“The sailors are getting the last chance at cheap Boston rum and Yankee whores before they leave for sea,” another remarked.
“Neither will do them any good on judgment day,” Merriam said. “The sins they commit in Boston will follow them to the end of their lives.”
The men fell silent. Even the ones who usually had a bawdy comment or lyric were quiet. Merriam got up and walked to the overlook. Will followed him.
“You wife is down there?” he asked, knowing the answer.
Merriam nodded. His thin lips formed a tight line between his jowls. “And my two little girls. They are staying with my wife’s older brother and his family. My brother-in-law,” he said with some contempt, “is neither a patriot nor a Tory. He is the type of man who tries to thread the path through the thorn bushes without getting pricked.” He laughed sadly. “The perfect man then to protect my wife and precious little ones during the perilous siege.” Merriam gestured toward the men silhouetted behind them at the fires. “The men in our Regiment. Most are from Boston. Some have sent their families away. Many, like me, have not. Only the good Lord knows what we will find when the British leave.”
“Lieutenant Hadley says they are waiting for a favorable wind.”
“He is right about that. May God grant the British a favorable wind soon to leave us and our loved ones alone.”
On Friday, March 15th, Will, with nothing to do but wait along with the other soldiers in the Regiment, left Nook’s Hill and rode Big Red to Dorchester Point. The wind was in his face, still blowing strong off the ocean from the southeast. The sky was grey toward the south and lighter blue with wispy strands of clouds over land to the west. Below him, the narrow inlet between the point and Castle Island was filled with the motley fleet of transports, wallowing low in the water with their human cargo of fleeing Loyalists and their possessions. May the wind and waves make them miserable and seasick, he thought with malice.
On the ride back across the Heights and past the American lines, he tried to compose a new letter to Elisabeth. The words did not come to him, nor any thoughts worth conveying. He couldn’t very well tell her about waiting the past seven days for the British to leave. Soon, he said to himself, he would be in Boston. Somehow, he would find Johan. He knew the wharves and warehouses from talking to Sergeant Merriam. He would start there. Johan would know what they should do, maybe even help Will find work with a Boston merchant. Anything but returning to their father’s farm. He was despondent, unable to occupy his mind with a letter to Elisabeth and further depressed by the thought of life on the farm.
Back at camp, rumors were flying from mouth to mouth. General Howe had issued orders to depart. “It is nothing but camp gossip,” Merriam told him sourly. “Look down below. There are no troops boarding. The wind is still from the southeast. Even you, a lad from a New York farm, can tell that,” he said, clapping Will on his shoulder. “It is merely wishful thinking by men tired of waiting,” he sighed, shaking his head.
At midday Saturday the weather was almost balmy, with no wind and the sun pleasant and warming. Will was sitting on the ground outside Lieutenant Hadley’s tent, idly thinking of nothing, when he saw a familiar figure in white canvas breeches and a short blue jacket striding up to Nook’s Hill. He jumped up and ran down the trail, meeting Nat halfway. They walked briskly up the path together, Nat’s smile, and his obvious pleasure at seeing him, washing away Will’s dark mood.
“Anna is in Watertown, working for Mrs. Edes again. And I have brought the latest broadsides and a special issue to celebrate the Redcoats’ departure.”
Lieutenant Hadley emerged from his tent and Will eagerly introduced him to Nat.
“Will seems to collect Lieutenants and Colonels,” Hadley said, laughing.
“I was an Ensign when we first met on the trail,” Nat pointed out.
“Then maybe a promotion is imminent for me, although I have done nothing to deserve it,” Hadley replied.
They walked to the parapet. “Are the Mariners still at Cambridge?” Hadley asked.
“We are down the Charles at the water’s edge. We have orders to ferry General Putnam’s troops across the inner harbor on a moment’s notice. Colonel Glover expects us to do so on the morrow.”
“How can you be so certain?” Will asked. “All we receive here are rumors.”
