Oh, the snow was terrible. They had put some men out front on horseback dragging logs along the road to flatten the snow down. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to get through at all. Some of the men were able to find places to ride on the sleighs, but most had to walk. It was a pretty miserable trip, with everybody wet and cold and on top of it scared that Lincoln was coming along behind us and might burst out on us at any moment. But he didn’t, and by the end of the day we were in Petersham, bedded down in barns all over town. It was pretty cozy in the barn. The snowstorm had turned into a blizzard, and that meant that Lincoln wouldn’t be able to get to us: Nobody was going to come out in a blizzard. Besides there was no way to get into Petersham but through a deep, narrow gorge between two rugged hills—and up a nearly vertical cartway—full of snow. We didn’t even bother to put out a night watch. There was no need for it.
In the morning I sat down with Tom and Levi and we shared what we had for breakfast—a little bread and some cheese, mostly. The snowstorm had stopped. It was cold and windy. We were sitting there eating when we heard the sound of a horse outside.
“Somebody must be mighty cold, riding in weather like this,” Tom said.
“Sounds like more than one,” I said. We heard a shout. The men in the barn looked up. There was another shout, and more sounds of horses. One of the men near the door got up and pushed it open a crack. He stared for a couple of seconds and then he slammed the door shut and bolted it. “God Almighty,” he said. “It’s Lincoln’s army.”
“It can’t be,” somebody cried. “Not in this weather.” There came a pounding on the door, a hammering, and then a ripping, splintering sound. A board flew off the door and a bayonet slashed through. Our men were up now and swirling around the barn. “Out the back,” somebody shouted. “There are windows in the back.”
We raced through the gloom of the barn—Levi, Tom, and I. Behind us there came a huge crash. I spun around. The door flapped open, a mess of broken boards. The soldiers were piling through, bayonets fixed. “Don’t move, anybody,” one of them shouted.
We hit the back windows. There were three of them, about four feet off the floor, which had been covered with cloth. The men were diving through head first into the snow outside. Behind us there was an enormous crash of gunfire. It sounded as if it had gone off right at our backs. I went through a window and dropped into the snow-covered barnyard outside. It was a mess there. Some of our men were trying to hitch up pungs and sleighs, so as to get away with our provisions if they could. I struggled to my feet, and as I did so a bunch of horsemen charged into the barnyard waving swords and pistols. The men trying to get horses hitched to the sleighs just broke and ran.
Lincoln’s horsemen began racing around the barnyard trying to run our men down. There were a couple of sheds off to the left and right, and a rail fence that joined the sheds to the barn to make a complete circle. Out beyond the fence was a field deep in snow. The only way we could get out was to run right through the riding men.
“Let’s go,” Levi said. We broke away from the side of the barn and charged forward. There was a horseman straight ahead of me. When he saw me coming he wheeled his horse around to face me, his sword raised. I ran straight at him and then at the last minute ducked around the horse on the side away from his sword. He made a swing at me, but I was already past. There was another horseman ahead. I ran straight for him too, and then shot off at an angle. He couldn’t get his horse around quick enough to get in a swing at me.
Ahead of me was the barnyard fence. Another horseman sped by in front of me. I ducked back, but he was chasing somebody else. Then, just a few yards ahead, I saw lying in the muddy snow of the barnyard a musket, a good Brown Bess from the Revolutionary War. I leaped forward, snatched it off the snow, flung it over the fence, and swung myself up on the top rail. To one side I could see Levi going over the fence, too. I dropped down onto the crusted snow and sank in above my knees. I struggled up onto the crust and looked around. Tom was coming over the fence. I snatched up the musket, and the three of us began to slog through the snow across the field. We were able to walk on the crust, but there were eight to ten inches of fresh snow on top of the crust and it was hard going. The horsemen couldn’t follow us into the snow. As long as they didn’t decide to settle down in the barnyard and start shooting at us we’d be all right. A couple of times I looked back. There were a lot of men going across the field with us, men running down the road that went by the barn, men going every which way that you could see. The whole Regulator army was scattering. We’d run again.
