Long Knife

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  “Jove,” he said. “She’s a moveable fortress. Imagine a fleet of these the length of the Ohio, John. What a line of protection for Kentucky!” It was an old dream of his, this of a river navy, and it had been intensified during the process of outfitting the Willing. He had named her the Willing after the American river guerrilla James Wiling, but also because the name seemed to describe her stalwart and ready character. The French admired the vessel mightily, and there were now, as always, several villagers standing about on the wharf admiring her curving lines and sturdy oaken construction. There were rowlocks for thirty protected oarsmen. A berth was found for Davey Pagan as helmsman and maintenance man, but his comrades insisted on addressing him still as the Forepoop Swabman, and he was virtually in raptures to find himself once again upon a deck.

  The Kaskaskians seemed to have become inspired by George’s preparations for the offensive. He had told his officers to talk and conduct themselves as if they were confident without a doubt of defeating Hamilton; within a day or two the entire countryside had begun speaking of it as a fait accompli, and many of the male Kaskaskians, anxious to retrieve their honor after their recent show of cowardice, had turned out to join the expedition. The ladies of the village and countryside had become spirited about the expedition, and were sewing flags. Their interest had in its turn had its effect on still more young Frenchmen. Thus it was that by this fourth day of February, George could count on a force of a little over one hundred and eighty men, about a half of them French volunteers. About forty-five of them would accompany Cousin Rogers on the Willing; the rest, about one hundred thirty-five including a pack-horse master, would march with George himself across the Illinois country. Although the deep snow and wet ground made such a march appalling to consider, George was sure it would work in their favor, as General Hamilton would certainly be off guard.

  At two o’clock, Father Gibault, back from the Spanish side of the river, came down to the riverbank to bless the vessel and give absolution to all her crew. The lines were cast off and, amid an uproar of cheering, the Willing was rowed out into the current, moved among the pans and chunks of ice, and grew dim in the snowy distance, finally vanishing upon the breast of the Mississippi’s main channel.

  George and Captain Bowman walked back up the hill to the fort with Father Gibault between them, all keeping cheerful countenances for the Kaskaskians who thronged the streets offering them greetings and good wishes. George noticed a shifting in the wind; it was coming from a more southerly direction now, with a milder temperature and a wet feel.

  AFTER AN EVENING MUSTER, IN WHICH HE TOLD THE ASSEMBLED troops they would march the next day and gave a cheery dissertation on duty, he ordered rum broken out, toasted his own men and the French volunteers, then retired at dark to his quarters. Father Gibault walked with him to the door.

  “Now, my son, if you need me to support you in praying for the success of this venture, say so. Or if you want to be alone, I’ll leave now, and see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll pray alone, I think, Father. I need some time to myself. But I have a request. After we march tomorrow, I should like you at your convenience to go up to St. Louis and carry some letters for me to Governor de Leyba and his family. You might accompany Mister Vigo when he sets out for home, I was thinking.”

  “With pleasure. Good night. And don’t hesitate to get on your knees tonight. You and I know God is already in your favor, but it might be prudent to let Him know that you know it.”

  “Right you are. Good night.”

  There was nothing more to attend to. Everything that needed to be done in preparation for the campaign had been done. But he could not yet sleep. He was too anxious. Having convinced every person in the region that the attack on Vincennes could not fail, he remained now the only one aware of the odds against succeeding. The Frenchmen, until he had convinced them to the contrary, had warned him that it would not be possible even to get an army to Vincennes in this season. Now they were persuaded it was possible, but he knew as he had known all along that they had been right; the hardship of it would be the supreme test of human endurance. This new warming wind from the south could make the entire route a quagmire of mud and slush, and surely the melting of so much snow would turn every stream into a flood. If there were no melt-off, on the other hand, the snow would pose an almost insuperable hindrance to their progress.

