Prelude to Glory, Vol. 2

by Ron Carter

  They watched the Hessians reload once more, and their breathing slowed as the blue uniforms continued their steady ascent up the incline, directly towards the breastworks. They could now see the buttons on the tunics, the build of the black hip-high boots, the buckles on their cartridge boxes, and most of all, the dead eyes and vacant faces of the oncoming soldiers.

  “Cock your weapons!”

  The muskets clicked.

  At fifty yards they heard the command for the Hessians to kneel for their next volley, and before the Hessians could go to one knee the American officers screamed, “Fire!”

  A thousand muskets and rifles kicked and roared over the breastworks, and a cloud of white smoke half a mile long leaped and rose. All up and down the Hessian lines, men in blue uniforms staggered backwards and fell, some to rise, others not. Calmly the Hessian officers shouted orders, and the blue line began a slow retreat, pausing at one hundred yards to fire their last harmless volley and then continue back down to the tree line and disappear in the shadows and patches of sunlight.

  A resounding cheer rose from a thousand voices behind the breastworks as a giddy sensation of relief, of confidence, of victory surged through the Americans.

  “Reload! Reload!” The officers walked back and forth, shouting, pointing. “They’ll come back! Reload.”

  The men reached for their cartridge boxes.

  The Hessian cannon blasted and dirt and timber shards flew on the American entrenchments, while American cannon an-swered, and trees disintegrated and branches exploded among the Hessians. Then once again the long blue line emerged from the trees, this time to stop at two hundred yards, fire another harmless volley, and retreat back to the trees.

  The sun was three hours high before the Hessian guns fell silent and movement stopped in the trees. The American officers cautiously looked over the fortifications to study the tree line with their telescopes, watching for movement. The Hessians did not mount a white flag and send patrols out onto the slope to get their dead and wounded, and the American officers puzzled, with growing concern.

  Behind the mounded dirt and timbers, the American troops gently removed their fallen and their wounded back to the field hospital, where strong hands received them and went to work, and then they walked back to their posts at the fortifications and continued watching down the slope in the strange stillness of the lull in the battle.

  Twenty minutes later the distant thumping of cannon and popping of muskets down at the Narrows became intense, furious.

  Eli reached to scratch his cheek thoughtfully. “Stirling’s in a fight, and we’re in one. But I haven’t heard a cannon or a musket to our left.”

  Billy nodded his head. “I was thinking the same thing. What happened to Miles? Something’s wrong over there.”

  To their left, in the woods near Jamaica Road, Miles had heard the first musket pops at Flatbush when an American patrol had unexpectedly walked into the Hessians. He assumed that was where Howe was advancing, and eager to obey his orders to engage Howe, Miles had instantly marched his command southwest, towards the Bedford Road, intending to work his way down to Flatbush. Within two miles he had met Colonel Wyllys, who was under orders to guard the Bedford Pass, and Wyllys had told him there was no need for his troops there. Miles had puzzled on it for one minute before it dawned on him what had happened, and in near panic he turned his troops around and started back to the position he had left unguarded at the Jamaica Road.

  Eli hunkered down for a few moments, pondering, then stood. “I’m going to take a look.”

  Billy shook his head. “You could be shot for deserting.”

  Eli drank long from his canteen, smacked the stopper back into the hole, tossed it onto the dirt mound, and replied, “I’m not deserting. My corporal told me to go find out.” He watched Billy’s eyes grow wide, and a smile tugged as he turned and was gone, running.

  He cut through the trees and brush due east, towards the Bedford Road. Once on the road, he followed it north to the tiny hamlet of Bedford, then turned east on the Jamaica Road, moving steadily at a ground-eating trot, rifle held loosely in his right hand, watching everything before him as he worked his way east. Twice he stopped for two minutes to catch his wind, and each time he turned his ear into the gentle east breeze to listen for sounds of battle, either east or west, and there was only the sound of the birds. It seemed a hush had settled in and everyone was waiting for something that was yet unknown. A deep dread began in his breast.

