“Indulge me for a moment. I must complete this letter to Mr. Hancock, assuring him his home is intact, his possessions accounted for and his library unmolested.” He returned to the desk and took up his quill. “However, General Grant, who used the home as his quarters during the occupation,” the Colonel said, glancing up at Will, “apparently had an inclination to avail himself of the contents of Mr. Hancock’s wine cellar. There is nary a bottle left.” 3
Puzzled, Will watched Knox continue writing in the notebook.
“Sir. Are you sending the entire notebook to Mr. Hancock?”
The Colonel sat up in his chair, studying Will’s face for a sign of impudence. He decided Will was sincere and laughed. “Will. Sometimes you ask the most peculiar questions. This is my letter book. Why would I send all of my correspondence to Mr. Hancock?”
“What is a letter book?”
“Why, a book for both drafting a letter and having a copy of what you have written and sent.” He turned the book around for Will to see. “This is my letter to Mr. Hancock and I have crossed out and amended portions as I have composed it. I will copy the final version in my own hand and send it as my correspondence. Do you not have a letter book?”
Will shook his head. “I compose the letters to Elisabeth in my head. I make the revisions and memorize the letter. When I transcribe it to the paper you and Mrs. Knox have given me, there are no changes to be made.” He shrugged. “I have no copies of course, only what I remember.”
The Colonel stared at him. “You amaze me Will. You truly do.” He glanced over at Billy. “Have you ever heard of such a feat, brother? If I had to rely on my memory to recall the content of my letters I would confuse the ones to Mr. Adams with the ones to Mr. Hancock and vice versa.”
“But not the ones to your beloved wife, and Will is writing only to his lovely acquaintance,” Billy remarked. Will blushed and said nothing.
“Well, Billy. See to this and provide Master Stoner with his own letter book. He will have to write his father soon if I am not mistaken and explain his situation. And he may have other letters to write. He cannot remember all of them.”
The Colonel reread the last line he had written to Mr. Hancock, mouthing the words silently, then wrote another line and put his quill in the inkstand. “In addition to the fine cannons, His Majesty’s forces left behind, they also abandoned several bottles of high quality ink. I was struggling with our ink. It has too much oak gall and too little iron and glycerin in it. Not surprising though, given the shortages we all must endure.”
Will nodded, still trying to digest what the Colonel meant by telling him he would have to write his father.
“Now brother, do we have the final figures of what is owed to Mr. George Stoner for the use of his teams and sleds?”
Billy took a ledger from the shelf, opened it and searched for the appropriate entry. “Since Will arrived in Cambridge, I was able to rent out all six of the horses and both sleds, almost continuously.” He paused to run his finger down another column, nodding to himself. “Subtracting for the cost of feed, we owe Mr. Stoner seven pounds, fourteen shillings and fifteen pence.”
The Colonel clasped his big hands together. “There you have it. A tidy sum that I will forward to your father. How old are you, Will?”
“Sixteen, sir,” Will replied.
Knox sat at the desk, his chin resting on his folded hands. “When I was your age, I was supporting my widowed mother and little brother over here,” he said gesturing toward Billy.
“These are perilous times,” the Colonel continued. “We are at war against a merciless foe who will not refrain from any measure to suppress us. But for the intervention of Providence, you would have been involved in a bloody battle on the Heights. We have shared dangers together, not to mention your service with the Mariners and the misadventure on the wharf with that cowardly riffraff. I count myself a good judge of men. You are no longer a lad incapable of deciding his own course of action. I do not wish to hold you to your father’s bargain. Indeed, I would prefer you enlist as a private in our regiment.”
Will started to interrupt. The Colonel thought he was going to object. He held up his left hand, the white handkerchief on the stumps of his end fingers waving loosely like a small flag.
