by Ron Carter
“Schuyler and St. Clair. Two of a kind. Motivated only by self-interest and self-promotion. Incompetents who have arrived at their present stations in life by politicking, manipulation, and carefully cultivated illusion. Without substance, without a single thought beyond their own lust for power, wealth, and status. Well, we will soon enough see to them.”
Trabert opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, turned on his heel, and moved on. He had long since learned that nothing was quite so absolute and unchangeable as the Bible, and a John Adams opinion, and all too often the Adams opinion was the more weighty of the two.
Adams pushed the newspapers aside and reached for his inkwell and quill. The expression on his face, very nearly of disdain and contempt, softened as he began a brief letter to his wife, Abigail, to whom he wrote whenever occasion permitted.
My Dearest Friend:
You are undoubtedly privy to the treasonous developments regarding the abandonment of Fort Ticonderoga to the British in the past several days. Debate rages in these hallowed halls, the general tenor of which is that both generals Schuyler and St. Clair, those responsible for the scandal, should be tried for treason.
I have reached my own simple and very effective conclusion. We shall never be able to defend a post until we shoot a general.
Adams paused to read what he had written. He smiled broadly, dipped his quill in the ink, and continued his letter to his beloved Abigail.
Notes
Unless otherwise indicated, the following is taken from Ketchum, Saratoga, on the pages identified.
It must be understood that St. Clair, and most military men, knew “that a retreat, with an inferior army, from before a superior one, is perhaps the most delicate and dangerous undertaking in the whole circle of military operations, and that it will never be effected without prudence, fortitude, and secrecy.”
It must be further understood that St. Clair knew well the price he was going to pay for his decision to save the men and sacrifice the fort. Udney Hay, his acting deputy quartermaster, asked St. Clair if he had received orders from General Schuyler to abandon the fort, and St. Clair instantly knew Hay was really essentially challenging St. Clair’s decision. St. Clair’s response included his certainty that if he defended the fort, “he would save his character and lose the army,” and on the other hand, if he retreated, “he would save the army and lose his character.” He fully expected to be court-martialed over his decision.
When the Americans marched out, they left hundreds of tons of supplies on the docks of Mt. Independence, including precious gunpowder and money. Men assigned to blow up the gunpowder failed to do so, and the British got it.
The road to Hubbardton, and Castle Town beyond, was a narrow, winding trail cut through the thick forest, with tree stumps in the path and piles of slash on both sides so high the soldiers could not see over the top. The untrained militia were so angered at not being allowed to defend the fort, and by the rigors of the road, they began to desert in great numbers. American General Ebenezer Francis, with his rear guard of only four hundred fifty men, began picking up those who had become exhausted in the column ahead, and soon had one thousand men in his command. British General Simon Fraser, on his own initiative, had decided to pursue them immediately, and was but three or four miles behind.
St. Clair intended halting his men for a rest at Lacey’s Camp above the swampy northern end of Lake Bomoseen, about midway between Mt. Independence and Castle Town, however, a local inhabitant appeared to warn them that British and Indians were in that area. Consequently St. Clair led his men past Lacey’s Camp, across Sargent Hill and Sucker Creek, up a hill, onto the plateau where Hubbardton was built in a clearing. Hubbardton was settled in 1774 on a grant of land owned by Thomas Hubbard, and now had nine families there, all of whom had abandoned the village at the onset of hostilities.
St. Clair remained for several hours at Hubbardton, waiting for Colonel Francis’s rear guard to arrive, but they did not. St. Clair ordered Seth Warner to remain with his force at Hubbardton until Colonel Francis arrived, whereupon Seth Warner was to take command of Francis’s men and move the entire group on toward Castle Town and stop one and one-half miles short of the village to act as a buffer in the event the British caught up.
When Francis and his men arrived, they were so exhausted that Warner and his officers decided they could not move farther and ordered an overnight rest. In short, Warner decided to disobey St. Clair’s orders to move them on to their assigned place, one and one-half miles short of Castle Town.
