Conceived in Liberty

by Howard Fast

  We try to understand that this is the end, that we go no farther.

  Clark Vandeer shrugs his shoulders. He is crouched close to the fire, so close that his beard singes without his seeming to be aware of it. He has become an old man since Moss died, and many of his former parson’s ways have returned to him.

  “I’m afraid,” Edward says. That’s the way with Edward, who was a strong man once, a heavy farmer man, not dreaming and not fearing.

  Ely Jackson shakes his head.

  “If our orders are to march tomorrow?” Edward says, anxiously.

  In each face is the same fear, that we march. We are too worn to march, too tired. We try to see the way out of the place. The slopes are covered with snow and bright in the moonlight. We crowd up to the fire.

  Below us, the Pennsylvanians have built their fires in a wide circle. Each fire is an ember. Between half-closed eyes their encampment might be a crown. My mind is full of fancy, caused by hunger. Jacob sought out the commissary at nightfall. He came back bleeding, with a hatful of corn—for eight men.

  “You’re too quick for blood,” Ely said gently.

  Jacob is silent through the evening. A strange, deep man, Jacob, hard. When he was a boy, he fought in the French war. He was a revolutionist then—and no halfway man. In his mind, the revolution began with the French war. It was all one and the same—drive out the French first, then the British. A land for the people. That was what Jacob preached—for the people, all of it. The Indian must go. But first the French, then the British. Both had played along with the Indians, played them against us. He had fought to destroy the French, and now he was fighting to destroy the British. He would always fight. The land was not for him, but for them who came after. Jacob would fight until a shot found him; then he would rest. But the land would never be his.

  “I call to mind,” Ely says, “how Moss spoke about home. They say four brigades of Maryland men walked out of the line with fixed bayonets.”

  “It’s only the beginning.”

  “They’re a strange bad breed, the Maryland men. Pope-crawlers and sons of thieves,” Jacob muttered.

  “Only the beginning,” I said. “The army’s falling to pieces. By God, when I think of that stinking Congress, talking of united states, filling their fat bellies and letting us starve. We fight for Maryland and Maryland walks home. What did Moss die for this morning?”

  “Leave him in peace,” Clark Vandeer says quietly.

  “He spoke of the Mohawk——”

  Ely says, simply: “Where would you go, deserting, Allen? We’re all of us used up.”

  “Afraid?”

  “I’m not afraid,” Ely said. He looked at me. His swollen feet were stretched out towards the fire, his thin hands trying to grasp the heat. His dark eyes looked at me and through me.

  Vandeer says, fretfully: “Why—why, Ely? You don’t believe any more. There’ll be no peace with Virginians hating the Boston men, with the New York brigades feared and hated. Even if we win, there’ll be no peace—only battle and more battle.”

  Ely didn’t answer. Jacob raised his dark, shaggy head. Above us, against the forest, shreds of song floated down from the New Jersey line. They were singing a plaintive Dutch melody. I lay down, closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Kenton was talking. He was explaining the thing I had heard a hundred times before, how the colonies could send an army into the New York Valleys and destroy the Six Nations. He was explaining why England would never permit the colonies to overwhelm the Indians.

  “The moment we become strong,” Kenton says, “we become a nation. It’s our destiny.” More of abstract destiny. What has that to do with a defeated rabble?

  Jacob joins in, his bitter voice marking time to the nodding of his shaggy head. “Ye’re right, Kent, and the strength is here—a strength of many. Look you, we could go back to the Mohawk where they’re burnin’ and killing, so God only knows who lives an’ who’s dead—but our strength is here. The Indians depend on the British, so it’s our fight with the bastard King’s men. After we rest, only one more blow. We’ll gather strength an’ hit them—hit them——”

  I try to sleep, my coat drawn up over my face. I think of a woman; I think of little Moss Fuller with Jenny. I finger my beard and scrape the dirt from my face. The cold eats in and I turn my other side to the fire. For a moment, my eyes are open to the sky, and I see the broad stretch of stars. My hunger becomes a gnawing pain. I say to myself, sleep—don’t think.

