Long Knife

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  If the Willing has been unable to reach her station in this flood, he thought, we’ll have to find and steal boats on this side of the Wabash to get across, even at the risk of an alarm.

  Well, he thought. If that’s what we’ll have to do, that’s what we shall do.

  Captain Bowman sat by the fire that night and wrote:

  15th—Ferried across the two little Wabashes—being then five miles in Water to the opposite Hills, where we encamped

  Still raining—Orders given to fire no Guns in future except in case of Necessity.

  They set out early the next morning. It was still raining. They crossed another river and marched until nightfall, finding at last a rise of ground well-drained enough to sleep on, lay down wet and unfed, and lapsed into a state that was as much the swoon of exhaustion as sleep.

  On the morning of the next day they set out again, plodding and squishing through the sopping gray-brown countryside, fording more flooded creeks, as if in an endless dream, bellies and heads empty. George sent four men down one of these creeks in the pirogue with orders to cross the Embarras River if possible and steal boats from a plantation that was known to stand on its eastern shore. The day was nearly gone when the troops reached the banks of the Embarras and were dismayed to see that all the land beyond it, as far as the eye could see, was under water. This river, sometimes known as the Troublesome River, flowed southward into the great Wabash a few miles below Vincennes, the two streams making a Y. George had hoped to cross the Embarras, then march five miles overland in the fork to meet the Wabash immediately opposite Vincennes, then make the final crossing of the Wabash and attack. But now it appeared that all the land between the two rivers was deeply inundated. There was nothing to do but detour down the west bank of the Embarras, find the Wabash below the juncture, and cross it there.

  Turning the column southward now, he led the bedraggled woodsmen to lower and lower ground. Soon they were wading again, searching in the twilight for the Wabash.

  After two more hours of struggling forward in that direction, they were rejoined by the scouting party in the pirogue, who had been unable to get across the Embarras because of driftwood, debris, and thickets. Now the immediate objective was not to find the Wabash but simply to find a spot of ground sufficiently above water to spend the night on. Rain started again, pelting down in the darkness, as the column floundered and splashed along in pitch blackness, keeping in touch with each other by voice. This was the worst circumstance yet, and George’s mind was sinking toward abject despair, almost losing its orientation and slipping into panic, when his feet detected a barely perceptible rising of the slope. At eight o’clock they were at last on a rise of ground. Faint, aching, trembling so hard they were nearly incapacitated, they dragged up driftwood and built a dozen fires to dry themselves by.

  17th—Marched early crossed several Rivers very deep sent Mr Kennedy our commisary with three men to cross the River Embara to endeavor to cross if possible and proceed to a plantation opposite Post Vincent in order to steal Boats or canoes to ferry us across the Wabash—About One hour before sunset We got Near the River Embara found the country all overflown, we strove to find the Wabash traveld till 8 o clock in mud and water but could find no place to encamp on still kept marching on but after some time Mr Kennedy and his party returned found it impossible to cross the Embara River we found the Water fallen from a small spot of Ground staid there the remainder of the Night drisly and dark Weather

  The desolation Colonel Clark’s army felt the next morning when they rose from their wet blankets and saw themselves surrounded by a sea of tan flowing water was dispelled by a single dull boom that rolled to them over the rushing of the flood:

  It was the morning gun of Fort Sackville.

  “Hear that, boys?” George yelled as soon as he realized what it was. “Hamilton’s cannon! We’re that close, lads!” The men cheered, shook their fists in its direction, pounded each other on the back, and went whooping and frolicking about the island. Having restored their circulation by that outburst, they loaded up and resumed the march southward through waist-deep water, nourishing themselves on a breakfast of marching songs and grim jokes.

  At about two o’clock in the afternoon, their heads and bodies again benumbed by the painful progress, they came at last to a bluff which they knew would be the western bank of the Wabash. They had at last gotten below the mouth of the Embarras. They staggered up onto the high ground, spent, and made such camp as they could.