Ahead, there was a hill with a woodlot on top. We just naturally went toward that. By the time I came up there were already a dozen or so men crouched at the edge of the woods, breathing hard and staring back down at the barn and the scattering army.
Finally, there were about twenty men gathered there. We just stood there watching. Lincoln’s troop had got a group of maybe thirty Regulators rounded up on the road, and were getting ready to march them back down the road toward Pelham under guard. There were no bodies lying in the barnyard that anybody could see. It didn’t seem as if anyone had got killed. We all watched and finally somebody said, “That’s it. It’s over now.”
“We don’t know that yet,” somebody else said.
“Huh,” the first one snorted. “The whole army’s scattered, and they’ve got the sleighs with all our provisions. I doubt if we’ve got enough ball and power to make a stand even if we had the chance.”
Nobody said anything about that. We hadn’t made a stand anywhere yet.
“What I can’t figure is how they were able to come up on us like that. It plain doesn’t seem possible for them to ride all night through that kind of a blizzard.”
“Wasn’t possible, but they did it. The next question is what do we do now?”
Nobody knew. There was a lot of talk, with different ideas offered. Some were for giving up and going home in hopes that the General Court would pardon us. Some said there was too much risk of getting hanged if we did that. Others were for trying to find where Daniel Shays was. The talk went around; there was no conclusion. One thing was clear, though: we had to move on. Lincoln’s troops would be scouring the neighborhood for Regulators. There was only one direction to move in. That was west. The farther west we went, the farther we were from Boston and the government. More important, the towns in the western part of Massachusetts had been strong for the Regulators all along. Levi and Tom both were from out there and had told me about it. Besides, just beyond was New York State, where the Massachusetts government couldn’t touch us. “We probably ought to head for Pittsfield,” somebody said. “I judge we’d be among friends there.”
So we began to walk. Now I had the musket to carry as well as the sword. I was glad to have the musket, but it was awkward to carry. I couldn’t keep both my hands in my pockets for warmth, but had to keep one on the musket. I waited until the outside one got cold, then I’d switch the musket over to my other shoulder and use my other hand for a while.
It was a good fifty miles to Pittsfield. I’d never been that far away from home in my life. I should have been excited, but I wasn’t. Mainly I felt what everybody else felt—as down as we could be. We’d lost, and we hadn’t made a fight of it. If you run once, you feel like a coward and get down about it, but you figure you can make it up on the next chance. But if you run again, you start to believe that you’re a coward in your soul and will never get over it. I didn’t like that feeling at all, and as we walked through the woods and out across the next field I began to make excuses for myself. After all, we’d been taken by surprise. There wasn’t much way we could have fought the way they’d jumped on us so sudden. Of course, we should have put out a night watch, but who would have figured they could get through a blizzard like that, especially at night? Besides, we were outnumbered—at least that was what everybody said. So when you added it all up, there wasn’t much we could have done except run. But no matter what I told myself, I still
felt sick and downhearted that I’d run away once again.
For the first few miles of the trip westward we stayed off the roads, where Lincoln’s men might be looking for Regulators. We cut across fields and stayed in woods and hollows as much as we could. A group of twenty men going through the countryside was pretty conspicuous. But after we’d got through New Salem, Shutesbury, and into Leverett, we figured we were safe from Lincoln’s men for the time being anyway, and began using the roads. That was a relief, because the snow in the roads had been worn down and we could go along pretty easy. In the fields we had been wading in snow and, of course, the legs of our trousers had been wet all the time and frozen stiff as fence rails sometimes, too.
We walked all day Sunday and slept in the barn of a friendly farmer that night, and walked all the next day, too. As we went along, we would stop at farmhouses along the way and ask for food. None of the people had very much to give, but usually they’d find something—a couple of loaves of bread or some cheese or maybe some dried apples. It was enough to keep us going, but I was pretty hungry a lot of the time.