“Once the cannons we have captured are restored to working order, I have enough artillery for more than one thousand men. The Regiment at present has less than half that number. I have fewer than forty officers. That is the reason I spend my time interviewing officers in my office downstairs, or beating back those who want to join our regiment.” He removed his reading glasses and pinched his eyes with fatigue. “Can you believe it, Will? One candidate gave as his reason for wanting to become an officer in our Regiment that we are the smartestdressed unit in the army.” He shook his head in disbelief and laughed deeply, the loose flesh of his neck shaking from the effort.
“Sir,” Will said. “Your offer is beyond anything I had hoped for. I was rehearsing how to ask for something, some work or assignment to keep me in Boston.” The words came to him now without hesitation, although he had no idea or plan as he spoke. He told the Colonel of how inspired he had been by his speech to the teamsters in the Berkshires. How the Colonel’s words and the examples of sacrifice of Massachusetts men at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill had enabled Will to persevere and pull the heavy cannon through the winter storm. He told of his gratitude for the Colonel’s kindness and that of Mrs. Knox, their obvious concern for him, their efforts to educate him, their gifts of paper, clothing and of course his boots. He even told the Colonel of how he had recited his teamster speech to the Mariners at their mess. When the Colonel raised an eyebrow, Will hastily added he had not attempted to mimic him but had only repeated the words so the Mariners would likewise be inspired.
“Those men are stalwart and true patriots,” Knox said. “They are in no need of any inspiration for our cause from me.”
“I was in need of such inspiration and you provided it,” Will responded. “I will gladly and enthusiastically enlist for however long it takes.”
“Well said, Will,” Knox said. “You see, Billy. I told you we would get the better of the bargain with George Stoner.” He turned to Will. “My brother thought we paid your father too much. Do you still think so, Billy?”
Billy shook his head. “No, brother, I do not. Congratulations and welcome,” Billy said extending his hand.
Will turned back to the Colonel. “If possible, sir, I would like to keep Big Red. He pulled The Albany to the Heights and the twelve pounder to Nook’s Hill and, as you yourself have seen, he stands calmly when the guns are fired. It would be useful to have him in the field.” He looked expectantly at the Colonel.
Knox smiled. “It is true we need trained horses as much as trained men. In addition to your soldierly duties, perhaps,” he winked at his brother, “Will could be assigned to work with the other horses.” He nodded to Billy. “Write out a requisition to Mr. Stoner for Big Red. He will be compensated for his horse when the war is over. The other seven of his horses and the two sleds shall be sent on to Albany and returned to him.” He raised himself from the chair. “And, Billy, see if you can arrange for the horses and sleds to be gainfully used in carrying supplies for the Army to Albany. The additional monies may assuage Mr. Stoner’s disappointment in the changes in our arrangement.”
The Colonel threw his coat over his arm. “Now, Will. I must devote what little remains of this day to Mrs. Knox. She will be pleased to know of your enlistment.” He left, and Will heard the stairs creaking as he went to the third floor.
“Write the letter to your father and bring it to me here, tomorrow morning,” Billy said, walking him to the door. “It is almost the end of the month. Your service will begin the first of April. Please, no more scrapes between now and then,” he called after him as Will exuberantly went down the stairs two at a time.
Once outside, Will walked briskly past people hurrying home in the dark. He was obli
vious to their presence and the way some looked at his bruised face. I will write a letter to my father, he thought. I will tell him of Johan becoming a Tory and my enlistment. Father will only care that Johan is no longer in a position to make money to send to him. He will regret I am no longer at the farm to do his work and bidding, he thought bitterly, but will not have a care for my well-being. My letter will be the last I write to him.
Tomorrow, he promised himself, I will seek out Adam and ask him, despite the cold, to row out in the harbor so I can feel the rhythm of the water he spoke of. Perhaps, he will teach me to catch fish from the ocean.
