by Tim Black
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedicated to the memory of Frank Pittman 1940–2019, a wonderful teacher.
Also by Tim Black and Untreed Reads Publishing
“There never was a moment when the slavery issue was not a sleeping serpent. That issue lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.”
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
References and Suggested Readings
Abolition: Tesla’s Time Travelers, Book 4
By Tim Black
Copyright 2019 by Tim Black
Cover Copyright 2019 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover Design by Ginny Glass
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Dedicated to the memory of Frank Pittman 1940–2019, a wonderful teacher.
Also by Tim Black and Untreed Reads Publishing
Daydreams & Diaries, with Taylor Black
Tesla’s Time Travelers (Vol. 1 of the series)
Gettysburg: The Crossroads Town (Tesla’s Time Travelers, Book 2)
Jamestowne: Tesla’s Time Travelers, Book 3
www.untreedreads.com
“There never was a moment when the slavery issue was not a sleeping serpent. That issue lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.”
—John Jay Chapman
Prologue
The Continental Army’s Winter Encampment at Valley Forge, January 1778
Snow covered the ground and stars blanketed the night sky with a glittering canopy of shimmering beauty as soldiers of the Continental Army, commanded by George Washington, huddled around a roaring bonfire, seeking relief from the piercing cold. Many of the Patriot soldiers had tattered uniforms and several of the men were barefoot with various stages of frostbite evident, some as far gone as to be missing toes. Emaciated from the meager rations, the men were a far cry from combat readiness as General Washington had cautioned the Continental Congress, which had abandoned Philadelphia, the capital of the nascent nation.
Only a few minutes before the bonfire began to crackle with wisps of flame, Nathan Greene and his students had arrived in the camp at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, from their classroom portable. The ghost of Nikola Tesla had navigated the otherwise ramshackle trailer from the aftermath of the battles of Trenton and Princeton, two great victories in New Jersey for Washington’s men. And yet, little more than a year later after that tremendous victory after crossing the Delaware River on Christmas Night 1776, the fate of the American Revolution was unsettled. The future of the new nation was in doubt. Could Washington keep his army intact until the spring? Could his raggedy men be turned into competent soldiers capable of standing with the British army and inflicting defeat upon King George III’s soldiers. Yes, Washington had defeated the Hessians in New Jersey, but those soldiers were German mercenaries, not British troops. And even if Washington could keep the men together and whip them into a better army, would he have enough men? More than a thousand soldiers had already died in the winter encampment at Valley Forge, a mixture of pasture and woodlands west of what had been the colonial capital of Philadelphia, but which was now occupied by the British army.
Dressed in late 18th century civilian outfits, Mr. Greene, Samuel Chandler, Heather Miller and two juniors from Cassadaga Area High School, shivered in the cold by the bonfire alongside George Washington’s troops. The trip to visit George Washington’s Continental Army was the first trip to the past for two new students, classmates Jennifer Paige and Michael Stevens, selected by Mr. Greene from his United States History Advanced Placement class, because they were the top two students in the junior A.P. class. Both Jennifer and Michael were biracial, the former a mixture of a white mother and an African American father and the latter the offspring of a white father and a full-blood Native American mother. Mr. Greene motioned for the group to move away from the fire so that he could have a private conversation with his students, both seniors and juniors.
“I know we have only been here an hour,” Mr. Greene said. “But I don’t want to take a chance that someone might remember Samuel or Michael since we disappeared after the Battle of Trenton and they might be considered deserters. That is why I had the boys change out of their army uniforms into civilian clothes,” Mr. Greene explained. For indeed, after the skirmish at Trenton, the group had returned to the portable and Mr. Greene had sent the boys into the classroom closet to change their outfits before proceeding on to the winter of Valley Forge.
“Let me go over what has happened to Washington’s army after the battles of Trenton and Princeton,” the teacher continued. “In 1777, things did not go well for the Patriots until the Battle of Saratoga… But more of that later. In the fall of 1777, Washington lost the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of Germantown and had to abandon the colonial capital at Philadelphia, which is about twenty-four miles to the east of where we now stand. General Howe, in charge of the British army, might have marched out of Philadelphia and crushed Washington’s ragtag army. But it was frigid cold, and Philadelphia was a warm place to spend the winter, at least in comparison to Valley Forge. Besides,” Mr. Greene smiled, “General Howe had his mistress with him. Her name was Mrs. Elizabeth Loring, and she was the wife of Loyalist Joshua Loring. Jr, a commissary of prisoners who had been appointed to his post by General Howe. Something of a quid pro quo for his wife, I believe.”
“What does quid pro quo, mean?” Mr. Greene, ever the pedagogue, asked his students.
“This for that,” Samuel answered. “Loring traded his wife for a job.”
