Flashman and Madison's War

by Robert Brightwell

  I watched with fascinated horror as the first Iroquois reached the pile of bodies and injured men that the militia had left behind. While most of the Indians still had their muskets, some were armed just with hatchets and tomahawks and now these rose and fell, the victorious whoops of the Indians mixing with the terrible screams of the wounded. The retreating militia paused and those still loaded fired at the Indians butchering their comrades. Another Indian went down but the rest continued their gruesome work and in a matter of moments the first scalp was held aloft in triumph.

  The effect of the Indian attack was out of all proportion to the numbers involved. Only half of the Indians had rushed forward to pillage the militia position. Norton I saw was amongst them, but he was encouraging the Indians to press on and pursue the surviving militia towards the line of the regular troops. I stepped out from the trees to better see what was happening in the clearing. Across the space there was frantic activity as though someone had dropped a fox into a hen coop, with a striking difference between the response of the militia and the regular soldiers.

  The nearest regiment of uniformed troops was hurriedly reversing its facing to bring its guns to bear on this unexpected attack. Their officer was still standing in front of his troops and frantically gesturing to the retreating militia to get out of their line of fire. In contrast the militia regiments seemed to lose all cohesion, with soldiers running about in all directions. Some ran towards the attack, to stand alongside the regular troops or in small parties of their own. Many of the smaller groups opened fire at an impossible range, the noise and gun smoke causing confusion as people imagined that there were more Indians spreading amongst the clearing. I even saw a few pointing at me as they noticed that a British officer had emerged from the trees.

  The most distinctive movement among the militia, though, was towards the south and the path back down to the river. It started as a trickle, with men pointing and shouting, but in moments it had turned into a stampede. Half of the Iroquois remained in the trees lining the river bank. They were still whooping and howling, to my mind making enough din for four hundred warriors, never mind the forty that were actually there. The militia were clearly worried that the Indians were about to cut off their one route of escape back down the river. The last thing they wanted was to be trapped on some foreign shore with a bunch of scalping savages and so they started to run. It only takes a few to start running before a panic sets in – heaven knows I have been enough of them – and within moments half of the militia, a full quarter of the American force on the heights, was fleeing the field.

  I stood and watched in astonishment. Oh I didn’t blame the militia for running. If I had been brought up on tales of Indian attacks then I would have hightailed it too when I saw those painted demons emerging from their own musket smoke.

  I had watched the attack unfold almost as a spectator rather than a participant. It was not just that the Iroquois were allowed to sit out a fight if they felt like it; I did not feel that I belonged there at all. It was all just too strange and foreign, the war paint and body markings, the whooping and most of all the scalping. I had been sickened when I saw the first Indians reach the dead and injured Americans. I had seen worse atrocities in Spain, particularly between the Spanish partisans and the French, but this was a force that I was supposed to be a part of. Well, I thought, they will get their comeuppance now as the Americans were commencing their counter attack and thirty odd Indians, exposed in the middle of a clearing and surrounded by their enemies, was going to stand little chance.

  The front rank of the American regulars opened fire on the Indians charging towards them. I listened almost with a feeling of nostalgia to the familiar shouted orders and crash of a musket volley. This was the type of warfare I knew and a handful of Iroquois were not going to succeed where French columns had failed. When I looked for Norton and his warriors they were all lying flat on the ground. For a second I thought they were dead but then they all rose to their feet, whooping again in triumph. They had clearly thrown themselves to the ground as the order to ‘fire’ had been given and the undulating ground had protected them. But now Norton raised his musket and pointed back the way they had come and the shrieking banshees started their retreat. The American officer knew his business and soon his troops were marching through the cloud of gun smoke from their volley towards the running Indians. I was already retreating back into cover when a second volley crashed out and some of the militia joined in with a fusillade of musket and rifle shots. Two Indians fell, but both were picked up by the others, one with just a leg wound. Before a third volley could be brought to bear, the Iroquois were out of range and heading into the relative safety of the trees and bushes on the river shore.

  The Americans pursued the Indians towards the trees but as they got close they encountered a fusillade of shots and a handful of arrows from enemies that they could barely see. The Indians were still whooping and taunting them, but the Americans were reluctant to follow them into the undergrowth. I did not blame them; they had no idea how many warriors were hidden in the scrub. Eventually they pulled back to the edge of effective musket range where they contented themselves with firing volleys into the trees at any point they saw movement.

  This musketry duel lasted for over an hour, the Iroquois unable to leave the trees and the Americans unwilling to advance into them. I used the time to go back to the river bank to see what reinforcements were being rowed over. To my surprise the boats going back to the far shore of the river were packed to the gunwales with soldiers, mostly militia, while those coming the other way were half full at best. It was then I heard another problem arrive for the Americans. The British had set up an artillery battery, which was firing the new-fangled shrapnel shells up onto the heights. These ideally exploded in the air above their target sending down a lethal hail of musket balls. Fortunately for the Americans, the British gunners were firing blind up the hill, unable to see how or where their charges hit. At least one landed in the undergrowth and from an increase in the amount of shrieking from the Indians I gathered that there were probably casualties. The rest landed at random across the clearing, most causing little damage, but when I went back to look several clusters of bodies showed that some had found their mark.

