And Caesar sent him on his first mission to spy out the little town.
“Who they fightin’? War with who?” The men clustered around the boy, eager for the corn meal he had but more eager for news.
“British soldiers fought some men in ‘Choosets. They marched down a road and the militia killed ’em all dead. They killed some militia, and now it be war against the British.”
Caesar had heard talk of war with England for months, back before he was sent away from Mount Vernon. It was a persistent rumor, but this seemed to say there had been an actual battle. He had never felt much pity for the Virginians, when they talked of it, but perhaps that was just because they were the masters and he the slave. Perhaps they were themselves mistreated by the English, although he never saw any sign and the Englishmen who came to Mount Vernon had seemed little different from any other white men.
When the excitement of the news had died down, Jim told him the bad news in private, which was smart of him. Other overseers had reported the bloody escape and militia were seeking them in the swamp. Jim hadn’t heard much, just a hint from a little black girl that there was a hunt in the swamp and a garbled version of the killing, which had clearly magnified in the telling.
“You only killed they three men, I know. I saw them. I counted. Stories say you killed ten or mo’.”
“Didn’t bother you none, Jim?”
“Oh no, suh.”
“Get something to eat, Jim.” Caesar looked at the comfortable camp, with two brush huts and a covered fire pit. They’d been there for several days and his hands were less numb. None of the men would want to leave.
But they were hunted, and it was time to move.
Schuykill Tavern, Pennsylvania, June 17, 1775
Peyton Randolph, acting as speaker for the Continental Congress, was seated in the center of the head table. He rose carefully to his feet and demanded silence of the hubbub around him. The tavern’s common room was filled with members of the Continental Congress and wellwishers, some of whom had already adopted military dress, so that the dinner had something of the appearance of a council of war.
“Any man who studies the classics will tell you that the ancients knew that most good generals were good farmers,” he began, and Washington winced. Most of the great generals had never farmed in their lives; Caesar and Alexander leapt to mind.
“If that be true, then we have among us a man uniquely fit to command, a veteran of our wars with the French and a farmer whose success is a byword in Virginia. If the cause of liberty must resort to arms, therefore, I think we can ask no better than that those arms be borne and led by my friend,” and here he indicated Washington with a gesture.
“I give you the Commander in Chief of the American armies.”
Every man in the room rose to his feet. Men who had never worn swords in their lives but to funerals were wearing them now, even in the cramped quarters; and among the coats of hunting plush and dark velvet, Washington saw more than a few worn laced coats from the last war with France. Every glass rose as if in salute, and he stood, utterly at a loss for words, though the appointment had been his for a day and the dinner was in his honor. He had not expected to be so moved, and he looked at them—solemn and armed—with his heart full of fear.
“Gentlemen…I am not…I am most sensible…that is…” He stopped, and tried to raise his eyes from the table in front of him, abashed for the first time in many years, and wished that he could have a tenth of his neighbor Mr. Henry’s eloquence. But his courage stood by him; he was not nervous, only moved that they should stand so.
“Gentlemen. I am honored beyond words that you…that you have chosen me to lead this enterprise. I fear the result more than I wish, and I hope…I hope that no man present enters lightly into the notion of war. I fear my merits will fall short of the magnitude of the task. I should thank the gentlemen of the United Colonies…I should thank…them, for so much confidence in my abilities; but I dread to fail, and ruin my country and my reputation in such a task.”
He looked up then, aware that he had spoken mostly to the table, mortified that his speech must sound so craven, but every eye was on him, and no one seemed to censure it. Their glasses were still raised.
“I will bring to this contest a firm belief in the justice of our cause, close attention to the prosecution of it, and the strictest integrity. If these are sufficient to the task…If it must be war, so be it. I will lead as best I may, and may God be with us.”
Someone at the first table said “amen” very loudly, and there was a rustle as men drank off the toast, but those sounds served only to accentuate the silence of the crowd, and they stayed standing for some time, thinking of the war to come.
