Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence

by Robert Conroy

  Sarah grinned at him. “First, sir, I would never deny you your pleasures, but the people in the street below are getting a marvelous view of your distinguished presence, which might just terrify those who’ve never seen such a treasure. Second, I have indeed seen a naked man or two in my life, and, while you are truly magnificent, please note that I am not struck dumb or otherwise shocked.”

  Franklin laughed and reluctantly wrapped a robe around him without admitting that he was indeed cold. Sarah Benton had been his secretary for only a few days, and had quickly become his confidante. The fact that she was more than lovely further brightened his days and was making life in the frontier quite tolerable. She was a delectable exception to the general rule that women in the Fort Washington-Liberty area were plain at best. Just as important, she smelled clean.

  “You’ve seen a naked man? I’m shocked,” he said wickedly. “I was under the impression that you’d never been married, at least not by clergy.”

  “Since when are a marriage ceremony and a clergyman required for love and marriage? There are places in this vast land where the presence of clergy is nonexistent; therefore, young lovers do what young lovers must and consider themselves married in the eyes of man and God. And that is what my poor dead husband Tom and I did.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He went off and got himself killed at Brandywine. A friend told me he was hit by a cannonball and died instantly. Part of me says that’s a polite fiction, but I am thankful for the information. So many families heard nothing after their men went off to war. They spend their time waiting. Many will never find out whether their missing husband or son is dead or alive.”

  “I am saddened for you. Still, there is a place where people love freely and where there is no clergy? How absolutely wonderful; I think I shall go and live there when I grow older.”

  Sarah’s responsibilities to Franklin were simple. She saw to it that he ate properly, dressed, and prepared himself to represent his beloved Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress that met in a large crude hall less than a hundred yards away.

  “And what will Congress do today?” she asked.

  Franklin snorted derisively. “Dither. You’ve seen them at what they call work. Instead, they dither.”

  Sarah had indeed seen Congress at what they called work. At first, she’d been fascinated to see men like John Hancock and others try to make a nation. Then she’d realized they had no idea what to do. With the British gathering themselves to come at them, talk of nation building seemed like an exercise in irrelevancy.

  “We must make a constitution for this poor nation,” Franklin said. “If we do that, then we are proclaiming to the world that we are a proper nation with a true entity. Right now, we are nothing more than a bunch of defeated revolutionaries who are on the verge of extinction.”

  “A constitution will change all that? Wasn’t the Declaration of Independence enough?”

  “No, not at all. The Declaration was magnificent, even though I didn’t write it, but it was only a beginning. But a constitution will show that we have a purpose and laws along with a set of ideals. Thus, even if we should fail, history will recognize that we were far more than a pack of brigands who deserved to be destroyed by England. No, Sarah, even in our deaths we would then say to the world that men deserve to be free.”

  “And what about women?” Sarah asked.

  Franklin winked, “Only the pretty ones.”

  * * *

  Winifred Haskill jumped as she heard a sound from outside the cabin. Winifred was always jumping because she was always scared. She was thirteen and hated the fact that her parents had dragged her and the others in their deeply religious community out into a forest filled with wild creatures just so they could be nearer to a God who didn’t seem to like them at all.

  Why did she feel that God didn’t like them? Was it because they lived in self-inflicted poverty in a land of wealth? Or was it because their neighbors in Philadelphia had mocked and laughed at them because of their extreme faith which required continuous bible reading, fasting, and hymn singing at all hours of the night and day—practices which had greatly annoyed their neighbors? Perhaps it was everything, she reluctantly concluded. Finally, even the tolerant Quakers had asked them to leave Philadelphia if they would not keep silent.

  But why did her father have to locate them in the middle of a dense forest hundreds of miles away from home and who knew how far from other people?

  Of course she was scared. The surrounding forest was filled with wild animals, and even wilder red savages who wanted to do unspeakable things to her, things she’d only heard about and didn’t quite understand. Winifred did not try to fool herself. She was just thirteen and skinny as a twig and had stringy brown hair and a bad complexion. But, still, she was a female and was afraid.

  In the year they’d been in the forest, they’d at least managed to build cabins and a barn as well as clearing out a field for planting. The cabin was made of rough logs chinked with mud, and did a miserable job of keeping out the weather. Wind, rain, heat, and cold air all took their turns entering through the cracks they didn’t quite know how to fill properly. Even the shack they’d called home back in Philadelphia had been a better place.

  And now they had to become farmers in order to survive since hunting could never provide enough food. It was backbreaking work, especially clearing out the stumps of chopped down trees, but she’d gotten used to that. Her mother often said it was God’s Will that they work so hard and were all so thin. Winifred thought they were thin because there still wasn’t much food and that God had very little to do with it. She kept those thoughts to herself lest she be whipped for them as she had in the past for being impertinent.

  She heard a sound and jumped fearfully. She jumped again when she heard the sound of yelling. What was happening? Nobody yelled in their community except her father when he was angry. Muskets were fired and there was screaming. Then Winifred began to scream. And scream.