  As for the attack itself, traditional military wisdom held that a well-stocked fort with artillery could hold out indefinitely against an attacking force five times the size of its garrison. And we, he thought, even if by some miracle we all get there, won’t outnumber them at all.

  To outfit the expedition, he had endorsed with his personal signature still more bills of credit drawn on Virginia, and the price of every item had been outrageously inflated. The thought of this awful financial over-extension made the innate perils of the expedition seem even more desperate; it gnawed at the back of his mind constantly.

  Finally, he put a moratorium on worrying about such matters. Worry accomplishes nothing, he thought; it only adds to the burden.

  And so now there was nothing more in his head to think about, and, as if into a vacuum, thoughts of Teresa came rushing in. This expedition could mean that he would not see her for still more months.

  If even he thought suddenly.

  Shaken by this first admission to himself that he might well be killed, he longed to send his thoughts to her. He drew a sheet of paper from the desk and opened the inkpot.

  He grew extremely nervous about this. Writing orders and official dispatches was one thing; he had become adequate at that. Unburdening his heart was another. He had never written love letters. He was self-conscious about the writing of sentiments; and though he had confidence in his ability to sway people with oratory, he felt unsure with a pen in his hand. Never having quite grasped the rules of spelling as a youth, he had grown even more careless of it during a life in which action was his chief language. He preferred to dictate his letters through Monsieur Girault, his interpreter and secretary, whenever possible, rather than write them in his own hand. But Girault was not there now. And the things he wanted to say to Teresa were too personal to express through an amanuensis.

  Come, now, he reprimanded himself. English isn’t her language; your misspellings won’t be evident to her.

  Kaskaskia, February 4, 1779

  Dear One—

  Tomorrow I set out in a direction opposite to the pulling of my heart. Life’s tenderest string, the bond of passion I have for you, shall have to be stretched farther still. Distance and time already has drawn it to the fineness of a spider’s web. But my Charished One there are no Forces on earth that can break it

  I am cognisant of no other substance more strong for its delicasy than what is spun out by a Spider, except it be the filament of Affection by which We Two are Betrothed.

  George paused, looked at what he had written, and sipped brandy. What if, like most women, she is repelled by spiders, he thought. No, never mind that. He dipped the quill again.

  I had allways thought the Fate that brot me to this Place was only Duty to my Countrey the Necessaty of preventing the Effusion of inocent blood upon our Frontiers. But since those Few Remarkable Days we were in the Company of each other I have thot that Fate perhaps carried me to this Remote place Equally for the Purpose of our Meeting. Yr Brother my Friend Fernando told me that you arrived in Post San Luis Less than a Month before I came to Kaskaskia and that my Belovd seemes Suspitiously a manipulation of a Knowing Destiny

  Yr musick is allways in my thoughts I live for a time when I shall again have the Sublime enjoyment of Basking in those tunes and Observing the Beauty of yr Tallent in such Concentration

  There has not been a better Moment in my life than the

  He stopped again. He had intended to write “the one moment when we were alone together in darkness and privacy,” but, he thought, what if someone else in her family should by accident read this and demand an expla
nation? It would be an unforgivable injustice thus to place her under a suspicion of impropriety in her family. So, much as he wanted to refer to that moment when he had held her, that moment he had re-created so often in his reveries, he wrote instead:

  than the moment when You my deare Maiden said Yes to my Suit for your Hand

  I have wanted to tell You about a Dream I have Entertained sometimes which is that I sit on a Hill on the Terras of a fine house and look over a great River full of Peaceful commerce and beside me in another chair there sits a fine Lady growing old in my company Until I first cast my gaze upon you the Lady in that Dream did not have a face that I could see But since then she has worn yr own faultless Visage

  We Boath are young my Sweet Heart and I am of a Stock of People Prosperous Strong & Long-Lived & Sober & Industrious No better a People I expect this Conflict will be ended soon with our Side flourishg in Independence and as of that Day I pray you will come and sit beside me to look with me across peaceful Valleys in the Sunshine until we grow old.

