When I had completed these small tasks, Colonel McDowell led me to a fallen log in the shade of a sycamore tree, and we sat down there together, a stone’s throw from Buffalo Creek. Other militiamen in the camp had seen me when I arrived, and some of them waved as I rode past. I decided that after I’d had my talk with Charles McDowell, I would seek out Andrew Hampton and perhaps David Vance, another able officer from Burke County, to apprise them of what had transpired. Some of the exiled militiamen gathered to watch me pass, but none of them approached when I sat down to confer with Colonel McDowell.
They knew at once—as did he—that I had not made the long ride merely to pass the time of day with him. Colonel McDowell might have had idle days to fill, but I—with a farm to run, ten children and a new wife to see to, and the ever-present threat of Indian attacks to occupy my thoughts—had no time at all for aimless social calls. I hope I was cordial and unhurried that morning, but I was not without purpose.
All pretense of bonhomie aside, McDowell fixed me with a grave stare, and murmured, “Is there news?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir. I have lately had a visit from Isaac Shelby. He came bearing a letter that was just delivered by a kinsman of his, a prisoner freed by the enemy for the express purpose of carrying this missive to Shelby. It was from Maj. Patrick Ferguson. He orders us to keep out of the war.”
“Ferguson?” McDowell’s answering smile had not an ounce of mirth in it. “Orders us? That man would take a battling stick to a beehive, wouldn’t he?”
“I think it amounts to that. We aim to sting him, anyhow.”
Idly, he picked up a stone and tossed it in a lazy arc toward the creek. “You’d better make that sting a deadly one, then, for Ferguson is already a menace in the territory south of here. If you stir him up and then leave him at large, you will only make a misery for those of us whose holdings are there.”
“Oh, we mean to end it, Colonel McDowell. I promise you that. We were fed to the teeth with Ferguson already, for all his cattle raids, and for turning his horses loose to forage in Whig cornfields, but now with that letter of his, he has made it personal. We mean to stop him, but the task will take all of us working together to accomplish. I know that you and your men can be counted on to join us.”
“You have settled on a course of action, then?”
“We have, sir. We are mustering at Fort Watauga on the twenty-fifth of this month, and then marching over the mountains to hunt down Ferguson. I can vouch for Shelby’s men and mine.”
McDowell digested this information for a moment, and then he growled, “And what about Campbell and his Virginia militia?”
“Yes. That is—I hope so. Colonel Shelby has gone home to write to him, setting out the reasons for him to cast his lot with us. Surely he’ll see the sense of the plan and join us.”
“Sevier, Shelby, McDowell, Campbell.” He ticked off the names on his fingers. “I make it fewer than a thousand men. What about Benjamin Cleveland of the Yadkin, then, and the other militias farther to the east around the Moravian settlements, and what about the South Carolinians? Are they with us?”
“Yes, of course, sir. All the Carolina commanders we can persuade to fall in with us. We hope to have all of them.”
McDowell grunted, which meant that he could find no fault with my answer. “I don’t doubt you will need them all. The twenty-fifth of September, eh? We can all meet up at Quaker Meadows and unite our forces there with those of Cleveland and Winston and the rest.”
I hesitated. Meeting at McDowell’s plantation would further solidify his position as commander, but I did not object. He sounds as if he is taking charge already, I thought, but I resolved to overlook his preemptory attitude, and to respond with a civil answer, for his was indeed a reasonable suggestion. By the time we reached that point in the journey, we would be in need of more provisions, and it made sense to head for a place where we could be sure of getting them.
“Well, I hope you may persuade the other militias to join you in this venture. I don’t doubt you will need them all. Perhaps my influence can be useful in asking them to join.”
“I came here to enlist your support,” I told him. “Well, more than that, for I know that you need no urging to lead your troops for the fight. But what we also need is information. Once we get over the mountains, we will be heading into your territory, and you know it better than any of us. The rivers. The fords. The location of the homes of Whig sympathizers. And where the enemy strongholds lie.”
