The trek from New York to Detroit had been pleasant enough, and even educational. He was impressed with the vastness of the Americas. But the journey from Detroit to what the rebels called Fort Washington had been an ordeal. He’d been shot at by unknown assassins who had waited like snakes in the grass. He’d lost a good friend who’d taken a crossbow bolt in the throat. He’d raged for days. Who killed with a crossbow? Savages, that’s who.
He hated the rebels for the way they fought and he hated them for rebelling against his king who had given him so much. Thus, Tommy Baker and the thousands of others like him couldn’t wait to get their hands on those rebels and destroy them.
Tommy had exulted when he’d first seen the defensive earthworks and the enemy soldiers behind them. They weren’t much at all and the bastards couldn’t run and hide anymore.
And when the army was formed up for the grand assault, he’d cheered when General Grant took a place of honor with them. Grant was a fat old bastard, but he was a tough one and he cared for his men. Grant told them the rebels would collapse under the weight of the British assault and run like they always did. They all thought that Grant was clearly the best of the British generals. Tarleton was a lunatic who might just be a coward to boot, and Arnold was a turncoat, which said it all. Burgoyne had already lost one army and that too said more than anybody wanted to think about. No, Grant would lead them to victory and glory.
But it wasn’t happening that way. Instead of running, the rebels continued to fight with a maniacal desperation that neither Tommy nor the other Redcoats had ever seen. Tommy and his comrades managed to bull their way over the embankment but they’d paid a heavy price. He found himself stepping over and on to piles of bodies. Some wore the homespun clothing of the rebels, but so many wore the king’s red that it was dismaying.
Tommy had started about a third of the way back in the phalanx, whatever that word meant, and didn’t regret at all not being nearer the front. Many of his comrades were dying up there and they’d all been horrified when the series of explosions had rocked them on their heels with debris and pieces of flesh landing on them.
They’d been shocked by the amazing rate of fire that the rebels had sustained and the accuracy with which they’d shot. Then came the showers of rocks that threatened to break bones and bash in skulls. Still, the attack continued and Tommy and his mates were slowly winning. They were tired, angry, and frustrated, but they were winning. The American bastards would pay in their own damned blood for this day.
Finally, he’d reached the front and it was his turn to fight. He didn’t even give a thought to the fact that it was because everyone who’d started out in front of him was dead or wounded. He felt release and lunged with his bayonet only to have it parried by what he quickly realized was a well-trained Hessian wearing the remnants of his old uniform.
No matter. Tommy was British and that meant he was better than anyone. He was also fresh and the Hessian was tired. He skewered the Hessian who screamed and collapsed, and looked for another. He was distracted by the sounds of screaming to his left. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that hundreds of women had descended on the British lines and were hacking and stabbing with axes and pikes. Bloody fucking hell! Was he supposed to fight women? Damned if he wouldn’t if one of the bitchy American whores came at him with a pike.
Behind him, he heard cannon fire followed by screams from within the phalanx. More bloody hell, he thought. Had the rebels gotten behind them? This was not right. He began to look around nervously. He laughed harshly. No problem, he decided. General Grant would fix it all in a minute. In the meantime, he had to keep his thoughts to the front.
“Grant’s dead,” a voice hollered and it was picked up by others. “Grant’s dead,” echoed throughout the phalanx.
“Fuck me,” Tommy said and a soldier beside him nodded agreement.
Throughout the attack there had been physical pressure from behind him, pushing Tommy and the others forward, just as he had pushed others ahead of him through the defenses and up over the American works.
Now there was no pressure. He stepped back, astonished that he could do so. Others were doing the same thing. A gap of a few yards appeared between the ragged, exhausted American remnants and the British. It grew larger. A woman appeared in front of him, but just out of the reach of his bayonet. She’d been cut on her shoulder and was covered with blood. She was screaming at him like an animal and she held a pike like she knew what she was doing. What the bloody goddamn fucking hell was going on? Other rebels, men and women, were kneeling, either wounded or just plain exhausted.
He backed up a couple of more steps and turned around. British soldiers were falling back. All around him they were turning and retreating. Some were beginning to run. Grant was dead. It was over.
Tommy Baker felt naked. His musket was unloaded as some fool had decided that only the first couple of ranks would carry loaded weapons lest they shoot their comrades in the back.
He took a few more steps backward, signaled to the men beside him, turned, and began to trot to the rear. He fumbled to load his damn musket.
* * *
“Grandfather, the red-coated soldiers are retreating. What is your wish?”
The old man jerked awake at the words from his beloved Tecumseh. The British were retreating? Impossible! That was the last thing he had imagined. He had decided to support the British when their victory became evident. He felt that their presence would be less onerous than the Americans who were always grasping at the land.
“Where is Little Turtle?” he asked.
“I am here, grandfather.”
“This is the worst of all options,” Owl said. “If we support the British, then we will have supported the losing side. If we support the Americans at this time, it will mean nothing to them. They will hate us no matter what we do.”
The old man was dismayed. Why hadn’t he urged them to support the British in the first place when it might have affected the fighting? Why hadn’t he told them to attack the American rear? The answers didn’t matter. It was too late.