  “—or Six Nations—or ten nations. If this man Washington sets himself up for king with his Virginia brigades behind him?”

  “You mistake the man,” Ely Jackson says.

  The stars become sparks in a morning sky, and I lie awake watching the dawn come. The fire still burns, a low smouldering fire. I have slept on and off—a long night. Why have the nights become so long now? Rolling over, closer to the fire, I realize that someone fed it during the night. Wondering who, I think that it might be Ely or Kenton or one of the others. Charley Green, who was a printer in Albany; he was alien and strange for a long time. In the beginning he had been fat and round, but his fat had gone. Edward Flagg, born out of farmers. Or Jacob and Ely, strong men and different. Someone in the night, feeding the fire and making a great sacrifice in the cold.

  I stood up; the others slept. They were curled for warmth, and they looked like bundles of rags. I remembered once, years ago, seeing a man dying of a cough, fleshless, but here were men as lean as he and living.

  I walked toward the forest for wood. The snow had a crust of ice over it, and it crunched under my feet. As the morning advanced, there was no sign of sun in the sky, only a quilted grey that might turn to snow later on.

  In front of the forest, the Jersey brigades lay, men sprawled about their fires. They had flung out sentries who slept now, all huddled over their muskets. I walked past, and the sentries didn’t move. The Jersey men were worse than we; bare feet showed and bare skin through their coats. Almost no blankets and only two tents in all the brigades. They were tight, uncomplaining men, Dutch stock, not like the Pennsylvania German.

  I gathered wood, went back and built up the fire. The heat of it woke Jacob and Henry. Then the Pennsylvania trumpets shrilled away the morning. The scene was old now, half-naked beggars coming to life, a great rush of movement back and forth to drive off the cold. The brigades were assembling.

  “There’s to be a review of the brigades today,” Jacob said. “A grand review with a flag parade.”

  Charley, sprawled out, sang, “The beggars are coming to London Town, London Town …”

  “We’ll need a flag——”

  “A great white flag with a smoked ham painted on it—a roasted ham with gravy dripping for a border to the flag.”

  We had no food; we stood and looked at the fire. Edward Flagg slowly munched a handful of snow.

  “I wouldn’t,” Ely said. “The snow’ll burn yer mouth and belly.”

  “The Jersey men are eating,” I said. I could see a few camp kettles boiling over their fires.

  “I’ll go to the commissary,” Ely said.

  “They’ll want an officer’s requisition.”

  Ely stumbled off. “He’ll not wear Moss’ shoes,” I said. “His feet are fair gone and shapeless, not to be put inside shoes.”

  “There was a good coat gone to the grave with Moss. The dead don’t feel cold.”

  “The shoes shouldn’t go to waste,” I muttered. I sat down and slowly untied the bandages over my feet, holding them close to the fire. Finally, they were bare, blue with frost. I let them warm by the fire. They were covered with sores, unhealed cuts, dirt.

  “Rub them with snow, Allen.”

  I said, laughing: “They’ll rot before I make them colder.”

  Vandeer said: “I call to mind a tract of Bishop Berkeley’s I read through. A rare fine philosopher who holds that pain and all material things vanish with the mind that knows them.”

  “Well, Moss is dead, and we’re h
ere. I’d as leave be here as dead and stiff.”

  “But no cold for Moss,” I said. “We can draw for the shoes, Jacob.”

  “They won’t fit me,” Edward said sullenly. He was a big man, big hands, big feet. I think he had the largest hands and feet I’ve ever seen on a man.

  Kenton found a pair of dice and rolled them on a crust of snow. Henry drew the shoes with a double six. He held the boots between his knees, fondling them and feeling their softness. Then he unwrapped the bandages from his feet. The bandages clung, and he told us it was the first time in eight days he had bared his feet. When he got to his socks, he found they were crusted with blood. His feet were swollen out of all shape.

  We tried to force the boots on. Henry lay down on his back, his feet stretched out, his hands clenched with pain. I had a little tobacco left, and I broke off a piece of it, gave it to him to chew while we worked on his feet. He broke up the tobacco, chewing desperately, his face twisted with pain, the brown stain running over his beard.

