitated men who were making their way in the massive jumble of men and equipment. He reined in his horse and waited as they approached and stopped.

  An American wearing the epaulets of a captain on his shoulders looked up apologetically at Laurens.

  “Sir, this civilian insists he has a message for Gen’l Washington personally. No one else.”

  For a moment Laurens studied the first mate. “Who are you?”

  “First mate on a pilot boat.”

  “What boat?”

  “I can’t give her name, sir.”

  “Who’s the captain?”

  “I can’t give that name, either, sir.”

  “Show me the message.”

  The man raised his hand defensively. “I can’t, sir. Only General Washington.”

  “I’m Colonel John Laurens, a personal aide to General Washington. I’ll deliver it to him.”

  “Sorry, sir. My orders is firm. I’m to deliver it myself.”

  It flashed in Lauren’s mind—the sealed message of two days ago—and now one that appeared identical.

  “Very well. Follow me.”

  Laurens reined his horse around and held it to a walk as the first mate hurried along behind on foot. They threaded their way through the bustle of men two hundred yards, then Laurens stood tall in the stirrups to search. He reined the horse to his right and pulled it to a stop, watching as three mounted riders approached at a lope. The first mate stopped beside him, eyes narrowed as he studied the incoming riders, and suddenly his mouth dropped open.

  The man in the lead was tall, square-shouldered, riding a blooded gray mare. His uniform showed the wrinkles and stains of having been worn constantly for the past thirty-six hours, but he wore it with an aura of dignity. He sat his tall horse easily, his back ramrod straight, his boots in the stirrups, slightly ahead of the saddle girth, toes up and pointed a little outward. He rode the rise and fall of the loping horse as though the two were one and was without question the finest horseman the first mate had ever seen. As the lead rider approached Laurens, his eyes dropped to the first mate, and he came back gently on the reins, bringing the horse to an easy stop. The first mate clacked his mouth shut as he looked for the first time in his life into the face of General George Washington.

  A black tricorn sat squarely on the general’s head. The prominent nose and firm chin did not flex nor move as the general made an instant appraisal of the man, his pale blue eyes seeming to reach into and through the sweating messenger. Then he turned to look at Laurens, waiting.

  “Sir, this man has a written message that he insists he must deliver to you personally.”

  The voice was soft, but it reached deep. “May I see it?”

  Without a word the first mate extended his hand and Washington took the folded, sealed paper. Instantly he recognized what it was, broke the seal, and scanned the handwriting. Without a change in his expression he refolded it and worked it inside his tunic, then spoke.

  “Do you need anything? Food? Rest?” There was a strange tenderness in those pale blue eyes.

  “No, sir. I’m under orders to report back to my captain as fast as I can.”

  “I understand. Give him my regards.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that, sir.”

  The man stood as though rooted to the ground, still staring up at Washington.

  The hint of a smile crossed Washington’s face. “You are dismissed.”

  The first mate blinked as though coming from some far place in his mind. “Uh . . . oh . . . yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He turned and left at a trot, stopping only once to look back at the sight of Washington giving orders to Laurens.

  “Colonel, get Generals Greene and Cadwalader as fast as you can. I’ll meet them at my tent.”

  Twenty minutes later a picket pushed back the tent flap. “Sir, Colonel Laurens is here with Generals Greene and Cadwalader.”

  A minute later the four men were facing each other, three of them waiting for what they knew had to be catastrophic news. Washington wasted no time.

  “I have a written message from the same river pilot who reported the British fleet to be anchored in Delaware bay, coming this way. That was two days ago, July thirty-first. This message now informs me . . . let me read it.”

  He drew the document from his tunic, unfolded it, and read steadily.

  “Returned to Delaware Bay July 31 to find all British warships and transports vanished. They are not to be found in Delaware Bay nor any other place on the Delaware River. The fleet has disappeared to the east, out into the Atlantic; whether they are bound for New York or Virginia is not in my power to tell.”

  Washington’s eyes were a mask of disciplined control. Greene, Cadwalader, and Laurens all expelled air as they shook their heads in puzzlement. Greene recovered first.

  “Gone? Simply vanished? Two hundred sixty men-o-war? Ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “In the name of heaven, what does General Howe think he’s doing?”

  Washington shook his head. “I do not know, nor can I conjecture what it means. He has had an entire army with supplies and horses on those boats since July ninth. This is August second. Twenty-four days in the hottest part of the summer. Some of those horses have to be dead and others dying. The men should be near mutiny. If any of you can make sense of it, I’d be most grateful.”

