Long Knife

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Hamilton turned to him, a flicker of hope in his eyes, a barely perceptible sigh escaping him.

  “If I make further proposals, you’ll know it by the flag,” George said. “If not, be on your guard; our drum will mean we’ve chosen to storm you. Good day, Mister Hamilton, and please leave Captain Helm with me as a go-between.”

  Within a half hour, George had modified Hamilton’s surrender proposal slightly, and sent Helm into the fort bearing these articles:

  1st—Lt. Gov. Hamilton engages to deliver up to Col. Clark Fort Sackville as it is at present with all the stores, ammunition, provisions, &c.

  2nd—The Garrison will deliver themselves up Prisrs of War to march out with their arms accoutrements, Knapsacks &c.

  3rd—The Garrison to be delivered up tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock.

  4th—Three days to be allowed to the Garrison to settle their accounts with the traders of this place and inhabitants.

  5th—The officers of the Garrison to be allowed their necessary baggage &c.

  Post Vincents 24th Feby 1779

  G. R. CLARK

  George walked away from his officers and men. He wandered into the vestibule of the church to be alone. He stood inside, his back braced against the wall, head back, eyes closed, feeling the swells of weariness, the greatest weariness he had ever felt, surge down through him from his head to his feet. Pinpoints and clouds of light sparkled and billowed behind his eyelids. Somewhere between dream and thought, he saw a tomahawk split a skull, and a rabbit lying gut-shot, twitching. He heard a scream. Teresa’s voice, he thought. He opened his eyes and the voice was that of Leonard Helm yelling his name. He shook his head and went out the church door. Helm had returned with the articles of surrender. Under them on the same sheet, Hamilton had written:

  Agreed to for the following reasons, remoteness from succours, the state and quantity of Provisions &c the unanimity of officers and men on its expediency, the Honble terms allowd and lastly the confidence in a generous Enemy.

  Lt. Gov & Superintendt

  H. HAMILTON

  Thank God, George thought. Thank God. I don’t think I could’ve performed another minute!

  THE MOON SLID DOWN THE SKY OVER A QUIET FORT AND TOWN. ITS reflection danced on the moving water of the flooded Wabash, and men on both sides of the conflict had the leisure to look at it and think. The Americans and their allies were posted in strong houses from which they could view the fort; guards were set, and the rest plummeted off into the first comfortable sleep they had had in weeks.

  Henry Hamilton sat up by the hearth in his quarters most of the night, sorting papers and preparing the countless details for the next morning’s disagreeable ceremony. He drank a little, now and then growing so misty-eyed with misery and self-reproach that he could not see what he was doing. Late at night, he called in his orderly. “Tell the guard,” he said, “not to raise the colors in the morning, that we might be spared the mortification of hauling them down.” The orderly gulped and blinked.

  “Aye, sir.”

  GEORGE ROGERS CLARK AWOKE FROM A HEAVY SLUMBER NEAR midnight. Moonlight shone in a rectangle on the wall of the church near the head of his pallet, and when he rose on his elbow he could see the low moon through the transom above the door. All was still after the eighteen hours of battle, whose aftershocks still seemed to pulsate in the back of his head. He stood up, every muscle and joint aching, and threaded among the sleeping officers and bodyguards on the floor. He looked down at the dark shapes of them, heard their low, slow sleep-breathing, recalled their long fatigue and bravery, and felt swollen with love and admiration for them, with gratitude for their safety. Only one man under his command had been even slightly wounded, just enough to teach him not to saunter carelessly down a street during a gun battle. And now they were all sleeping, and the thought of their rest gave him the deepest sense of serenity.

  He eased the church door open and whispered to the sentries, who nodded at him; then, with the icy air raising gooseflesh under his linen shirt, he strolled out to the place where he had negotiated with Hamilton for the surrender. He stood there for a moment watching the moon set over the river alongside the huge black silhouette of the fort. He could see sentries on the palisades where they had been afraid to show themselves before. Far off somewhere an owl’s call repeated itself like the low note of a flute.

