Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  Caesar could easily visualize the scene, as his namesake’s men fell upon the rear of the Belgians, who looked in his mind’s eye like the unvaliant remnants of the Tenth Continental Regiment that had broken at the first shots from his little group of Ethiopians. His pack had “X Con’t” painted on it, as did most of the packs carried by the other black soldiers. He could see the Belgians flinching away, the front ranks striving to hold their ground while the rear ranks began to run. He was reliving it, seeing Washington fleeing him and smiling with the memory when he realized that a horse was taking grass at his back and there were polished riding boots at the edge of his vision.

  “Beg your pardon, Mr. Green.”

  “At your service, Sergeant Caesar.”

  Caesar scrambled to his feet and brushed wood chips out of his trousers.

  “What are you reading, Sergeant?”

  “The Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar,” he said, holding up the thick volume. It reminded him of Sergeant Peters, and how easily he had adapted to being the sergeant.

  Jeremy smiled. “I doubt there’s another sergeant in this army who would willingly carry that volume in the field, Julius.”

  “I think you do them wrong, sir. Caesar’s commentaries have lessons that apply to every aspect of our war here, from entrenching a camp to setting a picket. Indeed,” he opened the book and began to flip pages, “see here in the plate, where it shows how to fortify a bridge.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “A sad state we’d be in, if the works of a general dead these two thousand years were better than our modern manuals. My master has in his tent all the latest works, whether the siege books of Monseer Vauban or the very latest from Mr. Muller. Indeed, I bought the most of them for him myself.”

  Caesar looked at him with round eyes, and Jeremy was struck again with his youth, and the difference between the man in action and the man at rest. Like those round young eyes and the scars above them.

  “You mean to say there are modern manuals…but of course there are.” He looked at Jeremy with a certain wonder.

  “I don’t suppose…”

  “I’m almost certain the captain would lend them, or let you read one near the tent, if you had a mind. Indeed, I’ve been sent to find you with the purpose of inviting you, if you were at liberty, to join the captain.”

  “I’ll come directly.”

  “Julius Caesar, it really is time someone polished you. Your language is better than the common run, but ‘I’ll come directly’ is too plain. You should send me with your best compliments and say that you will attend Captain Stewart directly. That’s the pretty way to say it. Attend is genteel.”

  Caesar looked at Jeremy for a moment, and Jeremy thought that he could see the other, dangerous Caesar for a flash of an eye, but then it was gone and the eyes were serene.

  “Mr. Green, pray send the captain my best compliments, and tell him that I will attend him directly.”

  “Splendid. I recommend a clean shirt, if you have one.”

  “In fact, the rebels have provided us with all the shirts we could wish, many beautifully sewn, left on the ground for the first comer. We thought it uncommon generous. We attempted to attend them directly, to pay them our best compliments for the shirts, but they all had prior engagements.”

  His last was greeted with little grunts of laughter from the men in the ferry yard. Jeremy just smiled back.

  “We shall expect you, then.” He turned back. “Do you fence, by any chance?”

  “Fence? I don’t understand you.”

  “I see you wear a sword. Do you know how to use it?”

  “Not any better than I could use it to cut cane, but so far I haven’t needed it. Why?”

  “I have some skill in the art. Perhaps we’ll find a time, young Caesar.”

  “I would be delighted to attend you.”

  Jeremy just laughed.

  Captain Stewart’s marquee was rather grand, but when the army was moving, he had only one packhorse and lived with Jeremy in a simple private’s tent. Of course, when the army was moving, the privates left their tents behind altogether.

  Jeremy and the company quartermaster had between them arranged for the captain to take over the barn, yard, and shop of a blacksmith. The smith and his family were attempting to continue with their lives while soldiers were living all around their home. Neither Caesar nor Jeremy had any idea if the smith had children, which suggested to both of them that what he had was daughters.