The following morning, while Warner’s command was getting breakfast, Simon Fraser’s British regulars caught them. The Battle of Hubbardton, totally unplanned, ensued. At one point the Americans had all but defeated the British, when the German General von Riedesel arrived with his troops, having been sent by General Burgoyne, who anticipated that General Simon Fraser would need them. Upon their arrival, the Americans were forced to retreat, with the British and Germans hot behind. The retreating Americans found themselves with their backs to Pittsford Mountain and quickly realized they were trapped. Colonel Ebenezer Francis, who had gallantly led his men through the harrowing battle, leaped onto a tree stump to order them to hold their fire because they were hitting their own men, and a British musketball took his life. The desperate Americans saw him fall, and without his leadership, they scattered, some trying to climb the steep Mount Pittsford, others running wherever they could to escape the onslaught.
Later, Captain John Shrimpton of the British Sixty-second Regiment searched the body of Colonel Francis and had some of the American officer’s papers in hand when a lone American sharpshooter in a tree on the side of Mount Pittsford hit him with a rifle bullet.
While the Battle of Hubbardton was in progress, the British fleet on Lake Champlain approached the great boom and the Great Bridge constructed by Colonel Baldwin, which was intended to stop the British ships from reaching the lower end of the lake. With a few well placed shots from their cannon, they cut the boom and bridge and had open access to the American docks at both Fort Ti and Mt. Independence. They found the hundreds of tons of goods left there by the Americans when they made their hasty retreat. Immediately, the British set sail down South Bay in pursuit of the American bateaux that had gone on to Skenesborough (see pp. 172–206).
The night following the battle, wolves came down from the mountains in scores and were heard snapping, snuffling, fighting over the dead and wounded, digging up some graves (p. 213).
Generals St. Clair and Schuyler were both attacked by newspapers and the general populace everywhere for abandoning Fort Ticonderoga without a fight. General St. Clair wrote a letter to Governor Bowdoin of Massachusetts in which he attempted to explain the rationale of his actions. Governor Bowdoin published the letter in the Worcester newspaper, Massachusetts Spy, which provoked further outcry against St. Clair and Schuyler. Reverend Thomas Allen of Pittsford, Massachusetts, made a particularly vehement attack on St. Clair (pp. 218–19).
Congressman John Adams was incensed at the affair, and wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, in which he said, “We shall never be able to defend a post until we shoot a general” (p. 219).
In general support, see Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 388.
Three Rivers
Late July 1777
CHAPTER XXIII
* * *
In the glow of a golden sunset, the two men worked forward on their bellies to the rim of a granite outcropping to lay silent and still while they studied the low, sloping hills and shallow forested valleys surrounding them. On their right the Oneida River sparkled like burnished brass in the fading light as it wound its way west through the lowlands. From their left, the Seneca River flowed southeast for a distance before the earth rose to turn it back northwest, where it joined the Oneida. Their junction formed the Oswego River that flowed northwest to the great inland sea called Ontario by the Iroquois, far in the distance.
The rimrock on which Billy
and Eli lay was eight hundred yards nearly due east of the place the rivers converged, and was high enough to afford a clear view of the flat, open ground on their side of the rivers, which from earliest memory was known as Three Rivers. It was a place where travelers camped and Indian councils convened.
Ten yards behind them, on the east slope of the granite rimrock, they had found a small, natural cave that reeked with the heavy stench of bears that had hibernated there through the snows of countless winters and where some had birthed their cubs with the coming of spring. Eli had crouched low to lead Billy beneath the overhang, then on through the entrance, down a sloping incline into a natural, circular room about ten feet across. The rock ceiling was a scant five feet high, and white bones of rabbits and porcupines were scattered among panther tracks on the cave’s dirt floor. The two men cached their bedrolls and knapsacks against one wall with the rabbit Eli had snared that morning and together they gathered old windfall twigs and limbs for a fire in the night, before climbing to the edge of the rimrock.
