Prelude to Glory, Vol. 6

by Ron Carter

  Gates eyed them for a moment, suspicion plain in his eyes. “Yes?”

  Morgan spoke. “Sir, we all heard musketfire from the north. Sounds like the beginning of an engagement.”

  The sound of a horse coming in at stampede gait turned all their heads, and they watched James Wilkinson, Gates’s adjutant general, come charging through camp as though the devil were nipping at his hocks. He brought his mount to a sliding halt and hit the ground in a cloud of dust, ten feet from Gates.

  “Sir,” he panted, “there’s a major British force coming down toward our left. I’d guess close to two thousand regulars and Germans.”

  Gates’s eyes widened. “You saw them?”

  “Yes, sir.” His report tumbled out, one word on top of another. “They’re up in that field—the Barber wheat field—next to the Freeman farm. They’ve got troops out cutting grain for the horses. Burgoyne and two other officers climbed onto the roof of a barn up there and used a telescope to locate our scouts and pickets. They know we don’t have any force up there. I think this is the attack we’ve expected.”

  Gates replied, almost casually. “Well, then, let General Morgan begin the game.”

  Arnold broke in, and every man among them fell into instant silence, eyes wide, bracing for what could become an historic confrontation.

  “I request permission to go see what’s happening.”

  Hope leaped in the heart of every man except Lincoln and Wilkinson. They turned hard, cold eyes to Gates, waiting for his reply. Gates sensed the ugliness in their mood, and he fumbled for words.

  “I am afraid to trust you, Arnold.”

  Arnold’s reply was instant, abrupt. “I give you my word. I will go, look, return, and report. Nothing more.”

  Gates dared not impugn Arnold’s promise in front of his officers. “Then do so.” He turned to Lincoln to deliver his blow. “Go with him. See that he does as ordered.”

  Arnold jerked as though struck, and for a moment a dead, intense silence hung heavy before Lincoln answered. “Yes, sir.”

  Less than an hour later, Arnold galloped back into camp, Lincoln following, and the officers came quickly out of their mess hall to join him for his report to Gates.

  “There’s a large force coming this way. They’ll hit our left flank hard, and unless we meet them, they’ll roll our left into our center, and likely take us all down.”

  Lincoln added, “General Arnold is right. It will take a large force to stop what we saw coming. If we fail, our left will fold. We’ll be in danger of total collapse.”

  Gate’s response was immediate. “I’ll send Morgan and Dearborn out to our left. They can get west of the British and hit them from the side.”

  Arnold shook his head violently. “Not enough. This will take a major force.”

  Gates lost control. His face flushed, and the veins of his thick neck extended, red. With eight of his officers standing less than ten feet away, he nearly shouted at Arnold, “I have nothing for you to do! You have no business here! Go to your tent, and don’t come out until I send for you!” His arm shot up, pointing toward Arnold’s distant command tent. The eight officers who witnessed the explosion gaped in disbelief. Gates had stripped Arnold of his rank, authority, and command and effectively placed him under house arrest!

  For a moment Arnold stood still, shaking with rage. Then, fearing he would lose control and throttle Gates, Arnold turned on his heel, and the generals opened a path for him to march away, still trembling.

  Gates brought himself under tenuous control and faced his officers. “General Morgan and Major Dearborn, prepare your men to march. Report to me when you’re ready.”

  “Sir?” It was Lincoln.

  Gates turned to look at the general as he continued. “Respectfully, sir, if just those two companies go to engage what I saw, we’re going to suffer terrible casualties. I highly recommend at least three regiments be sent.”

  Gates’s voice came loud in the silence that followed Lincoln’s bold request. “Very well. Three regiments. General Poor, you accompany General Morgan and Major Dearborn. General Learned, you follow for support where needed.”

  From his confinement in his tent, Arnold listened to the three regiments march out. By force of will he sat on his cot, sweating, calculating time and geography. He was still sitting when the first sound of distant cannon reached his ears. Instantly he was on his feet, pacing, listening, trying to read the battle from the sounds. Musketfire became a continuous rattle, mixed with the sharp crack of Morgan’s rifles. Finally, unable to contain himself, he jerked aside the flap of his tent and strode out into the compound, facing north. A low, white cloud of gun smoke rose to hover above the distant treetops, and then the black smoke of something burning. The firing became hot, heavy, and incessant. In his mind Arnold was seeing the Americans, charging, falling back, advancing once again, caught up in the chaos of a battle being fought hand-to-hand.

