“I thank you men for turning out to help. It is the unusual mildness of the weather that delays our progress in getting the artillery to General Washington. If we all return to the Ferry Tavern, I will see to it that you are rewarded with. . .” He paused, noticing the crock for the first time. “more drink and hopefully at least a hot meal. Brother Billy, would you see to these men’s needs at the ferry. Ensign Holmes, attend to me for a minute.”
They walked off a way from the fire, Knox with his arm over Nathaniel’s shoulder, pulling the small Ensign toward him. “Leave the eighteen pounder on this side of the Mohawk. Send a team across in the morning. Tomorrow at first light we will find another place to cross, and this sled can meet us there.” Will heard every word, even though the Colonel dropped his voice somewhat, for he was incapable of whispering.
As the two men returned to the fire, Nathaniel realized Will was still there.
“Colonel, this is Master William Stoner,” Nathaniel said. He explained Will’s role in the crossing and rescue of the eighteen pounder, while Will stood there self-consciously staring at the silver clasp of Knox’s cloak that covered his ample stomach.
“Well done, lad. Well done indeed. It seems the others have left in their haste for rum and warmth,” he said, laughing and looking across the river. “Brother, halooo,” he roared, and on the far shore William Knox turned his horse, waved and rode back.
“Holmes, ride up behind me, and it will be William and William on the other horse,” Knox said, motioning to Nathaniel. William Knox flashed a smile of recognition as Will grabbed the offered hand and swung up behind the Colonel’s brother. The ride across the river was short. As he slid off the horse, Will heard the shouts of the teamsters in the Ferry Tavern, eager for the promised free food and drink.
“Let me take your horse to the shed,” Will said, gesturing toward the low building attached to the Tavern. “I can rub him down and feed him, if you want.”
“It would relieve me of the burden,” Knox’s brother replied. “My brother’s horse needs attention too. We have had a long hard ride through the snow from General Schuyler’s home in Albany. Come inside for a hot meal when you are done.”
Will took the reins of the two horses and led them into the barn. The smell and warmth of the horses was familiar and comforting. His shirt was damp from both his sweat and the sleet that had soaked through his blanket and coat. He moved a solitary roan from a stall into one occupied by another horse, tied the Colonel’s horse to the back of the now empty stall and brought Billy’s in. The two horses seemed comfortable together. He was uncinching the saddle when he heard his father’s voice.
“So, Wilhelm. There you are, at last, you worthless boy.” George Stoner stood unsteadily in the doorway to the shed. His eyes were red and his words were slurred from drinking rum all afternoon. “I heard you ran off and lost the Colonel’s cannon. And what about your duties back here, eh? Am I supposed to do your work. Feeding our teams and,” his voice trailed off as he saw a whip hanging from a post. He took it in his hand, grinning maliciously, and cracked it once for practice. “I will teach you to leave without my permission.”
Will looked around, gauging the distance to the barn door. His father moved more to the middle. “You are so slow witted, a sow could read your thoughts before you are finished,” Stoner said, advancing toward Will, who retreated further into the barn. He looked around and saw a long handled wooden hayfork leaning against an upright. Will grabbed it, held the three tynes pointed in front of him and stood his ground. His father paused, his thoughts blurred by the rum, taking in this new development, the whip handle gripped in his hand, the whip lying like a black snake on the hard dirt floor.
“Stand down, sir,” William Knox shouted as he entered the barn. He put his arm around George Stoner, firmly holding the wrist that grasped the whip. “No need to discipline your boy,” he said quietly. “You have done well to haul the fortification gun this far and he has done us good service today.” He released his hold and walked into the barn, getting between Will and his father. Will leaned the hayfork against the stall post.
“I need our saddle bags,” he said, to explain his presence. Will unbuckled them from the two horses.
“Come, sir,” he said to George Stoner. “Carry one with me back to the warmth of the tavern. Ensign Holmes can tell you in detail how helpful your son was today.” Reluctantly, Stoner let himself be led from the shed, casting one malevolent look of anger at Will.