  He had worried a little about letting the British remain in the fort overnight, but had decided that it would be impossible to guard them otherwise, as the victory was putting into his hands as many prisoners of war as he had men of his own—far too many prisoners to guard in any customary manner, and sure to become a problem.

  George walked to a nearby tree, urinated steamily on its roots, then came back toward the door of the church. He looked into the northeastern quadrant of the sky, where the stars were cold and brilliant, and thought of Detroit lying under them, a mere six hundred miles away, that fort now weak and undermanned and its commander here a prisoner. This recapture of Vincennes and the imprisonment of Hamilton should by all rights open the door for the easy conquest of Detroit, he thought. If Congress or Virginia sends me even a mere two hundred men—never mind five hundred—I think I could go and reduce Detroit as quickly as we have this place.

  But at least we have for the moment wrested this whole territory out of British hands. And though we’ll still have to defend it, it’s ours now. The most immediate value of this triumph, he realized, was that Hamilton’s great spring offensive against the American frontier was ended before it could begin. Who, he thought, can even estimate the number of lives we’ve saved by this day’s work?

  The cold on his skin made him shiver, but it braced him and he felt strong as he had not felt strong since the start of their sufferings in the flooded valleys. It was still difficult to comprehend that this venture, which he had started as a forlorn and desperate hope, had ended in success of this degree. He couldn’t yet rejoice because he couldn’t yet believe.

  He turned then for a last look at the setting moon. It was on the horizon now, its lower edge brushed by the bare tops of trees beyond the swollen Wabash. And the thought came to him then—it was as much a feeling as a thought—that somewhere in a direct line between him and that moon lay St. Louis. Somewhere, two hundred miles in that same straight line, in a spot marked for his eyes now by moonset, lay the village where Teresa would be sleeping. Under this very sky, he thought in wonderment; lighted by this same westering moon. Teresa, he thought. This deed is done. I can return to you soon.

  Two tiny replicas of the moon glittered in his dark eyes for a few moments more, then were gone.

  AT TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, COLONEL GEORGE ROGERS Clark went through the barricade and strode up the road toward the fort. Behind him came the ragged Dickie Lovell, covered with gooseflesh, solemnly rapping t-tlt-t-t-t, t-tlt-t-t-t, t-tlt-t, t-tlt-t, t-tlt-t-t-t. Captain Bowman’s company tramped across the meadow and turned off to halt and stand in ranks on one side of the gate road. Captain McCarty’s company flanked left and took up its stand on the other side of the road. Then the companies of Captains Williams and Worthington marched up behind Colonel Clark, halted, and stood at parade rest. When the officers’ commands trailed off, the drum stopped rattling. A soldier stood behind Colonel Clark with an American flag folded over his right arm and the red-and-green colors of Virginia over his left.

  While the Americans stood waiting for gate to open, the inhabitants of Vincennes swarmed up the slope and gathered all around to watch: burghers in faded velvet coats, tradesmen in loose smocks, young women heavy with child, old women in bonnets or soiled wimples, coureurs de bois in their fur caps and Indian garb, small children with runny noses leading smaller children with runnier noses.

  The ground was frozen hard; the tracked mud of the road had hardened to a yellow, ankle-twisting stucco. The shadows were blue, dusted with frost. The leafless trees were silvery and tan, but gilded with the weak sunlight. The great muddy Wabash, carrying l
imbs and forest debris and grinding slabs of ice, rushed and burbled beyond the corner of the fort.

  Colonel Clark stood tall and straight before the gate of Fort Sackville, looking up at the bare flagstaff above the fort. Yellow-edged clouds crawled over and floated eastward.

  Soldiers, civilians, and Indians kept stealing looks at the American commander, at his broad back, his sharp profile, his monumental stillness as he stood waiting for the gate to open. Despite the condition of his buckskins, which were so torn, soiled, and stained that they looked like something lifted from the forest floor, he appeared grand and clean. He had shaved the campaign stubble off his jaw, and wore a fresh white shirt and stock. The brim of his black hat shaded his deep-set eyes. The drab earthy color of his garb was set off by blue and red quill designs. The mud-clotted, fringed leather gaiters around his muscular calves were held up by blue garters fastened with silver knee buckles. His crisp linen, ruddy, clean skin, and the incongruous little silver buckles somehow imparted an edge of genteel civility to his otherwise savage aspect as he stood there waiting, and the bystanders were conscious of it even though they could not have said why.

