Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence

by Robert Conroy

  * * *

  If John Hancock was disappointed that no one had asked him to command the American army, he didn’t show it. Instead, he seemed positively relieved that John Stark had taken the burden. Similarly, General Philip Schuyler had decided to swallow whatever thoughts he might have had regarding leading their small army to glory.

  If Hancock was annoyed at anything, it was that Stark was being particularly closed-mouthed about his plans. “Will you at least tell me, General Stark, whether or not you intend to take the battle to Burgoyne or do you intend to wait here for the blow to fall on us here?”

  “We will strike at him as soon as he leaves his devil’s lair at Detroit,” Stark finally responded. He noted Anthony Wayne leaning forward expectantly and shook his head. “But not with the entire army or even a large portion of it. Colonel Clark’s men will nibble at the British and hurt them.”

  “You are certain that they will come from only one direction?” Hancock asked.

  “I am. They will come directly from Detroit and take the shortest distance. They will not deviate significantly from the already established trails.”

  “Are you concerned that the British might come down the Ohio, march north, and strike at our rear?” Hancock asked.

  “To do that,” Stark answered, “they would have to march a couple of hundred miles from Detroit south to the Ohio River, set sail on boats that don’t exist, and then, after the water portion of their travels was over, march several hundred miles north to where we await them. I rather wish they would do that. They would be exhausted and starving by the time they reached us.

  “The force they had gathering on the Ohio River at Pitt has made its way almost to Detroit. Thanks to General Tallmadge’s spies, we are now aware that almost all of the scattered British units are at Detroit.”

  Will, sitting behind Tallmadge, sensed his pleasure at the compliment. “And when they leave for Fort Washington, we will know quite promptly,” Tallmadge added.

  “How?” asked Hancock, “Fires? Smoke signals? Witchcraft?”

  Franklin smiled, “Witchcraft most certainly.”

  “Speaking of which,” Stark said, ignoring the comment, “how are you coming with your infernal devices?”

  Franklin sighed. “I had hoped to use electricity as a weapon that would at least terrify our enemies if not kill them, but I fear our knowledge of it is not advanced enough. Therefore, I am looking to the past to save the future.”

  It was Franklin’s turn to be secretive. He had told no one of his plan to turn out breech-loading rifles modeled on the Ferguson rifle used by the British at Brandywine and by Ferguson’s Loyalists at Kings Mountain. While it had many flaws, the rate of fire could be an incredible ten shots a minute and by a soldier lying prone, which meant he was a far more difficult target. He’d gotten one of the weapons from a man who’d fought Ferguson, and he was even now tinkering with it. He was going to strengthen the stock and simplify the complicated and fragile mechanism. The squat gun named after him would be but a limited success at best, but a weapon that could fire so many more times a minute would be a feather in his cap.

  Franklin didn’t think he could manufacture a thousand of them—a couple of hundred would be more like it, but he thought they would be a most unpleasant surprise for Burgoyne.

  “Will you elaborate?” Hancock asked.

  Franklin beamed. “No.”

  * * *

  John Stark, newly appointed Major General Commanding the American Armies walked the low, sloping hill. A chill breeze from the lake a few miles away swept through his cloak and into his thin frame. He willed himself not to shiver. It would show weakness. Generals should never show weakness to their men.

  His title, he sniffed, was more imposing than the reality of his command. There were no “armies.” In fact it was difficult to say that the force he commanded was an army at all—just a handful of regiments that might be combined into a few brigades perhaps, but not an army.

  By the latest count, he had three thousand men at Fort Washington, or Liberty, as some called it, and another thousand or so under von Steuben a few miles away. Tallmadge insisted that scattered communities like Liberty would also send men when the time arose, but Stark was not a fool. He would not count on people who weren’t there.

  For that matter, he wasn’t so confident that those currently present would all stick around when the British arrived. He would not count on dramatically increasing his numbers.

