Prelude to Glory, Vol. 4

by Ron Carter

  He wrote to General Carleton in Quebec for additional men and was denied. He already suspected General Howe was not going to meet him in Albany but refused to reveal his fears to his war council. He believed that Colonel St. Leger would be bringing his forces east down the Mohawk River valley after taking Fort Stanwix, and he believed that in any event, he could reach Albany alone if he had to, seventy miles south.

  Before leaving Skenesborough, Burgoyne held a great conference with St. Luc and Langlade, most of his own army, and nearly all the Indians present. There he gave his orders to the Indians, which were to “chastise” the rebellious Americans, but to scalp only those whom they had killed in battle. The orders were nearly incomprehensible to those who understood the Indians. The result was that the Indians immediately went into the forest and spread murder, mutilations, and scalpings nearly everywhere they went. The British regulars and particularly the Germans hated and feared the red men. Stories of depredations spread like wildfire.

  Then came the one tragic story that marked a turning point in the attitude of the Americans. Two of Burgoyne’s Mohawk murdered Jane McCrae, a beautiful colonial girl who was to marry a British soldier, David Jones. The one thing that set Jane McCrae apart from nearly any other woman on the frontier was her beautiful reddish hair, five feet long. The Mohawk who murdered and mutilated her took the scalp, and that evening paraded it on a pole in the Mohawk victory dance, attended by British soldiers. David Jones was among the soldiers, saw the scalp, recognized it instantly, and nearly collapsed, screaming in a state of shock. When Fraser informed Burgoyne of what had happened, Burgoyne ordered the Indians to assemble, called out the one who had murdered Jane McCrae, and ordered him hung. St. Luc interfered, telling Burgoyne that if he hung that Indian, the others would leave, and likely attack even the British or Germans if they ran across them in the forest. Burgoyne recanted. The Indian was not hung. Burgoyne wrote the note, stating that he was horrified by what had happened, and would rather burn his commission as a general than think anyone would believe him to have been implicated.

  The Jane McCrae story was instantly published in every major newspaper in America and in England. It raised such an outcry from enraged Americans that it drew them together as nothing else in their resolve to stop Burgoyne and his Indians, and drive them from American shores.

  It was then St. Clair issued orders to his army to gather at Stillwater and Saratoga, there to prepare to meet the attack of Burgoyne’s army (pp. 222–284).

  In support, see Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 390–91; Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, p. 191.

  Boston

  Early August 1777

  CHAPTER XXV

  * * *

  Margaret Dunson paused in the kitchen to listen to the front door open, then called, “Brigitte, is that you?”

  Brigitte pulled the scarf from her hair and the shawl from her shoulders and shook the rain from them before she stepped through the doorway. She stood for a moment on the woven oval rug she and her mother had made from rags, and answered, “It’s me.” She lifted one foot, then the other, to drop her shoes on the rug.

  “Soaked?”

  “Wet.”

  “How was work?”

  “As usual. Baked sixty loaves of whole wheat. Hortense sent home some day-old bread and a tart for the children. I’ll bring it.” She hung the shawl and scarf on the pegs beside the door, then padded across the polished hardwood floor in her stockinged feet to set the wrapped package on the kitchen cupboard. Margaret eyed her, head to toe.

  “You go change out of those wet clothes. You’ll catch your death.”

  Brigitte drew a copy of the Massachusetts Spy newspaper from the great pocket of her ankle-length work skirt, which showed dustings of flour, and held it out to her mother. Margaret felt an instant tightening in her chest. “What’s this? Bad news?” A chill ran through her as she waited, while her mind ran. Please, not Matthew. Not Caleb. Not Billy.

  Brigitte shook her head. “No one we know. Just a terrible story about a girl.”

  Margaret’s shoulders slumped in relief as she took the paper. “Who? What story?”

  “Her name was Jane McCrae. The Indians got her. British Indians.”

  Margaret’s eyebrows peaked. “What happened?”