Billy hadn’t stood at his elbow in the tavern as he might ordinarily have done; northerners seldom thought to provide space for a gentleman’s slave as would have happened in Virginia. So Billy had to wait until Washington returned to his lodgings to hear of the evening, and Washington was in a far more solemn mood than Billy had expected.
Billy had his boots off without complaint, and had laid out his waistcoat for a brushing before Washington spoke, his shirt open and his stock hanging from his hand.
“I don’t think they know what war is,” he said suddenly.
Billy took the stock and nodded. It wasn’t really his role to speak.
“They think making me their general shows that they are in earnest, and perhaps it does. But none of them has seen a real war. Indeed, I think that veterans of Frederick would laugh at my pretensions to knowing war. Do they expect me to keep them safe?”
Billy took the silver buckle off the sweat-stained stock and threw the stock on a pile of laundry.
Washington drank off a glass of wine from the stand next to the bed and pulled his nightshirt over his shirt, as he often did. Billy grimaced inwardly. Wearing shirts at night meant more work for the laundresses.
“We have no army to speak of, no artillery, no ships, no fortresses, no magazines full of arms.” Washington snapped around and looked at Billy. “And when we are beaten, they will blame me.”
Billy thought that Washington had invited the appointment, but kept quiet. He had Washington’s coat over his arm and Washington gestured at it.
“You can press that and send it home,” he said.
Billy looked at the coat, perfectly good broadcloth in dark blue.
“Sir?”
“I’ll be in uniform tomorrow. And until this contest is done.”
Great Dismal Swamp, June 28, 1775
Long Tom and Virgil had the pistols, though neither had fired them often; he had the fowler. Each had powder for a few shots, and no more; every man had a knife and an ax. The militia all around them had good muskets and hatchets; some had swords. What they lacked were dogs, because the dogs had balked at the deep swamp and the pepper Long Tom had used.
They were all lying in a deer hollow. The militia were close enough that every movement could be heard, every complaint about the heat. One man was sure he had seen a footprint; the others were less sure.
“Ain’t no bunch of ’em,” said one man. “Just the one print.”
“That ain’t no print, you fool.”
“Deer might make that mark, if’n he slipped on the bank.”
“Deer don’t slip.”
“Do too.”
“Shut up. Crafter, go back and look at the last crossing again. We all have shoes, so you look for barefoot marks. Dixon…Dixon.”
Caesar looked and looked for the speaker, who seemed to be right in front of him but had to be on the other side of a finger of open water. If he could shoot the officer…
…Then all the other men would rush in and massacre them. He might try to kill the officer to redress the balance, but they were nearly doomed. Caesar wondered what Dixon had done and if he was as dull as Long Tom. He continued to make useless plans as fast as his mind could work, all the while wishing for some luck.
Fetch saved them. Perhaps h
is nerve broke, or perhaps he chose to sacrifice himself; later, most of the men chose to believe the latter. But he moved away as silently as he had lived with them, and suddenly rose to his feet and began to run. It drew the attention of the militia gradually; he wasn’t loud, and he didn’t shout. But in a few moments all the militia were after him, too experienced to risk shooting in the dense cover of the high ground in the swamp but excited enough to crash through the brush after him.
Caesar waited only a few moments; he couldn’t afford to hesitate.
“Move! March! This way!” and he plunged off to the south, away from Fetch’s flight. The running militia didn’t hear them, and their luck held.
Fetch’s did not. A few minutes later there was a shot and a scream, then a fusillade of shots and some shouting. Caesar thought he heard them laugh.
They camped without a fire, hot and miserable in the flies and mosquitoes, with little food. Someone had dropped the black iron kettle in their flight, the corn meal bag was long empty, and Caesar didn’t dare risk a shot to bring down an animal, even if he could find one. The water was brown and warm and tasted of mud. The dead man’s boots were beginning to separate where the sole met the upper, and his stockings had rotted away inside the boots.