  He passed heavy woods on his right, and half a mile ahead, to the east, he saw a draw between two low rises, and he knew the road angled, and then he heard the sounds he most feared, and felt the vibrations in the soles of his feet. Many men marching, and heavy cannon moving! In ten seconds he was off the road, hidden, moving on east, watching, listening, and then they were there on the road to the north of him and he gasped when he saw the column.

  It was strung out for more than a mile. Thousands upon thousands of red-coated British regulars led by mounted officers with more gold braid on their hats and uniforms than he had ever seen. The soldiers’ uniforms were dusty from marching all night on a dirt road, four abreast. They showed no fear, no concern of being seen. He waited only long enough to make a hasty count, including their cannon, and then he turned and raced south for the trees and cover. Once past the tree line he turned west, running, flying over low bushes, reckless, not caring if a sharp-eyed British officer or regular saw him, certain they could never catch him and that no sharpshooter alive could hit him as he dodged through the trees.

  He crested a small rise and plowed into Miles’s command, which had just arrived from their forced march, returning from their mistaken advance down to the Bedford Road. They were exhausted, sweated out, and they did not raise a musket or challenge him as Eli slowed, looking for Miles with the gold on his shoulders.

  Eli pulled up face-to-face with him, sweating, fighting for wind, and he pointed. “They’re right up there on the Jamaica Road. Ten thousand. With cannon. We’re flanked!”

  Miles’s head jerked forward and his face drained of blood. “What? Who are you?”

  Eli’s patience snapped. “Listen! It don’t matter who I am. You’re flanked! Ten thousand British regulars are over there less than half a mile east, headed this way on the Jamaica Road.”

  Miles recoiled, mind numb, and he stared for a moment before he spun on his heel and exploded, shouting orders. “Battle formation. We’ll cut due north and fight our way through to Long Island Sound. Battle formations. Mount your bayonets.”

  Miles’s command stared, unable to grasp what was happening. North? To the Long Island Sound? They shook their heads in confusion as they began to fall into rank and file, dumbstruck by Miles’s orders that they were going to Long Island Sound.

  Miles turned back to Eli and started to speak, when behind him less than half a mile one British cannon blasted, and three seconds later a second one. For two seconds no one in the command moved or made a sound while the echoes died. There were no more shots. Murmuring broke out and became loud.

  Once again Miles spun towards his troops and pointed at a young captain. “You. Leave immediately. Find General Putnam. Tell him ten thousand British troops are coming west on the Jamaica Road.”

  The captain stood riveted to the spot, disbelieving of what he had just heard.

  “Go. Now. Move!” Miles shouted, and the captain bolted west, angling for the Jamaica Road.

  Eli turned and was gone, while Miles shouted after him, and Eli ignored him as he sprinted through the undergrowth, back to the Jamaica Road one hundred yards ahead of the captain whom Miles had ordered to go find Putnam, and turned west. He had not gone five hundred yards when from the west the distant whump of cannon and the popping rattle of muskets came clear. It rose to drown out all other sounds, and Eli slowed for a moment in puzzlement and then the realization sunk in.

  The Hessians were waiting for those two cannon shots to signal! They’re attacking to hold Sull
ivan and Stirling while the British column on the Jamaica Road comes in behind!

  He set a pace he hoped he could hold for four miles, while his mind raced and he fought to control the panic that rose each time he thought of two thousand Americans at the breastworks caught between six thousand Hessians and ten thousand British regulars, with only one way out—west through the Gowanus swamp.

  With the sun barely above the eastern skyline, General Lord Stirling stopped his sixteen-hundred-man command just north of the Narrows, nearly on the beaches of Gowanus Bay to his right. For long minutes he studied the hills and gullies and the wild growth of oak and maples and the dense foliage to his left, and then he addressed his officers and troops. His face was dark, scowling.