We stopped at taverns to ask for help, too. They’d give us rum and water to warm us up. More important than the rum, though, was the news you always learned at taverns. Of course, a lot of it was just rumors. It was hard to know exactly what to believe. But generally when we got the same information from two or three different places we trusted it. What we found out was that things were pretty desperate, but that it wasn’t over yet. General Shays and some of the other leaders had gone north to Vermont, where they’d be safe, unless the Vermont government decided to throw them out. The Massachusetts government had put out a reward of one hundred and fifty pounds for General Shays and a hundred pounds for the other leaders. Governor Bowdoin had issued a new clemency proclamation. Any of us, except the officers, who turned in our weapons and took the oath of allegiance would be pardoned. But he wouldn’t be allowed to vote or teach school or run an inn for three years after. We also heard that a lot of Regulators were gathering down in Berkshire County, right on the New York border. Nobody knew who was there, or what their plans were, but we believed the story, because Berkshire County was pretty solid for our side and would be a logical place for Regulators to go to.
We debated about what to do. Some people thought it made better sense to accept the Governor’s clemency—turn in the weapons and be pardoned. But most didn’t. Some didn’t trust the government—we might turn in our guns and then they’d jail us anyway. Others wanted to fight on. I was torn. I was having a pretty miserable time of it—cold, hungry, wet, and tired most of the time. But still, I hated to quit as a coward. And I thought that if there were Regulators in Berkshire County, I might have one more chance to do something brave. Levi and Tom were sticking, and it would be hard for me to quit—what would they think of me? In the end, I decided to go out there. There was strength in numbers, somebody said.
We went on walking. We were making pretty poor time, partly because of having to stop to forage for food so much, and partly because of the weather. On February 8th, which was four days after we’d run from the barn in Petersham, we had a huge snowstorm—eight inches of snow in one day—and it went on snowing for three days after. We spent most of that time holed up in a barn being hungry. Then came a thaw, with warmer weather for a few days, and we began walking again, first through Pittsfield and then south through Berkshire County, trying to track down the Regulators who were supposed to be there. Then more bad weather—rain, snow, sleet, and always cold. And finally, somewheres a bit south of Pittsfield, we heard that there was a pretty good-sized bunch of Regulators across the border in New York State, in a town called New Lebanon. So we walked across the border.
We stopped at a tavern for advice, and the innkeeper said, “There’s a big fellow who seems to be one of the leaders. A fellow with a fierce temper who’s spoiling to have a crack at the government troops. He’s likely to be up here this evening looking for news and something to drink.”
My heart lifted. “That’s Peter,” I said to Levi. “It’s got to be.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ll bet on it,” I said. “I’d bet anything on it.”
And I was right. I hung around the tavern all afternoon and into evening, and about eight o’clock Peter came stumping in, slapping his arms across his shoulders to beat off the cold. I was sitting in a corner so as to be out of the way, and he walked right past me.
“Peter,” I cried.
He swung around as if he’d been smacked from behind, and the next thing I knew he had me clear off the ground and was hugging me and shouting out, “Justin, you’ve sprung out of the air again. How on earth did you ever find your way here?”
It was nice being back with Peter again. He got us each a glass of rum and water, and I told him the story—about how we’d been run out of the barn and how we walked all the way there and the rest of it. He’d walked there, too, he told me. Lincoln’s troops took Brother at Petersham.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked him, after I’d let that news sink in. “Are we still fighting?”
Peter grinned. “I think so. Daniel Shays has gone up to Vermont and he doesn’t dare come back because they’ll hang him sure if they catch him. A lot of the other men have given up and gone home. But I don’t think it’s over yet. There’s a fellow here named Perez Hamlin—Captain Hamlin, he is. He’s got a scheme in mind and I’m backing him on it.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’ll know in a few days, if we can get it going.”