  When the boots were on, he made no move to rise. “I can’t stand it,” he whispered. “Take them off.”

  We bound up Henry’s feet after that. Jacob insisted that we wash them, but Henry refused. I wanted the boots. We rolled again, and Kenton drew them. I told Kenton I would fight him for them: I told him man to man, I would stand against him and fight for the boots.

  Jacob pushed me away. “Keep yer head, Allen,” he said.

  “They’re Moss’ boots,” I said. “Where’s Moss?”

  I sat down on the ground, put my face in my hands. I was hungry and my head was light. I felt a great strength, as if I could fight Kenton and all the rest of them. I felt that I could walk with strides yards long.

  Then I began to cry, easily; I kept my hands over my face. When I looked up, they were standing round me. I could see how Clark Vandeer’s lower lip trembled. Vandeer was a little man with children of his own. Maybe he was thinking of them now.

  “Easy, Allen, easy,” Jacob said.

  Kenton was still holding the boots in his hand. “I’m not needing shoes, Allen,” he whispered.

  I cried: “I know what you’re thinking—me next! Moss and then me.”

  “We’ll eat soon, Allen.”

  “Moss wanted to go home. There’s no one of you got nerve enough to desert and go home! Jesus Christ, there’s nothing left inside of me.”

  Ely came up. They walked away when Ely came. Only Kenton stood there, still holding the boots in his hand. He said, dully:

  “We rolled the dice for Moss’ shoes.”

  Ely didn’t answer. He had a piece of fatback in his hands.

  “You brought food,” Jacob nodded. “Ye’re a wonderous quick man, Ely.” He walked back slowly and put himself between Ely and Kenton. “Ye’re not angered about the shoes, Ely?”

  “There will be hell and murder at the commissariat. There’s no food to feed ten thousand men. He asked me for papers, and I wheedled the fatback outa him. I said for a regiment. I thought he’d have a little corn. There were Boston and Pennsylvania men there with loaded guns.”

  “I don’t hold with Pennsylvania men,” Jacob said. “But I hate the guts of those damned Virginians, lording it over the food.”

  “They’re a quiet, strange race.”

  I rose and walked away. Inside, I was heaving, and my throat burnt. Beyond the heat of the fire, the cold bit in, through my thin clothes. I resented Ely’s way, avoiding mention of me or the shoes. When I turned round, they were grouped over a kettle, cutting up the fatback. Jacob poured the last of his cornmeal into it. The brigades were beginning to move, swarming round the forest and over the brink of the hill.

  I went back to the fire. Ely put his arm through mine.

  We ate quickly and in silence. We took our muskets and wiped them carefully. That was habit; we didn’t love the muskets. We walked along with the brigades, Massachusetts and Vermont’ men, Pennsylvanians, tall, light-haired Jersey Dutch. The talk was all of the spot we were camped in, of its virtues for defence. There were hills all round the Valley Forge. It was a natural fort.

  I heard a man say: “If they attack on the Philadelphia road, it’s another Breed’s Hill.” Apparently he didn’t remember that at Bunker Hill we were fresh and new to war. There had been no other victories since then.

  We moved in no order. Occasionally you heard an officer’s voice, but for the most part the brigades stumbled along as they pleased. A great hatred had grown for the officers, and they were afraid. All aspect of an organized army had disappeared. We had not been paid in weeks; we had not been fed. I think we were kept together only by the fear of the cold spaces that lay between where we were and our homes. It was said that the British ringed us in with their patrols.

  We moved around the forest, over the hill northward, and down onto a great open meadowland that stretched to the Schuylkill. Afterwards this became known as the Grand Parade. The brigades streamed over it, slowly forming into a rough kind of order—the Pennsylvania Line, north, the New Jersey Line, the New York Line, the Virginian Riflemen.

  Round the field there was a scattering of people who lived in the neighbourhood, mostly Quaker boys, hooting and screaming at the soldiers. The Massachusetts and Pennsylvania brigades still had drummers, and gradually their roll increased, until we were moving to a steady beat of drums. There were old habits hard to break.