  Drums rattled within the fort now; drill commands came filtering through the palisade; a wooden bolt rumbled and the great twelve-foot gates groaned open to reveal the ranks of regulars at attention inside on the parade, in scarlet coats and white breeches, their Brown Bess muskets at shoulder arms.

  Now a British drummer began rapping his instrument slowly, and Governor Hamilton appeared in the gateway, followed by two other British officers, and marched down the grade toward Colonel Clark.

  Hamilton was resplendent. His coat was scarlet, breeches white as snow, black knee-boots gleaming with polish. Gold piping gleamed at his coat cuffs and lapels and his epaulets were of golden board and braid. He wore a soft red velvet sash around his waist, and from it depended his sword scabbard. But Governor Hamilton’s crowning glory this morning was a silvery powdered wig, which glowed in the sunlight and framed his autocratic features like a halo. He held his tricorn at his left thigh, and strode, squinting against the sun, followed by his drummer and officers, the few yards down the road to where Clark stood waiting. The voices of sergeants rang out; the regulars marched forward just far enough that their file leaders stood at the trodden timber threshold of the gate, then halted and stamped at attention.

  Hamilton stopped a yard in front of Colonel Clark. They saluted. Hamilton looked up at the young giant, then drew his sword from its scabbard; with a flick of his wrist he tucked the blade under his right arm, so that the hilt projected within reach of the victor.

  Colonel Clark, not taking his eyes off Hamilton’s, reached for the sword and took it from him.

  Hamilton now let his eyes stray to the ragged ranks of American woodsmen who flanked the gate. They stood, leaning on their rifles, clothes so filthy they were of indescribable color, many wearing red bandannas around their necks which furnished the only bright color to their general soiled gray, yellow, brown, and green drabness. Only their neckerchiefs and their predatory eyes were bright. They all had shaved. Many had nicked their chins and cheeks.

  General Hamilton mentally summed up the little band, scarcely more than a squad, on his left, the one on his right, and the frazzled, weather-wasted knot of men backing up Clark. Then he swept his eyes over the meadow, and finally said:

  “May I ask, Colonel Clark, where is your army?”

  “This, sir,” replied the Virginian with a sudden, dazzling smile, “is them.”

  After a minute of silence, Hamilton dropped his head forward, and gave a guarded, barely audible, strangled little whimper.

  This man, George thought, waving his flag-bearer and Bowman’s and McCarty’s companies forward through the front gate, is going to spend the rest of his days making excuses to his Britannic Majesty for this, I expect.

  George Rogers Clark turned from General Henry Hamilton, and held the fine English sword aloft. “Boys! Post Vincent … is ours!”

  From their throats burst a deafening chorus of cheers and war whoops and shrill yokel yells; the company in the road broke ranks and stampeded for the gate, snatching Colonel Clark off the ground and bearing him laughing on their shoulders past the astonished redcoats into Fort Sackville.

  Hamilton, stunned at first by this indecorous demonstration, watched the Americans disappear through the gate. Then his eyes fell on the morose faces of his regulars, whom he had failed. He turned his face from them and tears ran down his long shapely nose, as much from frustration and envy as from remorse.

  Captain Helm was given the honor of raising the American and Virginian flags over Fort Sackville. The British and LaMothe’s French troops were marched out and disarmed, and Helm ran the victorious banners up the pole in the cool sunlight, as the woodsmen gave three cheers and threw their hats in the air.

  Captain Bowman’s company was then sent through the fort with permission to fire a salute with the cannon. Colonel Clark inspected the fort, looked over its general condition, its stores, its situation, and marveled that Hamilton had yielded such a stronghold. Bejesus, he thought, a company o’ Kentuckians would’ve held this place for a year!

  The cannon began discharging their salutes, and suddenly one battery erupted in a crackling roar of confusion. Smoke and orange flame billowed out of the northeast blockhouse, followed by screams and wailings.