Mr. Greene smiled. “Yes, Mr. Loring was something of a cad, but if I may proceed… As Mr. Loring kept his lucrative job, he looked the other way at his wife’s dalliance with the commander of the British Army. Howe, happy with the arrangement, was reluctant to march his men out to Valley Forge in the cold. He preferred the ‘companionship’ of Mrs. Loring to battle,” Mr. Greene elaborated, using air quotes with his fingers when he said “companionship,” which caused Heather to chuckle. “And, frankly, I might suggest that Mrs. Loring, by her very presence in Philadelphia, had a good deal to do with the survival of the Continental Army.”
“So, Washington’s army was saved by a harlot, Mr. Greene?” Heather asked.
“Well, I guess that is one way of looking at it, Heather. Had she not been there to ah…’comfort’ the general,” Greene rep
lied, using another set of air quotes for the euphemism, “he might have marched west and wiped out Washington’s forces. But what neither side knew was that while Washington was losing battles in Pennsylvania, Benedict Arnold was leading the Continental Army in New York to a turning point victory at the Battle of Saratoga, a victory which led directly to the French joining us in the war.”
“Benedict Arnold, the traitor?” Michael asked.
“Yes, in his pre-treason days, he was Washington’s right-hand man. Kind of like Judas was Jesus’ top disciple. Benedict Arnold was a hero. He rallied his men in battle and personally led the charge against the Redcoats. He was wounded by a bullet to his foot and today in the Saratoga National Historical Park there is a monument of a left boot in honor of the heroism of Benedict Arnold. It is called, fittingly, the Boot Monument, and it is dedicated to Benedict Arnold for his valor at the Battle of Saratoga.”
“That is wild, Mr. Greene,” Michael said.
“Yes, it is, and it is why Arnold’s treason was so unexpected and awful. Arnold broke Washington’s heart. But that is later. The success at Saratoga is unknown to the commander of the Continental Army and Washington was desperate to stem the tide of desertions. Continental Army troops came and went as some returned to their farms or towns after a battle. But by 1778, Washington was lashing deserters as a deterrent to other soldiers and threatening to shoot runaways on sight. No more Mr. Nice Guy for George Washington. And since, as far as the time stream goes, we have been missing for over a year, there is a chance that someone might recognize Samuel and Michael as deserters if they were wearing uniforms as we have been gone since the day after Christmas in 1776. I don’t want them to be subject to court martial and perhaps, summary execution,” Mr. Greene elaborated.
“Yes,” Samuel agreed. “I am in no hurry to get shot.”
Mr. Greene smiled. “So, we are just going to look around for an hour or so and return to Mr. Tesla at the classroom and hop back to our own time and return to good old Cassadaga Area High School,” he smiled. “I am thinking of a trip for Christmas break and inviting Victor, Minerva and Bette to join us, if that is okay with you folks. Sort of a late Homecoming Weekend, I guess.”
“Wow! Sure, that would be super cool,” Heather remarked.
“Agreed,” Samuel said.
The two juniors, who did not know the former members of the History Channelers, said nothing in response. They merely shrugged agreement with the seniors.
“Good,” Mr. Greene said. “I am glad you feel that way…I will contact them after we return home. But about Valley Forge… Valley Forge was where the Continental Army was ‘forged’ so to speak into a regular army with the help of a Prussian, think German, but not a Hessian, officer named Baron von Steuben. He acted like a drill sergeant with a no-nonsense approach to training. He turned a bunch of farmers and mechanics and blacksmiths into an effective 18th century army. You see as romantic as it is to think the minutemen defeated the British, the truth is that the minutemen were guerrilla fighters who got things going, but in the end, it would take a trained army and a French fleet to finally defeat the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781.
“I think that it is not only coincidental, but ironic that only a few miles from Jamestown where the British established the first permanent English settlement in the New World, the British Army was defeated and driven from the shores of the United States by troops led by George Washington. But that is still over three years away for these colonial troops. There is much more fighting to come, and it will be quite a struggle.
“The importance of Valley Forge is that Washington kept the army together and developed it as a skilled fighting force. Look at the meticulous attention to detail of the encampment. As you can make out in the starlight, even the log huts are organized, built in three lines with each line four deep and five yards apart. The huts are uniformly eighteen by sixteen feet long and are six feet to the eaves. All the chimneys are in the east, the doors in the south. Twelve men to a hut. If you visit Valley Forge today, you will see huts, but they are replicas. The original huts are long gone. After the army decamped, local farmers tore the huts down for the wood. The logs were useful to them. Heck, the idea that the Continental Army might somehow defeat the greatest empire on earth seemed farfetched to the practical farmers of Pennsylvania in 1778. Thankfully, the French were not as pessimistic as the Pennsylvania farmers. Viva la France,” Mr. Greene added.
Samuel raised his hand.
“Yes, Samuel?”
“Mr. Greene, I was surprised at the number of African Americans who were in Washington’s army. And not in segregated units, either.”
