Cannons for the Cause

by Martin Ganzglass

  Colonel Knox put on his blue coat. It was tailored with tight sleeves faced with red and interspersed with gilt buttons. The two broad slits in the back favored his corpulent figure. He looked so commanding in his resplendent dress uniform that Will almost saluted him on the spot. He completed his outfit by tucking a white handkerchief into the left cuff and wrapping it around the stubs of his fingers.

  “So, Master Stoner. It is settled then. You have employment until we free Boston and good warm quarters with Lieutenant Holmes’ regiment. Is there something else, perhaps I have forgotten?” he asked, his eyes dancing with mirth.

  Will hesitated but inspired by the thought of Elisabeth, spoke up. “Sir, in Westfield you mentioned that I might have paper and a quill for writing.”

  “So I recall,” Knox said smiling. “You must also write to your father, briefly if you wish, to tell him you are in Cambridge waiting for our Army to enter Boston so you may be reunited with your brother.” He walked toward the door, his boots resounding on the scuffed wood floorboards. “I believe there may be a courier with a pouch of letters leaving for General Schuyler and Albany later this week. If you have other correspondence, perhaps to someone in Albany,” he said opening the door and winking at Will, “bring it to my headquarters by tomorrow evening and I shall see it is included.”

  When they were out in the street, Will was overwhelmed by his good fortune. He clutched the precious sheets of paper the Colonel’s brother had given him under his coat to protect them against the wind and blowing snow.

  “There are three buildings assigned to us as barracks. Sixty men per building. We have allotted ten men to a room and each man has his own cot,” Nat said as they walked quickly in the dark back to Brattle Street. It was past seven. There were few civilians on the streets, but crowds of drunken militia staggered about, impervious to the icy winds. “I know the room next to mine has three empty beds. I will see you placed there first and then I have other business to attend to.”

  Will didn’t reply. Already he was composing his letter to Elisabeth in his mind. It would have to be perfect before he wrote it. He would not want there to be cross-outs and he couldn’t afford the luxury of throwing away the paper and starting over on a clean sheet.

  “All I need for the moment, Nat,” he said, “is a quill and ink, and a place to write.”

  When they reached the Mariners’ barracks, Nat established Will in the Officers’ room and left him, hunched over, at a small writing desk in front of a single candle. Will ignored the hunger in his stomach and wrote his father first. The words came easily. It was a businesslike letter. He knew his father was not interested in his well-being. Will wrote he could not pass through the American and British lines to make contact with Johan. He added that he was earning money while waiting for the battle of Boston. He had decided he would keep only the money from his own labor and give his father the shillings paid for renting out the horses. After all, they were his.

  He folded the paper, sealed it with a drop of wax from the candle, turned it over and wrote his father’s name and Schoharie, New York. The farm where he had been born and worked were part of a life he had willingly left behind. He thought of his stepmother, half-brothers and sisters as distant relatives one rarely saw. As for his father, he realized until tonight, he had not thought of him at all. Nat and Colonel Knox were the people he cared about.

  His thoughts next turned to Elisabeth and he began to compose his letter to her. This was more difficult. He pondered how to strike the proper balance between describing the dangers of runaway cannons on icy descents and the bitter cold of winter blizzards, and bragging about his ability to overcome these hardships. After a while he settled on a perfunctory muted tone to tell of the trek through the Berkshires and on into Cambridge and a more descriptive, personal and lively tone for his observations of the townspeople in Westfield and Springfield and the army in Cambridge. The intimate portion, his expression of how he missed her and thought of her constantly, was the part he reworked in his mind and mouthed out loud in the empty room. He was not yet ready to commit his thoughts to paper.

  Note: Phips Farm was also known as Lechmere Point.

  Chapter 7 - With the Mariners For the next several days, Will drove his sled, pulled by Big Red and the grey, from Roxbury, on the far right of the American lines, to Cambridge, from Cambridge to the fort at Prospect Hill and further on beyond to Cobble Hill where the emplacements faced Charlestown. The Colonel’s Artillery Regiment and the guns of other artillery units were positioned in a giant arc on the mainland surrounding Boston and the British fleet riding in its harbor.