  The tent was set up in the barn, but used as a screen to make a private room on the threshing floor. It was cold but spacious. Caesar could see from the sentry post that Captain Stewart was sitting with another man dressed in an old hunting coat over very fine smallclothes.

  Caesar stopped to return the sentry’s salute at the entrance to the barn. Stewart saw him and waved him on. The sentry saluted smartly, jerked his head toward the two officers, and gave a quick, almost invisible smile.

  “Good news for yor’n, Sergeant,” he whispered.

  Caesar walked back and saluted the two officers.

  The stranger rose in his seat and returned the salute gravely, while Stewart simply fluttered his hand and told him to “carry on, carry on”. Jeremy appeared with a light chair, probably obtained from one of the nearby houses. He took Caesar’s musket and carried it off beyond the screen of canvas.

  “Have a seat, Sergeant. This is Captain Simcoe of the Second grenadier Battalion. He commands the grenadiers of the Fortieth Foot.”

  “An honor, sir,” said Caesar, sitting and then standing again, embarrassed at having accepted the invitation to sit before he had been introduced. He hovered uncertainly by his chair. Simcoe smiled warmly.

  “Your servant, Sergeant. I had the pleasure to observe your pursuit of Mr. Washington’s staff during the affair at Kip’s Bay.”

  Caesar beamed at the praise.

  “I tried to bring my company up into action, but mine cannot run quite so fast or far as either your blacks or Captain Stewart’s Scots, and so we had to be content to watch the closing acts.”

  Caesar stood silent. He knew that the grenadiers were saved for the really difficult fighting in major engagements, and he had never before considered how frustrating it might be to watch the lights fight every day in the war of outposts and never participate themselves. For himself, he had seen so much fighting in the last month that he felt rattled, but this didn’t seem the time to say so.

  “Nonetheless, Sergeant, we haven’t brought you here to listen to our war stories. You must know that Captain Stewart has petitioned Sir William Howe to have your company placed on the provincial establishment as a body of regular Loyalist soldiers.”

  Caesar leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, sir.”

  Stewart interjected. “Julius Caesar, sit down. Jeremy, pour him a glass of rum. Carry on, Captain Simcoe.”

  Caesar sat stiffly, his pack catching the rungs of the chair back. The rules of this conversation made him uncomfortable, the two white officers apparently pretending that he was their peer. But he was not, and his experience of white gentry suggested that they would be quick to anger if he put a foot wrong. He saw himself laughing at Washington on the hunt, so long ago. He’d been sent to the swamp for that.

  Jeremy came and stood beside him. Jeremy’s presence was reassuring. He could ask Jeremy what to do, if they had a moment alone. Jeremy handed him a small horn cup, and the sweet scent of the rum made his empty stomach flip over.

  Simcoe waited until Caesar had sipped his rum, and then produced a heavy folded parchment from the saddlebag under his chair.

  “This document is what is known as a ‘beating order’. It entitles Captain Stewart to raise a company of soldiers to be known as the Black Guides to serve for the duration of the conflict. We would like the Black Guides to be based on your men, Sergeant. Can you read?”

  Jeremy leaned forward.

  “He’s reading Caesar’s Gallic Wars. He has it in his backpack, sir. Ask him.”

&n
bsp; Simcoe looked interested.

  “Are you, by God. Do you have it with you? May I see it?”

  Caesar stripped off his pack with Jeremy’s help and produced it. Simcoe leafed through it, paused at some illustrations, and smiled.

  “I read it in Latin for school, and again at Merton College. It seems so modern in English, as if the war were happening now.”

  Caesar was trying to read the beating order, whose language was almost as arcane as Latin.

  “I do not wish to offer anything to you gentlemen but praise,” he said carefully. “But can we not continue to be the Loyal Ethiopian Regiment?”

  Both white men shook their heads. Simcoe took the lead.

  “The governor had the authority to raise that regiment only within his own province, Caesar. How far are you in Gallic Wars?”

