Prelude to Glory, Vol. 2

by Ron Carter

  He stopped. “Do you understand so far?”

  Brant nodded but did not speak.

  “I will come back to your orders in a moment.”

  Howe turned to Cornwallis, Clinton, and Percy, clustered together.

  “You will accompany me. We will take ten thousand troops and proceed east to the road that turns north to the Jamaica Pass and proceed through the pass.” He pointed on the map. “When our entire command is through the pass, we will continue north to the Jamaica Road and turn west. We will continue west until we approach the rear of the American fortifications on the ridge south of Brooklyn.”

  He stopped and waited for total silence.

  “Now listen carefully to the timing of when each of you moves.”

  He turned back to Brant. “Your Mohawks with the cavalry will leave immediately when we finish here.”

  He turned to Cornwallis, Clinton, and Percy. “In one hour, about nine o’clock, you will leave with me and our command of ten thousand. That will give Brant’s men and the squad of cavalry time to get to the pass and either take it and wait there or count the Americans and meet us a quarter mile this side of the pass. Either way, we will take the pass and move through it. We should be on the other side of the pass before dawn tomorrow morning and moving back west towards the rear of the Americans on the south ridge.”

  He turned back to von Heister and Grant. “When we’re within striking distance of the rear of the American fortifications, we will fire the cannon, and that’s your signal. When you hear our two cannon shots, timed at three seconds, you will no longer simply hold the American forces in the engagement, you will move forward with all strength and vigor. Push the Americans back. Force them to concentrate on you, coming at them from the south. While you’re doing that, I and the forces with me will come west on the Jamaica Road and arrive behind the Americans and beside them. They will be trapped with our forces on three sides and the Gowanus Marsh and the East River on the fourth side. Either they surrender or we destroy them as we see fit.”

  He stopped and took a deep breath. “Have I missed anything? Do you all understand the time you are to move, where you are to move, and what the other parts of our forces will be doing at the same time?”

  All heads nodded. No one spoke.

  He turned to Grant and von Heister. “If anything goes wrong and you do not hear the cannon signal, break off the engagement at twelve o’clock noon and return to this camp.”

  Again he paused before he finished. “All right. I am going to go through it one more time to be certain, and then Brant’s Mohawks will leave.”

  With the evening star high and bright, Joseph Brant stood before five Mohawk scouts dressed in buckskin hunting shirts and breeches. Behind them, ten British cavalrymen sat on horses that tossed their heads and stuttered their feet, nervous at being forced to move on unfamiliar ground at night.

  Quickly, quietly, signing with his hands as he spoke, Brant gave the Mohawks their orders one more time. They nodded understanding, and he nodded back. Brant turned to the captain in command of the cavalry squad and he nodded, and Brant led his group trotting east in single file. Fifteen seconds later they vanished, swallowed in the blackness and the small sounds of the night. The cavalry had muskets slung over their backs and pistols and sabers in saddle holsters. The Mohawks carried neither musket nor rifle. Each had a belt knife and an iron-headed tomahawk thrust through his weapons belt.

  One hour later Howe leaned from his saddle to shake hands with Grant and von Heister, then spurred his mount to the head of the column of ten thousand red-coated British regulars. They were strung out six abreast for well over one mile in the darkness. Like a great, creeping caterpillar they wound over the rises and through the swales and twists and turns of the dirt road, each rank straining to see the white belts on the one before it to keep their interval in the black of night.

  To the north of the great column, and a little east, five American officers, spaced ten yards apart at the south edge of the entrance into the Jamaica Pass, crouched hidden in the heavy brush and tangled oak and maple trees. Their mounts were tied a few feet behind each, nervous, ears pricked as they listened to the night sounds in strange territory. The officers—Van Wagenen, Troup, Dunscomb, Gilliland, and Hoogland—sat motionless, peering south through the tangled growth, jumpy, nervous, hearing British cavalry and infantry in every sound of the night. The inquiring “Whoooo” of an owl became a signal to attack. The scurry of an opossum leading her young through the brush to water became infantry advancing. The far-off sudden bark of a fox became the voice of a British officer barking orders.