  Cambridge, because it was at the center of the arc, was the main hub for the stores of supplies. Merchants scoured the countryside for food and sold it at a profit as suppliers to the Army. Munitions were also stored in Cambridge for easy dispersal to the different units. Will hauled cannonballs and kegs of powder, stacks of muskets and boxes of flints, barrels of apples, flour and salted fish, sacks of potatoes and turnips, slabs of salted pork, bags of beans and rice, freshly cut trees or billets of wood and bales of hay and sacks of grain for the horses.

  Billy had provided him with a long, nut-colored hunting shirt, a dark brown woolen coat with a high collar, and two pairs of wool stockings. Will wore the hunting shirt over his own linen one, with Elisabeth’s blue scarf tied around his neck under the coat, and his mother’s red one covering his ears against the bitter cold. With Big Red and the mare pulling the sled, he outpaced the slower teams of oxen used by the local teamsters. He usually arrived at a camp ahead of the others. After unloading the sled and seeing to his team, he was free to walk around, observe the gun crews practicing and listen to the soldiers’ talk.

  One day, in the early afternoon following his delivery of powder for the artillery emplacements in front of Roxbury, he lingered outside the tall powder tower. It was surrounded by low hills and was placed well back from the cannons. Several men from one of Knox’s companies were inside the cold, circular stone building, carefully measuring the precious black powder with a brass scale before pouring it into rectangular canvas bags.

  “If you are going to stay and watch,” one man said, as Will peered inside, “do not make any sudden moves to alarm us.” His linen overalls were smudged grey from the powder.

  “I would not do that, sir.” “Better not,” another said. “Or we may drop the scale, it will strike a spark on a stone and we will all be blown to kingdom come.”

  Will noticed there was a thick canvas cloth under the wooden table where the scale was, for just such an eventuality. He realized the men were making fun of him.

  “Why do you put the powder in the bags?” he asked one of the men sitting on a bench, sewing the canvas shut with a large curved steel needle.

  “So we can charge a cannon with powder and fire quickly,” he replied. “Surely you do not think we have the time to pour the powder down the barrel in the heat of battle? Do you?” He laughed at the thought and looked to his companions for approval of his comment.

  “Now, Walcott, not everyone can be as smart as you first time out,” said the one who was working the scale. “The lad is only curious and that is a good thing in a person.” He looked up quickly from his work and nodded at Will. “The amount of powder we put in determines how far the ball will carry. These are light loads for dry firing later today. The Lieutenant said we are to have gun exercises this afternoon. Then it will be the Redcoats’ turn to be on the receiving end of our shot.”

  “That will happen pretty soon,” Walcott added. “The Colonel is as eager to begin bombarding Boston as a terrier is to catch a wharf rat.”

  “The trouble is,” the man at scale replied, “the Redcoats, unlike wharf rats, may not wait to be caught. They can row across to the lowlands as they did earlier this month, and come after us before we are ready.”

  “Well,” the man named Walcott retorted, “we extended the line and built redoubts below Roxbury and on either side of the Upper Neck
for the very event. With the cannons we have, we will give the Regulars a warm reception they do not expect.”

  Will listened to more of their talk, thankful to be out of the biting wind. He delayed his return to Cambridge, even though he had not slept there a single night since accepting the Colonel’s assignment. There was no load for him to transport there anyway. He left the powder tower and drove his sled over the crusty dirty ice to the gun emplacements. He walked freely among the tents of the men of the Massachusetts Artillery and beyond them, down the well-trod, slushy pathways toward the cannons. They were a mix of ugly iron howitzers and mortars, mounted on heavy wooden blocks without wheels, several twelve and twenty four-pounders and the more lithe, mobile three, six and nine pounders, with their large oversized wheels. He thought he recognized some of the guns from the trek, particularly the Coehorn mortars, because they were stubby and ungainly. The only one he was sure of was the Old Sow which he had seen close up. He heard a shouted command behind him and saw the gun crews emerge from their tents and line up. They marched forward, each crew taking their position on both sides of their piece, and waited. Will moved away from the emplacements and walked back to where his horses were tethered.