  Take the redoubts! The Balcarres redoubt and the big Breymann redoubt. Once you’ve taken the redoubts you are in behind Burgoyne’s headquarters, and those breastworks will do him no good because they’ll be on the wrong side!

  Time became meaningless as Arnold listened, watching the clouds of white gun smoke and black smoke reach higher into the clear blue heavens, but the center of the battle was not moving. It was being fought in Barber’s wheat field, where the two opposing armies had collided nearly two hours earlier.

  Arnold turned to look at Gates, sitting at a table outside his office door with messengers coming and going while Gates casually issued orders. Arnold turned once more toward the smoke, and the thought came welling up inside. He’s killing them! Those good men out there, and Gates is killing them! Three more hours of this, and they’ll all be gone!

  Something inside Arnold rose white hot. He ran to Warren, his tall black horse, vaulted into the saddle, and spun the animal around to face Gates, still sitting at his table. Gates raised his head and stared full into Arnold’s face. In that instant each man knew what was in the mind of the other. Arnold was going to the sound of the guns, and Gates could strangle on it. Gates would have Arnold in irons if he could catch him.

  Arnold turned his horse and sunk his blunted spurs into Warren’s flanks, and the animal lunged forward. Frantic, Gates leaped to his feet shouting to the nearest officer he could see, Major Armstrong, as Arnold disappeared in a cloud of dust. “Catch that man and bring him back! Use whatever force necessary, but bring him back!”

  For a moment Major Armstrong hesitated, then leaped onto his horse and kicked it to a high gallop after General Arnold, who was already out of sight.

  Arnold followed a faint, ancient wagon track that snaked through the tall trees, scarcely slowing in his headlong run. The horse held the pace, quick, sure-footed. One mile from camp Arnold came on a cluster of men from Learned’s command, separated, lost, drinking from a brook. “Come on, good men, follow me!”

  Confused, for an instant they hesitated. They had heard what Gates had done to Arnold, and they were confused, knowing he had been stripped of all command. But there he was—General Arnold at his best, sword drawn, urging them on, leading them to the sounds of the battle. As one man they grabbed up their muskets and broke into a run behind him, shouting as they came on. Arnold cantered his horse forward, calling to others who had become separated from their units, and they melded into the growing command behind him.

  Arnold and his followers broke from the trees into the open wheat field, and for the first time Arnold saw the entire field of battle. In twenty seconds he knew where the Americans had to strike, and he drove his spurs home. The big black horse plunged forward once again, headed straight for an entrenched and determined German line. As he swept past the command led by General Learned, Arnold bellowed, “Follow me!”

  No one, including Learned, paid heed to the tremendous breach of military protocol as Arnold summarily took command of Learned’s column. Stunned at the sight of Arnold charging past, shouting them on, it
took two seconds for Learned’s men to decide. They sprinted from cover to follow him, voices raised to a din, driving into the middle of the Germans. The Hessian soldiers were among the best in the world, and with their tall, copper-fronted hats they doggedly stood their ground, firing, reloading, watching the Americans drop before their cannon and muskets.

  To Arnold’s left, Morgan and Dearborn suddenly jerked erect, startled at the sight of the great black horse leading the charge, and in an instant their commands were also on their feet, rising above themselves, charging into the side of the troops led by the German general, Balcarres, to overwhelm them, scatter them. With the Balcarres company gone, the flank of the Hessians facing Arnold was exposed, and Morgan did not hesitate. With Dearborn beside him, he tore into the blue-coated troops, flanked them, divided them, turned them.

  Ahead, Burgoyne, dressed in a scarlet coat with gold epaulets, conspicuous above all other men, rode his horse back and forth, calling orders. To his left, British General Simon Fraser spurred his tall gray horse onward, leading the light infantry and the Twenty-fourth Regiment in a desperate drive to check Morgan’s surging command and save the Hessian line.