After they had left, Will leaned against the Colonel’s horse, rubbing it down with a blanket, calming himself with the familiar routine. He would have fought back. He knew it for certain. He was safe as far as Great Barrington. Once they began the return trip from the Massachusetts border, he would pay for his act of rebellion and William Knox’s interference.
He rode alone on the sled the next day. Nathaniel had gone off somewhere with the Colonel. Will was no longer in the van of the large convoy. No need as they approached Albany. The roads were better, although still icy, and the locals were eager to provide hay for the teams and food and drink for the teamsters. The train of artillery was a phenomenon they would tell their grandchildren about. When the train had passed through Glen Falls, the townsfolk had turned out, lining the road to watch as the wagons lumbered by. Some had never seen cannons before and the more experienced had never seen so many. They cheered, hooted and whistled when the big howitzers and fortification guns passed. Their reaction was nothing to the greeting the train received in Albany.
The good burghers, their wives and children, dressed in their Sunday finest, drove out of Albany in their carriages to line the road as the artillery train approached. It was a cold, clear crisp winter day. Colonel Knox had ridden ahead to hire men to pour river water over the ice of the Hudson to thicken it for the imminent crossing. He too came out from Albany to lead the train into the city, waving his tricorn in acknowledgement of the cheers. At one point where the crowd was the most dense, he stopped and gave a little speech, thanking the good people for their hospitality and explaining how General Washington, with this “noble train of artillery,” would drive the British from Boston. Will stood up on the sled to catch the Colonel’s words, but more to look at the young girls, their cheeks red with the cold, their faces brightened by smiles and flashing eyes. He had never seen so many pretty young girls in one place. He couldn’t stop from staring at their colorful bonnets, like so many flower heads bobbing in a spring meadow, and their lithe shapes, bending in the same direction like sunflowers to the sun.
At the boat dock the Colonel had one of the eighteen pounders unloaded and set upon its gun carriage. Will, like most of the people of Albany, had never seen a cannon fired before. He watched the gun crew, their uniforms reasonably clean for the occasion, go through the drill of worming and swabbing the barrel, placing the powder charge, pretending to ram down a ball, prime and finally fire. The Colonel had decided to dry fire the piece and not risk the loss of a precious cannonball. Knox, who had commanded a militia artillery unit in Boston, explained each step in his booming voice to the good citizens, their wives and children, almost all of whom seemed to have turned out for the demonstration. The cannon fired, and as the explosion echoed from the hills across the Hudson, there were shrieks from the girls and women, followed by huzzahs and cheers from the men. The Colonel resisted calls for another firing but implored the citizens to be generous in providing food and shelter to the men of his train. Will noticed that he hadn’t mentioned drink, but the wagoners had already begun a brisk trade, offering a ride across the Hudson on a sled or wagon carrying a cannon in exchange for money, rum, brandy or hard cider.
For the first time since leaving their farm in Schoharie, Will slept inside a building, the servant’s quarters of a wealthy merchant, ate at a table and warmed himself in front of the kitchen’s fireplace. He was not the only one from the train given hospitality. The Captain of the troops from the Fort stayed in the merchant’s home, and some of the soldie
rs were quartered in the barn.
For two days Will rose before dawn, fed and watered Big Red and the grey and walked a half mile down to the Henry Hudson Tavern, an old stone building on the river, where the rougher of the men stayed to be closer to the rum and hard liquor. He fed and rubbed down his father’s team in the tavern’s barn and was thankful to leave without seeing him. George Stoner would not rise early after staying up late drinking.
Will eagerly returned to the merchant’s brick home, to enjoy a hot breakfast of porridge and freshly baked bread slavered with butter and bacon. The cook was a matronly woman named Agnes, with a hearty laugh and ample bosoms. On his first day, when he returned from the tavern barn, she had refused to give him breakfast. Instead, she had sent him to draw water from the well and ordered him to wash “the filth of the road,” as she called it, from his head and body. She had given him an old but clean shirt to wear, and washed the one he had worn since leaving home. While busy preparing the morning meal for the merchant and his family, she and the other servants peppered him with questions as he sat in the warm kitchen. They bustled around him doing their chores and asked about the cannons and the trek down from Fort Ticonderoga. He felt self-conscious in the presence of so many women, although Agnes and the serving maids were all older than his stepmother.