  Dear Heaven Teresa how I yearn for such peace even as I go to the Opposite

  Pray for us in our Endeavor as I am sure no prayer from so Pure a Heart cd be Denied.

  I am Teresa y’r humble & Most Devoted Forever

  G. R. CLARK

  P.S. My Sincear Compliments to Madm de Leyba and my two little Misses & not Least yr Esteemed Brothr

  On the drizzly morning of February fifth, Master Dickie Lovell stood at attention on the slushy turf of the Commons at Kaskaskia wearing a black three-cornered hat and beating a spirited tattoo on his drum. A knapsack on his back counterbalanced the weight of the drum on his groin. Soldiers bearing the American, French, and Virginian flags stood behind him, and behind them in ranks were the French and American companies. Along both sides of the Commons all the people of Kaskaskia were gathered. Many of them were dabbing at their faces with handkerchiefs, having just been moved to tears by Father Gibault’s quavering voice.

  Now the priest took Colonel Clark’s hand, gazed earnestly into his face, and then embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks. The crowd cheered. Colonel Clark, in fringed buckskins and his black felt hat, swung with ease into the saddle and waved his arm. The officers of each company, likewise mounted, cried commands in English and French; the drumming changed to a marching cadence, and the squads began moving off in a file toward the river, rifles on their shoulders.

  The snow of yesterday had turned to a drizzle of rain, and heaps and patches of melting snow and slush lay along the roadside down to the river. The civilians ran and tramped through this slush down to the river, cheering all the way. The troops were loaded aboard a motley collection of boats and ferried across to the eastern shore, and the people stayed on the Kaskaskia side, cheering them until they were out of earshot. Finally, becoming chilled by the rain on their shoulders and the wetness seeping through their shoes, they went up the hill to the old mission house where Father Gibault led them in prayer.

  THE WIND BACKED INTO THE NORTHWEST AND RAIN TURNED TO sleet as the army slogged eastward above the valley. Two feet of snow that had been lying on the ground sinking and growing dense under the rainfall now acquired a half-inch crust of ice which boomed like thunder when feet and hooves crushed through it. The men stumbled more than they marched, flailing for balance. The edges of the ice cut at their knees and bruised their shins. The horses of the officers and the pack train were also hurt by the ice, and grew nervous from the pain and the constant crushing roar of the ice. The expedition had made a mere league by evening, and every man was gasping for breath and soaked to the thighs. Their leather leggings were freezing to their skin; their boots and moccasins were full of ice water. Freezing rain turned their hats to heavy helmets of ice. The sky was the color of lead.

  At dark, George ordered the companies each to form a square camp with its baggage in the center. Large fires were built, rum was dispensed, meat was roasted, and soon the troops forgot their misery in singing and boasting.

  George met with the captains and they voted to camp here and see if the ice would soften the next day. There were no tents; the men and officers rolled themselves into blankets or skins, made hollows in the snow to protect themselves from the wind, and fell asleep with their flintlocks protected between their thighs.

  On the next morning they awoke to find the ice worse, and so George decided to devote the day to hunting, feasting, and war counciling, to keep the men’s minds off their misery and immobility. The officers’ horses were given to a hunting party to take some buffalo that had been found sheltering in a draw nearby. While the feast was being prepared, George kept up the spirits of the troops by telling them in as many various ways as he could that they soon would have their chance to get revenge on the Scalp-Buyer British general who had inflicted so much death and grief upon their families on the frontiers. As the festivities wore on, the sleet turned to rain again, and the wind grew warmer. “We’ll be moving out tomorrow morning,” he promised them, “and there’ll be nothing to stop us till we reach General Hamilton and Major Hay!” The cry they sent up in response was fierce and joyous.