  George reckoned that they were now about three leagues downstream from Vincennes. Now they had only to cross the Wabash to its eastern shore and march northward those nine miles and they would be at the destination they had suffered for so long to reach. Put in those terms, it sounded very simple. But looking across the great river, George saw that their greatest obstacle was indeed just ahead: There was no other side of the Wabash to be seen. The river swept by majestically below. But beyond its channel, as far eastward as he could see, there was nothing but floodwater, bristling with leafless trees, snarls of driftwood, and the tops of bushes. Beyond the place where he stood, he could not distinguish a foot of ground anywhere.

  “You swim, Isaac?” he heard one man ask another behind him.

  “Swim? Shoot, no,” said the other scornfully. “Swimmin’s fer a fish. A man walks on ’is two legs. But,” he added after a thoughtful pause, “right now I’d give a lot to be a fish.”

  I need to … I need to … George blinked his eyes several times and shook his head to clear the rush of fatigue and confusion that was sweeping through it like a windstorm. The river and the drowned lands beyond were looking unreal, changing from brown to silver, coming close and then going away. Got to get to thinking straight, he thought, or I’m liable to make some foolish error! He took a deep breath and everything collected back into a semblance of normal vision.

  Have to send scouts across there to seek a landing place, he thought. Find some dry ground.

  He ordered a raft to be made by roping together dry logs, and putting four men on the raft, sent them across the Wabash channel to reconnoiter the far side. “If you find you can walk over yonder,” he said, “go up to the town without discovering yourselves and get some canoes. Godspeed, now.” He watched the raft angle off across the brown current.

  “Captain,” he said to McCarty, “there’s ash and hickory hereabouts. Put some of your boys to making a small, fast canoe expressly for going up to the town for boats.”

  Should send the pirogue downriver to scout up the Willing, George thought. No, not yet, Can’t spare ’er. She’s the only thing we’ve got roomy enough to carry the goods or the sickly out of this place if it comes to that.

  He looked over the bivouac area. The men were sitting or lying about now, listless, idle, drying themselves as best they could, eyes glassy, some beginning to moan about their hunger. Got to give them some direction while we wait on the scouts, he thought. Can’t let them reflect on our plight. That would be most detrimental to their resolve.

  So he instructed the company commanders to form work parties for the building of more canoes. The men hauled themselves painfully to their feet and went off to various sites along the bank and soon the sounds of axes and saws and mauls could be heard everywhere along this dismal shore. Thus the eighteenth of February, being the thirteenth day since their gala march out of Kaskaskia, passed into evening. Night came on and the raft with its scouts did not return. And the hunting parties he had sent out during the day came in empty-handed, swearing that every animal in the countryside must have gone somewhere else for the duration of the flood.

  “They’re all aboard Noah’s Ark!” yelled someone.

  “This food business is gettin’ serious, George,” Captain Bowman said quietly as they laid out their blankets for the night. “Frankly, I’m nigh to panic ’bout that.”

  “Shh, Joseph. A man can go longer without food than he thinks he can. They’re still movin’ and workin’, aren’t they?”

/>   “Aye, but barely.”

  “Well, Joseph, keep this under your hat, but I’m not abandoning an expedition for want of provision while there’s plenty of good horseflesh in our possession.”

  “Oh, yeh,” Bowman whispered. “I hadn’t thought o’ that.”

  “Neither have the men,” George replied. “But if you see any of these scoundrels lookin’ at the corral and licking their chops, you come an’ tell me about it.”

  Bowman chuckled in the dark.

  George went to sleep thinking about the fine dappled warhorse the people of Kaskaskia had given him, seeing its lovely, deep brown eyes.

  Dear God, don’t let it come to that, he thought.

  THE RACKET OF TOOLS RESUMED EARLY THE NEXT MORNING. THE men worked steadily, looking like hollow-eyed scarecrows. They could still muster up a smile and a joke when George came around to watch their progress.