  “You there,” he heard a voice call to him. “We need to move powder to the cannons. Do you know where the powder tower is?”

  “Yes sir,” Will replied. As he hitched his team to the sled, Will heard the Lieutenant reprimand his Sergeant. The powder was supposed to have been in place before the drill began. Will helped the soldiers load the canvas bags on the sled. He drove the sled down the line of artillery and remained in his seat as the gun crews at each position removed the bags and stacked them in the wooden powder boxes. At the end of the emplacements, he turned the sled back toward the tree line and tethered the horses. Then, on impulse, he untied Big Red and led him to a place about thirty feet behind the nearest cannon. It was one of the Coehorns. The gun commander shouted orders from his position at the left side of the mortar near the touchhole. The mortar was wormed and sponged. The commander reprimanded the sponger for not using enough water. The charge was rammed home, the quill placed in the touchhole, and the gun commander shouted his warning of “Primed.”

  Will moved his hands up the reins and held them close to Big Red’s huge jaw. “Easy, easy,” he said, tightening his grip at the command of “Give Fire.” The flame sputtered down the powder in the quill. At the loud boom, the horse jerked his head up, wrenching Will’s arms, and hurriedly backed up, wide-eyed with fear.

  “Easy, easy. It’s all right,” Will repeated, moving Big Red forward a few steps to where he had been standing. He calmed him down by stroking his neck and offering him a handful of oats from his coat pocket. The horse snuffled the oats, his rough upper lip brushing against Will’s hand.

  Will walked Big Red through the snow to the next emplacement. Another mortar. He kept the same distance and braced himself for the horse to pull back, holding him firmly in place.

  He continued the process, walking down the line to the first cannon. It was the Old Sow. He knew from the firing at Westfield it would be louder than the mortars. He held on tightly to the reins, but to his pleasure, at the shout of “Give Fire,” Big Red reacted no differently than he had at the firing of the two mortars, only jerking his head up and backing up a few paces.

  By the time the two of them had reached the end of the line, Big Red responded to the lighter booms of the six and nine pounders by standing tensely in place, lifting his head up before lowering it for his reward of oats. Will’s hand was raw from the horse’s saliva freezing on his skin. Satisfied with Big Red’s performance, he determined to take him to at least one firing of artillery and muskets a day if he could, moving closer each time. He intended to train the horse to stand still behind a cannon when it was fired. He would also remember to wrap a rag around his hand before offering the treats.

  It was dark when Will arrived at the Mariners’ barracks in Cambridge. 1 He watered and fed the horses, rubbed them both down and left them content together in one stall. He scraped his boots at the entrance to his barracks building and pushed open the door to the room where Nat had said he could stay. By the candlelight he saw three men, two of whom appeared to have just come off sentry duty. One was taking off his short navy blue wool jacket, the other had removed his hat and was retying his queue with a scarlet ribbon that matched the color of the facing on his jacket. The third was sitting on his cot in a long shirt, bare legged, sewing a seam in his canvas pants. He was black. Will examined him in the candlelight. He had never been this close to a Negro before. The man had small ears beneath tightly curled hair and a broad nose between high cheekbones. His legs were thick and muscular and, Will noticed, without much hair. At first, Will assumed he was the servant to the other men. He thought otherwise as soon as the man spoke.

  “And who be you?” the black man said, pointing at Will with his long needle. Will noticed the heavily muscled forearms and broad shoulders, typical of the other Mariners. He was confused.

  “I am Will Stoner, a friend of Lieutenant Holmes,” he stammered. “He said I could stay in the barracks and showed me this room.” He glanced around at the empty beds. “Nat, I mean Lieutenant Holmes, said some of the men are away and there are cots available.”

  “Well, if the Lieutenant approves of you, who are we to gainsay nay,” the black man replied. He looked at the other two. “Right, what say you.” Will thought he saw the black man wink at them.

  “I am not certain,” the taller of the two said, laying his jacket on the bed and scratching his armpit. “That would mean four of us in the room together. There are ten beds but it was nicer with just the three of us.”