End Notes
Prologue 1) All of the cannons, gun carriages, shot and flint were first ferried by boats from Fort Ticonderoga to Fort George, a distance of thirty-three miles down Lake George. The loading was completed on December 9, 1775. The scow carrying most of the cannons went down off Sabbath Day Point. Fortunately, its gunnels remained above water. It was William Knox, Colonel Knox’s younger brother, who organized the soldiers and volunteers to bail out the scow and continue on to Fort George. (North Callahan, Henry Knox-General Washington’s General, p. 43).
In Nathaniel Holmes’ mind, the cannons were needed to bombard the British and force them to abandon Boston. In reality, Washington already had artillery in Cambridge. The addition of the 59 guns, including 18 and 24 pounders, howitzers and fortification guns, enabled him to keep his existing batteries in place and construct new ones on Dorchester Heights to menace the British fleet in the harbor.
Chapter 1 - The Ghosts of Bloody Pond
1) The battle of Bloody Pond was the last of three encounters on September 8, 1755. On the morning of the 8th, near Lake George, French forces, consisting mainly of Canadians and their Iroquois allies, ambushed Colonial militias from New England and New York (or provincials, as the British called them) and their Mohawk allies. The Colonials had marched out of their camp near the bottom of Lake George and were heading to reinforce Ft. Edward. The French, firing from behind trees and bushes, crumpled the lead column and drove the Colonials back to their camp. The combat that morning was called “Bloody Morning Scout.”
The French followed the retreating English and attacked the camp, located on raised ground, and hastily reinforced by a barricade of logs and overturned wagons and boats. The Canadians and Iroquois fired from the protection of the woods near the camp as French regulars made a frontal assault. Their ranks were decimated by English cannon, firing grape shot. The French forces retreated, leaving behind their wounded commander Baron Dieskau, who was captured. This engagement, sometimes called the Battle of Lake George, took place about three miles south of what is today the town of Lake George.
The third engagement of the day was the Battle of Bloody Pond. Certain facts are uncontested. Others are disputed. English provincial reinforcements from Ft. Edward marched up the military road toward Lake George. One account states they surprised Canadians and their Indian allies, who had left the ongoing fight before the English camp and had returned to the morning’s battle site to strip and scalp the dead. The English ambushed them and, after killing many of the French forces, threw their bodies into a pond that ran red with their blood for several days. Another version is the English reinforcements surrounded the French encampment after the entire force had retreated from the battle at the camp. As the French forces were washing themselves in a pool, the English opened fire, and many of the French and Canadians fell dead in the water, discoloring the pool with their blood. In either version, the place became known as Bloody Pond.
The end result of the day’s three bloody battles was a stalemate between the French and British forces in northern New York. The French retreated from the field and the British claimed victory. They built a fort near the site of the battle and named it Ft. William Henry. The French built a new fort at Ticonderoga and named it Ft. Carillon. The two forts were approximately forty miles apart. The French used Ft. Carillon to conduct raids of colonial settlements in western New England. It was captured by the British in 1759 and renamed Ft. Ticonderoga.
For further reading about the three battles of September 8th, see Following in the Footsteps of William Johnson and the Mohawks: From Johnstown to Lake George to Kanatsiohareke, by Jerry L. Patterson, a colloquially written discovery tour of the battlefields. Chapter 13 of History of Saratoga County, New York, by Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester gives a straightforward account of the battles, with reputed quotes by the Mohawk Chief, King Hendrick, who was killed in the morning’s ambush. The entries from The Lake George Mirror about Bloody Pond, available on the Lake George Historical Society website, www. lakegeorgehistorical.org/bloodypond, are interesting, with a local flavor of pride in the Pond’s location and righteous indignation at tourists who whiz by the historical marker in their cars.
One author, describing the colonial militias at Lake George in 1755, characterizes them as farmers who had volunteered for a summer campaign and brought their own muskets. In place of bayonets, not a common farming implement, they carried hatchets attached to their belts and slung powder horns over their shoulders. When there was leisure time, these “rustics” carved “quaint devices with the points of their jack-knives” in their powder horns. The Great Republic by the Master Historians-Sir William Johnson: The French and Indian War, Volume I, edited by Hubert H. Bancroft.