  None of them heard or sensed the silent infiltration of five Mohawks who moved slowly among them until they scented the horses. The Mohawks followed the scent until they could outline the saddled mounts in the dim light. They counted them, then withdrew back to the south as silently as they had come.

  Five minutes later they stopped in the road and softly called to the British cavalry squad, who led their horses onto the narrow dirt strip and gathered to listen.

  The Mohawk leader spoke in hushed tones “Five. With horses. Leave yours here. They will talk to the American horses if they get close. Follow us. Walk only where we walk.”

  The cavalry squad tied their horses in the brush and returned to the road with their muskets unslung, ready, wide-eyed in the darkness. When they were formed into a single-file column, the Mohawks led them north on the road, walking carefully in the soft dirt, making no sound.

  Twenty minutes later Officer Troup’s horse shied behind him and stuttered its feet. He ignored it, then suddenly spun to look. At the same moment Officer Gilliland looked sideways at the sound of something brushing against the tangle of bushes to his right. Both officers suddenly rose to their feet and jerked their muskets upward, thumbs clawing for the hammer, when a British bayonet was thrust within three inches of their throats, and they froze.

  At the muffled sounds, the other three American officers hissed, “Are you all right?” and there was no answer. They bolted to their feet, muskets raised, and saw the pale moonlight glint off British bayonets and the iron heads of Mohawk tomahawks within two feet of their faces, and they stopped and slowly lowered their muskets.

  ______

  Notes

  On August 25, 1776, General Howe crossed six thousand Hessians from Staten Island to the Long Island camps under the command of German lieutenant general Philip von Heister. That raised the British forces to twenty-one thousand (see Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, p. 160).

  General Nathanael Greene was taken seriously ill with fever and General Washington relieved him of his command on Long Island until he could recover. General Sullivan was first appointed to replace him. However, General Sullivan’s troops encountered a British probing patrol, which they attacked, and the patrol withdrew to report to General Howe where the Americans were. Sullivan believed he had met and defeated a sizeable portion of the British army, and jubilantly reported such to Washington. Washington realized Sullivan had badly misunderstood the event, and deeply concerned, he immediately replaced Sullivan with Putnam. It caused some embarrassment to all concerned (see Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, pp. 103, 149, 150, particularly the footnote; Leckie, George Washington’s War, p. 260).

  On August 26, 1776, General Washington crossed from New York to Long Island and personally inspected the American fortifications and forces, remaining until evening (see Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, p. 153). On that same day, reinforcements were sent from New York to Long Island, including regiments from Maryland and Delaware and a regiment of Pennsylvania riflemen (see Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, p. 154).

  The names given here of the five American officers who were assigned to cover the Jamaica Pass are as they appear in Johnston, The Campaign of 1776, part 1, p. 159.

  Long Island

  August 27, 1776

  Chapter XVI

  * * *

  The turnips and ca
rrots will be getting ready . . . potatoes . . . done with the peaches . . . apricots . . . apples starting to blush . . . they’ll be waking up about now . . . Tuesday . . . breakfast . . . wonder what . . . maybe griddle cakes and maple syrup . . . Trudy will help with the apples . . . time to make soap . . . they can do it . . . they’ll be all right . . .

  The black of the eastern sky had given way to purple, and with each passing moment the gray preceding sunrise was creeping. Billy stood leaning against the center breastworks on the south ridge, eyes wide, peering down the slope towards the woods and brush, his musket laid on top of the dirt mound. He ran a hand over his dry mouth and drew and released a great breath.

  Sometime in the night Putnam had ordered General Stirling down towards the Narrows. The British had overrun a small advance outpost, and Putnam’s orders were very clear. The Gowanus Road was to be blocked at the Narrows and held at all costs. Stirling had left in the dark with Haslet’s and Smallwood’s regiments, moving at a trot.

