by Ron Carter
Colonel John Glover turned to face his Massachusetts Regiment, Billy among them, and raised both hands.
“Halt!” He waited while they quieted, then pointed across the river. “Pennsylvania’s over there. That’s where we’re going.”
Every Marblehead fisherman in the regiment had spent his life on the water, fresh and salt, summer and winter, bright sunlight or the blackest night. Great or small, there was no vessel or craft designed for the water they did not know. Sail, oars, poles—it was all the same to them. For a moment their eyes left Glover to narrow as they studied the river, more than four hundred yards wide with ice thirty yards from each shore outward towards the black channel that ran fast in the center, choked with chunked ice. They read it all and accepted it and turned back to Colonel Glover.
He wasted not one word or one moment. “Officers Hampton and Maxwell have freight boats from the Durham iron works up at Riegelsville collected on the far side. They got rid of all other boats on the river for thirty-five miles each direction, so the British can’t follow us unless they build more boats. The ferry’s over there, too. We’ll have to pull it back.”
The Marbleheaders leaned on their muskets as he continued.
Glover’s voice rang with intensity as he spoke the single truth that hung like a great, evil cloud over the entire army, riding them heavy every moment, day and night. “The British are just hours behind us, moving this way. If they trap us here against the river, we’ll have no chance. If they catch us on the water, their cannon will have every boat on the bottom within minutes. So there will be no stopping.”
The men shifted their feet, but there was not one murmur.
“We work until we’re on the far side. Men, baggage, cannon, livestock—all of it.” He waited and watched for a moment until he knew his men understood and had accepted it. Then he turned, drew out his telescope, and for half a minute studied the far riverbank, searching for the big, flat-bottomed Durham boats. They were there, twenty yards from shore on higher ground, turned upside down, covered with willows and brush. He brought the glass back to the ferry for several seconds, then turned to his men.
“We’ll have to break the ferry out of the ice on the far shore. The first fifty of you men give a hand on the rope.”
The few that had blankets or knapsacks set them on the snow and ice that covered the frozen ground, leaned their muskets across them, and fifty men, Billy with them, walked down to the ferry landing, their wrapped feet crunching the snow and ice that covered the great, black timbers. They studied the six, two-inch hawsers, and the huge three-foot cast-iron pulley, then lined up, twenty-five men on each side, and grasped the lower rope. The man nearest the water glanced back over his shoulder into the faces of those waiting, nodded once, and began.
“Cap’n says we heave!”
“First Mate says we heave!”
“Bosun says we heave!”
“The cook says we heave!”
“We heave!”
“We heave!”
Each time the word heave rang out all fifty men threw their backs into the rope and strained.
The cadence was established. Glover watched the hawser jerk tight as the men pulled, then relaxed, and then he raised his telescope once more to watch the ferry, holding his breath to see if they could break it out of the ice that locked it against the dock on the Pennsylvania side. Half a minute passed, then a full minute. No one on the shore behind Glover realized they were all holding their breath, hands clenched, leaning slightly forward, and then straightening each time they heard the shouted word heave.
And then suddenly the icy rope moved, the big pulley groaned and turned, the ferry lurched forward, and they heard the great cracking sound as a shelf of ice separated from the far shore. The ferry was free, moving towards the channel. A shout arose from two thousand voices behind Glover while the fifty men on the rope held their cadence.
Every man on the Trenton riverbank watched in silence as the ferry moved into the open channel, and they held their breath as the floating ice chunks slammed crashing into the upstream side and began to pile up, forcing the ferry downstream. Tons of pressure jerked the towrope singing tight and the men increased the cadence, pulling desperately.
The big, rectangular, flat-bottomed craft creaked as it moved onward through the ice, and then it was at the halfway point, and then it was nearly to the ice shelf on the Trenton side. It rammed into the thin leading edge, and the crushed ice stacked up against the square bow of the ferry while the great chunks that had piled against the upstream side were pushed back and away and quickly drifted into the main channel. Every man on shore released pent-up breath while those on the rope continued their relentless rhythm, and the ferry cut a channel through the ice on the riverbank as it came crunching into the dock.