2) The French and Indian War was part of the worldwide conflict between the British and French known as the Seven Years War. Basically, it pitted the British and their German Hanover allies (plus Prussia and the German State of Hesse–Kassel whence the Hessian mercenaries later came to North America during the American Revolution) against the French, Spanish, the Russian Empire, Sweden and Austria. An estimated 900,000 to 1.4 million people died in the war. It raged throughout Europe and the colonial empires of the warring parties, in India, West Africa and the Philippines. Naval battles were fought in the Caribbean and Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Winston Churchill called it “the first world war.” The part of it fought in North America, from the frontier areas of the British colonies and west of the Alleghenies in the Ohio River Valley to the Plains of Abraham outside the walls of Quebec, was only one arena in the vast theater of operations of this global conflict.
The war’s impact on the American colonialists was crucial in three major respects. First, it provided military experience for many of the principals and participants in the American Revolution. Second, because they fought against Catholic France, it reinforced the colonialists’ Protestant beliefs in a non-hierarchical church, an antipathy to an official State Church, and a nasty streak of anti-Catholicism. And third, it strengthened the colonialists’ concept of themselves as free Englishmen entitled to certain rights, including the right of representative government. One historian characterized the French and Indian War as “the war that made America.” (Fred Anderson, The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War).
Many of the prominent officers of the American forces during the Revolution gained their experience either leading colonial or provincial troops or serving with the British during the French and Indian War. First and foremost, of course, was George Washington. He was Colonel of the Virginia provincial regiment, appointed by British Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, charged with building a fort at the Forks of the Ohio. On July 3, 1754, he suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of French Regulars, Canadian militia and their Indian allies at Ft. Necessity. The battlefield is located 11 miles east of Uniontown, Pennsylvania on U.S. 40. Hopelessly outnumbered, surrounded, and trapped in a poorly chosen position in an open meadow, Washington by the end of the day accepted a French offer to capitulate. The terms allowed Washington and the remains of his regiment to keep their arms and personal property and to leave the Ohio River Valley and not return for a year.
Slightly more than a year later, on July 9, 1755, Washington, a member of General Edward Braddock’s staff with a rank of Captain, was present at a major British defeat, this one costing the B
ritish Commander his life. At the Battle of Monogahela, about seven miles south of Pittsburgh, now the town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, almost two thirds of Braddock’s 1,500-man army were killed or wounded. General Braddock was hastily buried in an unmarked grave along what is now U.S. 40, as the remnants of his army retreated to Ft. Cumberland in Maryland.
Among the surviving officers, Captains Horatio Gates, Charles Lee and William Mercer all became Major Generals in the American Continental Army. In addition to other prominent officers on both sides in the American Revolution, many of the ordinary soldiers gained their combat experience in the French and Indian War. One historian estimates a minimum of 28 to 33 members of the Lexington militia in 1775 had seen active service in the French and Indian War. (David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, Appendix O, p. 320).
New England preachers were proud of their Protestantism. They treated the British victories over the Catholic French, particularly the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe and the defeat of the French General, Montcalm, as proof of the superiority of their religion to be “practiced [throughout North America]. . in far greater purity and perfection, than since the times of the apostles.” The Colonialists celebrated British victories with sermons, songs, church bells and even commemorative shoe buckles. (Anderson, The War That Made America, pp. 207-209).
3) General Thomas Gage, who was Chief of His Majesty’s forces in North America from 1763 until 1775, had served with General Braddock at the Battle of Monogahela. He enforced the Coercive Acts of 1774, which allowed Gage to ban town hall meetings held without his permission. He also attempted to limit the Congregational Churches while promoting the Anglican ones. His attacks on their churches raised the Colonists suspicions as to his motives. Gage’s family in fact had been Catholic and supported the Catholic side in British dynastic disputes until the early 1700s. General Gage’s grandfather only converted to the Protestant Church of England in 1715.
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