  Then Putnam had ordered the Boston regiment to the major breastworks on the south ridge with two thousand other American troops. Again his orders were blunt, clear. The Hessians are forming south of us, near Flatbush. If they come, stop them. At any cost.

  In pitch black the troops had left their blankets and taken their positions at the entrenchments, shivering in their light summer clothing, teeth chattering, silent, peering south over the top of the earth-and-timber mound. Fear rode them like a great ugly animal, robbing them of reason, crowding them into an unreal world where their thoughts were fragmented abstractions of things and places unrelated to standing at a breastwork in the dark, waiting an eternity for an enemy to come with cannon and musket and bayonet to kill. Home, mother, family, the sea, the farm, harvest- time, childhood, wife, children, sweetheart—their thoughts ran and they could not control them, nor did they try. They stood at the breastwork and they peered south in the darkness, waiting, watching, listening.

  More than two hours before dawn they had heard the faint popping of muskets and then the deep-throated boom of a few cannon far down to the right, near the Narrows. It stopped for a moment, and then it grew hot and it did not stop, and the men looked at each other in the dark, silent, fearing, asking themselves questions and inventing answers. Which side was attacking, Stirling or the British? Who was winning, losing? Are they coming here? When? Where? How many? Twenty thousand. Coming here. Now. At sunset which of us will be dead, crippled? Which army will be holding these breastworks?

  Then sporadic musket fire sounded farther to the east, away from the Narrows, and died, and then a few muskets popped closer, and stopped, and the men at the breastworks swallowed dry and wiped at their mouths with their hands, and waited.

  Billy glanced up and down at the line of men standing against the dirt and timber nearly shoulder to shoulder, weapons laid over the top. Their clothing was worn, patched, dirty. Their hats were tricorns, or coonskins, or knit caps, or leather hats from the sea, or no hats at all. They wore cartridge boxes on their belts or slung around their necks on a leather strap, and they had canteens. Their faces were old and weathered and wrinkled, or younger and smooth and innocent, some bearded, some not, most with a four-day growth of whiskers, and their dialects were different. Their weapons were muskets or rifles, and there were not fifty bayonets in the entire line. Bayonets were hand tooled to fit a standard military musket, and few of them had standard military muskets. No bayonet would fit the long rifles.

  Once again they stood quiet with the taste of fear in their mouths, while their minds drifted back to places where people loved them and times when they were doing the happy things of life. They let it go unchecked, welcoming the fleeting release from fear.

  “You all right?”

  Billy jerked, then turned to Eli, standing next to him, and nodded. “Yes. You?”

  Eli shrugged and said nothing.

  A few moments passed and Billy spoke quietly. “Ever think much about killing men?”

  Eli turned his head to study Billy’s face in the gray light and realized Billy was searching for something. “Yes.”

  “Is it right or wrong?”

  Eli considered. “Like everything else, I guess. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Like in your Bible where it says there’s a time for everything.”

  “When is it right?”

  Eli searched long and hard. “When they mean to take away something important.”

  “Like what?”

  “Life. Family. Country.”

  “Liberty?”

  “I think so. It bothers you? having to kill for liberty?”

  “I hate killing for any reason. I wish it never had to be.”

  Eli heard the deep revulsion in Billy’s voice.

  Billy continued. “But sometimes . . .”

  A moment passed and Eli spoke. “Ever think about dying?”

  “Yes.” For a moment Billy hesitated, weighing whether he should share his innermost fears with another man. He decided. “I’m afraid.”

  He waited, hoping he had not reached too deeply into the inner core of fears and weaknesses common to all mankind, the revealing of which undercuts the need of society to hide them, to continue the necessary facade of inner strength when there is none.

  Eli didn’t hesitate. “So am I.”

  A sense of relief welled up inside Billy.

  A moment passed before Eli spoke again. “Ever think of what’s there waiting when a person dies?”

  Billy pursed his mouth in thought. “Heaven. The Bible says heaven.”

  “You believe it?”

  “Yes. What do the Iroquois teach?”