  Some of the woodsmen had turned up edible roots of various kinds, which they distributed, but there was by no means enough to feed an army.

  The French volunteers appeared to be running out of spirit. It had been George’s observation that their instinct for self-preservation was far stronger than the desire for any greater achievement, and he knew he might soon have to deal with mutinous sentiments from them. They were looking sullen and tending to congregate off by themselves. He summoned Captain Charleville.

  “M’sieur,” he said calmly to him, “please look to the morale of your men. Assure them that we’re not as crazy as we appear; I always know what I’m doing. Remind them, too,” he added, “that they did volunteer for this adventure, eh? Thank you, sir.”

  There was a shout from the riverbank. The four scouts that had gone out on the raft the day before were paddling slowly back, lying on logs, looking like half-dead rats. They were assisted up the bank, stood, sagging in the knees, supported by their comrades, to report that they had failed to find any dry land on the other side except a low hill, known as the Lower Mammel, or Bubbie, totally surrounded by water. Their raft had been broken up by the current during their further exploration, and they had spent the entire night without rest, lying on old logs in the backwaters, half in and half out of the chilly water, waiting for daylight to show them the way back. Clenching his jaw muscles to fight off the shock of this forlorn report, George ordered a small, guarded fire built to make a hot gruel of roots fattened with tallow for them, then had them wrapped in blankets for a rest. Their extreme condition had the momentary effect of making the others feel comparatively well off, although their own was scarcely better.

  The light canoe being finished, George quickly sent McCarty and three of his men up the river to make another attempt to steal boats. But within an hour, that party returned, reporting they had been stopped by the sight of four large campfires on the river shore about a league upstream, apparently some sort of a guard or scouting camp of British and Indians. “Damn the luck!” George muttered. Now it seemed that their only hope lay in the arrival of the Willing.

  Captain Bowman concluded his journal entry for the nineteenth:

  —Immediately Col. Clark sent two Men in the said Canoe down to meet the Batteau with orders to come on day and Night that being our last hope, starving Many of the Men much cast down particularly the Volunteers, No provisions of any Sort now two days hard fortune.

  The camp was very quiet on the morning of the twentieth. Some of the men sat as if drugged, their eyes haunted and unseeing. Some sat leaning against trees, pounding their hands together either to keep the circulation going in them or as a gesture of despair. Captain Charleville told George that many of his Creole volunteers were talking about an attempt to return the way they had come.

  “Come with me,” George said. He led Charleville to the camp of the French company, feeling a fierce happiness now in having some sort of a challenge at hand. He was past all uneasiness.

  “Do I understand that some of you want to go home?” he demanded, and was met by furtive eyes. He laughed. He decided not to dignify such a recourse by arguing them out of it. Instead he said, “Look at Lieutenant St. Croix there,” indicating a sturdy old Cahokian with a snow white beard, who had throughout the march driven himself far beyond anything that could have been expected of one his age. “You don’t see him sulkin’, do you? You might pattern yourselves on him, I’d say.” Old St. Croix drew up even straighter at this tribute. George went on: “Your trouble is, you want something to do. I should be very glad if you’d go out and kill some deer. How about that, now?” Confused by his reaction, they got to their feet and set out in different directions with their muskets to hunt.

  He then went all about the camp talking up the certainty of success, talking about the imminent arrival of the galley, talking about the likelihood that so many hunters soon would be back with meat. If the galley doesn’t heave into sight today, he thought, we’ll have to effect the crossing tomorrow and march on the town without her. Two more days here and they’ll have neither the strength nor the will. And damned if I want to feed ’em horses!