  “It was over near the Hudson River. Our army is still retreating. Seems like they’re going to run clear off the map. The British sent a band of Mohawk Indians to frighten the settlers away, and one of them got Jane McCrae. I can hardly bear to tell you what they did to her.”

  Margaret gasped. “Then let me read it while you change clothes and call the children in from the root cellar. They’re out getting a pitcher of milk and some cheese for supper. Tell them to be careful.”

  Amid the familiar aromas of carrots simmering on the black kitchen stove and a chicken baking in the oven, Margaret sat at the head of the dining table and spread the small, two-page newspaper. As she finished reading the account, she closed her eyes and raised both hands to cover her mouth and murmured, “How terrible!” Pain welled up in her heart, and she rose to peer through the kitchen, where Brigitte was holding the back door open while the children hurried through the softly falling rain toward the house. She felt a tinge of guilt with the thought, Thank the Almighty it wasn’t my Brigitte. I don’t know what I’d do if . . .

  Brigitte held the door open while Adam and Prissy entered the kitchen, shoulders hunched against the rain, Adam carrying the large porcelain pitcher in both hands, Prissy a block of cheese sealed in wax and wrapped in gauze. Margaret walked into the kitchen as Brigitte took the pitcher and cheese, then spoke to the children.

  “Clean off your feet on the rug.”

  “And get washed for supper,” Margaret added. She reached a bowl from the cupboard, then motioned to Brigitte. “Get the table set. I’ll get supper into the bowls.”

  Margaret said grace. They ate with little comment, listening to the quiet falling of the summer evening rain, each seeming to prefer their own thoughts. The women cleared the table, washed and dried the dishes, then took time to sit in the rocking chairs in the parlor to let the fatigues of the day drain and their thoughts drift. The children moved the curtains aside to watch the rain stop and the robins and jays come hopping in the yard. The brightly colored, beady-eyed birds darted quickly, to stop and turn their heads, then thrust them low until they picked up the vibrations of earthworms beneath their feet. In an instant they thrust their beaks into the wet soil to pluck out supper for their waiting young.

  As dusk settled, Margaret lighted the parlor lamps and gathered Adam and Prissy around the dining table where she read them the story of David and Goliath from the book of First Samuel before the family gathered for evening prayers. She tucked them in bed with Adam asking, wide-eyed, “How big did it say Goliath was?”

  Margaret pursed her mouth as she thought. “Six cubits and a span.”

  “How long is a cubit?”

  Margaret pondered. “I don’t know. Big, I suppose. Remember, and we’ll ask Silas in church next Sunday.” She brushed a kiss into the tousled hair, twisted the wheel on the lamp wick, and walked out the door. The last thing she heard was, “Six cubits and a span. I’ll bet that’s big.”

  She passed Brigitte in the hallway, walking toward her bedroom. “Going to bed so soon?”

  Brigitte shrugged. “In a while. I’ll be in my room.”

  A mother’s intuition piqued Margaret. “What’s troubling you?”

  “Oh,” Brigitte said wistfully, “I don’t know. I just need some time to let things settle. Think about them.”

  “Anything special?”

  “No, not really.”

  “That terrible thing about Jane McCrae?”

  “No.”

  Margaret looked into her daughter’s clouded, pensive face. “Call me if you need me. I’ll be in the parlor.”

  Brigitte’s lamp filled the room with pale light and shadows as she sat at the small table
beside her bed, aimlessly watching the burning wick for a time. She twisted on her chair, vaguely aware of the morose, gray feeling that had ridden her most of the afternoon. She was not yet ready to force her thoughts to focus on the cause. Rather, she let her mind take her where it would.

  Matthew gone on a ship—Caleb gone with the army—so young—I wonder where he is tonight—what he’s doing.

  She idly turned the wheel on the lantern wick and watched the flame diminish to a tiny blue line, then turned it the other way, and the flame leaped to brighten the room.

