Prelude to Glory, Vol. 2

by Ron Carter

  The southern regiment walked to the creek just north of the Boston regiment, and those in the lead plunged in fully dressed. The ones behind spread along the bank and began stripping off their shoes and boots, then their shirts and pants and socks, and then walked into the water to begin their wash. Those who had gone in fully dressed stripped their soaked clothing and wrung it out and then came splashing onto the bank, water streaming from their long hair and beards. They hung their wet garments on bushes and scrub oak until there was no more space. Then a few of them shrugged and began throwing the clothing of the Boston regiment from the bushes onto the ground.

  The nearest Boston men recoiled in disbelief, then stepped forward. “You can’t do that!”

  The southerners turned towards them and each reached for his belt knife. One of them spat a stream of tobacco juice through his stained beard, raised his broad-bladed knife, and jerked more clothing from the bush at his side. Eli swept up his weapons belt and came trotting, Billy beside him, barefoot, in his drawers. Eli fronted the man, tomahawk in his right hand, belt knife in his left. The two regiments were now faced off but hanging back, letting the two men finish what had gone too far.

  Eli smiled, both arms hanging loosely at his sides. “Ought not do that, friend. We’ll be finished here directly and you can have the creek.”

  A wicked grin showed through the black beard and the man growled, “We’ll just take it right now,” and he spat tobacco juice onto Eli’s chest.

  The smile never left Eli’s face. “If you’ve a mind, give it a try.”

  Instantly the man lunged and his knife flashed upward in a sweeping stroke towards Eli’s bowels, and Eli twisted sideways. As the knife cleared his midsection traveling up, he swung the tomahawk down with all his strength and the handle struck the man’s wrist, and Billy heard the muffled crack of the bone. The knife flew to one side and rolled in the grass as the man gasped in agony and grabbed his arm behind his broken wrist. A man with a drawn knife standing opposite Billy took a step towards Eli, and Billy’s movement was a blur as he grasped the man’s arm with his left hand, caught his broad leather belt with his right, and lifted him high and threw him down on his back, where he lay gasping, unable to move, while Billy stood beside Eli, eyes flashing, balanced, ready.

  Eli straightened from his crouch and his words came low, guttural, to those of the southern regiment standing nearby. “If anyone else wants to throw our clothes in the dirt, let him step forward.”

  The crack of a pistol shot and the sound of a running horse turned everyone’s head searching to the east. They saw Colonel Israel Thompson spurring a big bay gelding into the outer fringes of the regiment, scattering men, saber flashing over his head in the morning sun, face flushed with anger, and they opened a path. He pulled his running mount to a sliding stop, and the horse threw its head high, fighting the pressure of the bit.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” he shouted. He turned in the saddle, facing his command. “You men move back ten yards, now!”

  He wrenched his horse back around facing the southern regiment. “You men do the same!” He was trembling, neck veins extended, and he leveled his saber directly at those nearest. “I swear I’ll kill the next man who provokes trouble!”

  A second horse came pounding in, and a brigadier general wearing a green uniform reined to a halt, facing Thompson.

  “I’m General Ballantine,” he barked. “What’s going on here?”

  “I separated the two regiments to avoid trouble.”

  Ballantine leaned forward, anger flashing. “I’ll take command of my regiment, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Thompson said, “and I trust you will bring them under control.” He stared steadily into Ballantine’s eyes, and Ballantine broke it off and turned to his men. “You will continue as you were, but under no circumstance will you come within twenty yards of anyone from the Boston regiment.”

  Lesser officers from both regiments came running and moved in among their men, shouting orders, moving the regiments farther apart. Billy’s shoulders slumped and he exhaled held breath as he moved back, warily watching the southern regiment moving back, surly, reluctant, wanting to fight.

  In near total silence the Boston regiment finished their bathing and collected their damp clothing and moved back to their campground, eyes seldom leaving the sullen, rebellious faces of the North Carolina regiment. Eli walked behind Billy, weapons belt in place, wet shirt over his shoulder, the long Pennsylvania rifle carried in his right hand, light and easy. Billy was startled when he realized that from the first time he had seen Eli, the man had never been more than a few steps from his rifle and his weapons belt.

