Prelude to Glory, Vol. 4

by Ron Carter

  Eli fell silent, and for a long time the two men studied the last of the glowing embers of their small fire as twilight deepened and their thoughts ran. Then Eli spoke once more.

  “To choose between the twin boys, Good and Evil, a man must be free. If another forces him to act, it is not a choice at all. I think that is what the Americans are fighting for right now. Freedom—liberty— their right to choose what they will be. I think that is what God wants us to do.”

  He stopped for a moment, then finished. “That is why I came to join in the war. Inside, I know God means men to be free to choose. I have to be part of that. That’s why I’m going north. Somehow, Joseph Brant and his Mohawk must be stopped from bringing the British down on us.” For a moment he paused, face clouded, and he spoke as though by afterthought. “We’ve got to find him, and stop him.”

  “How are we going to stop a Mohawk army?”

  Eli shook his head. “I don’t know. Brant’s smart, and a fighter, and likely he will have Cornplanter and Red Jacket somewhere close by. We’ve got to find our army up there and help them get ready for what those Mohawk can do. They’re fierce.”

  Billy looked at him. “Why do they do such cruel things? Scalping? Mutilating?”

  Eli looked him in the eye. “It isn’t just the Indians. They learned some of it from the white men. Whole Indian villages have been slaughtered and scalped and mutilated by the whites.”

  Billy’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know.”

  Eli shrugged. “No one seems to want to talk about that. About seventy or eighty years ago, the whites killed a hunting party of Indians, so the Indians raided a white settlement. Killed a lot of people and took others captive. One captive was a woman named Hannah Duston. Out in the forest, she got free, and she killed and scalped ten Indians, then walked back to the whites. Became a hero overnight. The legislature gave her twenty-five pounds of English money for the scalps, and it didn’t seem to matter that six of those scalps were from children. The story is still told around Indian campfires. One side is about as bad as the other when it comes to being cruel.”

  Billy fell silent for a time, struggling to accept the ugly truth. He raised his eyes back to Eli. “How do you plan to stop Brant and his Indians?”

  Eli shook his head and released a weary breath. “I don’t know. I do know that if he has gathered a fighting force of Mohawk, there’s no end to the misery he can bring down on our people. I doubt our army can stop him out there in the forest. Most white men don’t know how to fight out there.” He stopped to study the fire for a moment. “Someone will have to stop him. I’ll have to try. Maybe I can do something if I can get to Brant, but getting past his Indians won’t be easy.”

  “Get to Brant? Kill him?”

  Eli thought for a long time. “I hope not.”

  Lost in their thoughts, neither man noticed when the crickets began their scratchy nightly work and the frogs in the marshes commenced sending their staccato message. The last embers of the fire winked and then died. The moon rose, and the silvery light filtered through the great dome of trees overhead to once again make lacy patterns on the forest floor.

  Eli stood. “I don’t think I ever said so much at one time. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I have to cut the deer entrails into strips to dry, and make a carrying pouch out of the empty paunch for the cooked meat. We’ll also have to change the poultice on your shoulder.”

  Billy looked at him in the darkness and knew the powerful moment had passed. “When will we leave here?”

  Eli shrugged. “When you’re able. Maybe tomorrow late.”

  “I have some questions.”

  “We’ll have time.”

  Billy pointed to his bullet pouch. “Those letters I wrote to Brigitte Dunson are in there. Things can happen. Will you see that she gets them if I don’t get back?”

  Eli nodded. “I will. If I don’t make it, will you find Mary Flint for me? Tell her I surely hope life brings her some happiness.” For a moment he stared at the ground, remembering the soft brown eyes and the brave face that masked a broken heart that had lost everything she treasured in life—newborn child, husband, family.

  “I’ll find her. I’ll tell her.”

  Eli reached for the blankets. “We’d better get some rest. You sleep. I’ll watch for a while.”

  Notes

  Unless otherwise noted, the following facts are taken from Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution, on the pages indicated.

  Musket “cartridges” were made of paper and carried by soldiers in a cartridge case. For details on how they were made, see Wilbur, The Revolutionary Soldier, 1775–1783.

  Anesthetics, other than liquor and opium, were unknown in colonial days. To help manage pain, patients often took a lead rifleball between their teeth, or a leather belt, to bite on during surgeries. Surgeons often cauterized wounds, either by applying hot tar or a heated piece of iron such as a knife blade (see Wilbur, The Revolutionary Soldier, 1775–1783).

  The Mohawk leader known as Joseph Brant was named Thayendangea in his native Iroquois language. His baptized Christian name was Joseph Brant. An accurate and detailed description of his early history and remarkable achievements with language with his people is given (pp. 52–53).

  Wampum belts played a critically important part in the society of the Iroquois. They served as the “archives” of their history, and the keeping of them, and the remembering of what each belt represented was assigned to the Onondaga tribe, one of the six tribes of the Iroquois confederation. The belts numbered in the thousands. They were created to commemorate most of the important occasions in the history of the Iroquois. They were often exchanged between the Iroquois and white men, e.g. from the American Congress, and from General Philip Schuyler. No formal message was acceptable without an accompanying wampum belt (pp. 16, 32, 69–79, 90–91, 109, 111, 158–59).