  Two years—a little over—turned the family upside down—Papa gone—Tom Sievers with him in heaven—Matthew—Kathleen—Billy—Caleb—all gone. Our quiet little town gone. It will never be the same again.

  Restless, she rose from her chair and walked across the room and back. Outside the rain had begun to fall again, and for a moment she stood still, listening to the quiet, steady hum. She started to sit down, then impulsively changed from her dry clothing back into her wet clothing and walked to her bedroom door and opened it.

  “Brigitte, are you all right?”

  She strode down the hall in her bare feet, into the parlor where Margaret sat rocking while her knitting needles clicked in a steady rhythm.

  “I can’t sit in my room. I’m going out in the backyard.”

  Margaret’s hands stopped, and she dropped her head forward to peer over the top of her bifocals. “You’re back in your wet clothes! What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just want to be alone in the darkness and the rain.”

  Margaret started to speak, then held her tongue and settled back in her chair. She could not remember how many times in her life her intuitions and instincts had driven her to seek a quiet place to sort out the tangled web of life. She remembered long ago walking to the Boston docks at midnight in a January snowstorm. John had awakened to find her gone and spent terrified hours walking the streets looking for her. He had respected her need to be alone with her thoughts but never did understand how it could drive her out in the middle of the night, to the Boston docks, in a winter snowstorm.

  She nodded to Brigitte. “Put on your scarf and shawl.”

  “I’ll be all right. It’s warm. I’ll sit on the bench.” She walked through the parlor into the dark kitchen to the back door.

  “At least put on your shoes.”

  Ignoring her mother’s directive, Brigitte opened the back door and walked out, closing it softly behind her. The wet grass was cool on her bare feet, and she stood for a time letting the quiet rain fall on her head and face and shoulders. She walked slowly to the great oak at the back of the yard, circled by the bench her father and Matthew had built so long ago—the bench where the Dunson children had played, and sat to dream, and to gossip, and tell horrible ghost stories after dark. The bench often shared by Matthew and Kathleen as they were growing up.

  She sat and drew her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them, not caring that the bench was wet. The thick leaves on the great spreading branches slowed the rain but did not stop it from seeping through to fall on her, but she paid it no heed.

  She closed her eyes, and scenes came randomly to her mind. Richard Arlen Buchanan, Captain, His Majesty’s Service, was before her, smiling as he had smiled the night she first saw him at the church when the redcoats came searching for the muskets Brigitte and the other women had smuggled in. The images came quickly, and she saw him as she found him in the British hospital after the Battle of Concord of April 19, 1775. Unconscious, his left arm broken by an American musketball, head bandaged where another musketball had dug a furrow to the bone, pale, breathing slow and deep. With fierce determination that he was not going to die, she brought soup from home, cakes, fruit, and she visited him as often as the stern-faced British doctors would allow. He had lived and grown strong. She begged him to come to her home and meet her family, and she remembered his face as he appeared that evening, standing straight and tall. Strong chin, generous mouth, prominent nose, gentle eyes. And she remembered the scar that marked the brow above his left eye, a scar he had taken long ago while rescuing soldiers from a burning building filled with munitions.

  In her heart she could hear his voice, deep and quiet, as he asked permission from Margaret and Matthew to spend a few moments with her in the backyard. He had led her to the bench where they sat while he placed a gift in her hands. A beautiful handkerchief, with her initials—BD—flawlessly embroidered in royal blue needlepoint at one corner. Then he rose to take her back into the house, and she felt again the exquisite tremor that ran through her as she impulsively threw her arms about his neck, and for a time his arms circled her and held her close while her heart pounded. She remembered the brief moment she had brushed a kiss on his cheek before he took her hand and led her back to the house. An overpowering longing to touch him once again, feel his arms once again, rose in her breast, and left her trembling.