  Cadwalader asked, “Does the message suggest where he’s going? Charleston? Back to the Hudson?”

  “Not a word. It’s possible that this adventure into Delaware Bay might have been a deep feint to draw us to Philadelphia, so he can reverse
himself and go back to New York and up the Hudson in support of Burgoyne. Or, he could be going south to Charleston, although that makes absolutely no sense because Burgoyne, or Philadelphia, are far greater military objectives than Charleston, at least at this time. What he’s doing is a profound mystery to me.”

  Laurens spoke. “Sir, this army is about to march. Do we delay it while we gather further information? Determine the proper direction?”

  Washington looked at the two generals. “Any proposals?”

  Greene spoke up. “Wait right here until he shows his hand. Without some definite intelligence about the whereabouts of the British fleet and army, we’re simply wandering about the country like a band of Arabs. We’re wasting what little supplies we have on nothing, and maybe that’s exactly what General Howe wants us to do.”

  Washington looked at Cadwalader, waiting.

  “I agree. I say we wait until we know what we’re doing. Or more accurately, what he’s doing.”

  Washington pursed his mouth for a moment before answering. “I was about to order a march back to the Hudson because it makes sense that if General Howe isn’t going on up the Delaware to take Philadelphia, he is going back to the Hudson to help General Burgoyne.” He shook his head. “But the more I think on it, the more convinced I am we should remain right here until we get word that the British have arrived at Sandy Hook. Once we know they’re inside New York Harbor, it will be clear that their objective is the Hudson River and reaching General Burgoyne.”

  He stood for several seconds, head bowed, as he weighed the thing out in his mind. Then he spoke.

  “We camp here until further notice.”

  Notes

  On July 29, 1777, General Washington’s army arrived at the Delaware River, only to find that the British were nowhere in sight. The gigantic game of cat and mouse between the British and American armies was now in full swing. See Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 347.

  Caleb becomes involved in making entries in what is called an “orderly book.” An example of such a book is Valley Forge Orderly Book, see the bibliography.

  Captain Sir Andrew Snape Hamond, commander of a small British squadron of ships patrolling the Delaware Bay and River and captain of the ship Roebuck, was a real person, and his activities related to discovering General Howe’s fleet inside Delaware Bay and the mortal embarrassment of finding General Howe still in bed at ten o’clock a.m. are historically accurate. The information given by Hamond to General Howe regarding the dangers of sailing the British fleet up the Delaware was in great part incorrect and resulted in General Howe putting back out to sea. See Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, p. 183.

  An American pilot boat stationed in Lewes on the Delaware River observed the British fleet and sailed up the Delaware to warn General Washington, only to return and find the entire British fleet vanished; the same boat immediately reversed course and sailed back up the river to tell Washington. See Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 346.

  Generals Washington and Greene were utterly baffled at the erratic, nonsensical sailings of the British fleet. Greene commented that the Americans were wandering about like Arabs, trying to find them. Washington decided to stay where he was until he knew where the British intended to land. See Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, p. 184; Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 347.

  Morristown, New Jersey

  Early August 1777

  CHAPTER V

  * * *

  Seated in a battered rocking chair, Mary Flint started, jerked awake, and sat in the darkness, still seeing in her mind a huge gravestone with the name “RUFUS BROADHEAD” carefully carved into the polished marble. She wondered what had awakened her in the half-hour before dawn. She peered into the darkness and listened while the squeak of the rocking chair echoed in the emptiness of the great room of the squat, square log building that had served as the Morristown hospital for the Continental Army.

  Seven months before, the sick and the wounded from the battle of Princeton had been brought there. Then, with the greening of spring and General Howe on the move in New Jersey, General Washington had moved the army south to Middlebrook. Command of the hospital was given to Major Leonard Folsom, the only competent medical doctor and surgeon General Washington could spare. Washington’s orders were brief: Return as many wounded as possible to active duty and discharge the remainder to return to their homes. The orders were ominously silent regarding those whose wounds prevented either.

  For seven months Mary and the doctor, with half a dozen untrained volunteers from the small village of Morristown, had slept in tiny quarters within the hospital, exhausting themselves in mind and body as they met the needs and demands of those in the hospital. Some had healed and were sent to find the marching Continental Army. Some had died, their bodies carried to a great stand of oak and pine south of the hospital to be buried. Others who could never again bear arms were sent back to their homes, where they would learn to live without a foot or a leg or a hand or an arm. They had walked out of the hospital on crude crutches or with a tattered coat sleeve pinned up—penniless, pale, hollow-cheeked, grimly pondering how wives or children or sweethearts would accept a crippled man and wondering how they would survive in a world that finally came to rest on the bone and muscle and sinew of its men and women.

