Prelude to Glory, Vol. 4

by Ron Carter

  The American army gathered at the Saratoga church meetinghouse and slowly walked to line the road to Dovegat and beyond. Following the surrender, Burgoyne’s army would march down that road, and the Americans wished to see them as they passed.

  Burgoyne abided the formalities. He handed his sword to Gates, who accepted it, then returned it. The articles of surrender were signed. Burgoyne remounted his horse and led his men forward onto the Dovegat road, stretching ahead for miles. The British marched with chins high, at first ignoring the Americans. The Germans marched with arms swinging, anger and disgust on their faces. An American band struck up “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and the impudent little English folk song with American words floated out over the valley as the somber procession moved on.

  Then, an unexpected feeling crept into both armies. The Americans remained silent. There was not a smile, nor a grin, nor a catcall among them. It seemed they had gathered to pay their respect to an enemy who had fought well. They nodded from time to time at someone as they made eye contact. Some removed their hats.

  The British and Germans looked at the Americans for the first time, not as an enemy, but as men, and they were startled. Their clothing was tattered, torn, shoes nearly nonexistent. Their weapons were whatever they had brought with them. The men were generally taller than average, sinewy, hardy. And they had fought like demons. They had brought down eight thousand of the finest fighting men in the world. The defeated British and Germans looked at them, and they wondered.

  Burgoyne commented to Gates, “I commend your men for their discipline. It almost seems they are here to honor us. I congratulate you.”

  The long column continued south, moving down the rutted road leading to Boston, where they would be held pending transportation to their homelands across the Atlantic, all according to the terms of surrender. The Americans watched, and when the column had passed and disappeared in the dust, they left the road in small groups to make their way slowly back to their camp.

  As they walked back toward their own camp, Billy spoke. “Want to go find General Stark’s camp and ask about your sister? He’s camped just north of here. Might be your last chance for a while.”

  The two shouldered their weapons and walked along the twisting wagon track leading north. The afternoon sun was warm on their shoulders as they wound through the spectacular colors in the trees. For a time they walked in silence, each working with his own thoughts, trying to comprehend what the Americans had done. They struggled, then put it away in their minds to be brought out another day, when they would better understand how far-reaching the defeat of General John Burgoyne would be.

  It was midafternoon before they came upon the camp of the New Hampshiremen, who were dressed in fringed buckskin breeches and hunting shirts, with moccasins made from the leather of the neck of a bull moose. The men were subdued, thoughtful, reflective, pondering how it could be that the great John Burgoyne had fallen—beaten by farmers and fishermen and blacksmiths and storekeepers.

  Billy and Eli walked among them, asking. Does anyone know of a man named Cyrus Fielding? Might be a reverend, or a preacher? Has anyone heard of him? Or of a blue-eyed girl that was given to his family a long time ago?

  The day wore on with heads shaking no. With the sun dropping low in the west, the two men reached the far end of the camp, and Billy walked to a small group of men setting a tripod and cooking kettle for their supper.

  “Anyone heard of a man named Cyrus Fielding? An older man, might have been a preacher?” Billy asked.

  A sergeant with a graying stubble beard turned to him. “Who wants to know?”

  “We’re looking for him. He might know of a girl, an orphan, who was given to his family eighteen years ago.”

  The sergeant pursed his mouth for a moment. “I don’t know a Cyrus Fielding, but you might ask Cap’n Ben. He stands yonder.” He raised a hand to point to a man ten yards away. He was taller than Billy, dressed in buckskins and moccasins, wearing a battered tricorn. He was broad in the shoulders and moved with the grace of one raised in the forest. His features were regular, hair dark, brows heavy over cavernous eyes.

  “Captain Ben who? What’s his last name?”

  “Cap’n Ben Fielding.”

  Billy’s heart leaped as he strode to the man. “Are you Ben Fielding? Captain Ben Fielding?”

  The man turned and raised steady eyes to Billy. “I am. New Hampshire militia. Might I know who you are?”

