Prelude to Glory, Vol. 2

by Ron Carter

  Billy gasped and Eli rose to one elbow, looking, while Billy skimmed on through the letter.

  Taken prisoner—forced to drive for the British—Connecticut militia mistook them for British and Tories—shot at them—cannon and rifles—every wagon destroyed.

  Billy choked and Eli sat up, staring, waiting, as Billy continued with trembling hands.

  All lost except Charles Johannesen and Brigitte and Caleb—saved by the grace of the Almighty—they were blown from their wagon into the grass—could not be seen. Walked three hundred miles back to Boston—untold hardships—little food—slept in the open.

  Home—recovered—Brigitte suffering from self-condemnation—Caleb struggling to understand that such terrible things do happen in times of war.

  I have heard terrible things about our losses at Long Island and at New York. I have not received a letter from you in many weeks, but in my heart I know you are all right. Please write to me when you can. I place you in the hands of Almighty God and know you are serving him.

  With every tender affection,

  Your loving mother,

  Dorothy Weems

  All the air went out of Billy and he sat for a moment, mind reeling, heart pounding.

  “You all right?” Eli waited. “What’s wrong?”

  “My mother.”

  Eli started, focused. “Is she all right?”

  Billy nodded. “Brigitte and Caleb were nearly killed.”

  “Brigitte? The sister of your friend Matthew?”

  “Yes, and her younger brother.”

  “What happened?”

  Billy handed him the letter, and Eli turned it towards the setting sun to read it. He laid it on his blanket and sat for a time before he spoke. “That was a bad thing.” He looked at Billy. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes. It was just . . . a surprise.”

  “A bad one. But neither one of them was harmed.”

  Billy refolded the letter and held it in his hands for a moment. “I’ve got to find a pencil and paper.”

  “I’ll help, but first we better get a bath and something to eat. I think we’ll be leaving this camp soon.”

  At half past eight o’clock, in deep dusk, the orders came. At ten o’clock General Washington led the first regiment marching north up the Post Road to King’s Bridge. They crossed in the darkness and angled eastward, towards the Bronx River and White Plains. Behind them weary troopers moved horses hitched to cannon onto the dirt road, and when there were no more horses, ten men were assigned to drag the two-thousand-pound guns and carriages. They crammed their pitifully small supply of food and blankets and ammunition into the few wagons they had, and on George Washington’s command rumbled into the blackness, vapor trailing from their heads, dressed in their light summer clothing, without coats, shoes loose at the seams, holes in the soles. By two o’clock the hoarfrost reflected sparkling on the grass and ground. By four o’clock it showed on the hair and eyebrows and beards of the trudging, weary army, slowly, painfully making its way through the black of night.

  In the gray of half past six o’clock a mounted rider galloped up to George Washington and reined in his blowing horse, steam rising from the hot hide and flared nostrils. He wore the uniform of a captain. Washington raised his hand and the column stopped.

  “Sir, General Howe and his first division are not more than three miles to the east, moving north and west. His column will be directly across your path within two hours, and he’s ready for a fight.”

  “How many men?”

  The captain hesitated for a moment. “Four thousand.”

  Washington paused for a moment, then turned to his aide. “Go bring Colonel John Glover here, immediately.”

  Five minutes later John Glover was facing General Washington. Streaks of morning sun were showing in the high clouds to the east.

  Washington spoke crisply. “Colonel, General Howe is less than three miles to the east on a line of march that will put him directly across our path in the next few miles. If he attacks this column, strung out as it is, he will destroy us all. He must be stopped.”

  Washington paused for a moment, knowing what he was about to ask Glover.

  “Can your command slow him for one day? I can be on high ground and organized if I can have one day.”

  Glover, one full foot shorter than Washington, peered upward into the granite face in the breaking dawn. “How many men are with him?”

  Washington swallowed. “Four thousand.”

  Glover did not flinch. “Do we have anyone who knows the ground over there?”

  “We do.” He turned to his aide once more. “Get Corporal Weems and Private Eli Stroud, Boston regiment, now.”

  Three minutes later Billy and Eli pulled up beside John Glover, winded, panting, their breath rising in a cloud of vapor. There were no formalities as Washington spoke.

  “General Howe is three miles east, trying to cut off our line of march and destroy us. Did you learn the ground over there well enough on your scout to serve Colonel Glover if he tries to stop them?”

  Eli’s answer was instant. “We know the ground. There are some wheat fields over there, with stone fences. The right men behind those stone fences can do it.”

  Washington looked down at the lined, weathered face and the steady eyes of Glover, and he searched for the words that would say how he loathed ordering the Massachusetts men into open battle in broad daylight against four thousand of the finest of the world-renowned British army. He spoke slowly. “I will not order you. In the name of the Continental army, and for the sake of the liberty we are fighting for, I ask you. Will you try to give me one day?”

  Glover’s answer was simple, quiet. “We’ll stop them. Give me ten minutes.”

  Five minutes later Billy and Eli watched as Glover gathered his regimental officers around him and spoke briefly, pointing. The officers nodded and trotted to their different companies. Three minutes later, seven hundred fifty men of the Massachusetts regiments had formed beside the road. Two hundred fifty remained with Washington’s column. Two minutes later Glover gave the order and started north at a trot, Billy and Eli beside him, his hand-picked companies behind him, following.