With eyes narrowed against the setting sun, they scanned each of the three rivers as far as they could see, watching for movement that could be canoes bringing more men to the Three Rivers camp. There was nothing but natural riffles and snags to interrupt the flow of the waters. They shaded their eyes with their hands, and began a careful count of the lodges and tents in the crook formed by the rivers—Indian lodges on the south side, white men’s tents on the north. Before the last arc of the sun dropped behind the western tree line, they tried to count the tiny moving dots, but could not. They wished they could use the telescopes slung around their necks in their stiff leather cases, but they dared not risk having sunlight reflect off the lenses to be seen by a sharp-eyed Indian half a mile away.
In early dusk they watched campfires wink on, and they counted them. Sixty-six small ones on the south among the Indian lodges, eighteen large ones on the north, where the British and German soldiers were heating their great, black cooking kettles. A smile flickered over Eli’s face as he thought of the difference between the cooking fires of Indians and white soldiers. Men could gather around a small Indian fire, each to boil his own water and broil his own meat while they drew warmth. A white man’s fire was large enough to drive them back while one man twisted and turned in the heat, and shielded his face while he stirred whatever was in the huge, black kettles.
The two men watched until the distant fires were points of light in full darkness before they backed away from the rim and silently made their way to the darkness of the cave. By feel Billy shaved a small pile of slivers from a dead tree limb, while Eli got his tinderbox from his knapsack. He struck sparks with flint and steel, and on hands and knees, Billy blew gently until a small finger of flame licked upward. Minutes later they had the rabbit slowly roasting on a crude spit.
Eli broke the silence. “Too many lodges, too many tents. Some sort of council is taking shape. A big one.”
“Recognize anyone?”
Eli shook his head. “Too far. Bad light. There’s some Iroquois down there, and some Seneca and Mohawk. If there’s Mohawk, Brant’s there somewhere. I think there’s some British soldiers, and German, but I don’t know who the other white men are.”
“We’ll find out tomorrow morning when we can use the telescopes.”
For a time the two men sat with their backs against the rough granite walls, knees drawn up, turning the spit occasionally, watching their rabbit turn from pink to white as it cooked. They boiled water for coffee, and when the rabbit had cooled enough they pulled pieces, pinched salt onto it, and ate in silence. Finished, they rinsed their wooden cups and fingers with canteen water while the fire drove out the clammy dankness and much of the scent of bear. The light wisps of smoke worked their way up to the entrance and out into the night, unnoticed, as the two turned to their small fire.
From the dawn of time, a campfire has reached into the core of humans to irresistibly draw them near. Who knows the source of the fascination? Is it the primal instinct for warmth? Is it the everchanging, shifting undulations of flame that cut through all thoughts, all pretenses, to the foundation precept of all creation, that life is an evermoving thing, wending through time and space with a will and a direction of its own? That the whole of it is guided by a power of which man can only speak, without comprehension? Who can say? All man knows is that a campfire works its magic. Men gather around it and sit in thoughtful silence, watching the dancing flames.
The two men spread their blankets on opposite sides of the fire, then sat on them in the silence, backs against the rock walls, knees up, staring into the glowing coals and contemplating the small fingers of fire. The flickering light cast their faces in shifting shadows and reflected from their eyes. Unexpected scenes and memories from the past came jumbled and mixed, strange and unrelated, and each of the two men was soon lost in unintended reveries. Time lost meaning.
Billy sat unmoving as remembrances came. Father—sitting on his knee—Mother setting the table for supper—the rusty hair thick on father’s arms—funny I never noticed it until I was four—Mother—the large mole on her left temple that moved when she talked—never aware of it until I was six—Trudy—small, delicate—Matthew and me on the floor in his room building a kite—lost it when the wind broke the string—Matthew, serious, telling me he loved Kathleen—fourteen years old—Matthew and me in the fields south of Concord—the British redcoats—shooting—the hit—the hot lead driving through—the paralyzing bayonet—John carrying me—Matthew at my bedside—wouldn’t leave—a year lost healing—leaving—Brigitte—the hazel eyes—the moment holding her—the shock of realizing she was grown—of knowing I felt something for her—Long Island—the Delaware—Trenton—Princeton—Eli—coming north on the rivers—sitting in a bear’s den in the night with Indians who would mutilate us just eight hundred yards away.