  The men spread their damp clothes near their blankets, got their muskets and rifles, and sat down, eyes never leaving the men of the southern regiment while they waited for their clothing to dry and thought of breakfast.

  The regimental commissary had lost one wagonload of food supplies in a rough river crossing six days earlier. Four days ago the remaining salted meat and vegetables and flour had run out, leaving five barrels of hardtack, so dried it had to be broken with a rock and soaked in canteen water to be eaten, and fried pork belly that was little more than the skin, fried crisp, like pork cracklings.

  Three days ago the regiment had gleaned ears of corn from a cornfield near the road, and two days ago they had stuffed hard green apples into their shirts from an orchard across a split-rail fence. That night a dozen of the young had gorged on the green apples, and by three o’clock in the morning the camp was awakened by their moaning as they made their way out of camp, doubled over with stomach cramps, to retch in the grass while older men smiled cynically and shook their heads in the dark.

  Billy shrugged into his damp clothes and walked to the company commissary to get his ration of hardtack and fried sow belly, then returned to his bedroll and knapsack to soak the hardtack and chew on the crisped pork rinds, with small bites of the last green apple from his knapsack. A few moments later Eli approached and dropped to his haunches, hardtack and sow belly in hand. “You put that man down hard back there.”

  Billy shrugged and said nothing.

  “Who taught you?”

  Billy thought for a moment. “No one.”

  A wry smile passed over Eli’s face. “You do things like that often?”

  Billy grinned. “No. Just didn’t have time to think.”

  “For a minute I thought I was going to have to take on that whole regiment alone. You mixed in and they changed their mind.”

  Billy laughed out loud. “I don’t think I scared anyone. Colonel Thompson changed their minds.”

  Eli sobered. “Maybe. It’s past.”

  He rose to go and Billy spoke hesitantly. “Did I see you with a Bible this morning?”

  Eli looked down at him, and Billy saw him weigh whether he wanted to let anyone into that part of his life. “Yes. Why?”

  Billy shrugged, hesitant to ask the question he so much wanted answered. “No reason.”

  For long moments Eli stared into Billy’s face. “Because I was raised Iroquois?”

  Billy was taken aback by the open frankness. “Yes.”

  “You want to know why a white man raised Iroquois would read the Bible?”

  “Yes.”

  An intense look came into Eli’s eyes. “Mostly Jesus.”

  “Jesus?”

  “What he taught. There’s no bottom to it.”

  “Who taught you about him?”

  “The Jesuits. They taught from the Bible, but they wouldn’t let us read it.”

  Billy was incredulous. “That’s why you left the Iroquois? to read the Bible?”

  Eli pursed his mouth in thought. “Partly.”

  Billy knew there was more, but sensed that Eli was going to keep it hidden and that the talk was over. “Sometime maybe we can talk about it,” Billy ventured.

  “You a reverend?”

  “No, I’m an account keeper, but I’m a Christian.”

&nb
sp; Eli shrugged. “Maybe we can.”

  The high nasal voice broke in, “All right, you lovelies,” and both men turned towards Sergeant Turlock. “Form up the regiment. The colonel wants to talk to us in five minutes, and then we march out of here.”

  The 482 men formed into a loose square of crooked rank and file, murmuring as they waited. Colonel Thompson came striding to stand before them with his spine straight, chin high.

  “We leave in ten minutes. Transports are waiting to ferry us across the Hudson. You will make yourselves as presentable as possible, and you will march into New York smartly, in perfect rank and file.”

  Murmuring broke out.

  Thompson bellowed, “You are at attention! There will be no talking in the ranks. We will be met in New York City and shown to our campground. For now, that is all. Get your packs and be in marching formation in ten minutes.”

  They marched south half a mile to a place where the primeval cooling of the great upheaval of molten granite had cracked the face of the Palisades, leaving a fissure half a mile inland. In single file the regiment cautiously picked its way down a steep, rocky, narrow trail that had been chiseled and blasted along the north wall of the fissure. At the bottom they came to the waters of the Hudson.