  * * *

  Burned Man Braxton’s following had shrunk from a high of eighty to around thirty. A half dozen had been killed in raids, and another handful wounded, but they were not the main cause for the shrinkage of his band. A number had departed in disgust and shame at what they were being called on to do.

  “I came to fight,” said one as he led ten of his companions away from the camp, “not slaughter helpless women and children.”

  Braxton wanted to kill the man, but it would have started a brawl that, while he could win, would mean the deaths of some of those men devoted to him. The hell with what he considered deserters. However reduced, he had a company that was loyal to him and thought nothing of performing the most depraved acts to punish the rebel scum who deserved everything they got. He was more than pleased that Harris and Fenton, two of his deputies from Pendleton, had elected to stay with him. They’d always liked the way he operated.

  The defections meant that pretending to be Indians was over with. That little secret was out. Tarleton professed not to care. Just keep killing, he’d instructed them.

  Braxton and his men were about fifty miles south and west of Detroit, which, according to Tarleton, meant they were in rebel country. They should, therefore, assume the worst about anyone they met. That pleased Braxton. Anybody they met was going to get their worst.

  Harris had been scouting and had reported finding a small settlement a couple of miles to their front. Three houses, a couple of barns, and a stable all indicated an extended group of probably a dozen people. He guessed that at least half would be male and able to fight. He also assumed that they were used to life in the wild and would be as ready as they could be for an attack. Well, Braxton thought, he would be even readier.

  Braxton always chose midday for his attacks. At first that surprised his men, but then they understood his logic. Dawn was the traditional time for a surprise assault, which meant dawn was the time when people in hostile territory were watching most intently for danger
. By midday, they should feel relatively secure and be going about their chores comforted by the fact that they could at least see clearly, which sometimes led to overconfidence.

  Dead of night was out too. Braxton had learned from hard experience how difficult it was to coordinate a group of men and move them silently in the dark. At one settlement they’d made so much noise finding each other that the settlers had been prepared. It hadn’t done the settlers much good, although they’d killed two of Braxton’s men and wounded a third before they’d been overwhelmed. So much for his men being skilled woodsmen and able to move silently as a cat as some of them had bragged. Braxton couldn’t either, but at least he understood his limitations.

  Harris returned again and reported that the settlers had one man out in a field and a second man in the woods, probably hunting for squirrels and rabbits. Both were armed. The man in the field was out of sight of the main buildings.

  Braxton smiled. With one man hunting, a distant musket shot would not alarm the rebel settlers.

  Harris and three men were sent to deal with the farmer in the field, while Fenton and another three stalked the hunter. Fenton reported back within a couple of minutes. The hunter had been so engrossed in stalking a rabbit that they’d crept up behind him and stunned him with a thrown tomahawk and then Fenton hacked him to death with it.

  Half an hour later, Harris and his men returned. A fresh and bloody scalp hung from Harris’ belt. “At first we couldn’t get close to him, but then he laid down his rifle and went and squatted in a hollow to take a shit,” Harris laughed. “We rushed him so fast he never had a chance to even pull up his pants.”

  Even Braxton found that amusing. He had his men fan out in an arc and move towards the settlement. There was a point in the woods where they could get to about a hundred yards from a barn and one of the buildings. When they were settled and still in the shade of the trees, he paused and looked. Nothing. A child was playing in some dirt and a woman was hanging wash.

  Braxton pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew one short burst. Immediately, his men began running towards the houses. They made very little sound and nobody had noticed the whistle which they might have taken for a bird call. Nobody saw them until they were halfway there, and they were in the compound before anybody could respond. The woman hanging wash went down from a rifle butt, and the child gained her voice and ran screaming.

  Men and women tumbled from the houses and were cut down by Braxton’s men. Perfect, he thought. He signaled and others of his band entered the barns and the houses. A couple of shots were fired, followed by screams and very soon all was silence.

  “Bring me the survivors,” Braxton ordered. Two men, four women, and a pair of small children were all that remained. His men knew what to do. The woman who’d been hit with the musket butt looked stunned and there was blood on her head. The men and the children were taken to a barn where they would be bound and gagged and then have their throats cut without the women knowing it.

  He glared at the women. One he noticed was rather young, fourteen at the most. More likely twelve, he thought.

  “You want to ever see your menfolk again? Then you do as you’re told, you hear?”

  One of the women, the oldest at maybe forty, nodded. “Why are you doing this to us?”

  “Because you’re rebels, that’s why.”

  “Not true,” she said. “We ain’t nobody’s people. We just want to worship our God in peace. That’s why we came here. We don’t want no part of no war. We are peaceable people of God.”

  “No peace here, woman,” Braxton said, “and no God either. Now you’re gonna do as you’re told if you want your men to be alive when we leave here. Strip.”

  The women gasped and stared at each other. Braxton snarled. “Either you do it or my men will rip them rags off you right now.”

  “Obey him,” the older woman said and made to comply. Within a few moments, the four were naked, including the injured one who had to be helped out of her clothing. The younger one was sobbing and trying to cover herself with her hands. She had small, bud-like breasts and just a wisp of hair between her thighs. Braxton thought she was maybe twelve, and not fourteen as he’d first guessed. It excited him. He liked them young.