  The name of the highest god in the Iroquois religion is Taronhiawagon, which means “The holder of the heavens” or “He who carries the heavens on his shoulders” (see Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, p. 74).

  The Iroquois word for fox is skuhnaksu (p. 8).

  The mighty Iroquois confederation was founded by Deganawida and Hiawatha. Historians differ on the date, some claiming its origin as early as a.d. 1450, others as late as a.d. 1660. The Confederation included five tribes, with a sixth often added. They were Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, and Cayuga, the sixth being the Tuscarora. The name Hiawatha (nothing to do with Longfellow’s famous poem) means, “He was awake” (p. 14).

  Sir William Johnson, who played a critical role in the Revolutionary War in behalf of the British, married Mary Brant. Her Iroquois name was Gonwatsijayenni. She was the granddaughter of Chief Hendrick and, apparently, the sister of Joseph Brant. She became a very powerful figure in the politics of the Iroquois and enjoyed the status of sachem or spiritual leader. Sir William Johnson’s son, Guy, and his grandson, John, carried on for the British after Sir William’s death. It was Guy Johnson who accompanied Joseph Brant on his historic voyage to England to meet King George III (pp. 13, 29–30, 52, 79, 157–61).

  The great Christian missionary Samuel Kirkland was of immeasurable help to the Americans. It was Kirkland who challenged Sir William Johnson for control of the Iroquois (pp. 34–61).

  The Iroquois described the process of declaring war as “taking up the hatchet,” and of ceasing war as “burying the hatchet.” The process included formalities, which are described (pp. 104–56).

  The personages known as the Good Twin and the Evil Twin are critically important figures in the Iroquois story of the creation and the affairs of this earth. The Good Twin brings all that is good, the Evil Twin all that is evil (p. 9; see also Graymont, The Iroquois, pp. 16–17).

  The story told by Eli to Billy concerning the taking of scalps by an American woman is true. In 1697, following an attack by the Iroquois on the New Hampshire hamlet known as Haverhill, Hanna Duston, five days after delivering a baby, assisted b
y Mary Neff and a boy named Samuel Lennardson, followed the Indians into the forest for one hundred miles and killed and scalped ten of them. Six of the scalps were those of children. She became famous. The Great and General Court of New Hampshire awarded her twenty-five pounds, English sterling (see Ulrich, Goodwives, pp. 167–68).

  The Iroquois built platforms for their dead and placed them in trees or on high poles, where they left them. The Iroquois believed the spirit left the body at death and lingered nearby for at least one year, perhaps longer, revisiting the body it had inhabited on the earth. Burial grounds were therefore sacred, as related by Eli to Billy (see Morgan, League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois, Volume 1, pp. 166–70).

  For an excellent map of the home grounds of the Iroquois and other tribes, see Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution, p. xii.

  Quebec, Canada

  May 6, 1777

  CHAPTER III

  * * *

  In a time beyond memory, red men from the west ventured into the dark, vast, primeval forests of the Northeast wilderness. Those who came first, perished. Those who followed, suffered. An unforgiving nature taught the survivors the great secret: among all living things, the strong, who learned their place in this harsh land, lived; all others died.

  Nature became the core of their existence. Their year was reckoned by the seasons—planting, cultivating, harvesting, the running of the salmon, the bugling of the mating elk, the deep sleeping of the bear in the frozen winter, the awakening warmth of spring. They looked at the earth, with its bounty, and they gazed into the heavens and beheld the sun, the moon, and stars, and they thanked the Great Spirit—Taronhiawagon—who had given them these inestimable treasures. They thanked the lesser gods that controlled the planting of their squash, corn, and beans and the growing of them, and the harvest. They recognized the twin boys, the Good Twin and the Evil Twin, and they followed the teachings of the Good Twin.

  They learned the deep lessons of the rhythm and balance of nature. Where one thing perished, another grew. Good could come of bad. Nature seldom took something without giving something. Famine would be followed by times of plenty. They watched the eagle take the salmon, the hawk take the rabbit, the panther take the deer, and they learned the lesson. Every creature on the earth, or in the waters, or in the air, and every growing thing, and all that was in and on the earth, had been given by Taronhiawagon. Each had its place, and its use. The greatest joy came with the using of all things as intended. It pleased Him when, with thankfulness, they partook of His great gifts according to their need. To take what they did not need, or to take without thankfulness, was evil. Such a thing would bring sorrow.

  They prospered, and divided, and pushed their way southward into new lands. They created structures of poles and bark, large enough for many families, and called them kanonses—longhouses—and the people called themselves by new names: Huron, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, Abanaki, Mohican. Each adopted their own new ways of life and dialect. In time, Hiawatha and Deganawida did their work. The great Iroquois Confederacy was formed and became strong.

  Then, from a distant land across the great water, came a new breed of men, down from the frozen north country. White, with a strange language on their tongue, and wondrous weapons in their hands that made smoke and thunder, and killed far, and tools made of brass and iron, superior to anything ever seen before. They called themselves French, and the red men they called Indians, and they offered peace. They took red women for wives, and they traded their iron tools and their weapons to the Indians for furs. They worked their way ever southward, following the great rivers and the streams and the lakes in their unending quest for the furs of the beaver, marten, mink, and otter.