  “Billy Weems. Massachusetts regiment. I’m here looking for anyone who might know of a man named Cyrus Fielding. An older man. Might be a minister, or a reverend.”

  The man stared hard into Billy’s eyes, searching, and then spoke evenly. “Cyrus Fielding was my father. He passed on eight years ago.”

  Billy’s breath came short for a moment. “Eighteen years ago, was a four-year-old girl brought to your father’s home? Blue eyes, light hair? An orphan named Stroud?”

  “Yes.”

  Billy turned and called to Eli. “Come here.”

  Eli heard the urgent ring in Billy’s voice and came running.

  “Eli, this is Captain Ben Fielding, New Hampshire militia. His Father was Cyrus Fielding. I believe your sister was brought to his home.”

  Eli started. He stared into Ben Fielding’s face, afraid to believe, afraid to ask. He licked dry lips and said, “Her name was Stroud? Iddi Stroud?”

  Fielding’s eyes narrowed for a split second, and then widened in shock as understanding broke clear in his mind. “Iddi? Did you say Iddi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you Eli?”

  “I am! Eli Stroud.”

  “Her name is Lydia, not Iddi. But her infant brother couldn’t say Lydia. He called her Iddi!”

  Eli choked it out. “Is she alive?”

  “Alive? My family raised her. I married her four years ago. She’s my wife! She’s at our place now, three days march north and east of here. She’s the mother of our two children, our daughter, Hannah, and our son, Samuel.”

  Eli tried to speak, and could not, nor could Billy. Fielding went on.

  “She’s never given up on you. We’ve asked everywhere we could—travelers, hunters, Indians—anyone who might know. She’s prayed every day for eighteen years, waiting for this.”

  Eli found his voice. “Is she all right? Healthy? Strong?”

  “A handsome, strong, good woman. A blessing in our home.” Fielding paused only long enough to see that Eli could not speak, and he continued. “We’re breaking camp in the morning, heading for home. You’ll come, won’t you? You’ve got to come see her.”

  “Yes. We’ll come. We have to go report back to our company, and then we’ll come back here at dawn.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  For several seconds the two men looked at each other, lost in the moment, only beginning to believe that the search and the pain and the waiting for eighteen years had come to an end. Eli bobbed his head and turned, and Billy followed as they walked back south to find Dearborn’s regiment and request permission to leave for a time. Eli stopped once to look back, and Fielding was standing still, feet slightly apart, watching him.

  Billy walked beside him in silence, giving him time to get hold of what had happened. Ten minutes passed before Eli quietly said, “Lydia. I remembered the minute he said it. Lydia. Two children. Hannah, and Samuel. I have a niece, and a nephew. A good woman, he said. Healthy. Strong. A blessing. My sister. Lydia.”

  He shook his head, and there was a radiance in his face.

  In deep dusk they found Dearborn’s regiment gathered within the walls of the fortifications on Bemis Heights, along with Morgan’s riflemen, and Learned’s command, and most of the others. They ate warm mutton stew with dark bread and drank cool water from a bucket, then moved among the men, looking for General Dearborn. Strangely, talk was light among the men. It had happened too suddenly. The grinding, soul-destroying weeks and months of running, retreating, and then the bloody, frantic battle, and then it
was over. The men were quiet, groping to comprehend what they had done. Hundreds of them sat cross-legged near campfires, paper and pencil in hand, writing, pondering, writing again, to wives, mothers, fathers, loved ones.

  Billy walked past Private Oliver Boardman, a young soldier with a Connecticut regiment, who had camped next to Billy, who had befriended him. Boardman raised his head from his writing to speak.

  “Billy, what is the date today?”

  Billy reflected. “October 17, 1777.”

  “How do you spell ‘providence’?”

  Billy dropped to his haunches and carefully spelled it while Boardman laboriously wrote it. Billy asked, “Writing home?”

  “To mother. How does this sound? ‘It was a glorious sight to see the haughty Brittons march out and surrender their arms to an army, which but a little before they despised and called paltroons.’”