“The British sentries have become lax. More of the good citizens of Boston, and a few deserters are slipping through to our lines. General Howe indeed has issued the orders to depart. Much of their troops’ gear is stowed. Anything deemed of use to us has been destroyed or confiscated. Here, it is all as reported in the Boston Gazette as of this morning.” He reached into his leather pouch and produced several copies. Hadley smiled and waved the papers in the air.
“Note, gentlemen, the wind is no longer from the southeast,” he shouted boisterously. “Let us celebrate this event by returning to my tent. We do not want any of these precious broadsheets to fly away.”
Will ran off to bargain for some coffee, using one of the broadsides as currency, while Nat and Hadley remained in the tent. When he returned with a hot pot, his two friends were seated, Hadley on his cot, Nat on the camp stool. Hadley poured a finger of rum into their mugs of weak coffee.
“Here, Will,” Nat said, handing him the broadside. “I am familiar with it. I am doubly blessed with the good fortune to have a wife who loves me dearly and who works in a printer’s household.”
“To your good fortune,” Lieutenant Hadley replied, “in have a loving wife.” He raised his mug of steaming coffee and rum. “To a long, healthy and happy life together. The printer’s household is merely a dollop of thick cream on the delicious pie.”
“And to our friendship,” Nat added, touching mugs with Hadley and Will.
Will scanned the familiar masthead and the heading “Containing the Freshest Advices Foreign and Domestic.” Eagerly, he read about General Howe’s order to collect all linen and woolen goods from the inhabitants to deprive the provincials of their benefit. According to eyewitness accounts, the order was effectuated by a Tory named Crean Brush, together with other Loyalists and Redcoats. They had plundered and pillaged at will, and committed other evil deeds unspeakable in nature as they terrorized the good and peaceful citizens of the town. The article concluded that the inhabitants of Boston yearned for the imminent relief from a set of men whose unparalleled wickedness, profanity, debauchery and cruelty was unimaginable. Will was not certain whether this referred to General Howe and the Regulars, or just to Crean Brush and his minions. 3
“Here, Sam, is the dollop of cream you refer to,” Nat said, giving Hadley several sheets. “They are two favorite songs, composed for the British evacuation of the town.”
Hadley grabbed them from Nat, read them quickly, nodding approvingly of the lyrics. “You must teach me the tunes. We will circulate them among the men and be ready to sing when we march into Boston.”
Will left them in the tent, the sound of the Hadley’s fine baritone and Nat’s higher but sweeter tenor attracting some of the gun crews. He walked away from the Hill, down the path to the site where they had endured the ferocious bombardment. He tried to sort out his feelings. He was eager to enter Boston but was apprehensive of what loomed before him after he crossed that threshold. He was hopeful Johan would have a plan to rescue him from what he saw as a life of boredom and drudgery. This great adventure was coming to an end. The uncertainty frightened him.
Without thinking, he found himself walking toward Dorchester Heights. When he reached the place where the horses were tethered for the night and made a clicking sound, Big Red raised his massive head in recognition. He brushed the horse’s neck with his hands, feeling the muscles beneath and taking comfort in his company. The acrid smell of the urine of many horses confined to the small thicket filled his nostrils. He chuckled to himself, knowing he was pleased by the familiar odor.
“We will do all right,” he said, reaching in his pocket for a crust of bread.
“Somehow, this will be for the better.” He scratched Big Red’s jaw. The horse stretched out his neck in pleasure.
Will awoke in the dark, sat up and listened. Sergeant Merriam and the other four men were still asleep. One was snoring loudly. Below the Hill came the rhythmic sound of a drumbeat and the notes of a fife. Will hurriedly pulled on his boots, threw his coat over his shoulders, slipped out of the tent and ran to the parapet. He glanced at the clear sky and guessed it was less than two hours before dawn. Several of the wharves were marked with torches, as were the troop transports tied up alongside. A line of troops, led first by a torchbearer, followed by the unit’s drummer and a soldier playing the fife, emerged from the dark streets on to the pier. Sergeant Merriam and many of the gun crews came out of their tents and grouped around the parapets. Silently, they watched the torches first become visible on the parade grounds outside the barracks, disappear behind buildings and reappear on the broad streets leading to the wharves.