  Through the confusion of the battle, Arnold saw Fraser, one hundred fifty yards ahead and to the right, and knew the man had the bravery and leadership to resist the American attack. Instantly Arnold raised his sword, pointing at Fraser, and shouted, “That man is a host unto himself! He must go!”

  Morgan heard the order, saw the point, and in a heartbeat turned and raised his old wagonmaster’s bellowing voice, “Tim!”

  Three hundred yards to Morgan’s left, Private Timothy Murphy, Irishman, frontiersman, seasoned Indian fighter, and the best shot among Morgan’s select riflemen, heard his leader and froze, searching. In one second he picked out Morgan, waved, and Morgan waved back, then turned to point with his sword at General Simon Fraser.

  With understanding born of years together, and battles unnumbered, Timothy Murphy knew what to do. In a minute he was perched on the limb of an oak tree, his long Pennsylvania rifle resting on a branch before him. From his position he had a clear field of vision above the heads of the two clashing armies. He calmly cocked his rifle, studied the slow drift of the cannon smoke in the faint breeze, judged the distance at four hundred sixty yards, and aligned the sights. At that distance, Fraser was but a speck on the back of a gray horse when Murphy squeezed off his first shot. At the crack of the rifle, the marksman moved his head to peer past the smoke to watch. Half a second later the rifleball grazed the sleeve of Fraser’s coat and clipped hair from his horse’s mane.

  Instantly Fraser’s aides shouted, “General, get back! Out of range! A marksman is trying to kill you!”

  Fraser shook his head. “I’m needed here,” he shouted.

  Twenty seconds later Murphy shoved his ramrod back into its receiver, laid the long rifle barrel over the branch once again, made the tiniest adjustment for the soft crosswind, and squeezed off his second shot. With the queer knowledge of a born rifleman, he knew at the crack of the weapon that the second shot was going to hit. He set his teeth and half a second later involuntarily grunted as the slug punched into Fraser, dead center in his stomach.

  The whack of the bullet and the gasping grunt from Fraser came just before the general buckled forward. His sword fell from his hand, and his head dropped forward onto the neck of his horse. Immediately his aides were on either side of him, grasping his arms, holding him in the saddle while they turned and retreated through their own men to get the general out of range, away from the battle.

  For a few seconds the regulars in Fraser’s command stood stock-still, mindless of the raging battle. Fraser was down! General Simon Fraser, their leader! He who had won their hearts and their loyalty with his selflessness, bravery, courage, and his unending devotion to his beloved army and England! They watched the two aides working back through the lines, Fraser between them, limp, head slumped forward, feet dangling outside his stirrups. They saw it and they faltered. Their inspiration, their reason for going on, was down, dying, gone.

  Five hundred yards distant, Burgoyne saw Fraser rock in his saddle and slump forward. Simon, his confidant, his best friend, his trusted right arm, down! He closed his eyes and his head rolled back with the unbearable pain in his heart. With the honed instincts of a crack field general he knew that his army was done. Finished. Quickly he sent runners to both Phillips and von Riedesel to cover the retreat, and then he called out his orders.

  “Back! Back! Return to headquarters!”

  The red-coated British and blue-coated German Hessians began their retreat, backing away from the Americans, giving ground more rapidly with each passing minute. They came streaming in behind the fortifications and breastworks on the south side of Burgoyne’s headquarters, bringing the wounded they could carry, leaving their dead behind on a battlefield littered with the bodies of those who had fallen.

  They flocked around the two aides who had guided Fraser’s horse in, and they didn’t stop until they came to the hut where Baroness Fredericka von Riedesel had set up her tiny hospital. Strong, gentle hands lifted the general down and carried him inside. A table was thrown out to make way for a bed, and they tenderly laid the general down. Moments later they had his clothing stripped to the waist, and their faces fell. None spoke, but they all knew. The general was dying.

  The Baroness took charge. Get water—bandages. Get his boots off—cut them off if you have to. She did all she could for Fraser, but no one could remedy the damage and pain wrought by a .60-caliber rifle ball that had ripped into his stomach.