  “General Parsons and what’s left of his command are just to our left, over that rise, dug in, waiting. About half a mile south of us, that pompous fool General Grant is in command of about six thousand British regulars, and he means to come up this road to get to our fortifications.” He paused, hating the need to even say the name of General Grant. It was Grant who had bragged to the world that if he had five thousand regulars, he could march from one end of America to the other. Stirling continued. “Our orders, and Parsons’ orders, are to stop him. We are to hold this road at all costs.”

  He pointed. “We’re going to form up our three regiments in a line right here. Gist next to the road, then McDonough, then Kachlein. Use natural cover—every rock, gully, tree, ditch, and bush—to hide your men. When the shooting starts, listen for my commands to fire. I’ll be right here among you. All right. Move.”

  Ten minutes later the American line was in place, with hardly a man visible from the road. At least twenty riflemen had climbed to the tops of trees to wedge themselves into a fork or on a branch where they commanded an open field of fire southward, down the road. The entire line quieted, waiting in tense silence.

  From the south came the distant sounds of an army marching, and it grew louder as the long minutes ticked by. Then they could hear the voices of the officers, and then they saw their red coats and crossed white belts gleaming in the warm morning sun as they came on, four abreast, up the Gowanus Road. Just over the ridge to their left, they could hear more British regulars moving parallel to the road, on a collision course with Parsons’s command.

  Stirling stood resolutely behind a shamble of rocks, partly hidden by scrub oak, watching, gauging distance carefully. He turned to the officer next to him. “Cock your muskets. Spread the word.” The order went quietly up and down the American line, and the clicks could be heard for two hundred yards.

  The British came on without showing a sign of hesitation. Stirling picked out a smooth, worn boulder on the seaward side of the road and gauged it’s distance at seventy yards. When the first regiment is past that rock.

  The first regiment reached the rock, and Stirling could see the sweat and hear the clank of canteens on cartridge boxes as they came on. They had nearly cleared the huge stone when the leading officer caught his first glimpse of an American rifleman behind rocks, and he instantly raised his hand and started to shout an order.

  Stirling shouted first. “Fire!”

  Sound and smoke erupted all along the road and red-coated regulars staggered and slumped in confusion, and then their officers barked orders and they began to fall back, organized, firing as they did, covering their retreat. Stirling could hear the muskets and rifles blasting over the ridge where the regulars had stumbled into Parsons’s command.

  Minutes passed while Stirling’s men reloaded and waited.

  The British regrouped and their officers formed them into skirmishing squads, and once again they advanced, this time off the road, in the brush, coming in short bursts of speed, probing, watching to see where the smoke and sound came from.

  “Hold your fire,” Stirling shouted. “Wait. Wait for my command.”

  The British were eighty yards away when they stopped and raised their muskets, and Stirling again shouted, “Fire!” Once again smoke and flame leaped from the tops of trees and from behind rocks and bushes, and .75-caliber American musket balls tore into the British line. Red-coated regulars groaned and dropped and staggered back, and again the British command echoed, “Fall back.”

  The Americans reloaded and held their positions. Slowly, cautiously, a feeling of confidence bordering on bravado began to creep into them, and they smiled and made small talk. We turned them. They came and we engaged them, and we held and they retreated.

  With the sun climbing high, the British advanced twice more, and both times their regulars delivered a volley, and some of the Americans sagged at their hiding places and sat down and toppled over as the British again retreated to regroup and reload. They were in plain sight, half a mile south of Stirling’s position, and he studied them through his telescope.

  There are six thousand of them standing down there, doing nothing. What are they up to? What have I overlooked?

  He called for his officers, and Gist and Kachlein and McDonough came trotting, red-faced, sweating.

  Stirling pointed south. “They’re down there doing nothing. Six thousand of them. Can you suggest what’s holding them back?”

  “No, sir. I’ve wondered the same thing. With a little help from Parsons we might hold them if they formed ranks and came at us head-on, but so far they’ve only been probing with squads and skirmish lines.”