Billy reached for his knapsack, drew out the oilskin packet, and unwrapped his battered tablet and pencil. He set aside the eight letters he had written but never mailed, positioned the dog-eared tablet on his knee, and thoughtfully began to write.
Late July 1777.
My Dear Brigitte:
I am unable to describe the conditions in which I write this letter. I can only say I am with Eli Stroud, in a bear’s den, at night, with the British, Germans, and Indians camped eight hundred yards away. In the quiet I find my thoughts returning to my home, my family, and my loved ones . . .
Eli glanced at Billy, then continued staring into the coals while visions rose from his past. Father at the door—smashed open—the screams—painted faces in the parlor—Iddy don’t go!—don’t go!—the brown arm sweeping me up—the nightmare of flight through the dark forest—the lodges—strange food—new language—new clothing of deerhide—slowly learning—growing—dark-skinned boys chanting ugly words, jabbing with sticks—reaching for a rock—in my hand—the solid hit—the biggest boy writhing on the ground moaning—taking my place with the warriors—the long trail—the first battle—swinging the tomahawk hard, again and again—blood flowing—battles with white men—the shock of remembering I was white—turning to the Jesuits—begging for help to learn my own history—learning English—French—the Bible—Jesus—the Americans rising to fight for freedom—George Washington—the prophecy he could not be killed—would one day be father of a great, new, free nation—something awakening inside—the agony of leaving the Iroquois—had to know more about Jesus—had to find Washington—somehow find Iddy if she was alive—join in the fight for freedom—had to be free—had to be free.
Eli reached to thoughtfully run his thumb down the three-inch-long scar along his left jaw line.
The brown eyes of Mary Flint, filled with a sadness that reached inside—the need to reach out—comfort her—the night on the wagon box leaving Manhattan Island to move the army to Long Island—the sick man between us, the dead one behind—her head leaning against me as she sobbed—the strange need in both of us to tell our stories—the unexpec
ted comfort in the telling—Mary coming to find me—a man named Cyrus Fielding might know where to find my sister—the wrenching inside as we parted—the thousand times her heart-shaped face and dark hair and eyes have risen before me—the yearning—the bitterness of the realization that she is a woman of wealth and breeding, while I was raised as an Indian in a world of which she knows nothing.
The glowing embers slowly blackened. For a time the men sat in the darkness still lost in their reveries, and then they silently laid down on their blankets to stare upward until they drifted into an exhausted sleep.
They wakened with the gray light preceding dawn sifting gently into the cave, and outside the raucous declaration of blue jays and ravens that sunrise was coming and that they owned the world. Both men swallowed against the sour taste in their mouths, and drank cold water from their canteens. They rose to their knees to stretch set muscles, and in the gloom of the cave, reach for tinder and flint and steel to start a fire. They drank scalding coffee and broke off pieces of hardtack to work in their mouths, rinsed their cups, and set them to dry. Billy had wrapped his pad and pencil and the eight wrinkled, worn letters and this new one in their oilcloth, when Eli spoke.
“Letter for the girl? Brigitte?”
Billy nodded as he worked the packet back into his knapsack.
Eli reached for his telescope as the thought came, I hope he doesn’t get his heart broken.
With the first rays of the rising sun rolling westward across the vast expanse of primeval forest, Billy cautiously worked his way up the slanted entrance to stop just inside. He went to one knee and closed his eyes to listen intently. There was no break in the chortling of the birds and the chatter of the squirrels and chipmunks. With Eli following, he moved to the mouth of the cave and once again stopped while he studied everything that moved. He dropped his eyes and stopped, startled, as he saw the seven-inch marks made by the pads of a great panther. The tracks came to the entrance of the cave, paused, then retreated. The huge cat had come soundlessly sometime in the night. Striped chipmunks and gray and red squirrels stopped to stare beady-eyed, then were gone in an instant. Billy glanced back at Eli, who nodded, and Billy walked into the open, Eli following, where they straightened to full height for the first time in nine hours. For a moment they stood still, savoring the clean, clear air of a spectacular morning and a sunrise that set the tops of the emerald green trees on fire.