That was all he would say about it. The next morning I discussed it with Tom and Levi in the barn. We sat in a cart that was stored there. The light filtered down through cracks in the walls and roof so we could see each other in the gloom pretty well. Somebody had given Levi a little tobacco, about enough for three pipefuls, and he was smoking. “What I heard was that most of Lincoln’s militia are going home,” he said. “The General Court only voted them enough pay for three months, so they’re quitting.”
“You mean that Lincoln doesn’t have his army anymore?”
“Oh, he’s probably got some, and you can bet that the Governor will send more out. But right now they’re mostly gone.”
“Where did you hear that, Levi?” I said.
“Somebody in the tavern was talking about it. It wasn’t any secret that the militia were only called up for three months—it was in the newspapers.”
It turned out that Levi was right. A few days later, Peter came down and told us about it. “Lincoln’s left naked,” he said. “He hasn’t got more than a hundred troops with him. There’ll be more coming, but for now he’s got nobody. We think we can capture him. Then the shoe will be on the other foot. So see to your weapons. I think we’re going to see some real fighting at last.”
Chapter Eleven
EARLY ON THE MORNING OF MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, we marched out of New Lebanon and across the border back into Massachusetts. There were about a hundred of us. It was cold again, good and cold, and the sky was dark and low. It was going to snow again. I was pretty nervous. I’d stuffed a piece of cloth in the barrel of my musket to keep it dry in case it snowed again, and I checked it to make sure that it hadn’t fallen out. We didn’t do much talking. I guess Levi and Tom were as nervous as I was, although, of course, you could never tell that by looking at Levi. He just walked along as calm as could be, as if he were out for a Sunday stroll. But I figured that was mostly show.
Peter was in good spirits, though. He was riding up and down the marching line, shouting out cheerful things—about how Lincoln was going to get his tail clipped this time, and how we’d finally show them that the Regulators could put up a good fight when they had the chance. It was encouraging to listen to Peter talk like that. It raised your spirits. But still, I was pretty nervous.
Once we got across the border, we began to head south in the direction of Stockbridge, and by noon we were marching into the village. Stockbridge
had a large green, with a couple of taverns on one side of it and some houses down the other. The green was deep in snow, but the streets were pretty well packed down. People stood in the windows of houses, or came to their doors to watch us. We marched around the green and halted. Captain Hamlin broke us up into detachments of twenty men each. One detachment was sent out to round up food and other provisions, one was sent out to round up some of the leading men in the village as hostages.
I didn’t understand it. “I thought everybody around here was with us,” I said to Levi.
“I expect most of them are,” he answered. “Leastwise, up in my part of the country they are.”
“Then why are we stealing stuff and taking hostages?”
Levi shrugged. “There’s always a few people in every town who’ll truckle to government.”
It didn’t seem like a very good answer to me, but I didn’t have a chance to argue with Levi about it because my detachment was sent off to find some horses and sleighs to carry the provisions in. We found two sleighs sitting in front of a tavern on the green. It was the biggest inn I’d ever seen in my life, called The Red Lion. We put a couple of men to guard the sleighs, and then the rest of us went out back to the tavern barn, untied two horses, and took them back out front to the sleighs. We were hitching them to the sleighs when the tavern owner came out. “Please, boys,” he cried, “I need those horses to bring in my goods. I can’t run my business without them.”
“Sorry,” somebody said. “We can’t run our business without them, either.” Some people came out of the tavern and stood in the yard, watching.
“Boys, I beg you. There are others around who can spare them better than me.”
“Oh, they’ll be making their contributions, too.”
I felt sorry for the man. I didn’t like stealing the horses, even if we had to. We got the horses hitched up to the sleigh. The man from the tavern went on begging. “Please, boys, we’re all with you fellows, here.”
The Winter Hero Page 9