  “I’m well along in book three, sir.”

  “So you understand how his authority worked? How he could command legions only in Gaul, and not throughout the empire?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “And so it is with us, Caesar. Governor Dunmore’s right to raise troops doesn’t extend outside of Virginia. Commissions he has written have the force of his intent, of course, but they won’t get very far. And all the officers of the Ethiopians have moved to other commands.”

  Or died, thought Caesar, remembering Mr. Robinson. He wondered idly if Major Robinson was a relation. They were of a type.

  “So we should join Captain Stewart’s corps of Black Guides.” Caesar spoke slowly again, because, much as he wanted to like the new officer, and much as he respected Captain Stewart, he felt that somehow something was being taken from him.

  Stewart stood up and walked back and forth a moment.

  “I told you he would take it this way, Simcoe. Look here, Caesar. It’s me who’s joining you, not the other way around. I’ll be your officer for a while, and then another will be appointed, perhaps a whole slate of three. We’ll recruit you up to a double company, which is what Sir William has authorized. Perhaps eighty men. A powerful force that can operate on its own or provide guides for the light infantry. We should have foreseen that you’d have a pride in your corps. We do, and Sergeant McDonald wouldn’t lightly tear off his buttons and join the Fortieth.”

  Simcoe said carefully, “Did you think you’d be the officer, Caesar?”

  Caesar laughed. It wasn’t an easy laugh, because since Kip’s Bay, he’d met British officers who didn’t deserve their rank, and he’d even been ordered about by a few. He knew he could run a company, but the world was as it was, something Jeremy often said.

  “No, sir. I’m just not easy about leaving the Ethiopians.”

  “If I said that the Ethiopians would become the Black Guides?” Stewart looked at Simcoe for assistance. “Would that help?”

  Jeremy pressed his back.

  “Do it, Caesar. Trust me,” Jeremy whispered hoarsely, not really covered by the noise of the soldiers in the barn.

  “And we’ll be paid regular, and uniformed?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Caesar nodded. He was happy that they would become regular soldiers, and he feared to offend the two officers by not falling in with their plans, but he still felt that something was lacking. He trusted Jeremy, though. Indeed, for the most part, he trusted Stewart, who was the bravest man he had seen in action, and that was worth something.

  “I’m very pleased, then,” he said. If you have to accept another’s wishes, do it with a good grace. So his mother had always said. He smiled. Jeremy squeezed his shoulder. The two white officers shook his hand.

  “We’ll muster the men you have tonight, so that you can be paid immediately. Do you have women?”

  “A dozen or so back on Staten Island. One or two that the new boys have collected here.”

  Simcoe counted quickly. “You can have only sixteen on the rolls, Sergeant, so best choose the ones who will work and push the slatterns off on another corps.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You choose them and get me the names when you can,” said Stewart hurriedly.

  Caesar knew it was a matter of great importance. Women on the rolls of a regiment were members of the army. They got preference for barracks space, they drew rations, and they had a place. Other women, the camp followers and slatterns, could expect to be drummed out of the tents on a cold morning, or worse. He thought of Sally, and Big Annie, and the local girls who had black skin but spoke Dutch. Sixteen women would be hard. Of course, none of them had anything at all now, and none of the boys was really married except Angus to Big Annie.

  Whatever he decided, there would be fighting. He was far away when he felt Jeremy jostle his shoulder.

  “The problems of command, eh, Caesar?” asked Stewart. “And I see you came off New York Island with a bolt of brown cloth. Shall we continue in brown jackets?”

  “I’d rather, sir. They are serviceable enough.”

  “Round hats. I notice most of your men have no hats, or old rebel hats.”

  “I like the round hats well enough, sir, but most of our equipment has been donated by the rebels, and we haven’t come across a company wearing just the hats we desire.”

  Simcoe laughed and Stewart smiled.