McDowell raised his eyebrows. “But I will be with you, Sevier. I can show all of that to the rest of you when the time comes.”
I was on shaky ground here, and so I chose my words carefully and bound them up in a smile. “Of course you will be with us, Colonel, but we must be prepared for every contingency. Our forces could become separated. People could be lost to ambush or illness. It’s best that we not keep the keys to our survival locked in the head of just one man. The risk is too great.”
He saw the sense of that, and indeed it was true enough, as far as it went. I would not want such details to be the sole property of any one member of the party, for that would put us one bullet away from disorder and defeat.
After a long appraising look at me—for, after all, who completely trusts anybody these days?—McDowell nodded. “Very well, then. Have you a bit of paper with you? Well, we can find some in my cabin, I expect. I will draw up maps and make lists. You will want to commit all of it to memory and destroy the notes, of course, but at least you will have a few weeks to learn the information as best you can. I hope you will not have to rely upon your memory for these matters, though. I mean to be with you and Shelby, every mile of the way.”
I smiled, which seemed safer than saying anything.
As if reading my thoughts, McDowell said, “I am the senior commander, you know. I have been a colonel longer than any of you, and so, when we do unite our forces, by rights I should be the one in charge of this campaign.”
I did know it. Shelby and I had talked about it at length, looking for some way around that disagreeable fact. The solution we finally agreed upon was not ideal, but it was better than the alternate, which was to give the reins over to McDowell and let him have sole command. I willed myself to keep smiling. As gently as I could, I said, “We think it best if we rotate the command every couple of days, instead of having just one leader. We are not a regular army, you know. Our soldiers are volunteers, and they follow us at their own pleasure. We think it more likely that the militias will come willingly if each one’s own trusted leader is in charge of the campaign at least part of the time.”
His eyes widened and his lip curled in scorn. “Come willingly, Sevier? These men in the militias are soldiers. They have taken an oath. They ought to do as they are told—obey orders from superior officers and trust their betters to decide on the strategy of the campaign. Choice does not come into it.”
I sighed. “Well, Colonel, you will find men in this war who obey orders and trust their betters, without any thought at all to their own rights or liberty. But those men are mostly fighting on Ferguson’s side, not ours. We do things differently on this side of the mountain.”
VIRGINIA SAL
It was September now and we had been on the move, heading up into the hill country, looking for converts to the cause and for livestock to feed the army. It was still warm, even at night, and sometimes we’d come upon apple trees bearing their fruit, so our sojourn in the foothills suited me all right, but I did notice that some of the trees on the high hills were already beginning to turn red and gold, which made me wonder what the army would do when winter came. I hoped we’d stop camping in the woods, and go somewhere like Charlotte Town until spring came. The general’s headquarters were there, and I reckoned that the major could take over any house he wanted there.
I asked Virginia Paul about it, but she only shook her head and said that I needn’t worry about the winter, that I should not pass a day of it cold or hungry. I suppose she wa
s just trying to ease my mind so I wouldn’t pester her with my worries, but she sounded as if she knew it for a fact, so I tried to believe her and to put the matter out of my mind.
There were other things to worry about soon enough. But for a while it seemed like summer and good fortune would go on forever.
Dr. Johnson stopped by the tent one afternoon while I was sitting on a blanket in the tent opening, mending one of the major’s shirts. The doctor rubbed his hands together, looking big with news. “We shall eat well tonight, my girl!” he said. Uzal Johnson thought a fair bit about food, even though we generally had enough. I thought that tending to sick people made him more determined than most people to take enjoyment where he found it. Or maybe he was used to more and better meals than I was.
“Did somebody shoot a wild turkey?” I said, for we were not in farm country now. Instead of broad fields of corn and tidy gardens of beans and carrots at the big farms in the river valleys, there was now about us only woods and fields of wild grass, that even the major’s fine white horse seemed loath to eat. The major had ridden off earlier in the day with a dozen soldiers, but he seldom bothered to tell us what he was about, and, being just his servant girl, I would hardly have asked him for an accounting. As often as not, I didn’t care where he went, anyhow. It was just a bunch of men riding out, armed to the teeth, talking or fighting, and feeling mighty important about whatever it was they were doing. It was all one to me. Sometimes Virginia Paul would know the particulars, but she didn’t seem to care any more than I did.