  Eventually new crashes of gunfire announced the arrival of General Sheaffe. I had expected him to march his men up the cleared ground alongside the forest so that they could maintain their formations but he had chosen to take them through the same forest used by the Iroquois. They emerged, falling into their companies near where the bodies of the four scalped sentries lay. The Americans were now in a desperate position: a quarter of their force had deserted; no significant reinforcements were coming; they were being assailed by shrapnel shells from above and as they turned to face General Sheaffe’s emerging army they had a hostile Indian force on their right flank.

  Norton chose this moment to attack again. At least thirty warriors burst out from the undergrowth, charging the nearest American troops, howling their challenge and clearly expecting the soldiers to break like the militia before them. It was a mistake, for these were regular soldiers and the American commander decided that now was the time to deal with the Iroquois threat once and for all. His men let the Indians approach and then with no warning fired their volley. At least half a dozen Indians went down but all except one got up again and, helped by other warriors, they began a hasty retreat. Now it was time for the Americans to start a charge of their own. If the Iroquois thought that they would be safe again in the foliage they were wrong, for this time the Americans were not stopping. They withstood a withering fire of musket balls and arrows and pressed on to follow the Indians into the trees.

  I pride myself in not being slow to decide that headlong flight is necessary. There were at least two hundred Americans charging into the trees. Against them were no more than eighty Indians, half of them blown by their own abortive attack and a good number wounded. I did not hesitate to start running; I was sure that t
he Iroquois would be overwhelmed with those numbers. This was confirmed a few moments later when an increased volume of war cries, hooting and whooping indicated that the Indians were also on the move. Some went south down the tree line until they reached the path that the Americans were using to bring up supplies from the river. There they attacked the few porters carrying equipment and pressed on. Others headed north like me, in the direction that Sheaffe’s troops were just starting to appear.

  I was going as fast as I could over the rough ground, but within a few seconds a dozen Iroquois had passed me. I glanced over my shoulder but none of the Americans were yet in sight. When I looked to my front again all of the Indians had disappeared, like phantoms into the woods. I ran forward a few more paces but then crashed to the ground as a hand gripped firmly round my ankle.

  “Roll under here, Lobster,” whispered a grinning young Iroquois warrior. He was lying under a thick bush surrounded by ferns. “Your red coat will stand out too much in the trees,” he added as he wriggled back to make room for me.

  “Thank you,” I replied while crawling under the foliage. “Won’t the Americans search the bushes?”

  “No, they will not stay long, they will feel too...” he paused and seemed to be searching his memory for the right word. “Vulnerable,” he said at last.

  “You speak good English.”

  The Indian smiled, pleased at the compliment. “I learned at the church school,” he whispered. “Now be quiet, they are coming.” It was several seconds before I heard the sound of pursuit, a distant breaking of branches and murmur of voices as the Americans pushed through the trees.

  “God damn it! Where the hell are they? I saw at least ten come this way.”

  “They will be hiding,” called out a second voice. “Waiting for us to go past and then the bastards will shoot us in the back.”

  “Why don’t we fire into the undergrowth?” shouted a third voice. “See if we can flush some of the critters out.” I twitched in alarm at that for they were still moving forward and the speaker sounded like he was no more than ten yards from where I lay.

  “Sure, you try that,” jeered the second voice with a heavy note of sarcasm. “Leavin’ yourself unloaded in a forest full of Injuns is just about the surest way I know of losing your hair.” I heard some shouting in the distance but could not make out the words. Then the second voice yelled, “We’re coming,” in response and gradually the men moved away, back in the direction they had come.

  “Are you going to shoot them in the back?” I whispered to my companion.

  “No,” he grinned. “I am unloaded and anyway it would be foolish to give away your position when there are so many enemies nearby.” We waited, talking quietly for a few minutes as the Americans pulled slowly back to the clearing. He told me that his name was John Smoke Johnson; it was the first battle he had been in. He asked me if I had been in other battles and when I told him a little of my experience he seemed impressed. “The Americans are snatching their shots and firing high,” he told me as he reached into his pouch and pulled out a cartridge to start reloading his own gun while we still lay in the undergrowth. It was a small calibre musket and as he shifted it to make room for his ramrod I saw that he had carved out a shallow dip in the stock so that his aiming eye was right over the barrel.

  “Have you shot any Americans?” I asked

  “I think I got at least two.”

  “But no scalps?” I enquired looking at his belt where Indians tucked in the grisly things.