  The scenes in her mind moved on to the awful day, March 17, 1776, when the British marched out of Boston, moving north where they would inflict the catastrophic defeat of the Americans on Long Island, New York, and when she had stood in the narrow, cobblestone streets with five thousand other Bostonians, watching the long, red-coated column pass by. She felt once again the stab in her heart as he passed within a few feet of her, able only to look down at her from his horse as he led his company of men toward the Neck, onto the mainland.

  In the darkness, with rain trickling down her face and arms and the back of her neck, the words of the letter that had been delivered by special messenger that same day to Margaret came before her eyes. It was written by his hand, addressed to Margaret, not her. She kept the letter in her bedroom, and read it silently every night for months, until it was worn and wearing thin at the folds. She could recite every word from memory.

  Thursday, March 15, 1776.

  Dear Mrs. Dunson:

  A private courier will deliver this to you after the British military has evacuated the city of Boston. I could not leave without making my thoughts known to you, and your family, and to Brigitte.

  It was my great blessing and privilege to share an evening with your family. I have never felt nor seen bonds of love to compare with those I observed in your home that night. I will remember it always. I cannot imagine the joy I might experience, were I allowed to associate with such a family for the rest of my life, through your daughter Brigitte. I have never associated with young women before; however, in my heart I know I will have the strongest of feelings for Brigitte as long as I live.

  Notwithstanding, the reality is, I am a British officer, and she is an American. I am unable to consider asking her to leave you, and your home, to live in England. While she might accept that offer now, I can see plainly that with the passage of time, she would yearn for you, and her family, and native land, which is only as it should be. My regard for her will not allow me to do that to her.

  I know you can make her understand, and for that reason I address this letter to you. Please help her.

  I hope I do not exceed my proper bounds when I express my love for you and your family, and for your daughter Brigitte.

  Sincerely,

  Captain Richard A. Buchanan.

  For a moment hot tears mingled with the cool rain on her cheeks, and she did not wipe at them, nor did she care.

  Where is he tonight? Was he with the British when we abandoned Fort Ticonderoga? At the Battle of Hubbardton? Was he at Skenesborough when they sank our boats and burned the town to the ground? Was he there when the Indians went into the countryside to murder the settlers? To murder Jane McCrae?

  She unwrapped her arms from her knees and let her legs dangle from the bench, with her feet in the wet grass. Silently she gathered her courage, and she trembled as she allowed herself to face the three questions that had haunted her, ridden her heavily from daybreak.

  Is he alive? Is he wounded? Why hasn’t he answered my letters?

  Oddly, the greatest pain lay in the thought t
hat he was alive and unwounded, and that his failure to answer her letters was because with the passing of time his feeling for her had ebbed and died; he no longer loved her. His death would bring unbearable pain. Loss of his love might kill her.

  Inside, something shifted, and the conflicting morass of thought and emotion clarified, settled. The gray, morose, sinking feeling that had ridden her hard all day vanished in the sudden sureness that now rose to possess her.

  He’s alive. He loves me. There is an explanation for his failure to write. I don’t know what it is, but I will know some day.

  She was aware of the lifting of the oppressive fog that had clouded her mind and emotions, but unsure of how it had happened, nor did she care. It was enough that somehow her heart and mind were once again clear and steady. She pushed aside the nagging thought that she was a woman divided. She refused to ponder the anomaly of how she could reconcile her wish to marry a British captain with the fact that her brothers might be forced to kill him in battle. It had plagued her too long. She would not allow it to raise its ugly head tonight.

  With the soft rain falling on her head and shoulders, she sensed for the first time the world that awaits all women who commit themselves to love—sweetheart, husband, child—it makes no difference. To allow another into that most sacred chamber of their heart is to accept the fearful burden of knowing that forever after, each moment of life carries the possibility of the greatest of joys, and the greatest of sorrows—the inseparable, eternal companions.

  Expanded, sobered, awed by her discovery, she rose and thoughtfully walked back toward the house, heedless of the rain and the wet grass that drenched her feet and ankles.

  Notes

  The Dunson family is fictional.

  The story of the Mohawk treatment of Jane McCrae was told in the previous chapter.