Glover didn’t hesitate. “You Marbleheaders board the ferry until it’s full.”
Minutes later the loaded ferry pulled away from the Trenton dock with ninety men and their muskets on board, Billy with them, shoulder to shoulder. Half of them pulled the rope while twenty others lined both sides with great oak and maple poles and started their rotation. Standing at the front of the ferry, facing the rear, they drove their poles to the bottom of the river and then walked towards the rear, pushing with all their weight on the poles to drive the ferry onward before they returned to the front of the line to repeat. Those on the upstream side were battling the big ice chunks to keep them from piling up as the others worked with their poles.
The late afternoon sun was casting long shadows eastward when the ferry thudded into its dock on the Pennsylvania side. Wisps of vapor rose from the channel of black water where the ferry had broken its way out and then back in, as seventy of the Marbleheaders lowered the short ramp on the front of the ferry and walked onto the timbers of the landing, then angled north to trot upstream to the hidden Durham boats. The twenty men left on the ferry waited until those at the boats turned to wave before they reversed the ferry and started once again for the Trenton side.
Billy was with the second crew of ten as they threw aside the brush and willows that hid the great boats and for a moment Billy paused to look in amazement. Shaped roughly like a gigantic flat-bottomed canoe, they ranged in length from forty to sixty feet, eight feet wide at the beam, built from black, heavy oak, thick hulled, tough, capable of loading fifteen tons burden, and constructed with a notch at either end to receive a tiller for steering.
The boats had been hidden upside down to avoid being filled with snow and ice. Without a wasted moment or movement the tattered Marbleheaders, steam rising from their bearded faces, lined up in crews of ten to seize one side of the great boats and heave with all their strength to roll them over onto their bottoms with a great, hollow boom. Poles, paddles, and a tiller were tied inside, and Billy watched the faces of the Marbleheaders as they jerked the knots from the ropes and laid the equipment rattling in the bottom of the boats.
Freezing, starving, their blue jacket and white pants uniforms in tatters, feet wrapped in rags, the dreaded British army just hours away and coming to annihilate them, the Marblehead fishermen still grinned at the sight of a solid boat and what they needed to make it work. They were men of the sea, and for them nothing in the world compared to the sight of a solid, seaworthy boat. Billy saw it and he found himself grinning with them as they grasped the gunwales, five men on each side, and threw their weight against the heavy boats to skid them on the crusted snow and ice down to the river.
They pushed out onto the shore-ice and kept their legs driving until they felt the ice beneath their feet begin to give. They vaulted into the boats as they slid like great sleds on the river-ice, then broke through to throw ice shards and river water high on both sides. The crews seized the long poles and started their rotation as the suck and pull of the current seized the boat. The man at the tiller pushed it left and the boat nose swung slightly upstream. Billy worked his position, waiting, watching for the first great ice chunk to slam into the si
de of the heavy boat, and then it was there. The man on the tiller pushed hard left and swung the bow of the boat further upstream at an angle to the ice chunk, while the men on the upstream side of the boat caught it on the end of their poles as it came in. They did not try to stop it, rather, they let it come, but leaned all their weight onto their poles to push it towards the rear of the boat. It collided with the angled boat five feet from the stern, slid down the side, and was gone without so much as rocking the vessel. The Marbleheader on the tiller brought the boat back onto course, eyes riveted on the incoming ice chunks, waiting for the next big one. Billy released held breath and his shoulders slumped. The Marbleheaders glanced at him and smiled, and Billy grinned back at them through his beard as they continued poling for the Trenton shore, just above the Trenton ferry landing.