The second morning, more at ease in their company, he was in the middle of describing how they had raised the cannon from the Mohawk when Elisabeth, the merchant’s blonde teenage daughter, wandered into the kitchen. Will, in his borrowed shirt with the sleeves too short for his long arms, became tongue-tied in her presence and lost the thread of his story. She had come for a scone for her mother, she said, but stayed to hear him stumble through the rest of his tale, laughing at his embarrassment and leaving him red-faced and flustered.
Will took any opportunity to walk around Albany. He had never been to a real city with so many brick and stone buildings. The homes of the wealthier citizens were built on the hills overlooking the Hudson. The streets were paved and elegant pleasure boats were pulled up on the shore for the winter. After the servants had finished serving the family’s meal around three, Will sat at the long wooden table in the kitchen and took his dinner with them. He wolfed down beef and roasted potatoes, and wiped the gravy in his wooden bowl clean with freshly baked bread. Agnes laughed and said he was growing before her eyes. She filled his bowl a second time, and watched him devour the food again.
On Sunday, January 7th, when he arose in the morning, the weather was noticeably colder. The Captain of the Continentals strode into the barn and saddled up his horse while Will was feeding Big Red and the mare. He left, saying he had a conference with the Colonel at General Schuyler’s home. It was still quiet at the tavern when Will arrived. By the time he had fed and watered his father’s horses, the teamsters had been aroused from their stupor by soldiers with orders from the Colonel. They were crossing the Hudson today. Nathaniel found him as he left the tavern’s barn.
“Will, we need your sled to carry a six pounder. Hitch up your team and meet me at the dock.” When Will arrived, Nat was standing by a sled with one shattered runner. Coming down the icy hill toward the shore, the driver had lost control and rammed into one of the fine craft beached for the winter. It had crushed the bow of the yacht’s hull but worse from Nat’s viewpoint, had wrecked the sled carrying the six pounder. The sacks of oats on Will’s sled, would be left on shore and brought over later. It was more important to ferry the cannons across while the cold weather held. The owner of the boat had been found and had been less than satisfied with a promise from the Colonel that the Congress would authorize payment for the damage.
“That is all the Continentals get, the promise of pay by Congress, although many of them have gone without for months,” Nat said, glancing up at the grey sky. “I hope the accursed thaw is gone for good,” he said, blowing on his hands after he, Will and two soldiers had hoisted the six pounder onto Will’s sled and lashed it to Nat’s satisfaction, together with its gun carriage, wheels, artillery bucket, ram and sponge.
Will drove his team back to the shore point designated for the crossing. There were 80 or more wagons and sleds assembled, crossing at a quarter-mile width of the Hudson, where the ice had been strengthened by the poured river water. The air was bitter cold and the shore was lined with people, eager for a ride across the river on a sled or wagon with cannons bound for Boston to bombard the Redcoats. The crowd surged forward as each wagon or sled maneuvered into position for the crossing. People looked for the wagoners who had promised them rides for a shilling or a crock of rum. Colonel Knox and Nathaniel stood on the low wooden pier solidly anchored in the ice almost up to the planks of the platform.
Will was tenth in line, behind a long sled with a twenty-four pounder and several burghers and their wives who were crammed onto the teamster’s seat or standing precariously on the back, clinging to the rough boards of siding, hastily added to accommodate them. He was apprehensive about having people on his sled, not because of the extra weight but because he was nervous about what to talk to them about and worried that his father would be angry if he didn’t charge them enough.
“May we ride with you?” a female voice asked. Will looked down from his seat to see Agnes, the cook, and the merchant’s daughter, Elisabeth, both bundled up against the cold. Agnes seemed almost twice as wide as she had been in the kitchen. Elisabeth looked glorious to him, with her blond hair escaping in golden wisps from under her bonnet, tied down against the wind with a dark blue woolen scarf. Without waiting for his answer, Agnes helped Elisabeth first and hoisted herself up, the three of them squeezed onto the narrow seat.