Little Turtle spoke. “Then what shall we do? We can still attack the Americans and perhaps turn the tide.”
Owl man took a deep breath. It hurt his lungs and he coughed. There was blood on his hand where he tried to cover his mouth. “We will do nothing.”
Little Turtle was stunned. “Nothing? We have hundreds of warriors with more arriving each day, and they cry out for blood. We cannot go away like skulking animals. We must fight one side or the other.”
The old man shook his head. “If, as Tecumseh says, the British have been defeated, then supporting them will be of no consequence. If we now attack the British, the Americans are likely to attack us because we would be attacking other white men. No, we must not do anything. This is no longer our fight, if it ever was. I was wrong,” he said sadly. “We should now be miles away from this fighting. The white man now controls this land and there is nothing we can do.”
Little Turtle was furious. “We must fight. We are not cowards.”
With that, he stormed away. The old man was saddened. “He will do something terrible.”
Tecumseh did not answer.
Chapter 23
Drake and Washington saw the British force start to turn and pull back and quickly recognized their peril. If they stayed put, they would be overrun by a mass of angry humanity. They quickly determined that pulling the guns to the American lines was not practical. “Destroy them,” Washington ordered.
Will Drake signaled and a number of men ran forward. They loaded as much powder as they could find down the barrels of the four cannon and then jammed in cannonballs and rocks.
Will set a long fuse, lit it, and ran like the devil was after him. As before, he had no idea what was a safe distance. Nor did any of the others. They all just ran. He found a depression in the earth and threw himself in it. He had just covered his head with his hands when the first of a rapid series of explosions rocked him,
sending shock waves over him. He closed his eyes tightly as debris rained down on him.
“I think we’re still alive,” William Washington said after a moment. Drake looked up. He and the others were covered with dirt.
Drake stood and looked at the four craters that marked the location of the guns. Their barrels had been ripped apart and were lying well away from where they had been. Their carriages were nowhere to be seen. “Well,” he said happily, “I guess that was enough powder.”
They ran to their horses and mounted quickly. The retreating British had been slowed by the explosions, but had recommenced their movement to the rear. The small American cavalry force again skirted the British and moved back through the gap in the defenses. Once through, they rode to the rear of the American lines where hundreds of American and British wounded and dying were being tended. They found General Stark. His uniform was torn and he looked exhausted. Still, there was a ferocious glint in his eye.
“Well done,” Stark said to Washington. “Now I have another assignment for you.”
“Name it, sir,” Washington said.
“Look around you. Our army was mauled and is in disarray. It is exhausted, wounded, and out of ammunition. Right now we are trying to care for the wounded, bury the dead, and provide food and water for the living. While we do this, much of our defenses have been destroyed by the British. Since your men appear reasonably healthy, I want you to repair the earthworks and the wood thicket. Will you do that?”
Washington and Drake looked at the milling hundreds. Drake wanted desperately to find Sarah. Was she alive? Hurt? Was she as worried about him as he was about her?
Still, they had their duty. If the British attacked again, the American lines were wide open and would collapse.
Washington shrugged and grinned amiably. “Where are the shovels, General?”
* * *
Burgoyne’s head sagged and his chin nearly touched his chest. “How long has it been?”
How long since what, Fitzroy wondered. He pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s been a little more than two hours since the fighting began, sir.”
Both men looked at each other. It had taken just two hours for the rebels to defeat, at least temporarily, the greatest army in North America. Thousands of soldiers streamed disconsolately by them. Few bothered to look at their commander. The men were looking out for their own well-being and cared nothing for what generals thought. Despite the chaos, Fitzroy saw a number of officers trying to impose order and control and, to a large part, succeeding. The regiments had been stopped and mauled but not destroyed. Even so, it would be a while before they fought again.
Burgoyne walked away, heading to the privacy of his tent. He didn’t wish to see or speak with anyone until he had come to grips with the situation. Reports would be taken later. Everything could wait, along with the inevitable excuses and recriminations.
Fortunately, the Americans were in no shape to counterattack. From where Fitzroy could see, they were working on repairing their defenses. Thank heaven for small favors, Fitzroy thought.
“Have you noticed it’s raining?”
It was Danforth. His uniform was in shreds and a large scab had formed on his forehead. “Perhaps it will clean you up,” Fitzroy said and put his arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too, James,” Danforth said and plunked himself down on a folding chair that Burgoyne had been using. “And don’t ask me how bad it was, damn it; it was bloody awful. I’ve never seen such a slaughter and I’ve never seen British soldiers take such punishment. They only gave up after enduring more than any men should be called upon to endure. I hope history will be kind to them.”
“Agincourt,” Fitzroy said, “only we played the role of the French on this date,” he said referring to the climactic battle of 1415 in which a smaller British army had slaughtered a much larger French army that had attacked them on a narrow front.
“We attacked in a narrow front mass that invited flanking attacks and eliminated our strength in numbers. Had we won, of course, Burgoyne would be proclaimed a genius. Now what will happen to him, to us?”