In the glow of a sun touching the western rim, the blunt bows of the seven boats plowed grinding into the shore-ice to cut their own channel for twenty feet, then slowed and stopped as the ice thickened. Soldiers on shore threw stiff, frozen ropes to waiting hands that tied them to the tiller uprights in the bow of the boat, and a hundred men on shore dragged the great boats up onto the ice, sliding, until their bows were touching solid land.
Glover was waiting. “Fill the boats,” he ordered his men, and within minutes all seven of the first Durham boats were filled with nearly four hundred Marblehead fishermen who knelt with their muskets while the crews dropped the towropes, moved the tillers from one end to the other to set them thumping into their notch, launched the boats back into the channels they had cut coming in, and began poling the boats back across the river.
Once on the Pennsylvania side, the men quickly stripped back the brush and willows from the remaining boats and within minutes had them sliding on the river-ice, then into the main channel, poling back for the Trenton side through the ice chunks and freezing water. Again waiting hands threw ice-slick ropes from the shore and men dragged the heavy boats until their bows hit thumping on the frozen ground, and again Glover was waiting. He turned to the front ranks of the waiting army.
“Load onto the Durham boats and kneel or sit down. Take your muskets and knapsacks. When you reach the far side, start big fires and keep them going until we’re finished. We’ll need the light to land and unload and to keep men from freezing to death. The livestock and cannon will cross on the ferry just as soon as you’ve started. When it gets there, unload it and string rope picket lines in the trees for the horses and mules.”
While the fishermen held the boats steady, the first ranks climbed in and worked their way forward to kneel or sit on their knapsacks until they were jammed in with only enough room for the crews to man their poles.
A Marbleheader touched Billy’s shoulder and Billy turned as the man nodded to him. “You’ve done your fair share. This is fishermen’s work. You’ll be needed on the Pennsylvania shore. I’d be obliged to take the pole.” He paused, then added, “You get tired of soldierin’, you come join us. You got the makin’s of a proper fisherman.”
Billy’s face reddened at the rare praise as he glanced at the other men in the crew of his boat and they all gave him a nod of their heads. It was thanks enough, and Billy handed his pole to the man and took his place with those crouched in the boat as it moved away from shore.
In the gathering gloom of dusk the soldiers still remaining on the frozen Trenton riverbank peered north over their shoulders, past the town, anxious, fearful, watching for the first glimpse of red-coated soldiers
Glover saw their faces and raised his voice. “General Washington is with a company that fell back towards Princeton to tear up bridges and block roads to slow the British. He’ll get here before the British do, so we’ll have warning. Until that happens, we keep working. When your turn comes, load and unload as fast as you can. Don’t stop moving.”
He watched while the great boats moved out into the main channel and grim pride showed in his face as his men held them on course through the fast-moving water and the floating ice chunks that slammed into them. He turned on his heel and walked down to the big, cumbersome ferry to his crew waiting there.
“The horses and mules are coming with the cannon. Take the horses first, then the mules while there’s still a little daylight. The cannon can wait until after dark.”
“Aye, sir.”
From behind them came raised voices and the sound of shod hooves and heavy wheels on frozen ground, and he turned to see the first of the horses being led down the slight incline to the ferry landing, while men labored with the spokes and the trails of the cannon, moving them down with the horses. Glover raised a hand to stop them, then shouted. “Hold the cannon back until the horses and mules have crossed. Get restraining ropes on the guns and block the wheels.”
The cannon stopped and ropes were tied to the trails and staked down while numb hands shoved blocks against the front of the wheels and frozen feet kicked them to wedge them into place as men led the winter-haired, haltered horses onto the ferry landing, hooves thumping hollow on the black timbers. The horses threw their heads high against the halter ropes as they were led up the ramp and onto the ferry, nervous, stuttering their feet, eyes white-rimmed, distrustful of being in a strange boat on an ice-clogged river in fading light. Behind them, the larger, heavier mules stood waiting, growing restless. Glover turned north to return to the waiting army when he stopped dead in his tracks.
The frantic shout came right on top of the rumble.
“Loose gun! Loose gun!”
