by Ron Carter
“You new men fall into ranks here with First Company.”
There was only time to trot forward to First Company and fill in six of the vacant places left by missing men in the last two ranks before the orders came loud and strong, “Fordddd, harch!”
They moved away from the river, traveling nearly due west, following two muddy ruts made by wagon wheels that followed an unnamed stream through the wooded hills. They passed places where trees, long dead, were stacked on the wayside, along with the stumps that had been dug out of the ground and dragged aside by oxen and chains to clear the ground. They rested at noon in a small meadow, and at one o’clock they were back in ranks, moving steadily west beneath blue skies and bright, warm sunshine. As they marched, they kept the covers to their ammunition pouches open, and by midafternoon the paper cartridges and the precious powder inside were drying.
The sun was setting when they made a hasty camp in the stubble of a small harvested wheat field surrounded by trees. They were within sight of a tavern with a small cluster of homes about and half a dozen farms nearby. They built their evening cook fires and had their first warm meal in four days—salty gravy with chunks of diced mutton on boiled rice, and hard brown bread. Half an hour later every company had fires burning, with their blankets hung on lines tied between nearby trees. The dank smell of wet wool hung heavy in the air. They boiled water to make their strong drink from parched, milled wheat, and sat around the fires with their wooden cups, quietly talking, watching the flames dance. They saw the windows in the distant tavern and the homes begin to glow in the dusk, and they drifted into silent reveries of wives and children and hearths left behind.
Caleb took a place at one of the fires of First Company, listening, letting the warmth creep in. A young soldier came to sit beside him and for a time silently nursed his smoking wooden cup with the others. After a time he turned to Caleb.
“You a volunteer?”
“Yes.”
“From New York?”
“A New York company. I’m from Boston.”
The young soldier, shorter than Caleb, barefooted, dressed in worn homespun, brightened. “I’m from Whitemarsh. Not far from here—east, across the river. Always wanted to see a city. Boston or New York or maybe Philadelphia.”
Caleb sipped at his drink. “Philadelphia isn’t far, is it?”
“Oh, maybe twenty miles from Whitemarsh. Never had time to go there. After the war’s over I’m going, though. I got to see a city.”
“What’s this place?”
“It’s called Paoli. Not much.” He pointed. “A tavern over there and a few homes. Some farms.”
“How far from Philadelphia?”
“I’d guess maybe fifteen miles.”
They both stopped talking as an older man, slight, hunch-shouldered, strode into the circle of firelight.
“Picket duty is two hours. Four men each, according to your place in the ranks. Lead rank first, rear rank last. First four men are on duty now. Next four at ten o’clock. We cover them trees right over there. Keep a sharp eye.”
He walked on and four men rose, collected their muskets, and disappeared into the darkness.
At ten o’clock tattoo sounded, and the camp quieted. The pickets came in, and fresh ones went out. Men gathered their blankets from the lines and for the first time in four days lay down in dry clothing, on dry blankets, with warm food and drink in their gaunt midsections.
Caleb lay on his blanket, calculating his picket shift. He had marched in the last rank. He would not be on duty until tomorrow night, earliest. Maybe the next night, if they were still on this side of the river. He stared into the black, boundless heavens with the unnumbered pinpoints of light and the moon and pondered what had caused him to volunteer to leave his New York company to join General Wayne’s command. He could still see and feel and hear the horror of the cannon and muskets and the bayonets at the fight for Battle Hill—the men on both sides, dead, maimed, screaming—the endless screaming that wakened him sweating in the night. How long ago? Eight days? Nine? Ten? He could not remember. How could he have volunteered, knowing the risk of another such battle? Pride? Vanity? Revenge? He drifted into a dreamless sleep, still searching for the answer.
In the trees three hundred yards due west of the American camp in the wheat field, Major General Charles Grey, His Majesty’s Royal Grenadiers, dropped to one knee and strained to see in the dim light of the quarter-moon. The gold epaulets on his shoulders and the gold braid on his tricorn hat were barely visible, as were the white belts that crossed on his crimson tunic.
“They’re settled for the night,” he whispered to his aide.
“I agree, sir.”
Grey tapped him on the shoulder and quietly faded back to where his regiment waited. Quickly he gathered his officers.
“Have all the men remove the flints from their muskets. We cannot chance an accidental discharge.” He turned to Colonel Henry Maguire. “Take the Second Regiment and circle wide to the east side of their camp and come up on them without a sound. Surprise is essential. Locate the pickets and silence them first by stealth. We are going to take that camp with bayonets. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Check your watch. Mine says it is exactly twenty minutes past midnight.”
“Mine is but twenty seconds ahead of yours, sir.”
“At exactly two o’clock by my watch, I will lead my men into them. At that same time you come in from the east. Not a sound. No shooting. Bayonets only.”
By one o’clock more than fifty of the small campfires were still glowing in the wheat field, making dark silhouettes of the slumbering soldiers. Their muskets were laid in the wheat stubble, ten feet from their blankets. The officers’ horses were tied to picket ropes strung between nearby trees.