  They turned due east and left the road, working through fields of grass wet with the morning dew. One hour later, soaked to the knees, they crested a rise and slowed, and stopped. Before them was a valley filled with wheat fields that had been harvested two months earlier. Stone fences, waist high, nearly a mile long, ran from east to west at intervals of about one hundred yards, with lesser, irregular fences and paths running from north to south. The white stubble and the straight stone fences turned the floor of the shallow valley into a gigantic checkerboard. From far to the south the first distant sounds of fifes and drums drifted into the valley.

  Billy and Eli pointed. Glover nodded and turned to his officers and gave orders and hand signals, and led them into the valley at a trot. With Billy and Eli showing the way, the fishermen took measured intervals behind a waist-high stone fence in the center of the valley and strung out for half a mile. When they were in position, every man in Glover’s command could see him at the extreme east end of the line. Glover removed his black hat and waved it, and a captain at the west end of the line waved back and immediately the entire command crouched behind the stone wall. Billy was beside Glover, while Eli was in the center of the line, where a small opening in the stone fence allowed passage of a road large enough for a two-wheeled farm cart.

  The sound of fifes and drums grew, and then came the sounds of four thousand foot soldiers and two hundred horses marching north, and then they were there at the south end of the valley, red coats and white belts bright in the sun as they marched steadily on, scaling the stone fences as they came.

  Eli felt the ground vibrations in the soles of his moccasins as the clatter of scabbards and cartridge boxes and canteens, mixed with the first sounds of voices, reached over the stone fence. Eli glanced to his left and right, and every man i
n the Massachusetts regiments had his face turned east, waiting for the signal from Glover. The rustle of feet moving through the wheat stubble came clear, and it seemed the British were right on top of the stone fence, and still Glover waited.

  When the crouched Americans heard the drums in the first rank cease, and the drummers prepare to scale the fence, Glover suddenly rose from behind the stone wall. The British captain leading the advance caught the movement from the corner of his eye, looked at Glover one hundred yards to his right, and did nothing, dumbstruck at the sudden appearance of a man where none had been, fumbling in his own mind to understand who Glover was and what he was doing behind a stone fence in a wheat field.

  When Glover stood, every man in his command cocked his musket and every third man stood bolt upright, face-to-face with the British less than fifteen feet south of the stone fence. The British troops stopped dead in their tracks, staring, minds blank.

  The first volley thundered at point-blank range, and more than one hundred red-coated soldiers staggered back and buckled. The second two hundred fifty Massachusetts soldiers stood as those who had fired squatted down behind the fence and drew fresh cartridges from their cartridge boxes and ripped the ends out of them with their teeth, reloading, while the second volley blasted. Blind panic seized every British soldier within fifty feet of the wall as more than seventy of those in the lead ranks gasped and dropped. The third two hundred fifty Americans stood as the second two hundred fifty crouched down and began reloading, and the third volley echoed through the valley, and again more than seventy of the British soldiers toppled.

  The first two hundred fifty, now reloaded, stood as those who had just fired crouched, and they picked their targets and the fourth thundering volley ripped into the running British. They were throwing down their muskets, canteens, cartridge boxes, anything that slowed them in their blind stampede back towards the stone fences to the south, to hide wherever they could to escape the holocaust behind.

  Glover’s men fired two more volleys before the British threw themselves over the stone fence one hundred thirty yards to the south. They lay in the wheat stubble, gasping for breath, not moving while their officers crouched behind the fence, daring to raise their heads enough to see the thick white cloud of gun smoke obscuring the fence to the north. The wheat field seemed filled with patches of red, and the officers gaped, white-faced, as they quickly estimated their dead. More than two hundred, in less than six minutes. And they had not heard a single cannon!

  Eli reloaded his long rifle, cocked it, and rested it over the stone fence, waiting.

  One hundred eighty yards to the south a British major, incensed at the catastrophic rout of his command, kicked his horse in among his own men, shouting at them, sword drawn, cursing, threatening, rallying them for a charge.

  Eli glanced at the drifting smoke, gauging the speed and direction of the wind, laid his cheek against the worn stock of his rifle, lined the sights, raised the muzzle to compensate for distance, and squeezed off his shot.

  One-half second later the British major grabbed his chest and his sword went spinning. He buckled forward, clawing for the pommel, trying to stay mounted, and he could not. His men caught his body as he fell.

  Eli and the Americans settled down once more behind the stone fence, watching Glover at the east end. Glover extended his telescope and raised his head enough to study the British movements, and they waited.

  Minutes became half an hour, while the British struggled to regain their shattered composure. The men in the front ranks who had faced the devastation swore that more than five thousand Americans had risen from nowhere and the musket balls had come thicker than hail. Half an hour became an hour while the officers walked among them, trying to reason with them, finally ordering them under threat of execution to form ranks.

  They came again in two ranks, one thousand strong, muskets lowered, bayonets flashing, stepping over their own dead as they trotted north across the field.