  “Scalping is a brutal and useless custom,” he stated firmly. “I am a Christian; I believe that God and the Great Spirit are the same thing. A man’s soul cannot be held in his hair.” He cautiously raised himself up, staring about him and then he gazed down at me. “Now, Lobster, it is time for us to return to the battle.”

  I raised my head above the level of the bush and could see several Indians walking back towards the clearing, grinning and chatting to each other. They were heading back down the tree line towards the spot closest to the American position from which they had been chased away minutes before. In my bright scarlet coat, fresh from the army store, I let them go ahead. The noise of battle coming through the trees was increasing as the British and Canadian troops appeared in the clearing. I guessed that the Americans would not have enough men for another charge through the trees as well as defending their line. I was right; when I finally got close enough to glimpse the American position through the trees I could see that they were in a precarious state.

  The British had evidently got someone on the edge of the heights signalling to the guns below because now the shrapnel shells were landing much more consistently around the American position. I could hear the gun the British had originally placed on the heights to cover the river now banging away again, which would have made it hot work for anyone to cross by boat. As I crept to the edge of the undergrowth I could see the British and Canadian troops to my right. They were arrayed in a line with a company of black troops nearest the trees. They looked fresh and business-like, which was more than could be said for their opposition.

  The Americans had now been fighting on the heights for several hours. They were being assailed from the air by shrapnel shells exploding over their heads. As they organised themselves to face the British line their right flank was once more under sporadic but accurate fire from the Iroquois. A steady trickle of Americans, mostly militia, could be seen slipping away towards the path down to the river. The American commander was outnumbered, outgunned and outflanked, but still his men put up a stiff fight as the British line advanced. The Americans had more riflemen, which gave them accuracy and range, but these weapons were slower to reload and many were fouled with powder residue from earlier firing. The British, with muskets, could deliver a greater rate of fire and gradually this began to tell with the Americans edging back.

  I advanced behind the black soldiers, Captain Raunchey’s Company of Coloured Men, I discovered they were called. They seemed steady enough although the white officer Raunchey had brought a stone keg of liquor with him, which he supped from regularly as they marched. His men, like the rest of the militia troops, were all dressed in civilian clothes but had white armbands on their sleeves to show their allegiance. With so many soldiers on both sides in civilian clothes, any melee between the militia would have been a confused and deadly affair, with probably more than a few killed by their own side. Thankfully it did not come to that. The American fire was slowing down and we could hear a chorus of yelling from their ranks and see men running about.

  Suddenly there was a greater movement to the path leading down to the river. A trickle of men became a flow and in a moment half of the force was running and pushing to get away. The rest huddled together with a white flag waving from a bayonet.

  In the end it was not the British or the Iroquois that ultimately defeated the Americans: gradually more and more of their soldiers ran out of ammunition. No supplies or reinforcements were getting across the river and many, particularly in the militia, had started the day with less than a score of cartridges in their pouches. These had quickly been used up and as men fell dead or wounded their pouches were searched in increasing desperation for the precious powder and ball.

  As a bugle called a cease fire the entire British and Canadian line surged forward to secure the prisoners and to relieve them of any valuables, as was the way of war. The Iroquois, though, wanted more than loot; they wanted scalps too. Suddenly there seemed to be hundreds of Indians pouring through the trees. Christ knows where they had all come from. Some must have been those that had turned back in the forest, but there seemed to be more than the original war party. All too soon there were screams and shouts for help coming from the trees. Mercifully I could not see what was happening but I pitied any poor American that the Indians found there. It was bad enough to scalp the dead but from the sound of things they were despatching the wounded too. I pressed forward, searching for Norton. I thought he was the only man who would b
e able to make them stop. I was calling his name when a strange figure on three limbs came scrambling out of the trees.

  It was a boy. He looked little older than fifteen but was dressed in a regular soldier’s uniform and he had been shot in the leg. He held his bloodied leg up in the air and was trying to move as fast as he could on his hands and his one good leg, like a wounded dog. His eyes were wide in terror as he kept looking over his shoulder and he was nearly ten yards out of the trees when he noticed me standing nearby.

  “Please, mister, help me,” he implored. “They are killin’ people and taking their hair.”

  Before I could reply another figure burst from the trees, it was the big warrior, Black Eagle, who came to a sudden stop when he saw me standing there. He pointed at the boy and declared, “That one is mine.”

  Normally I would not dream of standing between a big murderous warrior and whatever he wanted, but when I looked down at the lad I was struck by how similar he looked to a boy I had known in Spain. That youngster had been an ensign under my command. I had not been able to keep that soldier alive but suddenly I was damned if I was going to let this boy die as well.

  “You will leave him alone,” I commanded, watching as a look of rage crossed the Indian’s face. “I hold a commission from King George, the great chief across the sea,” I told him. “He is the man who is chief to the Great Father, and I command that you will leave this boy alone. The British do not allow prisoners to be killed or scalped.” To further emphasise my point I reached down and drew my sword and with my left had I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pistol.