At three minutes before two o’clock, one of the horses suddenly pricked its ears and raised its head to stare into the night, eyes wine-red in the firelight. Another one blew, then whickered, and then they were all moving their feet, nervous, unsettled.
Two American officers came to their feet and went to the horses, sensing something was wrong, peering into the trees, searching for the yellow eyes of a panther or wolves.
At two o’clock they seized the halter ropes of two of the horses and were talking low to them, settling them. They did not see the British soldiers slipping silently through the trees. At the last moment they heard them, and the horses snorted and shied, and then reared. The officers were still clutching the halter ropes and had opened their mouths to shout a warning when the bayonets struck.
In the next twenty seconds the American camp became a purgatory of screaming men with sleep-fogged minds trying to rise from their blankets, stunned, bewildered, scrambling for their muskets while British regulars drove into them from both sides, their red coats and white belts vivid in the firelight while they relentlessly thrust their bayonets home again and again and again.
In the instant of the first scream, Caleb jerked erect, trying to focus his eyes in the dim light. Then the night was filled with the sounds of men in mortal agony, and Caleb’s brain cleared. He threw his blanket aside, mind racing.
The light—got to get out of the light—into the trees—into the trees.
In one fluid move he rolled to his feet, legs driving away from the camp. Then a British soldier was in front of him, bayonet lowered, thrusting, and Caleb swatted it aside with his left hand and stepped in close and swung his right with every pound he had. His fist caught the man squarely on the point of the chin and the soldier went over backward, unconscious, jaw broken, his musket cartwheeling to the ground.
Caleb swept the weapon from the wheat stubble as two more redcoated regulars closed on him, bayonets gleaming in the firelight. He swung the Brown Bess to knock the first bayonet upward, then threw the heavy rifle, its stock smashing butt-first into the face of the second man, then swung around to face the first man as he recovered and came with his bayonet lowered once again.
Caleb leaped over both men and sprinted into the night, running low, dodging through the wheat stubble to avoid the scatter of oncoming redcoats. With their ten-pound Brown Bess muskets in their hands and their backpacks slowing them, they could not catch him as he sprinted, weaving through the gaps in their ranks. Then they thinned, and he was beyond them, running free in the darkness, when it flashed in his mind. They didn’t shoot—why didn’t they shoot?
He plunged into the trees, chest heaving, running hard. After a time, he stopped to look back and listen. Just over one hundred yards away, the dying campfires made a jumbled confusion of dim silhouettes of outnumbered Americans trying to fend off the deadly bayonets with their bare hands. The heartrending cries of the wounded and dying filled the night and rang echoing through the trees. A few scattered Americans broke through the wall of redcoats to run into the night in any direction that offered escape. Caleb did not know how long he crouched in the trees, horrified beyond thought, his gorge rising to choke him, unable to tear his eyes from the brutal carnage.
Then, almost as quickly as it had begun, the British slowed, the sounds of dying men stopped, and it was over. Some Americans were on their knees, hands thrust high in surrender, encircled by British. Other red-coated regulars walked among what remained of the campfires, pausing only to drive their bayonets downward, and move on. He heard orders shouted, and the regulars worked their way out of the camp with a small cluster of captured Americans, into the wheat field, where they all stopped, and while he watched, began working on their muskets, faces down, hands busy. Minutes passed before it suddenly broke clear in his mind. Flints! They’re putting flints in the hammers! They didn’t fire a shot because they couldn’t!
He moved quickly farther back into the trees and then slowed for a moment. North to the river, then east. We traveled west all day—Washington has to be east.
The moon had reached its apex and was settling toward the west when the dank odor of the river reached him. Ten minutes later he pushed through the willows out into the current of the Schuylkill and stroked for the far shore. He pushed through the green foliage on the far bank and walked dripping, shivering, fifty yards north before he came to a trail running east and west. He turned to his right and set out at a trot on the rough, uneven path used to drive sheep and cattle up or down the river.
He startled a small herd of deer, which bounded away, and he dodged from the trail into the woods, heart in his mouth, until the sounds of their flight faded and died. He flinched at the inquiry of an owl, “whooooo,” in the trees ten feet from his right shoulder. The incessant belching of the bullfrogs came from the river, with the rhythmic chirping of crickets. He trotted on.
The eastern skyline was showing the separation of earth and heaven when he slowed to a walk, chest heaving. Will the British have patrols out? Will they cross the river to follow? Where was Washington taking the army?
He had no choice. He picked up his pace once more, moving steadily eastward. The gray before dawn had defined the branches on the trees that bordered the trail when he heard it faintly, from a far distance to his left. North. The unmistakable rattle of snare drums banging out reveille, and he stopped.
British? American? American! It has to be American. He took his bearings on the place the sun would rise in half an hour, and struck out cross-country, working through the thick underbrush and groves of trees, moving along the fringes of the pastures and open farm fields. Lights appeared in windows of farmhouses, and he trotted on past them. He stopped once to drink from a stream, then splashed through and trotted on, wet to the knees.