  At noon the sentry on the riverbank decoyed ashore a passing boat carrying five Frenchmen who were on their way to meet a party of hunters down the river. They were astonished and delighted to see the Americans and some of their friends of the Kaskaskia and Cahokia volunteers. They told George that there was not the least suspicion of his presence in the vicinity, that the inhabitants were chafing once more under the arrogance of Hamilton and were well disposed toward the Americans. They said Hamilton’s repairs on the fort were all but finished, and their count of the fort’s garrison indicated that Francisco Vigo’s report had been accurate and remained unchanged. They also reported that they had seen two small boats adrift up the river, and George sent Captain Worthington upstream in one of the new canoes to find them. The Frenchmen were detained as politely as possible; George had no intention of letting them go out and then double back to the fort and betray the presence of the Americans.

  Worthington returned toward dusk, having found one of the drifting boats. Then a great cheerful shout from one end of the camp signaled that one of the American hunters had found and killed a small deer; he staggered into the camp with it over his shoulders, wearing a proud grin. Distributed among so many men, it provided no more than a couple of bites apiece, but was deemed most acceptable, and did as much as a feast for the morale of the camp. The deer, and the stray vessel Worthington had brought in, were small things in comparison with their needs, but George chose to consider them as the harbingers of a change in fortune.

  Now, he thought, we’ve got the vigor of spirit again to undertake a hard task. We’ll cross the Wabash first thing in the morning!

  THE CANOES BEGAN FERRYING THE TROOPS OVER TO BUBBIE HILL early on the morning of the twenty-first. The crossing took much of the morning and it was necessary to leave the horses and most of the baggage on the western shore. The entire force now stood on this hill, finally across the river that had stood so long in the way of their progress, and were cheered by the prospect of covering the nine miles up to Vincennes by evening. The French hunters from Vincennes, however, were flabbergasted by the notion. They said it would be impossible to make the town that day, or at all. The nearest dry land in that direction, they said, was another breast-shaped hill called the Upper Mammel, a league to the north, and the next beyond that, a small rise still three miles beyond, where lay an abandoned sugar-making camp.

  “It is absurd to imagine that you can go from here to the Mammel,” they whined, “and surely never to the sugar camp.”

  But recollecting what the men had done thus far, George thought otherwise, and with a wave of his arm he went down the slope into the cold water, followed by a single file of his troops, each man gasping or cursing as he stepped in. He ordered the few small canoes to ply alongside near the men, ready to take on anyone who might succumb to cold or fatigue and start to sink. Once again the wretched procession through icy water, which seemed to have become their way of life, was underway
, one cautious step at a time. The water was deep, and soon the men were soaked to their necks again. They grasped for support at the branches of bushes that protruded above the water, but learned that the same bush that gave them a handhold above the surface tripped them and snagged their legs beneath, and so began to steer clear of them. Once again the chill penetrated their muscles, even more quickly now that their bodies had no food to burn. Every step became what seemed like a last dying effort, with aching joints grinding in their sockets and breath rasping in their lungs. But then they would take the next final step, then the next, and the next.

  They struggled throughout the rest of the day in that manner, not a man dropping out, and by evening, under a new rainfall, they had made the three miles to the Upper Mammel. They hauled themselves up the slope, laughing deliriously at this newest triumph, then flopped on the ground like wet flour-sacks and lay there whooping oaths and threats against General Hamilton. George turned a quizzical grin on the Frenchmen who had pronounced this passage impossible. The Frenchmen stammered, shrugged, raised their hands and let them fall to their sides. “Mon colonel,” one finally blurted, “this is superior to anything I have ever witnessed!”

  He shook his head and rolled his eyes. George accepted that as the applause due his men, and as night fell another camp was made, and again the men fell into a stupor of sleep with nothing in their bellies but esprit de corps.

  THE NEXT MORNING, GEORGE FED HIS MEN A BREAKFAST OF PRAISE and led them down the other side of the hill. As he started to plunge into the water, one of the Frenchmen began protesting in a wail that the water was deeper here and even such men as these could not cross it. George paused, impressed by the earnest tone, and sent two men out in a canoe with a sounding pole to test the depth. They vanished among the bushes, and soon returned, shaking their heads.