The boy was already asleep, utterly exhausted. Old Ben wasn’t much better.
“We can’t live like this,” said Virgil, giving voice to what every one of them felt. But to Caesar, it sounded like an accusation. He was too young to feel it otherwise. He flared.
“I’m doin’ the bes’ I can! The best! Would you rathuh be slaves? Be workin’ till you bleed?”
“Hey, Caesuh. Don’t fret so. We got nowheahs else to go. But we can’ live like this long. Boy and Ben’ll go next, when the food stay sparse.” He smiled a little. “And they ain’t no women.” That raised a murmur of a chuckle.
Frustration and anger and fatigue warred in Caesar. He wanted to walk off and leave them. He wanted to tell them how inadequate he was to the task of keeping them alive. He had never expected the militia so deep in the swamp. He had made so many mistakes about camps and food, and he felt that they all knew his every error.
“I don’ think I can get us free,” he admitted. “I ain’ made a good decision in days.”
“Don’ fret yo’sef, boy.” Old Ben sounded sleepy. “Tiuhd men don’ think straight. We all ‘live ‘cept Fetch, and that was his own choice.”
Virgil leaned forward so his face almost touched Caesar’s, and he whispered. “I ain’ sayin’ you done nothin’ wrong. I’m sayin’ we ain’ gon’ make it like this, and we need a new plan. I says we leave the swamp.”
“An’ go where?”
“South, to Florida. Spanish let you live free, I hear.”
“That famous man, John Canno, lives in Florida,” said Caesar. He still didn’t believe in John Canno. He knew how fast his own single victory had been embellished. “Let’s stay here a little longah. Longer. The militia may leave. We ought to get free o’ them tomorra anyway. We’ll go south an’ west.”
“Gon’ need food.”
“An’ powder an’ shot.”
“Whea’ we gon’ get all that?”
“I don’ know, Mastuh Virgil. But we need a li’l, a little luck. Say a prayer.”
Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 3, 1775
The day had turned warm, but Washington didn’t show it. His stock was buckled, his smallclothes spotless; he looked very much a commander, and much more so than most of the Massachusetts officers who had gathered for general orders.
“I should like an immediate return, by battalion, of the troops and their equipage.”
“Who would take that? I suppose one of us can ride the rounds.”
“I would expect that every battalion has an adjutant?”
Many of the officers looked at each other. General Ward, still irked at being superseded in a New England army by a Virginian, felt the criticism was personal.
“Many do, right enough, General. Not all.”
“And I expect they are formed in brigades, each of which has a brigade major?”
“I expect so, General.” Ward sounded dangerously close to anger.
“Gentlemen. I mean no censure, here, but these are not trivialities that I have cooked up with my staff. We need to know the state of the army’s powder and ball. We need to know what we have and what we lack. And to be frank, we need to know these things every day, and we will. Please see to it. I do not expect to see my officers riding the common from camp to camp to gather the numbers. Rather, I expect to see every battalion adjutant report to his brigade major, and that major to his brigadier, and hence to my chief of staff, General Gates. In his absence, to General Lee. Am I clear? Excellent.” He looked around at them. Any hesitation he had felt as recently as the night before was gone; this morning, he had seen the sentries of the Fourth, or King’s Own Regiment, on Boston Neck. He was in the face of the enemy, and operations were under way.
“Gentlemen, you have done well, and the entire continent applauds you. But whether we end this year at peace with the mother country, or whether we are doomed to civil war, we must not lose here. We cannot afford that the king’s troops mount a successful coup de main against our works.
“We do not need to win any great battles, and I wish to reassure you that I have not come before you seeking useless laurels. But neither will I squander the reputation you have garnered. Our defenses are, to be blunt, pitiful. Over the next few days I will ride over them with you, gentlemen, and our staff. But you have only to look at the two great redoubts the enemy has constructed and filled with guns on Boston Neck to see how this matter should have been carried forward. The defenses immediately below this town are insufficient, and as this is our headquarters, I have little reason to believe that matters will be better elsewhere.”