“Yes, although I caution you to not use the term ‘African American’ in this period. Heck, the soldiers would be confused if you called them ‘Americans’…that name came later after the victory for most people. Ah, here comes Mrs. Tuchman,” Greene said as the white-haired ghost of the late Barbara Tuchman, author of The First Salute, a history of the American Revolution, floated into proximity.
“Hello, Mrs. Tuchman, where have you been?”
Tuchman smiled. “Dining with Mr. and Mrs. Washington, you know, George and Martha?” She laughed.
“At the stone house down by the creek and adjacent to the Schuylkill River?” Mr. Greene inquired.
“Yes, and I kept thinking that George and Martha had no idea that thousands of people would one day walk through the very house in which they were having dinner…or supper to be more precise. They had mutton and sweet potatoes, but I, of course, did not eat a thing. I have to watch my weight,” she smiled. “And keep my gossamer girlish figure.”
Heather laughed at the ghost. She liked Mrs. Tuchman. She was self-effacing and not afraid to laugh at herself. So different than Mary Beard, she thought.
Tuchman continued. “I just floated above them like a fly in the room and listened to Martha grouse about things at Mount Vernon. I think George was having second thoughts about having Martha with him at Valley Forge, but I thought it disrespectful to read the thoughts of the greatest of all the Founding Fathers. You know, he looks even taller than his six feet three as the average man was quite shorter in the 18th century than he is in the 21st. He told Martha about the letter he was writing to Patrick Henry. ‘We have experienced little less than a famine in camp,’ he told Martha he would send to the ‘Give me Liberty or give me Death’ guy. And he complained to her that Congress was pressuring him to attack the British in Philadelphia in the middle of winter. I mean the troops’ Christmas dinner was rice and vinegar. How pathetic is that? You know he spoke lovingly about his troops to his wife. He talked about men marching without clothes, blankets or shoes and leaving bloody trails in the snow. If my tear ducts still worked, I would have cried at his recollection. He was awed by their patience and obedience. You know Washington told the press that if Congress could find someone better to lead the army he would gladly resign and return to live out his life at his Mount Vernon estate. He was the richest, or one of the richest men in the colonies, what you might in your time call a member of the one percent, thanks to his marriage to Martha, who had been an incredibly wealthy widow until she married George and he acquired all of her property. That’s how it was for women. If a woman married she became her husband’s chattel and everything she owned belonged to him,” Mrs. Tuchman said.
The high school girls glared at their teacher as if because he was a man, he was at fault for the chauvinism of 18th century men.
“Don’t get mad at me ladies, I am just the messenger here,” Mr. Greene said in protest, holding up his hand as Heather frowned at his comment. “Valley Forge might have been the end of the American Revolution. Thankfully, Washington did not give up and once Congress realized the army would only fight for Washington and not for Congress they gave up trying to replace him. And in February 1778 when Washington learned that because of Benjamin Franklin’s artful diplomacy, France had agreed to join the revolutionaries, he was so delighted at the news that he
even pardoned two of his own soldiers who were scheduled for execution for desertion. Thousands of men died at Valley Forge from disease and exposure, but in March, a reinvigorated Washington and a stabilized Continental Army marched out of the winter encampment to go after the British once more.”
“I kept thinking that house has a lot of history in it,” Tuchman added, referring to Washington’s headquarters. “Washington and his officers not only mapped out the winter encampment at Valley Forge, but they also planned the rest of the war there…it was like a first Pentagon, in a way. I am delighted you chose me to accompany you on this trip, Mr. Greene. I would say I have been dying to go on one of your visits to the past, but I don’t think ‘dying’ is the proper word since I have already gone through that process,” she laughed. “Anyway, it is quite a house.”
“I remember skipping stones in that creek near the house as a little boy,” Mr. Greene said with a hint of nostalgia. “My family lived close to Valley Forge National Park when I was a boy and my mother liked to drive over there in the summer evenings to watch the deer run about. I swear that during deer hunting season the population of the deer doubled. It was if the deer knew that they were safe at Valley Forge as it is against the law to hunt in a national park. So, during hunting season, there are deer everywhere…”
Mr. Greene’s reminiscence of his childhood was interrupted by cheering. A towering figure in uniform, who sat ramrod straight on horseback, doffed his tricorn hat in acknowledgement of the soldiers’ greeting and addressed the troops gathered around the fire.
“I hope that every man now has a hut to sleep in,” George Washington began. “I am waiting for our Continental Congress, now in York, to allocate monies so that we can purchase more provisions, including shoes for the men among you who are going barefoot in the snow. We have lost many men to dysentery and typhus and the doctors have told me that good hygiene is essential to good health. Also, we are concerned about smallpox as a few cases have been discovered in camp. We are going to stop the smallpox before it turns into an epidemic,” he promised. “So, I want all of you men to be diligent. I need you all for the spring offensive; every man is important to this army,” he added and doffed his cap once again before riding off to address another group of men huddled around another bonfire.