Glover glanced up the incline and gasped. A cannon had pulled the stakes on its restraining ropes and rolled over its wheel blocks. Men dived to grasp the loose ropes but could not stop or turn the two-ton gun as it gathered speed, rumbling down the incline, directly towards the mules above the landing. The men holding the mule halters instantly broke left or right, jerking the halter ropes, shouting at the mules to move. The great animals reared back in panic, not understanding the ominous sound or the ground-vibrations coming from behind, nor the sudden, unexpected, frantic jerk on their halter ropes and the panic in the men around them. Ahead of them, the horses partially turned and half of them reared, fighting their halter ropes, jamming together while the men battled to hold them. The huge gun gained speed and bounced crazily as it bore down on the clustered mules, and it flashed in the minds of the men clinging to their halter ropes—no chance—no chance.
They dropped the ropes and sprinted, diving away and there was nothing anyone could do as the great gun gained speed, careened sideways and tipped. The muzzle dropped as the wheel on the uphill side left the ground, and the gun rolled, ripping into the snow and ice to throw great clods of torn frozen earth high as the wheels and trails went over the top, then underneath, and back on top again. It plowed into the hindquarters of the nearest frenzied mule and those men closest heard the sharp cracks as both back legs broke at the knees and the fifteen-hundred-pound mule went down in a heap, throwing its head to scream out its terror and pain while the gun came to rest leaning on its hindquarters, one wheel up, turning slowly.
For a split second no one moved and then everyone moved. Two men grabbed their muskets and trotted to the front of the mule and shot it in the forehead. The head dropped and the carcass shuddered and then relaxed as the sounds of pain stopped. Twenty others grabbed the cannon and heaved it back onto its wheels as John Glover came running, wide-eyed.
“Is anyone hurt?”
Half a dozen men shook their heads, and Glover turned to trot up the incline to where the remainder of the cannon were tied, shouting as he came, face flushed, arm raised and pointing. “Tie off those cannon! Double the restraining ropes! That could have killed ten soldiers.”
Humiliated men scrambled for ropes while others shoved poles through the spokes of the wheels to lock them in place. Glover paced among them long enough to be certain the cannon were tied down before he trotted back down to the ferry where the dead mule had been pulled to one side, the cannon to the other, upright and undamaged. T
he ferry was jammed with horses, with forty head waiting on the landing along with twenty-four mules. Glover’s fishermen were locking the endgate and picking up their poles to push off.
He cupped his hands to call to them. “Shove off. Get back as soon as you can.”
In the freezing afterglow of a sun already set the ferry moved away from the dock and Glover turned back to the dead mule, surrounded by a cluster of men staring at the carcass. They glanced at Glover, then back at the carcass, and he read their faces and spoke quietly.
“Move it fifty yards downstream and get the head downhill and cut the throat. I’ll send word across to get ready. Load it with the first cannon.”
“Aye, sir.”
On the water, Billy watched the Trenton shore fade in the deep dusk and then it was gone. The fishermen struck flint to steel to light lanterns and men held them high at both ends of the boat while Billy pondered how the fishermen at the tillers knew what course to steer with no fires on the Pennsylvania shore to give them a bearing. The soldiers in the boats peered up and down the river in awed silence at the strange, ethereal sight of fifty pairs of yellow lanterns in a line moving in the darkness, reflecting off the black, ice-filled water, showing ghostly men plying the black shapes of the low boats, while they listened to the hollow, booming sound of ice chunks slamming into the hulls.
In full darkness the boats rammed into the frozen Pennsylvania riverbank and instantly the fishermen in the bow leaped to the ground to keep the rope tight while the soldiers systematically unloaded. The moment their boats were empty the crews clambored back in and jammed their poles against the frozen bank to push off, then began their rotation, poling the boat back towards the open channel, each with their two lanterns held high. Across the river, on the Trenton side, tiny points of light flickered, then caught and grew until huge fires spread from the Trenton ferry landing five hundred yards upstream.