“So, these are your horses,” Elisabeth said, pressing gently against him. “The red one is gorgeous. He looks very strong. You must be very good with horses to be able to handle him.” Will blushed and mumbled something about how well behaved Big Red was and how anyone could handle him.
“Well, if that is the case, will you give me the reins when we are out on the river?” she asked coyly.
“I will, if you let me hold them with you,” Will replied, surprised at his own boldness.
“Agreed,” Elisabeth responded quickly. “Now we must talk about the price of passage.” She nodded to Agnes, holding a wooden basket on her ample lap.
“We have brought you some brown bread and roast meat for tonight’s meal,” Agnes said, “as well as cured ham, bacon, a slab of lard, and some coffee beans. Also more bread and some potatoes,” she said. “And three fresh apples kept on the marble shelf in the master’s apple cellar,” she added as an afterthought. Will saw the image of his mother, faceless, fanning her apron in their storage house behind their farm, the best apples hanging from the beams by their stems. “Is that enough for our passage?” Agnes asked, taking his silence for disapproval. Before Will could reply, he heard Nat’s voice.
“Master Will Stoner,” Nathaniel called to him from the pier. “Take to the left and stay wide of the twenty-four pounder,” he called out. “If the ice starts to crack, move yourself to safety first, and then help the other sled as best you can.”
Will waved to Nat in acknowledgement.
“Oh dear,” Agnes said. “I did not think there would be any risk. Your father will have my hide if anything happens,” she said to Elisabeth.
“We will be secure,” Will said reassuringly. “Our load is light compared to the other sled. The driver overloaded it with people and is carrying a much heavier cannon than we. Besides, everyone else has made the crossing without a mishap.” He flicked the reins and Big Red and the mare moved down the gentle slope and onto the ice. The hardwood runners made a crunching sound on the irregular ice, bouncing the sled up and down and throwing Elisabeth against his shoulder. She hooked her arm in his to steady herself. Will blushed, enjoying the feeling of her gloved hand on his forearm.
One third of the way out, the wind picked up. Loose ice flakes, chopped up by the sleds that had preceded them, whipped their faces, a
nd the cold wind chilled his bare hands. Elisabeth moved closer to him and he could smell the sweet scent of lavender soap.
“We are almost halfway there,” she said. “May I have the reins now?” Not accustomed to being refused, Elisabeth did not wait for his answer, but reached across his arm to take the reins. Will transferred the reins to her gloved hands and put his right arm around her waist, pulling her towards him so that he could continue to keep his hands on the reins as well. She nestled comfortably into his chest, and Will felt an uncontrollable joy as he held her.
“I wish the river were twice as wide,” he blurted out.
“I do also,” Elisabeth replied. Agnes coughed more loudly than necessary to break the spell.
On the far shore, Will took the reins back from Elisabeth and guided the team onto the road heading south. A crowd of citizens streamed back to the river, some to walk across and others to ride in empty sleds driven by their servants. Will jumped down from his seat, offered his hand first to Agnes to help her down, and then to Elisabeth. Agnes gave him a big maternal hug and wished him well on the rest of the journey. She held the basket as Will removed the food and stuffed it into his haversack, acutely aware of Elisabeth standing next to him.
Elisabeth faced him, her hands tugging at the knot of her scarf.
“I have read poems of the days of chivalry in England when ladies gave their knights a token to be remembered by. I am giving you this.” She untied the blue scarf and handed it to him, one hand now raised to hold her bonnet from blowing away. “Think of me on the rest of your trek and bring the cannons to General Washington to drive the vile British out of Boston.” As she gave him the scarf, Will felt her squeeze his hand.
“I will. I will think of you always,” he stammered, and watched her slender back disappear with Agnes into the crowd on the shore.
Cannons for the Cause Page 5