  They were ten yards from the fence when Glover gave his command, and this time the Americans did not stand. They laid their muskets over the top of the fence and showed only the tops of their heads as they aimed and fired in rotation, each group firing while the previous one reloaded. The relentless musket balls ripped large holes in the front rank of the oncoming British, then the second rank. The British still standing fired their muskets without aiming, and turned and ran. Most of the musket balls whistled high, some slammed into the stone fence, others tore dirt in front of it, and a very few hit the Americans.

  Twice more the British regrouped and came across the open field, and twice more the Americans patiently rotated their volleys with calm, deadly precision, and twice more the British broke and ran.

  The sun passed its zenith and settled towards the west. The British sent regiments east and west to flank the men behind the stone fences, and Glover sent companies of his command to stop them.

  In the late afternoon Glover watched the British officers form two thousand men into five ranks and face them north. Glover closed his telescope, gave orders, and his regiment crouched low and silently moved back one hundred ten yards to the next stone wall and took up positions.

  The British came marching across the field, stepping over their dead, and their faces were a mix of surprise and great hope as they breached the first stone fence to find nothing more than tracks headed north through the stubble. They were fifteen yards from the next fence when the dreaded muzzles of the American muskets suddenly appeared above the stones, and an instant later the deadly rotation of volleys blasted in their faces. The front ranks collapsed back on those behind, who pushed their dead aside and marched on, only to be sent reeling back by the succeeding volleys, less than thirty seconds apart. The British were ten feet from the stones when their ranks broke and fled.

  The Massachusetts men reloaded and waited. The sun cast long shadows eastward, and then settled behind the western rim. Dusk came creeping, and the shades of night deepened. Three hundred yards to the south, campfires flickered. Eli crept east, found Glover, and they talked quietly for twenty seconds before Eli slipped over the wall. Fifteen minutes later he silently scaled the fence and dropped beside Glover to report.

  “They’re making camp for the night. It’s over.”

  Glover gave orders and his command quietly moved due north a quarter mile, carrying their dead and wounded, then turned west in the darkness, Billy and Eli leading with Glover between them. Behind them, in the dark stubble fields, lay one thousand red-coated British casualties.

  It was midnight when Billy and Eli raised their arms to point at the distant pinpoints of light that marked the campfires of Washington’s army, and it was past one a.m. when the south picket challenged Glover, then let him and his command pass. It was two o’clock when the Americans had delivered their dead and wounded to the infirmary, and gathered back at the campfires to gratefully wrap their hands around hot pewter mugs of steaming coffee, and sit down on blankets, or logs, or knapsacks, or in the dirt, teeth chattering in the hard cold, and work at smoking strips of crisped sowbelly and black bread while they gingerly sipped at the steaming cups. Their noses began dripping, and they wiped at them as they continued, and the warmth in their stomachs spread.

  Glover tapped Billy and Eli on the shoulder, and they followed him to a tent glowing with lantern light. The picket held the flap and they entered and faced General Washington. He was seated at his table in full uniform, quill in his hand. He turned in his chair to face them, then stood. He said nothing as he waited for Glover’s report.

  “We met them, sir. They stopped.”

  Washington drew breath and cleared his throat. “Casualties?”

  “We left about one thousand of them in the stubble fields.”

  Washington started in astonishment. “Your casualties?”

  “Eight dead, as far as I know. About thirteen wounded. They’re at the infirmary. I expect nearly all of them to recover.”

  Glover gestured
to Billy and Eli. “We have these two soldiers to thank for knowing where and how to meet them.”

  Washington’s face filled with unexpected emotion and for a moment he could not speak. Then he took charge of himself and his spine straightened. “I will include this in my report to Congress. Tomorrow we continue on to White Plains to prepare for battle. Thank you. Dismissed.”

  General Howe sat his big-boned sorrel horse for a long time in the crisp cold of early morning, working his telescope back and forth across the massive American breastworks fifteen hundred yards ahead, north. Six hundred yards in front of the breastworks, three country dirt roads crossed, with the hamlet of White Plains surrounding the intersection. Howe glassed the tiny village with rooftops and fields sparkling from countless frost crystals until he was satisfied there were no Americans hidden in the trees or ditches, then raised his telescope once more and again counted the cannon and the regimental flags at the breastworks beyond. He shook his head, again amazed at the magic the Americans could perform with pick and shovel and one day’s time.

  The heavily fortified center of Washington’s defenses was flanked on Washington’s right by a crook in the Bronx River and on Washington’s left by lowlands that would be nearly impossible to gain and hold under the muzzles of the Americans’ cannon.

  Howe twisted in his saddle and focused his telescope west, to his left, where the Bronx River, four hundred yards distant, ran south. The far bank of the river was a steep incline of ninety feet, and again Howe worked his telescope back and forth, counting the cannon muzzles on the rim of the incline. He was swinging the telescope back to peer north once more when he hesitated, then brought it back to look past the steep incline bordering the Bronx to a hill half a mile farther west. There were cannon on the hill, and suddenly he stood in his stirrups and studied it carefully.

  He abruptly turned to his aide. “What’s that second hill?” He pointed.

  The aide glanced at his map. “Chatterton Hill, sir.”