None of the New Englanders could be expected to listen to this thinly veiled criticism with pleasure, and Washington had been warned that Ward, at least, thought that the religious superiority of the Massachusetts men was a stronger armor than any regular entrenchment. He was certainly red in the face.
“God has granted us great victories, at Concord and Monroe Tavern and Breed’s Hill, General Washington, and no one can doubt that His cloak lieth over this army, and His shield stands before it.”
“I am sorry, General Ward. Does that mean you do not feel we should improve our entrenchments?” Washington spoke coldly, his courtesy strained. He did not intend to give an inch on his first day in command, lest his authority be eroded.
“I mean, General, that the hand of the Lord is more to us than all the science of the Romans.”
“General Ward, God’s cloak and shield would be greatly strengthened by a proper redoubt with ravelins below this town and some strong entrenchments on Dorchester Neck, if I am not very mistaken. I would add, for your private ear, that God may not forever tolerate behavior in a camp like I saw last night—with both alcohol and lewd women—and that as long as this army behaves in such a manner, it would be hubris, sir, to expect special consideration. If those observations are not sufficient, please remain behind when this meeting is dismissed and we can discuss the matter.”
Ward seemed likely to explode, but several of the other officers were smiling. A colonel standing behind General Ward raised his hand as if to be recognized. Washington looked past him, but the man began to speak anyway.
“We can best get men to dig…”
Washington stopped him in his tracks. “This is not a council of war, sir. When I want your opinion, I shall ask it.” Washington realized how that sounded as soon as the words crossed his lips, and he forced a small smile. “Gentlemen. Only one man can command. I do not wish to be here as a foreigner, taking command after your notable victories, but here I am at the behest of the continent.” He looked around the room, ignoring Lee’s open amusement and Gates’s solid presence, looking for reaction from the New Englanders. They looked back, sullen and closed. He sighed. He knew hi
mself to lack the temperament to court men to his way.”General Ward, if any of my remarks could be interpreted as illiberal, please forgive me. I am moved only by my zeal for our duty, and mean no disrespect to the efforts of this army.”
Ward bowed in return, but his face remained red.
Wherever the conversation might have gone, it was interrupted by cries of “Alarm” in the camp on the common. Washington looked at Ward; the man had handed over the command, but Washington didn’t even know the names of all the brigadiers. He should let Ward respond to the alarm. Ward glared at him, and Washington stamped on his impulse.
“Get me a report of the alarm.”
A young man in a good brown cloth coat and a round hat, wearing a fine silver smallsword and sea boots, was introduced to the room in minutes.
“Captain Poole of Marblehead,” said one of his aides from the doorway.
“We can see the British moving on the Neck, sir.”
“In what strength?”
“Five or six regiments and a battalion of light infantry.”
“Do they have packs?”
The man looked crestfallen. “I don’t know.”
“How long until they are ready?”
“They are just forming, sir. An hour.”
Washington dreaded an assault on the nonexistent fortifications opposite the Neck. He looked at the door. “Get me General Lee.”
Charles Lee was an enigma to Washington, more like a British officer than an American, with a vicious turn of phrase, a certain contempt for other men, and little habits of dress that made him stand out. Today he wore blue and buff, as prescribed by Washington, but gave it a fashionable air utterly at variance with Washington’s severity. His lapels were unbuttoned, which gave the coat a look of informality; his beautiful smallsword was thrust through a pocket; he wore a small tricorn unlike any other in Massachusetts; and his watch fob dangled below a double-breasted waistcoat that in no way matched Washington’s views on the dress of his officers. Yet alone of all the men on his staff, Lee entered and presented a perfectly correct salute, bowing and putting off his hat without flourish or awkwardness, every inch the soldier.
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