  Back on the battlefield, Arnold did not waste one minute celebrating the monumental victory over Burgoyne’s regulars. He bellowed orders to the gathered Americans.

  “Follow me, boys!” He stood tall in his stirrups and pointed with his sword. “We’re going to take those two redoubts, and with the big one in our hands we’ll be in behind Burgoyne’s headquarters! By the Almighty, before the sun sets this day, they will be ours!”

  He set his spurs, and once more Warren lunged forward toward the nearest redoubt, held by a regiment commanded by Major Alexander Lindsay, Sixth Earl of Balcarres.

  Far behind Arnold, Major Armstrong sat his winded horse, hidden in a clump of oak trees, peering at Arnold as he led the charge against the entrenched Germans. He had watched Arnold make his wild plunge into the middle of Burgoyne’s army, and he had stared when the Americans followed Arnold, shouting like wild men, to turn Burgoyne, drive him from the field. Now he was watching Arnold again leading an attack against entrenched cannon and muskets. The man’s insane! If Gates thinks I’m going in there to tell Arnold to return to headquarters, then General Gates is mightily mistaken! Armstrong held a tight rein on his horse and remained hidden.

  With Arnold leading, parts of General John Glover’s command, along with men from Paterson’s command, fell in behind him to sprint at the Balcarres redoubt. The Germans inside gritted their teeth and stayed to their guns, firing as fast as they could reload. Their grapeshot was taking its toll, and the American attack slowed while the men ducked behind trees and rocks to escape the flying lead balls. Arnold looked eight hundred yards to his left, to where Morgan’s riflemen were crouched behind anything that would give cover, maintaining a deadly fire at everything that moved in the Breymann redoubt.

  The Breymann redoubt! The fortification that controlled access to the back side of Burgoyne’s headquarters. Morgan was already there! Then, from out of the forest, Arnold saw Learned’s command surge forward, running toward the north end of the redoubt.

  Mindless of his own safety, Arnold reined his horse left and kicked him to stampede gait. The sweating, winded horse responded yet another time, and the crouched rider flashed in front of the entire length of the Balcarres redoubt, with half the Germans inside shooting at him. Awe-struck men from both armies held their breath and watched as musketballs clipped hair from Warren’s mane and tail, and left dirty streaks where they creased
Arnold’s hat and tunic, but none hit man or horse. He held his horse to a high gallop across the open space to the south end of the Breymann redoubt, past Morgan’s men, and on to the north end of the redoubt. Hauling Warren to a lathered halt before Learned’s men, he shouted, “Follow me, boys! We can take this redoubt!”

  Among Learned’s men were parts of other commands, including Billy Weems and Eli Stroud. They stormed into the first cabins where Canadians had taken cover and cleaned them out. With the Germans concentrating on their battle with Morgan’s men, Arnold’s charge from their far right caught them by complete surprise. Too late they turned to face him. With Billy and Eli in the leading ranks, Learned’s men swept into them like demons. For ten minutes the fighting was brutal, hot, chaotic, face-to-face inside the four walls of the redoubt.

  The Germans tried to back their cannon away from the ramps and turn them to fire at the incoming Americans, but there was no time. In the deafening blast of muskets and the screams of men mortally struck by bayonets a German officer shouted his defiance to rally his command, and raised his sword high to strike. From his left came the flat crack of a pistol, and a ball knocked him sideways to his knees. The sword slipped from his fingers, and he toppled onto his side, finished. For a moment his men stared, then threw down their muskets and ran for any way they could find to get out of the slaughter within the confines of the redoubt. Shouting, Arnold led his men after them.

  He had reached the south end of the redoubt when he heard the whack and felt the sick shudder as Warren took a .75-caliber musketball through the neck. The mortally stricken horse stuck its nose into the ground and went down. At the instant the heavy ball slammed into Warren, a second musketball punched into Arnold’s left leg, midway between his knee and his hip, shattering the bone. Numb with shock, he tried to throw himself clear of the falling horse, but could not, and they went down in a heap. He did not know how long he lay dazed before he shook his head and tried to rise. It was futile. His broken left leg was pinned beneath the dead horse.