He heard them before he saw them—the sounds of axes ringing, cutting morning firewood, and the clanging of cast-iron tripods and kettles being set up to cook the breakfast meal. He crested a rise and saw through the trees the cook fires and the disorganized sprawl of bedding and tents of an army that had not yet learned the need for military order in setting up a camp. He trotted on, holding a steady pace. The tip of the sun was showing above the horizon when a voice boomed from his left.
“Who comes there? Stand and declare yourself!”
He stopped, hands raised to shoulder level while he peered into the trees, searching for the picket. He did not see him until the man moved and walked into the open. His Pennsylvania rifle was aimed directly at Caleb’s breastbone.
Caleb called, “Private Caleb Dunson. Looking for the New York Ninth Regiment.”
“You lost?”
“Yes. I was with Wayne. General Wayne.”
“Deserted?”
“No. We were ambushed.”
The man lowered his rifle and came at a trot. “When? Where?”
“Last night. A place called Paoli. Across the Schuylkill.”
“You alone?”
“Yes.”
“The others?”
Caleb shook his head. “Mostly dead. Some captured. A few got away.”
The man rounded his mouth and blew air. “You better come with me.”
Ten minutes later they stopped before the command tent, and the soldier spoke to the picket on duty at the entrance. “Private Owen McKinney. Massachusetts Sixth. Urgent business for General Washington.”
The picket took McKinney’s rifle and disappeared into the tent, then emerged immediately with a short, slight officer. Colonel Alexander Hamilton’s eyes narrowed as he studied the two men before him, one clearly a backwoodsman, the other a boy who appeared to have been badly handled.
“What is your business with the general?”
The picket gestured. “This man just come in from Gen’l Wayne’s command on the other side of the Schuylkill. Says they was ambushed.”
Hamilton peered at Caleb. “Your name?”
“Private Caleb Dunson. New York Ninth.”
Hamilton turned on his heel and entered Washington’s tent, to emerge a moment later. “The general will see Private Dunson.”
Inside the tent Caleb came to attention, looking up four inches into the face of General Washington. In those blue-gray eyes he saw every human emotion, but most of all he saw a will of tempered steel. He felt as though the general was looking through him, had seen everything inside. With Colonel Hamilton standing to one side watching, listening, Caleb saluted, and Washington returned it, then spoke.
“Your name and unit?”
“Private Caleb Dunson, sir. New York Ninth Regiment, Third Company.”
“Your commanding officer?”
“That was Captain Venables, sir.”
“Was?”
“We haven’t seen him since Brandywine.”
“Your Sergeant?”
“O’Malley, sir.”
“You were with General Wayne?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He does not command the New York Ninth.”
“General Wayne was short of men after the Brandywine battle. They asked for volunteers, sir.”
Washington nodded. “Colonel Hamilton said something happened last night?”
“Yes, sir. About two o’clock in the morning the British attacked our camp with bayonets. Killed a large part of the division. Captured some others. Some escaped. I got away.”
“We heard no shooting.”
“There was none, sir. They took the flints out of their musket hammers. It happened too fast. One second there was no one, and the next second they were on top of us with bayonets. Our men never got to their weapons. There wasn’t a shot fired by either side.”
“You saw all this?”
“I fought my way out and stopped to look back. I saw it.”
Wash
ington saw the awful revulsion in Caleb’s face. “Where are the others who escaped?”
“I don’t know. They scattered in the night. I swam the Schuylkill and came here.”
“You’re a soldier without a musket?” There was a trace of suspicion in Washington’s eyes.
“Yes, sir. No time to get it when they came charging.”
“Did the British follow you? Are we to expect them to attack us here?”
“I doubt it, sir. No one followed me, so far as I know.”
“Was General Wayne killed?” Washington’s breathing slowed as he waited.
“I don’t know, sir. We had a lot of fires burning to dry our ammunition and blankets. All I could see were silhouettes. I don’t know how many officers were killed.”
“You’re hurt? Your shirt is torn. There are traces of blood.”
Caleb glanced at his side. “A bayonet. From the fight while I was escaping. It’s nothing.”
Washington turned to Hamilton. “Take two pickets and escort this man to the New York Ninth Regiment. Find a Sergeant O’Malley and have him verify that this man is from his company. If he is, leave him, then return and report. If he is not, put him in irons and bring him back.”
“Yes, sir.”
Twenty minutes later Hamilton reentered the command tent. “There’s no question Private Dunson is from the New York Ninth. O’Malley says that if Dunson tells us General Wayne was ambushed and his command decimated, then it was attacked and decimated.”
For a moment Washington’s shoulders sagged, then he sat down at his table and for a time did not move as he concentrated. Hamilton shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and Washington gestured to him to be seated.
“We gave General Howe the field at Brandywine. It will be recorded as a defeat for us. But the men performed well. With courage. Bravery. Outnumbered two to one, but they gave as good as they got five times with the best England has to offer before we had to withdraw.” He paused, and Hamilton could see he was putting pieces of the puzzle together in his mind, voicing them to judge how they sounded.