  Nor did he have much confidence in Benjamin Franklin’s sometimes crackpot schemes to develop weapons that would turn the tide against an overwhelmingly larger enemy army. John Stark would fight the old-fashioned way. He would plan a killing ground like he had at Bennington and hope he could inflict enough casualties to defeat the British before they overwhelmed his small force. If Franklin and his cohorts actually did create a weapon that worked, then that would be wonderful. Until then, he would trust in the musket, the rifle, the sword, and the bayonet.

  And courage.

  He liked the hill on which he stood. Long and low and not even a hundred feet high, the British might not recognize it as an impediment until it was too late, and were committed to a slow and tiresome uphill climb. The hill was relatively barren and windswept, which meant the enemy couldn’t hide as they approached. Grasses would grow before the end of summer, but there would be no trees and no heavy brush. If only it wasn’t so damned long, he thought. There was, he admitted, more hill than he had army to defend it.

  Stark turned to his entourage. The other generals looked serious, while some of the lower-ranking officers looked on curiously, wondering what their betters were thinking, and knowing that such thoughts could determine whether they lived or died.

  “Here,” Stark said, pointing to the ground. “We will make our defenses here. Our left flank will be on the marsh in that direction and our right flank will be anchored on that bloody bog. They cannot turn us.”

  “You’re sure they’ll come this way?” asked Wayne.

  “They don’t really have a choice,” Stark answered firmly. “They will come directly from Detroit and will be funneled by the rivers and the location of Fort Washington. If they go to our south, they will have to cross the river under fire, and I cannot imagine that Johnny Burgoyne would ever want to do that. He had enough of river crossings at Saratoga. No, by coming this way, he can keep his feet dry and only have fairly innocent streams to cross as he gets closer.”

  Will was busy taking notes. The location chosen was near the portage where Indians and French hunters had been crossing from Lake Michigan. It led to the spot where they could put their canoes back in the water and commence a long journey that would ultimately take them to St. Louis and New Orleans. Stark was right, he thought. The geography and the wetlands would force the British to come this way. Still, he saw a problem.

  “General,” said Will. “It is several miles between the two bogs. How will we defend such a distance with the small force at our command?”

  “We will fortify the entire length and defend where they choose to attack. I don’t think they will spread their forces and force us to spread ours. With Grant as second in command, I see him attempting a single attack in overwhelming strength at what they perceive of as a vital point. We will watch them and be prepared to move along our line and confront them at a moment’s notice.”

  “Fortifying that much hill will be a major effort,” said Schuyler.

  Stark nodded. “It will.”

  “And it will be virtually impossible to keep secret,” Tallmadge added.

  “Do the British still have spies here?” Stark asked.

  “Doubtless, sir,” Tallmadge answered. “We’ve caught some of them and hanged them, of course, but I do not think that we’ve found all. Besides, there is enough casual traffic between here and the surrounding communities that it will be virtually impossible to keep our efforts a secret.”

  Stark shrugged. “Then we shall presume no secrets. We shall presu
me that the British will know exactly where and what we are doing. You’re right, of course, Tallmadge. Any man who counts on this being a secret is a fool. We will have to outfight them, not out-secret them.”

  Tallmadge smiled, “Your orders, then sir?”

  Stark returned the smile. “Dig.”

  * * *

  “Well, Admiral Danforth, are you ready to set sail?” Fitzroy said with a cheeky grin.

  “Careful you ignorant landlubber, or I’ll sail one of these ugly boats right up your ugly ass,” Danforth answered with a mock snarl.

  “Well, look at the bright side. You’ll be away from here and on a North American version of the Grand Tour. Just think what wonders you’ll see. There’ll be unwashed savages galore, and many of the ugliest and filthiest females in the world will want to bed you while the deer and black bears watch. There’ll be scenic marvels like unending forests and clouds of bugs just drooling at the thought of sucking your rich English blood right out of your veins. Just think, some poor fools have to make do with trips to Rome and Venice, or even Paris, while you get the forests of Michigan as your Grand Tour. Of all the lucky bastards in the world, you truly are the luckiest.”