  Men slowed and stopped, listening in the firelight as Boardman read on.

  “Surely the hand of Providence work’d wonderfully in favour of America.”

  More than fifty men had gathered to listen as Boardman concluded.

  “I hope every heart will be affected by the wonderful goodness of God in delivering so many of our enemy into our hands, with so little loss on our side.”

  Boardman raised his eyes back to Billy, and for the first time realized he was surrounded. The men peered down at him, sitting beside his campfire. They wiped at their eyes, then nodded to him as they moved on.

  Boardman watched them go, and turned back to Billy. “Was it too much? Did I say it too strong?”

  Billy stared at the fire for a moment. “No, it wasn’t too strong. It was fine. It was fitting. The hand of Providence was with us.”

  Billy and Eli found General Dearborn at the hospital. He came outside to talk with them, and Billy made their brief report.

  “Sir, we were sent here by General Washington. General Arnold assigned us to your regiment. We finished what General Washington sent us to do, and we’ve got to return to report to him. We can’t talk to General Arnold, so we thought we better tell you.”

  “I understand. I’ll tell Arnold.”

  “We’re going to move north for a few days with a New Hampshire militia regiment. Eli has found his sister after eighteen years. He needs to see her.”

  Dearborn turned to Eli. “Lost her?”

  “Our parents were killed. I was taken by the Indians. She was given to a family to raise. I’ve been looking for a long time.”

  A smile crossed Dearborn’s face. “Well, it’s nice to know things work out sometimes. Go see her. Get back down to Washington when you can, and tell him what a job we did here.”

  Billy answered. “We will, sir.” He turned to go when Dearborn stopped him. “Say, I think you’re the one I’ve been looking for. Were you two there when we stormed the Breymann redoubt?”

  “Yes, sir. With your regiment.”

  “Aren’t you the one that picked up a German musket and shot an officer who was about to kill you with a pistol. Someone—a sergeant—described a man like you.”

  “I remember that. Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know who that officer was?”

  “No, sir.”

  “General Heinrich von Breymann. When he went down, his men ran. I wanted you to know that.”

  “When he came up in front of me I didn’t know who he was, sir.”

  “Doesn’t matter how it happened. The redoubt was ours the minute he went down.”

  “I didn’t know, sir.”

  Eli interrupted. “Is Arnold inside? Were you here to see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he going to be all right? We saw what he did at that last battle. Hard to believe.”

  “His leg is bad, but I think he’ll recover.”

  Eli hesitated for a moment. “Has Gates made out his report on that battle? We heard what he did to Arnold in his other report.”

  Disgust showed in Dearborn’s face. “He’s finished with the latest report. Gates never left his quarters during the battle. Morgan and Learned and a few of us helped him get his facts straight this time. General Arnold’s name is in every paragraph of this report. We all helped, but it was Arnold who beat Burgoyne finally. Like it or not, Congress is going to have to give Arnold his due this time. If they don’t, a few of us will pay John Hancock a visit.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dearborn turned and disappeared back into the hospital.

  Billy turned to Eli. A deep weariness had settled on both of them.

  “Come on. We better get our things and get some sleep. We have to be in the New Hampshire camp by dawn tomorrow.”

  * * * * *

  Horace Walpole stood in his tiny, cluttered office, squinting one eye as he raised a steaming mug of coffee to blow, then gingerly sip. He sat down on the worn chair facing his desk in one corner, and raised the cup once more before he set it down on a month-old newspaper that showed a dozen coffee rings and stains. Slight of build, hunch-shouldered, hawk-faced, thinning gray hair, and the most famous and powerful sage and newspaper writer in London, Walpole reached for a copy of a dog-eared, well-worn article he had written weeks earlier, and he scowled as he scanned it again.