  There were no ferries, no water transports waiting. Instead they loaded into square-nosed barges, longboats, and rowboats, shoulder to shoulder, and river men pushed off into the broad expanse of the river, running wide and fast and deep with the late spring runoff from the Adirondacks, the Appalachians, and the Green Mountains to the north. Every eye turned to stare across the three-mile gap at the squat, stubborn silhouette of the ridge on the Manhattan side, and when they reached midriver they turned to look back at the face of the Palisades on the New Jersey side, bright as a jewel in the green of the lush foliage and the morning sun. A sense of quiet confidence arose in their assurance that the forts, on the high ground, would be impregnable. Sweating, they unloaded onto makeshift docks and reassembled on the sloping shore where a trail slanted southward up the face of the ridge. They sat on anything they could, or in the dirt, to wait for the officers, who came last.

  Billy shrugged out of the shoulder straps of his knapsack and sat cross-legged on his bedroll, wiping sweat from his hatband, when he felt the first movement of the dead, sweltering air and then the touch of a hot southeasterly breeze on his face. He squinted south, where low, lead-covered clouds were gathering on the horizon, and then he settled back to wait for the barge carrying the officers. It thumped into the dock, the river men looped hawsers over pilings, and the officers unloaded.

  Colonel Thompson strode into the gathering of the regiment. “New York is ten miles south. You will form ranks immediately for the march.”

  The crooked, narrow trail angled upward through scrub oak and brush, and as they crested the top the stir in the air became a hot breeze. Thick clouds rolled in from the south as the column marched due east, then turned south once again on the much wider Post Road that ran the full length of Manhattan Island. Half an hour later the sun was hidden by big-bellied purple clouds, and ten minutes later the clouds flashed bright gold as lightning streaked inside and the deep-throated rumble of thunder came rolling. The first huge drops of rain splattered on their faces and made tiny volcanoes in the dirt of Post Road, and they watched the oncoming south wind whip the trees and brush as it moved towards them, while behind it the cloudburst came sweeping like a great wall.

  The wind hit with a roar, and then came rain so thick they fought to breathe. They ducked their heads into the storm and held onto their hats and trudged on, with lightning lacing the clouds and thunder shaking the ground. The scudding clouds passed northward, and the lightning and thunder slackened to leave a heavy, steady rain falling straight down in hot, stifling air, and they slogged on through sticky red mud up to their ankles.

  A little after eleven o’clock the first breaks in the purple overcast appeared, and before noon the rain thinned, then stopped as shafts of golden sunlight reached through breaks in the clouds to turn the world into a patchwork of light and shadow. They passed clearings with summer hay knocked down by the cloudburst, orchards, green pastures with milk cows, and cornfields with stalks seven feet high and ears formed and swelling in the heat and moisture of spring. Some farm families gathered inside split-rail fences to wave at them, while others got the children and disappeared behind closed doors and curtained windows. Half a dozen saddled horses stood hipshot, tied in front of the Blue Bell tavern, and four or five men walked out into the mud and sunshine to watch the regiment trudge steadily on, mud-caked to the knees, while the sun drew steam rising from the puddles.

  “Break ranks for noon.”

  They stopped and moved off the quagmire in the road to find grass or brush to sit on and shrugged out of the shoulder straps to drop the weight of their knapsacks and bedrolls. They reached for canteens and sat tired in the sweltering heat, with water running down their backs and off their noses and chins, and they dropped their heads forward and closed their eyes to shut out the sodden world and all thoughts of plodding on.

  “Form ranks.”

  They continued south in the rutted mud of the old Post Road, sweating in soaked clothing, and puddles began to sink into the soil and evaporate into the hot, humid air.

  “There it is!”

  The shout went through the column and every neck craned to catch the first glimpse of the city of New York, and it was there, rooftops and buildings in the midst of oak and maples. Farther south, above the Narrows, they saw the dim, low skyline of Staten Island and the masts of anchored ships. Excited talk broke out and their step livened.