  “I am too thrilled for words,” Danforth said. “And don’t forget that I also get to go with Benedict Arnold, a man who was a traitor once and might just do it again.” Danforth’s low opinion of Arnold was shared by most officers in the British force.

  “I doubt it,” said Fitzroy. “Good lord, where would he go? Think, how many turns can a turncoat turn?”

  “Regardless, it isn’t fair,” Danforth said with almost a sigh.

  “Fair has nothing to do with it, my brave young soldier turned sailor, and say, doesn’t that make you a turncoat as well? Life is not fair and you should know that. I certainly do.”

  “True enough,” Danforth grumbled.

  “True, indeed. Consider the position of our leaders. The brave General Burgoyne, my mentor and distant relative, loses an entire army at Saratoga in ’77, but is given another one to play with, while Cornwallis, a man who very nearly lost another one at Yorktown in ’81, controls Burgoyne and very nearly the whole North American continent.”

  Danforth shuddered. The tale of Cornwallis’ rescue at Yorktown by the last-minute arrival of the British fleet and the subsequent defeat of the French fleet was the stuff of legend. Cornwallis the lucky was more important than Cornwallis the very good general. In truth, he was both lucky and a very good general, and both he and Fitzroy would have been far more confident of success had Cornwallis been in charge of the expedition instead of Burgoyne.

  And after Yorktown, the incompetent and stubborn Admiral Graves was given credit for the overwhelming victory over the French when it actually was the result of Admiral Hood’s initiative in not waiting for the French to come out and politely line up to do battle. Instead, Hood had taken his division and thrown them onto the disorganized French ships as they emerged from the bay and slaughtered them. With the French shattered, British reinforcements landed and the rebel force disintegrated. For all intents, the revolution ended that day.

  As a result, Graves was made a duke, while Hood, the fighter with the initiative, now languished on the shore, commanding not ships but a number of warehouses in Portsmouth as reward for his brilliance. Fair? Fitzroy didn’t think so. But Graves was a favorite of the corrupt Earl of Sandwich, who ruled the Admiralty.

  “We should be in England, training the new regiments that are being developed for the real war against France, perhaps even commanding one,” Fitzroy muttered. “I still can’t believe that England has fallen so low that she now has to conscript men into her army as she has done for her navy.”

  The news of conscription had struck the army like a thunderbolt. The navy traditionally conscripted, or pressed, men into the service, while the army prided itself on taking only volunteers. Well, admittedly some of the volunteers were the dregs of society and others given the choice of join or hang, but technically they were volunteers, weren’t they? But the manpower situation had grown so dire and the wars so unpopular that England was now forcing Englishmen into her army. Some other officers wondered quietly if it would result in a revolution like what France was enduring. It was all the more reason that the British army prevail both overwhelmingly and quickly.

  “It’s indeed a sad state of affairs,” said Danforth as he looked around with a touch of pride. “At least this part of affairs afloat is going well.”

  Fifty barges laden with cannon, carriages, shot, shells, ammunition, food, and other supplies too bulky to take overland were just about ready to set sail. The two small warships that were to accompany the flotilla were in place and looked brave, albeit tiny. The Fox and the Snake were schooners carrying but a dozen small cannon in total. Still, they were considered to be more powerful than anything the rebels had. While the rebels might be able to build a good-sized warship, they did not have the ropes and cordage and sails; thus, any ships would have to be galleys which the armed schooners could outmaneuver with ease. Also, intelligence said that they did not have the ability to forge cannon.

  For this voyage, the Fox would also carry Arnold and Danforth as the swift but diminutive warships could sail rings around the barges.

  Each sailing barge would have a crew of a dozen, which meant they could row if becalmed by the wind and defend the crafts if necessary. It was planned that they would take about two months to reach their destination, where, it was hoped, Burgoyne’s army would await them. Since it was equally possible that the barges would arrive first, the plans also required them to stay offshore until the army appeared. It was hoped that neither the army nor the fleet would have a long wait.