“They are really leaving,” someone whispered, as if saying it out loud would break a spell, end the dream and instantaneously dissolve the scene below. By early dawn, with the sky pink and glowing and sea gulls soaring overhead, the transports lay anchored in the harbor, waiting for the remaining troops to board.
“There must be ten thousand of them,” Merriam said.
Hadley put one foot on the stone parapet and sipped from his mug of coffee. “There would have been many fewer leaving if they had stormed the Heights. Their army is intact, Sergeant and we will have to fight them elsewhere.”
The last of the transports untied from the wharves and moved out into the harbor under light sail. Will estimated it was near nine o’clock. Escorted by several armed sloops and schooners, the transports sailed a northerly course out of the range of the American guns before turning south toward Castle Island.
Cheers erupted among the gunners on Nook’s Hill. Men waved their tri-corns, laughed and shouted. Will looked back toward the Heights where the troops lined the edge, firing muskets into the air, waving and cheering. Men were dancing with each other. Clapping their hands above their heads, they pirouetted about, silly with joy. And then the crews on Nook’s Hill, having learned the lyrics Nat had brought yesterday, broke into song.
“Some say they sailed for Halifax,
And others for New York,
Howe let none know where he was bound When the soldiers did embark.
Where they are bound there’s none can tell, But the Great God on High
May all our heads be covered well,
When cannon balls do fly.” 4
They repeated the last verse, and as their lusty voices died down, there was the sound of a tremendous cannonade coming from beyond Dorchester Point. They stopped singing and listened.
Lieutenant Hadley counted on his fingers. He held up both hands twice and then one finger. There was silence and the cannonade resumed. Another twenty one shots, followed by a brief silence and again the roar of the cannons.
“General Howe must have arrived on his flagship and the fleet is saluting him,” Hadley said by way of explanation. “That, gentlemen, is not the sound of a defeated enemy,” he added somberly.
“We must thank God for their departure and ask for His protection in what is to come,” Merriam said. “After all, today is the Sabbath.” Amidst some grumbling, the gun crews stood bareheaded on Nook’s Hill as the Sergeant opened his Bible. The light wind blew his thinning hair around his high forehead. Will, holding his battered slouch hat in his hands, thought the Sergeant looked like a benevolent prophet as he read the Psalm aloud.
Merriam glanced around at the familiar faces. He spoke briefly about the hardships the men had endured in the siege of Boston and the even greater sufferings of the people of the town during the British occupation. “Let us pray the Lord soon reunites us with our families and we discover them safe and in good health.” The men voiced a heartfelt Amen.
And let me soon be together with my brother Johan, Will muttered under his breath.
Chapter 12 - The Search for Johan
“Your brother may very well not be in the town,” Merriam said.
He was in a jovial mood. On Monday, the day after the British evacuation, his nephew had come from Boston to Cambridge, a long trip for a nine-year-old boy, to bring him the news that Merriam’s wife and two daughters were unharmed and well and eagerly awaiting his arrival. The roads from the neighboring counties were crowded with women and children returning from their safe havens in nearby towns. Now that the hated British sentries in their guard posts ringing the city were gone, the citizens of Boston clogged the roads in the other direction, seeking out the families they had sent away. Throughout the surrounding countryside there were scenes of rejoicing and happy reunions everywhere, complicating the movement of troops into the city.
The rumor proved true. Only those troops who had been inoculated were allowed in on that momentous Sunday. General Ward had led several Massachusetts units across The Neck, past the formidable British forts. The Mariners had ferried General Putnam’s troops across the Bay to enter Boston from the opposite side. Colonel Knox’s Regiment had returned to their barracks in Cambridge and enjoyed the company of General Washington at the full Regiment’s Sunday services. 1 They had remained in camp following services and on this bright, clear cold Monday, March 18th, were assembling to follow General Washington and his staff into the city. 2
“Johan may have fled Boston for the comparative safety of the nearby towns and be making his way to Boston as we speak.” Merriam winced as the wagon hit a rut in the road. They had passed through Roxbury and were heading directly toward The Neck. It had been the Colonel’s idea to save his men the march by ferrying them from Cambridge to the Neck by wagon. Each wagon carried the gun crews and pulled a nine or twelve-pounder.