“Well, someone may shoot a turkey, now you come to mention it, Sal, for I think I caught sight of one in the weeds last evening, but what I am talking about is beef!” He hit his fist against his palm, and grinned. “At least I do hope so. Major Ferguson has gone to parlay with a landowner who has persuaded himself to stay loyal to the king. It seems this gentleman farmer knows where McDowell’s militia hid their beeves before they fled over the mountains. The cattle are pastured in coves up the mountain near here, and the major has taken some men to go after them.”
None of that had anything in particular to do with me, except that if we did manage to round up some cattle, I’d eat better, same as the major, because he was good about seeing that his people were fed. More cattle to feed the men was good news, but even without them I had few complaints about the victuals we were given on the march, for we always passed by a goodly number of Loyalist farmers along the way, and the major prevailed upon them to feed his men. He also prevailed upon the rebel farmers to provision his army, but he did not ask them politely. He took what he wanted. Since it amounted to losing their crops and livestock either way, I thought that perhaps some of the Loyalist farmers were simply making a virtue of necessity, to keep us from burning their farms as well as taking their goods. Maybe when the other army passed by, they’d switch sides again. Anyhow, we never went hungry. I supposed that Major Ferguson was making a point of finding the Burke militia’s beeves simply to deprive them of the use of them, but I’d be happy to help him eat the meat.
“I hope he finds those cattle, and that doing so will raise his spirits,” said Dr. Johnson. “The major has been unsettled of late, though he insists that he is not sick, and since I can find nothing wrong with him, I suppose I must believe him.” He stepped past me, and sat down on the major’s trunk, watching my needlework. “Does Major Ferguson seem ill to you, Sal?”
“Well, no sicker than usual, I reckon,” I said, for I remembered what Virginia Paul had told me about his bouts with fever in Europe and again a few years later in the islands. I wondered if that ailment might come back one day, for the Carolinas can be fever country in hot weather, but the major had passed the whole summer without a sign of it, though he did seem restless and foul-tempered sometimes, and his sleep was troubled. I hadn’t been with him that long, though, so for all I knew that was how he always was. Dr. Johnson knew him better, so I took his word that something was amiss, though it seemed to me that the major might have a good many reasons to feel poorly.
“Can’t you fix his arm?” I asked him. “He can’t straighten it out, but holds it up against his chest all the time. I reckon that affliction would get anybody down, much less a soldier, who is supposed to be able-bodied. Does it pain him?”
The doctor considered it. “I shouldn’t think so. It has healed. And for that reason, I can do nothing for him. The wound was treated, and the joint has fused in place. That cannot be changed.”
“It’s a good thing he is left-handed, so that he can still write and eat.”
Uzal Johnson shook his head. “The major was born right-handed. He has taught himself to use his other hand so as not to be completely incapacitated by his injury. It’s wonderful what he managed in so short a time. He is trying hard to retain his commission. I gather that the army is his home now. It is his inheritance, anyhow, and all the fortune he is ever likely to get.”
“About his wounded arm—I never heard what happened to him.” I wondered if Virginia Paul knew, but I reckoned she did, because she seemed to know everything. She had not got around to telling me yet, though.
The doctor watched me wielding the needle. “Have you asked him?”
“I have not. He’d take that as an impertinence, and I wouldn’t like to ask, anyhow. He hates being a cripple. You can tell.”
“Well, he’s not accustomed to it yet. It happened less than two years ago. Bad luck for a career soldier, even more than for most men. It’s all on account of that infernal gun of his, though I think he blames everything but that.”
“Tell me, please. Did you attend him when he got hurt?”
“I did not. But I know the particulars. We have dined together often enough, and exchanged the tales of our troubles.”