Fitzroy thought that history would be kinder to the soldiers than it would be to the generals. “And General Grant is truly dead?”
Danforth found a bottle with some brandy in it and took a long swallow. “Well and truly dead and with a rock stuck squarely in the middle of his skull like some great and unblinking third eye.” Danforth shuddered. “Absolutely hideous. No man should die like that and he took forever to collapse and finally stop breathing. I swear he was trying to talk, to say something.” He laughed bitterly. “Perhaps he was saying something like take this fucking rock out of my head.”
“You stayed with him, I take it?”
“Of course. Now you’re going to ask me how I got away. Well, it was quite easy. When our own soldiers fell back, some of them knocked me over and likely trampled me for good measure. I do believe I was stunned for a few minutes. When I came to, I simply crawled away until I thought it was safe enough to stand up. At that point, I got up and walked back to our lines with as much dignity as I could muster. I wasn’t the only one. A lot of lightly wounded men or some unwounded soldiers simply trying to save their own skins were doing the same thing. Thank God the Americans were not in the slightest bit interested in stopping us from departing. They had a handful of men working to repair their defenses and, by the way, I think I saw the man you were negotiating with. Drake, I believe.”
Fitzroy took it in. For some strange reason he was pleased that the rebel had also lived to fight another day. It had begun to rain again, a fitting end to a miserable day and it was still early afternoon. Damn.
“What’s going to happen now?” Danforth asked.
“Well, we won’t be attacking again, at least not for a while. Burgoyne’s called for a council of war, which will now only include Tarleton and Arnold, since Grant is dead.”
Danforth shook his head. “Why in God’s name couldn’t either Arnold or Tarleton have been killed instead of Grant? Better yet, why not both of them?”
Why indeed? Fitzroy could not think of an answer.
* * *
Drake was working with men who were repairing the defenses and was soaking wet from the sudden rain and up to his knees in the mud it had created.
Along with repairing the earthworks and replacing the thicket, they’d been dragging dead British soldiers out to where other Redcoats could retrieve them and carry them back for a proper burial. The British wounded were allowed to either return to their own lines if they were able, or were cared for as best they could by the Americans. These activities caused the British and American soldiers into close proximity with each other. Either out of respect or exhaustion, there was little or no conversation and no hostility. Simple nods and grunts sufficed. There had not been a formal truce. The men simply decided to solve their problem without any help from higher-ups.
A mud-splattered British officer appeared and politely requested permission to search for the remains of General Grant and Will gave it. Within a few minutes the dead general was found and his body taken away. The officer thanked Will profusely. They both agreed it was a strange way to run a war.
Thus, Will had no time to search for Sarah. Instead, she found him. She rushed to him and they embraced, with both of them weeping from relief. No one noticed. Similar reunions were taking place around them as the fortunate ones found each other. There were also howls of pain and grief as a loved one was found dead. There was a cut on Sarah’s cheek and another on her arm. Both would leave scars. He didn’t care. Her clothing was bloody and torn. But she was alive.
Finally they pulled apart. “What about the others?” Will asked, half fearing the answer.
“Too many are dead,” she said sadly. “Faith is alive and unhurt, as is Owen who is still out in the swamp. But my uncle Wilford is dead with a bayonet in the chest, and my aunt is badly wounded and may not make it. Littl
e Winifred Haskill is dead. She thought her friend Sergeant Bahlmann had been killed and went crazy. Ironically, Bahlmann did survive, but most of his fellow Hessians didn’t.”
The loss of so many civilians saddened him deeply. Soldiers were supposed to die, but the civilians? “Thank God Stark lives.”
Sarah nodded. “Unhurt, as you are aware, but Wayne and von Steuben are dead and Morgan is wounded. The army is in grievous shape. Dear God, Will, if there’s another battle there’ll be no one left to fight it.”
Hannah van Doorn approached and interrupted. “Then let’s see that there isn’t another battle,” she said grimly. Like the others, she was filthy and exhausted and the once plump woman had lost a considerable amount of weight.
“How do you propose to stop it?” Will asked.
She handed him a folded piece of paper. “When you next see Major Fitzroy, will you give him this? Since his place was with his general, I am presuming that he too lives.”
Will was puzzled. “Just why do you think I am going to see the British again?”
“Because General Tallmadge asked me to find you and bring you to him and General Stark. I can think of no other reason than that you are going to speak again with the British and that likely means Major Fitzroy.”
Despite his exhaustion, Will almost laughed. What kind of world was it coming to when women were part of the military?
* * *
“I have decided to assume direct command of our center as well as the army as a whole,” Burgoyne announced. Night had fallen and only one small and flickering candle lighted the interior of the general’s tent. Arnold and Tarleton simply nodded. Each knew that neither was acceptable in Burgoyne’s eyes as eligible for promotion to Grant’s position. Nor did they think for one second that Burgoyne would divide the army into two divisions instead of three.
“What are our casualties?” Burgoyne asked and winced. He didn’t really want to know the answer to that question.
Fitzroy took a deep breath. He’d been all over the field for as long as daylight lasted, inquiring and compiling the awful numbers.
Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence Page 39