  “One more thing,” Stirling said. “The shooting at the breastworks has stopped. Did you notice?”

  McDonough looked at Kachlein. “I noticed, but didn’t think about it.”

  The four officers stood for a moment, puzzled, unable to make sense of the British maneuvers and the sudden silence when there should be shooting.

  Stirling shook his head, dark suspicion mounting. “Our orders are to stay here and hold this road. We can’t be concerned about what’s happening with Sullivan back at the breastworks. We’ll follow our orders and wait here until the British show their hand. Return to your troops.”

  Kachlein and McDonough and Gist turned to go, when from the distance, far to their left and behind them, came the clear sound of one shot from a heavy cannon, and then three seconds later, a second shot, and then silence. They turned to peer back to Stirling, searching to understand the oddity of two timed cannon shots in the midst of an unexplained silence.

  South of Stirling, General Grant raised his head and turned to a colonel and a captain standing next to him. “Did you hear those two cannon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Three seconds apart?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I believe those shots were General Howe’s signal. He’s taken Jamaica Pass and he’s in position behind Sullivan at the breastworks. Do you both agree?”

  Without hesitation both officers said, “Yes, sir.”

  Grant removed his tricornered hat and wiped the sweat from the hatband, and settled it back onto his head. The gold braid sparkled in the sunlight. His face showed utter contempt as he spoke. “Form your men according to the plan I showed you. Move the artillery up. In exactly fifteen minutes our infantry moves north against Stirling.” As an afterthought he added, “Crushing that popinjay shouldn’t take long.”

  Grant watched as the officers called orders and their regiments moved into their positions. The road was cleared while horse-drawn cannon and mortars came rumbling forward and took up positions three hundred yards from the trees and gullies and rocks where the Americans were hidden. Grant waited until the officer in charge of the big guns nodded, and he called to them, “Fire!”

  The cannon blasted hot and heavy for ten minutes, blowing grape and cannister shot to shred the trees and pepper the gullies that hid the American lines, before Grant issued his next order. “Cease fire. Infantry, forward.”

  The officers barked orders and nearly six thousand regulars stepped out, marching steadily, bayonets gleaming.

  North of them, General Stirling’s eyes narrowed and his breathing slowed as he studied
them through his telescope. He turned to his officers. “Don’t fire until you hear my command.”

  At seventy yards he gave the order and the American muskets and rifles fired, and British soldiers went down but those behind did not slow. They marched over their own fallen and continued forward while the Americans reloaded. At fifty yards the first rank went to its knees and the second rank stood behind it, muskets cocked, aimed.

  “Fire!” shouted Grant, and a thousand muskets cracked, and Americans went down while the British continued in their steady, relentless march, with the first two ranks falling back to reload while two fresh ranks moved to replace them.

  Reloaded, the Americans waited for Stirling’s command. At thirty yards he gave it, and the Americans fired their second volley, and great gaps appeared in the leading rank of the advancing redcoats, and for a moment they hesitated and then they began to withdraw.

  Stirling exhaled held breath and wiped his hand across his mouth. “Reload.”

  Too many. If they come again like that, can we hold? He straightened his spine and set his jaw, and watched.

  Far to the east, in the woods to the south of the Jamaica Road, Miles sobered and by force of will calmed his shattered thoughts and impulses. He stood for ten seconds, studying the column of British troops marching west on the road, and took charge of himself.

  Ten thousand! No chance! We can help Sullivan if we can reach the breastworks in time.

  He called his officers. “Form ranks for a march. We’re not going north to Long Island Sound. We’re going west to help Sullivan. We have to move at double time.”

  He led his eight hundred men west, parallel to the Jamaica Road, working through the trees, hoping to get ahead of the advancing British. He made it five hundred yards before a British officer towards the head of the column on the road sent a patrol to see what was advancing through the woods.