I looked up from my needlework. “Well, you look fit enough, doctor.”
He smiled. “I am sound in body, but this war has cost me dearly, too. Eight years ago I graduated from King’s College in New York, and set out to practice medicine back home in New Jersey. I had four prosperous years until the rebellion began brewing, and then the Whigs commissioned me for a surgeon. Presently, I left them, for I decided that my allegiance lay with the king, and besides the Whigs were losing.”
I nodded. “It seemed that way to me, too.”
“I cast my lot with the New Jersey Volunteers. The rebels confiscated my medicines and such of my property as they could get their hands on, which did nothing to endear me to their cause. So, now, four years later, here I am in this temperate jungle, where the air in summer feels like cotton wool when you try to breathe it. It has been a long war.”
We fell silent for a bit, while I plied my needle, and the doctor took out his little book and began to write in it, as he often does of an evening by lamplight. Finally, though, my curiosity got the better of me, and I said, “But you know how the major came to be crippled?”
“Oh, yes. He was badly wounded up in Pennsylvania, at Brandywine. That’s the short of it, but if you want to hear all that led up to it, I know a good bit of that, too.”
I squinted up at the sun, which was still above the treetops. The major wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours yet, and I could make the mending last as long as the tale. “Tell me then, if you please, an’ the soldiers can spare you a while longer.”
Dr. Johnson nodded. “They seem well enough. Well, where to begin? Back when I was learning to name the bones at medical college, the good major was stationed in the Caribbean, keeping the peace for the English planters. He managed to get through those skirmishes unscathed, but he fell ill with malaria, which is not at all uncommon for soldiers who are sent hither and yon across the empire. Banastre Tarleton has it, too, you know. It can go away for months at a time, but then it comes roaring back, and lays the sufferer low for weeks.”
I nodded. “I knew about that. I don’t reckon you doctors can cure the malaria fever, either.”
The doctor shrugged. “There’s precious little we can cure. Sometimes I think we
simply amuse the patient until he gets well on his own—though wounds are different, of course. We can patch those up, after a fashion. But rest and a better climate can sometimes help those suffering from fever. Anyhow, Ferguson was not in my care in those days, so I cannot say what ailed him. When he fell ill, they sent him back to Scotland to recuperate. And as he recovered his strength, he began to devote his time to developing a new-fangled weapon that he hoped would replace the army’s Brown Bess.”
“Is that what the soldiers here are carrying?” I didn’t know much about guns, except to get out of the way of them.
Dr. Johnson shook his head. “No. His invention did not replace the Brown Bess. But the major will tell anyone who will listen that it should have. His new weapon had a far greater range and accuracy—or so he says. I have never seen one myself, I am no expert on weapons, though I fear I am becoming well versed in treating their consequences.”
I scooted over a bit, so that the light shining through the tree branches would fall on the seam I was working on. “How was the major’s new gun different from the old ones?”
“I couldn’t tell you in terms of the mechanics of it. If you ever have trouble sleeping, ask the major for the particulars, and he will talk about it until cock crow. It was a breech-loader, I do know that, while the army’s Brown Bess loads at the muzzle.”
“Which one is better?”
“Well, heaven only knows. The major says that his weapon would be easier for soldiers to reload while lying down or when hidden in underbrush. I suppose that would be an advantage.”
“Did he ever make one to try it out?”
“Indeed, he paid for a gunsmith to make several of them, and he tested them himself. Why, he even went to Windsor Castle and demonstrated the thing for the king. Can you imagine? Had it been me, I doubt if I could have held the rifle steady.”
I shrugged, as if I didn’t care a bit about seeing any old king, but I ached to ask the major a thousand questions about his visit there. What did the king look like? What furniture was there in the castle? Did they give you anything to eat—and did they serve it to you on plates of gold? It wasn’t any use, though. Men never talk about things like that, and like as not they don’t even notice. But it felt like I had a little hot coal in the pit of my stomach just to think that I was acquainted with somebody who had met the king.
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