  The morning of the seventh found most of the snow and ice gone, and the column set out early across the high plain under a cold drizzle. The ground, thawing on the surface but still frozen underneath, held the water of the rain and melted snow, turning it into a chilly brown soup as quickly as it was walked on. It squished and sucked at their feet and clung to their footgear in gobs heavy as anchors. In places, inches of standing water covered acres of ground along the route, and at once every man was wet to the knees again. The march was strenuous. By noon the column had struggled fifteen miles across the soggy plain and the men were famished from their exertions. Giving up their horses to a hunting party again, George and the other officers ran in the water and muck alongside the troops, telling jokes and yelling encouragement. They ate their midday meal on foot, munching parched corn and cold jerky, their feet kept moving by the promise of the hot roasted buffalo meat they would have at nightfall. They made nearly thirty miles that day in nine hours of marching and wading, again pitched camp in guarded squares, ate meat, dried their clothing around bonfires, drank rum, sang to the notes of jew’s-harps and flutes, and held running, boxing, and knife-throwing contests to the amazement of the French volunteers, most of whom could barely stand up. Captain Bowman sat nearby and made an entry in his journal:

  7th—began our March early, made a good days March for about 9 leagues—The roads very bad with Mud and Water. Pitched our camp in a square, Baggage in the Middle every Com’y to guard their own Square.

  The morning of the eighth began as had the day before, still drizzly and chilly, and the pace resumed as soon as there was enough light to see the way. The plain here lay flat as a tabletop and the water, with nowhere to run off, stood in sheets, looking like vast gray lakes, rippling in the cold wind, forlorn reeds and grasses sticking up above the surface. “Didn’t need t’ send the Willing around,” remarked Lieutenant Brashears. “We coulda sailed ’er right along th’ road with us.”

  During the afternoon the sky cleared a little, and the air grew colder, a weak sun going down behind the marchers, but before sunset it clouded over and began drizzling again. The men watched their feet endlessly plashing through the shallow water, drops spraying ahead with each step. They plodded on that day for nine hours, gasping from cold and weariness. Every hour or so each soldier might feel a hand on his arm and turn to see the cheerful face of Colonel Clark or one of the captains beside him, asking how he was getting along. “No complaints, sir,” was always the answer, and the officer would trot ahead to pay attention to the next man.

  “Jes’ take a look at that rascal,” said one private to the next, “don’t he know he’s doin’ three miles to our one with all that there runnin’ to an’ fro?”

  “Yup. Does yer heart good, don’ it?”

  They waded about nine leagues that day, and finally made camp on a small, wet rise which stood li
ke an island no more than four or five inches above the surrounding inundation.

  Captain Bowman entered in his diary:

  8th—Marched early thro’. the Water which we now began to meet in those large and level plains where (from the Flatness of the Country) the Water rests a considerable time before it drains off, not withstanding our Men were in Great Spirits, tho much fatigued.

  Knowing that the ceaseless misery and monotony of these clammy, exhausting days surely must wear down the men’s will eventually, George took pains to see that every evening’s encampment should be entertaining enough that they would look forward to it with eagerness. They mustn’t fall to thinking in terms of two hundred miles or a hundred miles, he reasoned; they have to keep thinking in terms of this evening, this evening.

  So the officers gave up their horses entirely to the hunting parties; and each day a different company would assume the duty of bringing in game. By turns, each company would kill and cook the food for the others, and invite the others to their feasts, and thus it became a friendly competition to determine which company could lay the greatest feast and stage the most uproarious entertainment for the others. Captain McCarty’s company one night held a war dance in the Indian fashion, which the woodsmen seemed to enjoy for its fierce irony. As the men whooped and cavorted around the roaring bonfire, one soldier threw off all his sodden clothes, sprang into the firelight, his skin fish-belly white and wrinkled from the days of constant wetness, and frolicked about in the sleet with exaggerated movements and obscene gestures, whooping, “Hay-oooop! Looky me! I’m Lord Hennery Hamilton th’ scalp-merchant! Yaaaaa-hooooey!”

  9th—Made a moderate days March rain’d most of the day