  “A lot like your Bible. Peace for those who were good, no peace for the others. Iroquois don’t much fear dying. They just hate dying badly.”

  Billy nodded, and for a time they remained quiet, each working with his own thoughts before Billy changed direction. He pointed over the breastwork, to the south and west. “What do you think’s going on over there?”

  “Stirling’s in a fight down at the Narrows, holding the Gowanus Road. There’s someone coming straight up the Flatbush Road at us.” He turned inquiring eyes to Billy. “Do you know who’s to our left, watching the Jamaica Road?”

  “Colonel Miles with about five hundred men.”

  Eli said nothing, and they both turned back to peer into the gray, straining to catch the first movement of red in the trees to the south. Jays and robins and crows began their morning cacophony, and it sounded strangely loud, unreal. A slight mist rose from the wet grass on the slope, and in it trees became men and bushes became cannon.

  They heard them long before they saw them. With the first streaks of rose and gold in the eastern sky, the faint lilt of fifes and rattle of drums hammering out a martial tune came drifting, and the men at the breastworks narrowed their eyes in disbelief as the sound grew. Half a dozen musket shots popped and then fell silent as some American patrol fired and fell back.

  Far to the right, from the Narrows, came the sudden thudding of cannon and then the sound of a few muskets and then a continuous, ongoing blasting of cannon and volley after volley of musketry.

  The men licked dry lips and reached for their weapons, and flinched at the sudden shout from the officers.

  “Don’t fire until the command!”

  They exhaled breath and settled.

  It seemed the sound of the fifes and drums was right up on them before it stopped, and the men tensed in the first arc of the rising sun. As the sunlight reached slanting into the trees, they saw the first flash of movement all along the tree line, directly south of the center of the breastworks. For a moment they gaped as they looked east and west, and for a quarter of a mile each direction they saw the patches of sunlight on uniformed men, still in the trees. The uniforms were deep blue, not red.

  “Hessians!” The gasped word went up and down the lines.

  They saw the ugly snouts of cannons inside the tree line and the brush and they knew it was coming, bu
t they jumped as a dozen cannon opened up. They saw the white smoke blossom, and then the cannonballs smashed low into the breastworks and dirt flew as they exploded, and then the thundering sound rolled past. They ducked, then raised their heads to peer over the breastworks once more.

  “Fire!” shouted the American officers, and the cannon emplacements in the breastworks boomed and the cannonballs ripped smashing into the trees.

  The smoke cloud from the Hessian cannon rolled a second time, and now the cannonballs slammed high into the breastworks and a few cleared the top and exploded and a few men groaned and slumped.

  “Steady!” The officers stood resolute, swords in their hands, eyes flashing.

  Suddenly a long line of blue uniforms appeared before the tree line, and the first wave of Hessians resolutely lowered their bayonets and began their steady, relentless march straight ahead.

  Once again the American cannon blasted, and a few holes appeared in the oncoming line.

  Then came the order from the American officers. “Hold your musket fire!”

  The Hessians stopped at two hundred yards, knelt, took aim, and fired their first musket volley. A thousand musket balls smacked into the breastworks and whistled over, and a few more Americans jerked and sat down.

  All along the American breastworks came the heavy click of musket hammers being drawn back to full cock.

  The order boomed. “Uncock your muskets. Hold your fire. Fire on command. Fire on command.”

  They uncocked their weapons and again waited.

  The Hessians stood calmly and dug cartridges from their cartridge boxes, ripped off the ends with their teeth, primed their pans, jammed the paper and ball into the muzzle, slammed the ramrods home, cocked, and once again began their forward march.

  They went to one knee at one hundred yards, and once again their muskets blasted and again dirt jumped all along the breastworks and musket balls whistled over, and more men dropped.

  Billy and Eli raised their heads, and suddenly they felt a deadly calm come creeping through the American line. Nerves settled. Trembling hands became firm, resolute. Eyes narrowed and became calculating, sure. The waiting was over.