  The eight of us stood at one end of the Pennsylvania line, near the New York brigades. We leaned on our muskets, speaking little. And the wave of sound all up and down the brigades seemed to be dying away. We could hear women’s voices, and we saw officers driving them out of the Pennsylvania troops. The camp followers were formed in a rough line behind the brigades, the women making a pitiful attempt at colour.

  “Nigh a thousand women,” Jacob said.

  “It’s hard understanding what a woman’ll take to be near a man.”

  The clouds were piling up, dark grey and white tumbled together. A battery of artillery rolled across the parade.

  “Knox’s cannon,” Ely said.

  There must have been almost ten thousand men on the field then. That was before mass desertions had reduced us to half that number, then to less than half. There were a mass of men.

  I close my eyes and try to see them as an army. If I close my eyes, look between the frost on my lids, I can forget that half of them are without guns, and all of them in rags. There are no uniforms except among the Virginian troops, who wear grey, homespun hunting shirts. There isn’t a decent coat or a good pair of boots. Parts of the body show through, bare, blue buttocks where a man’s pants are worn away, bare knees, legs bound in stripped blanket, feet in any material that can be made to cover feet. The feet are most important. Even if an army can’t fight, it must be able to march—march day and night or forever.

  But if I close my eyes, I can see them as an army, haggard, bearded men who will fight the way wild beasts fight. Only I fear we’ll never fight again.

  I laugh aloud.

  Ely looks at me. Kenton says:

  “You’re not holding Moss’ shoes against me, Allen. We’ve been together too long for that, Allen. I swear to God I’ll never wear the shoes——”

  “It’s all right.”

  The trumpets blow a call to arms. We stand on our muskets. For an instant, we are no longer men, only a part of a living revolution. We are a force. We are beyond men—only for an instant. The wind is blowing itself into a shrill shriek, and cold and hunger return.

  A Pennsylvania man says, stubbornly: “To hell with their parades! Why don’t they pay us off?”

  Wayne and Scott ride down the Pennsylvania front. Wayne has a cloth bound round his head. His coat is shredded with use. He stoops in his saddle and rides close to Scott. There is a ripple of cheering, because they are both favourites with the Pennsylvania brigades. But neither man takes any notice. They sit on their horses in front of the line.

  The flags go by. We don’t salute. Very few men salute.
We keep shifting about in the cold.

  The officers press us together and finally we are in a line about four or five deep. Washington rides out to the centre of the field. He sits big on his horse and he seems oblivious to the wind. He’s a strange man whom none of us understand and few of us know. Sometimes, we can build a great hate for him. He’s a man without fear.

  Hamilton is next to him, sitting the horse like an aristocrat, the lace cuffs of his uniform showing, behind him a little cluster of officers.

  The voice of the General doesn’t carry; it rises and fades out entirely in the wind.

  “… have come a long way … a bitter cup to drink … to endure … the British suffer equally, without our faith…”

  Someone shouts: “Where do they suffer—in Philadelphia?”

  “We must endure all wrong—hate …”

  “Where is our pay? By God, your stinking Continental money——”

  I glance at Jacob. His dark eyes are burning. His face, blue with cold, working—in pain—in anger.

  “Soon, there will be food enough … rations of rum … a petition to the Congress …”

  “Lies while we starve!”

  A Pennsylvania man says: “He’s got his fat bit to sleep with, I’ll swear.”

  “A house and enough food to stuff him like a pig.”

  “… when we march out of here—to victory …”

  His voice is drowned out by a deep refrain: Pay us and disband the army! It comes to the thud of rifle butts being stamped against the frozen ground. A thud to the rhythm of a beating drum. Pay us and disband the army! I watch Wayne and Scott, who sit on their horses without moving. Neither does Washington move. His officers crowd round him, but he pushes through them and rides toward the line. Then, close to us, he sits on his horse, motionless. I can see how his face is blue with cold, his lips purple, thin and very tight. I wait for a gun to go off. I can understand how men would kill him now.