Will flicked the reins over Big Red and the mare and shook his head in bewilderment. “He does not even know I am here. I must start with the merchants’ warehouses. That is the only point of certainty,” he said.
Will brought the wagon to a halt on the Roxbury side of the Boston Neck road. He unhitched Big Red and waited as the gun crew pulled the brass twelve- pounder into position behind the horse. When all the cannons were in place, the men of the Massachusetts Artillery formed into ranks.
General Washington was at the front of the column on his white horse followed by his immediate staff. Several drummers and soldiers with regimental flags and banners separated the Commander from Colonel Knox and the Regiment’s officers, who were mounted in columns of two. Behind them the gun crews marched four abreast. They had spent yesterday sprucing up their blue and buff uniforms and polishing their bayonets and brass buttons. Many wore their tri-corns adorned with sprigs of pine, spruce or, for those lucky to have been reunited with their wives, woven decorations of ribbons.
Will had done his best to clean his worn brown coat but was conscious of how shabby he looked. He also regretted not having a saddle for Big Red but there was nothing to be done about that. At least the brass twelve-pounder shone and he had brushed Big Red until his coat glistened.
Will heard a roar and cheers as General Washington’s horse rode onto the previously impregnable Neck. People, informed of the General’s entry into the city by flyers printed that morning, lined the narrow causeway. The crowds were thicker near the two forts and fortified gate. Many shouted out the names of the soldiers marching by, recognizing their neighbors and relatives in the ranks. Perhaps he would not have to search for Johan. Maybe his brother would see him. He swiveled his head from side to side, scanning the faces in the crowd. Most were men. Will noticed the lack of young girls. The only females lining the street were either middle-aged women or children restrained by their mothers. Perhaps, he thought, the residents of Boston had sent their sisters and daughters to live with relatives during the British occupation, as Lieutenant Hadley had done.
Exuberant young boys, uninhibited and unrestrained by their elders, scampered back and for
th from one side to another, running between the horse drawn artillery, touching a cannon as they darted past, as if on a dare.
“Want to buy a “gaad chevo”, a small street urchin called to Will, running to keep up with Big Red. “Only one shilling.” He held up an iron four sided spike. Will smiled and reached down as the boy handed it up for inspection. “I saw the bloody lobster backs throw them on the streets when they left. Swept this one up myself.”
Will turned it over in his hand and felt the point of the three-inch spike. This could cripple a horse and go through a soldier’s boot or shoe. No wonder the Regulars had strewn them on the pavement.
“No, I do not want it” Will said, letting it drop into the boy’s cupped hands.
“A half a shilling, sir,” the boy responded quickly, holding it up again. “Tis a genuine crow’s foot, it is.” Will shook his head and the boy, seeing he was not going to make a sale, ran back and offered it to the teamster pulling the next cannon.
The triumphal parade proceeded down the broad street toward the center of the city. Here there were more women in the crowds, dressed in dark cloaks over their coats to protect them from the cold. To his left Will could see the green of the Commons with patches of dirty snow and the remnants of the Redcoats’ wooden barracks. The column stopped. There was some commotion up ahead. Will could not determine the cause, and soon they resumed their march, now more slowly, farther into the city. After months of siege, Boston did not resemble the neat, orderly, clean city Nat had described to him. The broken doors of some houses bore the marks of being smashed by axes or battered off their hinges. Cloth hung across window frames that had been shattered. Piles of fabric, chairs without legs, fragments of desks, cabinets, armoires and all like and manner of furniture, torn books and papers, boxes with their lids pried off, and other unidentifiable debris littered the streets and alleys. The roofs of some buildings were holed by cannonballs, especially as they moved closer to the center of town where the British barracks and gun emplacements had been, Our artillery did that, Will thought.
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