  George sprinted across the parade and up the ladder to that blockhouse. Sulphurous blue smoke boiled out its embrasures and doors. Inside on the floor lay Bowman and Worthington, and four of their men, writhing and coughing on the floor with their hands over their faces. Through the air in the blockhouse floated paper shreds of cannon cartridges. The men on the floor were blackened and burned, all these valuable people who had survived the campaign without a scratch; smoke rolled off their scorched clothing. George grasped his beloved aide under the arms and dragged him out into the fresh air, calling for help. Worthington and three others staggered out under their own power, and the fourth private was carried out. The skin of Bowman’s face and hands was scorched and blistered, and embedded in it were black flecks, knurls, and gouts of hot powder.

  Powder burns, George thought bitterly, as the men’s wounds were being dressed with bear grease and rags. Always disfiguring, relentlessly painful, and so subject to fatal infection. The worst of accidents to befall these best of men. As well as an investigation of the shambles could determine, it had happened because the British gunners had left dozens of powder cartridges stacked in concealment near the guns, and those had been ignited by the firing of the victory salute.

  There’s always something to tarnish the perfectest joy, George thought. Always.

  Bowman reached up and touched George’s sleeve. “Hey, now, don’t fret so,” he mumbled through his bandages. “It’s a small price t’ pay for such a victory. We’re all alive, ain’t we?” He coughed. He had inhaled hot powder smoke. It hurt him to talk.

  “Aye, Joseph,” George replied. “Very much alive, thank you.” He looked up at the colors flapping languidly around the flagstaff above the fort, and at the pale blue sky above, its downy clouds hinting at spring. Bowman held George’s wrist, and said:

  “Tell me what you’re thinkin’.”

  George laid his hand lightly on Bowman’s powder-scorched coat sleeve, searched the sky with tears in his eyes. “As I live, my dear friend, I think I’m just beginning to comprehend what we’ve done!”

  “You happy, man?”

  “Never so happy as this day.”

  “Likewise!”

  26

  VINCENNES, WABASH VALLEY

  February 26, 1779

  OVER THE INDIGNANT PROTESTS OF GOVERNOR HAMILTON, George ordered neck chains and fetters made for Major Hay and the other Indian agitators among the prisoners.

  “I must remind you, Colonel Clark,” Hamilton said, “that these persons are prisoners of war, included in the capitulation that you’ve so lately set your hand to. By th
e common courtesy, they ought not to be chained.”

  “And then I should apprise you in turn, Mister Hamilton, that I’m going to have my hands full keeping my boys from killing them. I can only hope that seeing them helpless in irons will partly assuage those passions.”

  “But those men were acting under my orders, and my orders were that they should never encourage barbarity among the savages.”

  George looked at him coldly. “That remark, sir, would be comical, if we could bear to laugh over the scalps of whole families of my people. Now, bother me with any more pleading on behalf of those polecats and I’ll have a nice suit of chains tailored for yourself as well.”

  Hamilton threw back his head and scowled. “Sir, I would gladly wear them, rather than let this go unremarked.”

  “Then it is remarked. Let me say in candor, Mister Hamilton, that you have certain qualities and I regard you better than I thought to. For your safety’s sake, I advise you to be humble and stick close to me until such time as I pack you off to Williamsburg.”

  LEARNING THAT HAMILTON HAD SENT A PARTY UP THE WABASH TO Post Miami to bring down ten boatloads of stores and provisions for the spring campaign, and that the convoy was expected to arrive at Vincennes at any moment, George on the twenty-seventh sent three armed boats, outfitted with swivel cannon, up to intercept and take it. He put Leonard Helm, with Moses Henry and two French militia officers, in charge of the expedition. “You’re the only officer I’ve got who’s had a chance to rest lately,” George explained.

  “Aye, by God, and spoiling for some action,” Helm replied. “And,” he said softly, with an exasperated glance at Tobacco’s Son, “willing to put our good friend the chief thar int’ yer care for a spell. He’s been a-stickin’ t’me like stink on a skunk ever since I come here, an’ much as I like th’ feller, I c’d stand to leave ’im dog somebody else’s heels. Let ’im be your brother f’r a few days now, eh?”