  From the east came more of the white men under different flags, calling themselves Dutch and English. They landed on the shores of the great eastern water to establish their small, tenuous villages, and they suffered. The red men saw it, and came in peace to teach them how to live in the land, and the white men learned, and survived. The white men saw the riches in the red men’s raw, sprawling land, and they desired to have it, and they began to take it.

  In shock, the red men struck back in the only way they understood. From the forest, quick, silent, deadly, they destroyed entire villages, but where they destroyed one, another sprang up. Finally, the red men accepted what they could not change, and they made peace, and the white men came on.

  The inevitable collision—between the white men from the north and the white men from the east—came in the wilderness. Where they met, they warred to possess the land. Soldiers came to build great forts, and more soldiers came with cannon to destroy them. From both sides, ever more soldiers, ever more cannon. In this war, the Huron took up the hatchet on the side of the French, while the Mohawk joined the English. Other tribes of the great confederacy were confused, some joining one side, some the other, and some refusing to fight on either side. For seven years the war waged, and in the end, the English were victorious. The French withdrew.

  Then, to the utter bewilderment of the red men, the victorious Englishmen, who had built their towns and settlements on the east, near the great water, declared themselves free, divided themselves away from their mother country, called themselves Americans, and took up the hatchet against their mother country. Again the red men took sides, the Mohawk remaining strong with the English, whom they were certain would win, while others joined with the Americans in their fight for independence. Each side knew the red men were masters of the forests. They could move in the primeval wilderness like none other, covering great distances quickly, with unerring accuracy, to strike with the ferocity of the panther and the wolf. The attack of the red man became a thing most feared. Both sides used the Indians as their eyes and ears in the trackless forests, and to terrorize the hearts and minds of their enemies.

  And the great Iroquois Confederacy trembled. Divided against itself, allowing the white men to control their destiny, they fought on in the white man’s war, one tribe against another, while the great work wrought by Hiawatha and Deganawida began to slowly crumble.

  * * * * *

  In the brilliant warmth of May sunshine, the shuddering thunder of half a billion tons of mountainous ice floes in violent collision rang off the mountains and echoed inland for miles as the great floes relentlessly ground their way northeast, through the great granite cliffs, and the boulders, and the banks of the mighty St. Lawrence River, ripping, jamming, flooding—swept onward by the heavy spring runoff. Behind the monstrous floes, southwest, were the five Great Lakes, from whence the ice had come. Ahead, to the northeast, were the open waters of St. Lawrence Bay and the North Atlantic.

  On the north bank of the river, west of the place it widened to lead to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the cold, brooding Quebec Castle, built by the French to protect their rich fur trade, stood high and square and stubborn. All who chose to venture on the St. Lawrence must come under the muzzles of her deadly cannon, mounted in gunports cut in the thick, gray, granite walls.

  Where once the French had decided which vessels passed, and which would not, it was now British officers and ten thousand regulars garrisoned in the historic old castle, who sent up the flags granting or denying passage, and it was British gunners who manned the cannon that settled any disputes. Such had been the misfortune of the French when they capitulated to the British in 1763, ending the Seven Years’ War for the northeast section of the continent. The treaty required France to relinquish all claims. Quebec, and all other French possessions, became the property of England. While France seethed inwardly and yearned for a day of redemption, England wallowed in her victory and clutched the newly won land and treasure to her breast.

  Warm sunlight streamed through twelve tall, narrow windows in the east wing of the spacious, high-ceilinged governor’s office on the main floor, to make an orderly pattern of rectangles on the chill stone floor. The roar of the rampaging river reached inside, into every corner, a constan
t reminder that in the end, all mankind must humble itself before the raw power of this country. A massive stone fireplace with a heavy, dark oak mantel formed the north end of the room, where three large pine logs burned to drive out the chill. Above the mantel hung a portrait of King George III, with the Union Jack proud on one side and the gold-on-blue English lion on the other. A large, plain desk of Canadian maple stood on the only carpet in the room, before the fireplace, facing the high, thick, double doors with the heavy, wrought iron strap hinges and the brass studs.

  Sir Guy Carleton, major general, British army, sat hunched forward in the straight-backed chair, staring unseeing at his hands as he slowly worked them together on the desktop. His eyes were narrowed, face drawn, brooding with a dark premonition that had insidiously crept into his consciousness to grow and fester until it clouded his every moment, every thought. He had been notified by General John Burgoyne that Burgoyne was to arrive on the ship Apollo and present himself at Carleton’s office as soon as the ice conditions on the St. Lawrence River would allow. Major General John Burgoyne. Not lieutenant general, or brigadier general, as Burgoyne had been when he was second in command to Carleton only months before. Major General Burgoyne—equal now in military rank to Sir Guy Carleton.

  What Burgoyne had not said was the purpose of the meeting. Why? All rules of protocol demanded that a visiting general at least identify the purpose for which he had come. Just passing through? Reporting for duty?