  They crested the hill on William Bayard’s farm and then Jones Hill, where they saw the breastworks and muzzles of cannon at the Jones battery, and they continued down to the freshwater lake called the Collect, where Colonel Thompson ordered a halt.

  “One hour to wash off the mud and dry your clothes.” He paced before them, face stern, voice piercing. “We will march into New York City in clean clothing, with military bearing befitting men of Boston.”

  They took turns standing guard while others stripped their muddy clothes and washed them in the lake, then hung them on bushes or musket barrels to dry in the early afternoon sun. They fell back into regimental formation and straightened their rank and file, while those with hats put them squarely on their heads. They took proper interval, shouldered their weapons, and on command marched forward, shuffling until all left feet were coming down together.

  They came in from the north, past Chatham Square where the old Post Road became Bowery Lane, and Bowery Lane became Broadway. They continued south through McGown’s Pass, past the estate of Andrew McGown, then the great, sprawling estate of James DeLancey and the Rutgers mansion. In awed silence they stared at the rich DePeyster, Dyckman, and Stuyvesant mansions.

  Off Broadway, on nearby streets and sections, they caught glimpses of other great estates owned by the Apthorps, Strikers, Joneses, Hogelands, Somerindkes, Harsens, and finally, Benjamin Vandewater. They drew nearer to inner New York City, and the streets narrowed as the estates were left behind and the homes diminished in size.

  Suddenly they sobered and stared in disbelief as British flags began to appear in many windows and dooryards. Sullen-eyed men and women peered through parted curtains, mouthing curses as the regiment passed. A thrown egg splattered the hat of a sergeant, who held his face straight ahead, continued in stride, and did nothing about it. Shocked, angered, the troops looked at each other and marched on.

  Billy glanced up the cross streets and understood that Broadway divided lower Manhattan Island. The streets to the right, west, led to the Hudson River; the streets to the left, to the New York shipping docks and, above Catherine Street, to the shipyards on the East River, where ships with foreign flags were tied, their masts towering above the rooftops of the brown brick warehouses and business buildings.

  His eyes widened as he marched past Chambers, Warren, and M
urray Streets, where he saw barricades of stone and heavy timbers and some of teakwood commandeered from some foreign ship. He began to count. Vesey, Partition, Deys, Cortlandt Streets—all with barricades and cannon, muzzles trained west towards the Hudson.

  He stared in surprise as they passed Washington Street and he saw the Grenadier Battery, then the Jersey Battery on Reade Street with two light and three very heavy cannon, McDougall’s Battery and the Oyster Battery south of Trinity Church, the Whitehall Battery, Waterbury’s Battery, Bedlam’s Redoubt, and Spencer’s Redoubt, all on or near the docks on the East River.

  Soldiers with muskets were stationed to guard each battery, and every street he had seen leading to the water on either side of the island had barricades thrown up. He had counted over 110 cannon trained on anything approaching New York from the Hudson River, the East River, or the bay south of Manhattan Island.

  He gaped at the men patrolling and guarding the batteries. They wore at least fifteen different styles and colors of uniforms, and the regimental and company signs on poles read Oswego Rangers, Fusiliers, Hearts of Oak, Grenadiers, Sportsmen, German Fusiliers, Light Horse, Artillery, Brown Buffs, Rifles, Hussars, Scotsmen, and half a dozen other names that meant nothing to him.

  They reached the wide, grassy common at the foot of Broadway and Wall, where it met the water of the bay and the Narrows that opened into the Atlantic, and marched across to the great Fort George Battery, built on the ruins of the ancient Fort Am-sterdam that had been destroyed years earlier by fire. The walls of the rebuilt fort were eight feet thick, bristling with the muzzles of heavy cannon that commanded the harbor.

  They marched onto the flat flagstones set in cement on the north side of the fort and stopped on command, quickly realigning themselves, rank and file. Colonel Thompson took his position before them, ordered an about-face so that they were facing the common, backs to the fort, and addressed them briefly. “We are to wait here for our orders, and we will do so. You will stand at rest in regimental formation until such orders arrive. That is all.”