  “Jeremy, give Caesar part of our cold chicken. We’re off to walk the posts for a bit. When you’ve had a bite, Caesar, meet us at your company so we can muster.”

  Caesar stood up. “Yes, sir.”

  “Just so, Caesar. Carry on.”

  The men mustered eagerly enough. Few of them cared if they were Ethiopians or Guides, and the prospect of regular pay, allowances for quarters, proper uniforms, and status was so alluring that even Caesar’s band of veterans seemed to think he had accomplished a miracle.

  “Bettuh than I evah expec’,” said Virgil. “An’ Captain Stewart, he’s good. Been good to us, too.”

  Virgil was holding a crown, a large silver coin worth five English shillings. Stewart had given one to every man as “bounty”, he said. Caesar thought of the last time he had received a crown from a white man, when Washington told him not to be familiar.

  “You look like someone walkin’ on yo’ grave, Caesar,” said Tonny.

  Caesar tried to shake off his unease. He thought it might be that from Peters’s death until today he had been in sole command, and now others would be above him. Perhaps his freedom had been unbounded, at least within the war, and now it was bounded.

  Caesar could see that some of the men of Stewart’s company were coming in, despite the late hour, and shaking hands with the Black Guides. Pipes were lit, and rum began to make the rounds. Some men were dancing, and suddenly there were women.

  He put his hands on the shoulders of the two men.

  “And now you’ll both be corporals,” he said.

  “Gon’ hav’ to learn to cipher from Cese’s big book,” said Tonny, poking around in Caesar’s backpack.

  Jim came up from the dark, with a girl by the hand. He didn’t introduce her, and she kept her face half turned away, perhaps embarrassed to be in a camp full of men. Caesar nodded to him, and Jim smiled back, a huge gleam of delight.

  “Nevah thought it would be so good, when we was in the swamp,” he said.

  Caesar felt his elation begin to conquer his misgivings, and he nodded. He thought of Virgil calling him Cese, just now, a name he hadn’t heard in months, and it brought it all back to him. Then he frowned.

  “You be careful with that girl. She from here?”

  “Belongs to the big house.”

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  “I’m Morag, if you please,” she said shyly, with a little curtsy. Then, “I never see so many black folk before.”

  Africans were thin on the ground in New York, Caesar knew. Many of the men in camp were recent recruits, escaped slaves from New York or New Jersey, and they were capering with excitement. One, Silas, kept telling all the men around him that he “ain’ never going to be slave, not no more”, in a strong
Dutch accent. Caesar listened with amusement.

  “Listen up, here,” he called, in his parade ground voice, and the little yard grew still.

  “We are a company in the army now, and under discipline. Drink the rum and enjoy your money, boys, but don’t you do nothing to bring us infamy. Do you hear me? What we do here will decide what a lot of folk think of black soldiers.”

  He looked around the yard slowly, trying to catch every eye. “Some of us started this war in Virginia. Some of us just joined today. That’s fine. But all of you remember that just getting to here, where we are free men, and soldiers, has cost us. Remember that better men than us died just to get us here. Remember that we are free and there are a lot of folk that ain’t. And remember that the army is marching early tomorrow and we’ll be right at the front, so no hard heads and no missing kits.”

  He looked at them all with something close to love, and it was too much for him, and he turned away from the fire in the yard and walked off a little, and he heard Virgil lead them in a cheer that mixed the company with the white soldiers around them and the shriller voices of women, so that by the third cheer the HUZZAH almost lifted the night away.

  He saw two officers standing in greatcoats at the edge of the big fire. Simcoe and Stewart were there. He thought they might have drifted off after the parade, but they hadn’t.

  “Forty-one men, Sergeant. We’ll want to recruit up to strength as soon as may be.”

  “Yes, sir. With respect, sir, there are so many runaway blacks around these parts, we shouldn’t have any difficulty.” Caesar watched his men around the fires, and he was glad. “Where do we march, sir?” he asked.

  Stewart looked out into the night for a moment.