  “We sail tomorrow,” Danforth said. “Shall we celebrate tonight?”

  “Do you want to be on a small boat with a hangover?”

  “Either way, I’ll be sick as a dog, so I might as well enjoy myself this evening.”

  Later, they were well into their second bottle of brandy and preparing for their third, when Danforth turned and looked grimly at Fitzroy. “James, have we been sent on a fool’s errand? Are we being set up to fail? Are these damned barges the equivalent of the Spanish Armada?”

  Fitzroy sighed. He had been thinking the very same thing. “You ask too damned many questions.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Owen Wells looked at the strange contraption in his hand. Had he been more educated and traveled, he might have recognized it. Still, he saw it as a weapon from the past and wondered about it. They were outdoors and in the same place where Will Drake had used an earlier invention to fire at a target. A straw-filled dummy of a man was at the end of the range. A half-rotten pumpkin was the skull.

  “Doctor Franklin,” he said, “I know you’re a man of great wisdom, but surely this is a joke.”

  Franklin nodded tolerantly. “Lieutenant Wells, I assure you it is not. The crossbow was an effective weapon against knights in armor several hundred years ago. Indeed, it was so effective, that it almost destroyed the armored and mounted knight as a military class.”

  “But we fight Redcoats, not knights in armor.”

  “True,” said Franklin.

  “And the last I checked, Doctor, none of the red-coated turds were wearing armor, even though they weren’t knights.”

  Franklin nodded. “But the bolt from a crossbow will just as easily penetrate cloth and flesh. It is accurate to well over a hundred yards, which is at least as good as a musket and can be reloaded at least as fast thanks to my clever innovations to an otherwise awkward device.”

  Owen grinned inwardly. The good doctor was getting exasperated with his questions. “But if you wanted a better weapon, why not give us longbows like my ancestors used to use against the English? From what I’ve heard, they raised holy hell with King Edward’s men.”

  “Because, my incessantly questioning young friend, longbows take forever to make and take an eternity to learn how to use, or didn’t you know that?” />
  “Oh, I did. I just wanted to see if you did.”

  “Lieutenant Wells, you are a devil.”

  “I’ve been called worse, good doctor. But since you compare me with Satan, let me tell you how I plan to use these crossbows that you are forcing me and my men to use.”

  Owen cocked the weapon. The motion was blessedly silent, barely a whisper, thanks to some padding and oiling the doctor had added. He placed it snugly into his shoulder and fired. The only sound was a soft thwack as the bolt released and a slight thud as it impacted into a dummy made of straw.

  “Excellent shot,” Franklin said.

  Wells was also impressed. “I can do better and so can my men. What I want to do is fire these quietly at night and into their camps so they don’t know what’s hitting them and from where. If I have to lose sleep firing these things, then everyone does.

  “Then I plan to have my men lie in wait along the trail and watch for stragglers or someone out of line having to piss or shit. There’s nothing worse than getting an arrow up your ass while taking a shit.”

  “Indeed,” said Franklin happily. Tallmadge had suggested Lieutenant Wells as someone who would respond favorably to the idea of using a medieval crossbow in this, the late eighteenth century. Wells was Welsh and the Welsh were romantics when it came to killing. It was ironic. In the very early days of the war, Franklin had actually proposed arming the American army besieging the British at Boston with bows and arrows, but had been laughed at. Now he would have a degree of vindication. He hoped.

  Owen smiled and fondled the crossbow. “Then we shall simply wait for other targets of opportunity. I dare say we will have plenty of them. We won’t win the war with these ancient weapons, Doctor Franklin, but we will make the damned Redcoats miserable and cost them plenty.”

  Wells armed his crossbow with another bolt, cocked, aimed, and fired. Benjamin Franklin couldn’t hide a gasp as the bolt penetrated and shattered the pumpkin, the skull of the dummy.