  By the last week in July there were only seven men remaining in the hospital, and it was clear none of them would leave alive. Their wounds had gone progressively putrid. Six times since mid-July, Mary had strapped them on a wooden table where the short, corpulent, balding doctor forced whisky into them. He thrust a piece of leather belt between their teeth and while she held them down, screaming, he cut away the dead flesh. For the five who had lost arms or legs, he sawed off infected bone and closed the gaping wounds with needle and silk thread. They could do no more, and in silence they watched the seven men daily drift deeper into a world of pain and hopelessness in which their last thought would be the blessed relief that death would bring.

  Then, only a few days before, Doctor Folsom had quietly ordered Mary and his untutored staff to box the surgical equipment and medical supplies, ready to be loaded into the few wagons that had been left for them to use when there were no wounded to hold them longer in Morristown. He ordered that seven graves be dug among the fifty-three already in the grove and that seven simple headboards be provided, bearing only a name and a date of birth. The date of death was left open, waiting.

  By the first day of August, five of the seven open graves had been filled and closed. Only two wounded men remained in the hospital, tossing, turning, delirious from fever. Then, within minutes of midnight, five hours before, one of them had stopped mumbling and grown still. In the hush of night Mary and the doctor prepared the body and lowered it into its final resting place, and with only a half-moon and numberless stars as their witnesses, read a passage from the Bible, closed the black grave, filled in the date of death, and set the simple headboard to show the passing of another rebel soldier.

  The last of the wounded was a slender boy of seventeen, whose foot had been smashed by a British Brown Bess musketball on January third, as his Pennsylvania regiment followed General George Washington storming from the woods into the face of the redcoats under the command of Colonel Charles Mawhood, south of Princeton. The young soldier’s name was Joseph Selman. A surgeon had cut off the mangled foot but could not stop the creeping gangrene that smelled of death. They had cut again, just below the knee, and fifteen days later, above the knee, then at the hip. They did not tell the boy there was no hope of saving him.

  It was his mumbling that had wakened her. It came again, then stopped, and Mary settled, waiting, sensing what was coming. In the dark silence she felt the dull ache in her back and her legs and shoulders and the coolness of her dress on her back. It was still damp from the perspiration of twenty hours spent moving everything from the building into the wagons in the wilting heat and humidity of yesterday and the exertion of the haun
ting, lonely midnight burial a short five hours ago. She yearned for a time and place to sit in cool water while the stiffness left her muscles and her weary mind drained itself of every thought and she could once more feel the luxury of fresh, dry clothing.

  “Mother!”

  She flinched at the unexpected call, and in an instant was on her knees beside the low cot. The gray of dawn filtered through the four small windows on the east side of the room, and she could see the shape of the boy’s pale face. His eyes were open, too wide, and he licked at lips parched from fever.

  “Mother?” He raised his head to see her more clearly in the gloom.

  “Yes, I’m here, Joseph. I’m here.” She slipped an arm behind his shoulders to lift him, cradle his head against her. She felt the raging fever and heard the quick, shallow breathing. She could see his eyes, too wide, too bright. He clutched at Mary, and his voice came too excited, too loud, too high, his words too fast, incoherent, spilling over each other as he stared up at her.

  “Mother, my foot was hurt, but it is all right now. The doctor said it is all right—I could come home—so I came—it hurts but you can fix the bandages, and it will be better—it got hurt—a bullet broke the ankle, but the doctor fixed it, and it’s all right, and I could come home—where’s Father and Jenny? It hurts but you can fix it, Mother—I can hardly see you, Mother. Where are you? There you are—will you fix the bandage so it will quit hurting?”

  He stopped speaking, and Mary’s heart ached with the sure knowledge of what was now only moments away. She spoke calmly. “I know, son. It will be all right. I’ll change the bandage in a few moments, and it will be all right.”

  He closed his eyes and ran his dry tongue again over fevered lips. “I’ll help with the milking when you’re through—is Jenny all right? Where’s Jenny? Sweet Jenny, she must be thirteen now—thirteen the twelfth of June—will she come talk to me while I do the milking, will she?”

  “She’s outside now, son, bringing in the cow.”