  Braxton took the young one by her wrist and dragged her into the house and into a bedroom. He heard his men starting to have their way with the older women who began to howl in terror and pain.

  He threw the girl on the bed and she punched at him, hitting his still raw face. The sudden pain was intense and nearly stopped him, but he overcame it and struck her hard until she whimpered and lay still. She screamed the first time he took her, but not the second or third. She didn’t scream again until he turned her over to his men. Not all of them took her. A few complained that she was too skinny or still a kid. He thought she was likely dead when she and the other women were piled on top of the bodies of the men and children in the barn, which was then burned. He didn’t care.

  As they took off with their plunder, Braxton was satisfied. He’d wiped out another nest of rebels at a cost of two men slightly wounded. He hoped Tarleton would be pleased. Tarleton frightened him.

  * * *

  Will and Sarah walked arm in arm through the muddy streets of Fort Washington. There was a chill in the air, and a light snow had fallen early that morning. Nothing had stuck, but it was an unsubtle reminder that winter was almost upon them. Sarah wondered if would be appropriate or just too shocking to wear men’s trousers when the weather worsened. She had arrived with little in the way of feminine clothes and there wasn’t much available in a town that was basically a military post. She would have to ask Abigail Adams. Franklin, she was certain, wouldn’t care at all. She knew he would smile like a cherub and say she could work naked if she so liked.

  “What are you going to do now,” Sarah asked Will. She knew from his already familiar actions, that something was up.

  “I guess you can keep a secret,” he said with a grin. “Not that there’s any British around you’d blab to, but I’m going east. We’re going to keep people on watch at Detroit and Pitt and it’s my turn to go to Detroit. I’ll check things out for a while, be replaced, and return.”

  “What do you expect to find?”

  “A British army that’s growing bigger and stronger each day.”

  She shuddered and not from the cold. “Then they will come for us and finally destroy us, won’t they?”

  “Not if I can help it,” he said and quickly realized how foolish it sounded. How could he, one man, stop a British army? Thankfully, Sarah seemed not to have noticed it.

  Sarah changed the subject. “Mr. Franklin is a great man.”

  “So I’ve heard. However, isn’t he getting just a wee bit old?”

  She laughed. The great man was maddeningly and intentionally imprecise as to his age. It was presumed that he was at least in his middle seventies and possibly older.

  “In some ways, he is old. He tires easily and it frustrates him because there’s so much that he wants to do and feels needs to be done. In other ways, he’s a child filled with wonder at the world around him, and, in still other ways, he is a genius. Have you heard his latest?”

  “No.”

  “Well, after spending all his days trying to get the fools in Congress to institutionalize a form of government, he has devised a new way of making guns.”

  “He what?”

  “Indeed,” she said with some pride. She had become deeply fond of the old man. “It occurred to him that guns are made by gunsmiths, but that we have very few of them here at Fort Washington. Therefore, he said we had to make them without gunsmiths.”

  “Sounds logical,” Will said. She was leaning against him and he could feel the pressure of her breast against his arm. Perhaps if he kept her talking they could walk forever.

  “And logical it is, Will. He decided that we—I mean, the army—should only make simple weapons and that we should make them by making a large number of barr
els, then make stocks and then triggers. If they were made simply enough, they should all fit together and we could make a large number of weapons very quickly.”

  Will found the concept intriguing and said so. “But what sort of weapons are they?”

  “He’s toyed with several types. But right now he’s working on one that almost looks like an old blunderbuss. They have broad barrels into which powder is poured, and then followed by whatever is going to be fired—lead bullets, glass, stones. He thinks the effect will be devastating at short range. Franklin’s going to have them demonstrated later.”

  “I would like to see that,” Will said, and made a mental note to find out more from Tallmadge.

  * * *

  Major James Fitzroy was surprised and delighted when Hannah Doorn informed him that she and a woman servant were coming with him to Detroit, or at least with the army. He was unused to women making pronouncements concerning his life, but he accepted without hesitation. He was genuinely fond of her, and her presence would more than brighten up what promised to be a dismal winter in a miserable location—Fort Detroit. His planned trip to find Tarleton had been cancelled when information was received that Tarleton had gone to Detroit, instead of staying at Pitt.

  Hannah also reminded him that she had business interests in Detroit, which would more than pay for any inconvenience he might feel about having to support a poor woman. She was, thank you, more than able to support herself. He’d long since concluded that Hannah Doorn was a very clever woman. She’d gotten around those laws that restricted ownership of property by women by using a cousin as a front for a small percentage. Or she simply ignored them. He’d concluded that much of the property she owned was still in her late husband’s name and no one cared.

  “Damned if it isn’t strange,” he’d told Danforth over brandies, “but the Dutchie women seem to be at least as smart about business as the men are. Must be the air here in the colonies.”

  Danforth pretended to shudder. “Thank God it’s different in England where women know their place, which is either in bed with their legs spread or in the kitchen with their legs together.”