  “It will be acceptable to me if Will adheres to the barracks rules, like the rest of us have to do,” the other replied.

  “Oh, I will definitely do so,” Will replied too eagerly. “Tell me what they are and I will comply.”

  “Well,” the tall man said, “first, no women in the barracks.” He paused, pulling off one of his boots to reveal a big toe sticking through a hole in his right stocking, then added “after the shift change at two a.m.”

  “The men coming in off duty need their sleep,” the black man added by way of explanation.

  “Next,” the tall man continued, “no rum, brandy or hard liquor allowed ever, unless it is shared with all. Next, no chamber pots under the beds- - - you go outside for that and use the latrine at all times; and finally, one bath a week is required, no matter how cold the weather or water.”

  “Or whether you need it or not,” the black man added, drawing his needle through the canvas and examining the seam, without looking at Will.

  “I am willing to abide by the barracks’ rules,” Will replied with a tremor of anger in his voice, “but have the courtesy to tell me the true rules and not mock me.” He looked from one to the other. They broke into smiles, having had their good-natured fun with a newcomer.

  The black man stood up. In his bare feet he was shorter than Will but, like Nat, very solid and brawny. “The rules about the chamber pots, latrine and bathing are the true ones. We do not allow drinking or wenching in the barracks at any time. We are, after all, God-fearing seamen.” He put out his hand. “My name is Adam Cooper.” The tall man introduced himself as Solomon Vining. His unusually long arms and large big-knuckled hands belonged more to a farmer than a fisherman. The other, Jeremiah Fisk, had deep-set sad eyes capped by thick bushy eyebrows, which gave him a melancholy look. His crooked smile revealed two pointed upper teeth closely grown together on the right side, which pushed his lip outward, seemingly in a snarl. Will shook hands with each one, feeling their thick callused palms.

  “You should not have misled the lad as to barracks rules, Solomon. There is enough whoring and drunkenness among the militias in their camps,” Jeremiah said. “And with your joking, you forgot the rule that all able-bodied men must attend Sunday sermon before the drill.”

  “You can have any of
those three beds,” Solomon said, ignoring Jeremiah’s comments and gesturing to the cots without any sea chests beneath them. “Best to choose toward the center to be away from the end walls. It is colder there.”

  “We lack much opportunity to spend time with strangers,” Jeremiah said after Will had picked out a cot, taken off his coat and haversack and hung his two scarves on a peg over the bed. “Since we are sharing our barracks room with you, we need to know who you are, where you come from and how you know the Lieutenant.” Adam and Solomon nodded in agreement. Adam stopped his sewing and all three stared at him, waiting for him to begin.

  Will was apprehensive at first, stuttering nervously through a few details about his father’s farm in Schoharie. But he warmed to the story, starting with the loading of the cannons at Fort Ticonderoga. He told them of the crossing of the frozen Hudson at Albany, almost losing the thread of his tale, thinking of his arm around Elisabeth and the smell of her hair brushing against his face. He described the Massachusetts teamsters’ refusal to proceed and Colonel Knox’s speech, surprising himself at how much he remembered of the Colonel’s words, although he might have had some of it in different order. He detailed the bitter cold and the harsh, slow struggle through the Berkshires until they reached the Westfield River Valley. “After that, we slogged through the mud to Cambridge,” he said, omitting the departure of the teamsters from New York, the freezing cold nights and his ever present daily hunger.

  Emboldened by their pleased reaction to his recounting the trek, and their favorable comments about the way he described Nat, who they obviously held in high regard, Will questioned them about the Marblehead Mariners. It was only fair, he said, that they tell him about themselves as well. It was Adam’s story he wanted to hear. He had never been in the company of a black man before. Solomon went first followed by Jeremiah. Both men came from fishing families. Their fathers, and their grandfathers before them, had taken to the seas, catching cod, halibut and mackerel, selling them to fishmongers in Boston, or to merchants to be dried, salted and packed in barrels for “the Popish Catholics and their hocus-pocus meatless Lent practices,” as Jeremiah put it, using his shirt sleeve to wipe away the saliva that escaped where his defective teeth pushed his lip out.