  “Humph,” he grumbled to himself. “Ah yes, Burgoyne the pompous. Our premiere general was delivered his first lesson in September, and not a word from him since. Either he has subdued the colonies altogether, or they have swallowed him up.” Walpole tossed the document back onto his desk. “With the world scarcely breathing while it waits for war news, we must deal with the wilderness and three thousand miles of the Atlantic for it to get here.” He reached for his coffee cup. “It is so inconvenient to have all letters come by the post of the ocean. People should never go to war above ten miles off, as the Grecian states used to do.”

  He was sipping at the steaming cup again when an urgent banging on his office door brought him up short. He set the cup down too hard, and it spilled on his finger and the newspaper. He licked his finger as he hurried to throw the door open.

  Robert Lawrence, wrapped in a heavy woolen coat with a scarf piled high under his chin, pushed past him and turned, breathless. “Horace, this just arrived from Quebec. Carleton. He reports that Burgoyne and his entire army are now prisoners of the rebels!”

  Walpole gaped, then seized the document. With the skilled eye of one whose long life had been spent putting thoughts into words, Walpole scanned the writing in five seconds, then snatched his coat off its peg on the back of the door. He reached to thrust two coins into Robert’s hand, exclaimed, “Wait for me,” clapped his tall, stovepipe hat onto his head, and was buttoning his coat and wrapping his scarf as he hurried out into the morning traffic in the raw salt air of London’s streets. He fairly trotted the two blocks to the palace gates where the two stiff, uniformed guards swung the gates open to his familiar figure, and he hurried up the cobblestones to the palace door. The guard at the door said, “Good morning, Mr. Walpole,” and opened the door to him without question.

  Inside the sumptuous room, Walpole paused to remove his hat as a man wearing an impeccable uniform with the epaulets of a major in the British army strode across the shining, polished floor, boot heels clicking. Faint, muted sounds of a human being in deep agony reached the two of them from down a long, broad corridor to Walpole’s left. Walpole had been down that richly decorated hall many times, visiting the king in both his conference room and his private quarters.

  “Mr. Walpole. A pleasure as always. I presume you’ve heard the news.”

  “Ten minutes ago. The world is waiting. Might the king have a statement?”

  The officer raised a manicured hand to thoughtfully stroke his chin. “I believe it would be prudent to wait. Perhaps this afternoon.”

  The groaning and wailing from down the corridor increased, and Walpole turned a knowing eye for a moment to look. He pondered for a time, then brought his face back to the major standing before him. He spoke not a word, but his eyes aske
d the question.

  The major said nothing, but slowly nodded.

  Walpole bowed. “I thank you, sir, for the brief but most penetrating interview.”

  The major returned the bow. “My pleasure, sir.”

  Robert lunged from his chair the moment Walpole rattled the doorknob and walked in.

  “Well?”

  Walpole quickly hung his hat on its peg, unwound his scarf, and was working with the buttons on his greatcoat before he spoke.

  “The king got the news.”

  Robert’s eyes were wide. “And?”

  “I was not allowed to see him. I interviewed Major Alexanderson. Most poignant.” He sat down at his desk, drew his inkwell from its corner, seized the worn quill, and turned to Robert.

  “If you want to learn this questionable business, draw up a chair and watch.”

  Walpole’s face drew into a pucker as he searched for the words that matched his thoughts. He bobbed his head once, dipped the quill, and began scratching, while Robert leaned forward, watching in rapt silence.

  “At long last we are privileged to receive enlightenment concerning the fortunes of our expeditionary forces in our wilderness colonies across the ocean. However, not from General John Burgoyne, whose presence has lately deafened us with silence, but from General Sir Guy Carleton. You will recall that General Carleton once commanded the Northern army of His Majesty, with General Burgoyne as his second in command. That arrangement was reversed after General Burgoyne’s five-month visit to London, and several trips to the local steam baths and social events with Lord Germain.

  “With some sense of ironic justice, I’m sure, General Guy has informed us this morning that General Burgoyne himself, along with his entire army, are now prisoners of our rebellious family in North America. A hasty visit to the king’s palace, and a brief but penetrating interview resulted in two observations: