by Gore Vidal
Madame regales us with anecdotes of her career. At one point, she sends for the cook. “Norah, tell them about your dinner with royalty.”
Norah knows exactly what to tell, and does so. “You see, I was in the kitchen one noon while Madame was away from the house, and I was fixing for us in the house some boiled pork and cabbage …”
“The best in the world!” Madame drinks to pork and cabbage while Mary Eliza does needlepoint beside me on a sofa and the Colonel reclines languorously, and smiles benignly; the satyr lips unwithered by time.
“… when in comes this nice foreign gentleman, small and dark he was with an accent like one of the waiters at the French taverns in the Bowery. So he says ‘Is Madame here’ and I says ‘No’ and he says can he look about the house and I says he can and he looks about for a while and then he comes down to my kitchen and says kind of sad-like ‘I have to go all the way back to Jersey now’ and I says ‘Well, have a little something to eat’ and he says ‘Pork and cabbage is my favourite’ so I sit him down at the table …”
“And there I found them! Dining à deux. Norah et son majesté le Roi de l’Espagne.”
I look blank. Madame promptly translates for me. Apparently it was Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother who was king of Spain and now lives in New Jersey.
Madame Jumel waves Norah back to the depths.
“Le Roi has all the Bonaparte force.” More anecdotes. My head begins to ache.
“I was in Paris,” said the Colonel, “for two years and never—but once—did a Frenchman ask me into his house.”
“How odd! In Paris I paid calls daily and received callers.” A point for Madame.
“How could they have deprived themselves, my dear Eliza?” Burr shut his eyes. “But then I was remarkably poor. I used to eat two pounds of grapes a day because they were cheap.”
“Exile! What this country has done to you!” Madame is off again, and so am I. On the table beside my bed, I find a packet with a note in Colonel Burr’s handwriting.
“For C.S. Although our merry caper in the Broad Way has had—to date (just before dinner)—a happy ending—or continuing—why am I using so many dashes? Like a schoolgirl. The dash is the sign of a poor style. Jefferson used to hurl them like javelins across the page. Yes. I ramble. Yet I think my mind is unaffected by the seizure, and the leg improves with every hour. Nevertheless, it is possible that I might, rather suddenly, die. So I give you now the rest of my notes on the Revolution. They are not complete.
“When I was in the Senate, I was briefly given free access to all official documents pertaining to the Revolution. With a clerk to copy documents, I used to work from 5:00 A.M. until 10: 00 A.M. at the State Department. I was able to crack many a mystery. But then on the spurious ground that a U.S. senator ought not to have access to the ‘correspondence of existing ministers,’ the whole archive was denied me. Later what I had managed to collect in the way of documentation was lost with my daughter at sea.
“Sometimes I have written only a paragraph, intending more. Other times, I reconstruct from memory. I doubt if I shall ever add to what I have done. Perhaps you can make something of these fragments. Matt Davis knows that you have them and should I be translated to a higher sphere you are to make them available to him. That is a sacred trust, Charlie, much the worst kind!”
A look at the “fragments.” Some long. Some short. A kaleidoscope of those days. I start to copy them out.
General Knox
OF ALL THE MEN attached to Washington, Henry Knox was the most truly adhesive. Fat, slow-moving, crafty, an excellent man for the organizing of a headquarters, he lacked, however, the military gift and though he was our chief of artillery from 1776 to the war’s finish he was never entirely certain which end of the cannon you lit. Yet he was a marvel at finding artillery whether cast by us at Litchfield from church-bells or from the remains of the Bowling Green statue of George III or simply stolen in the night from the British.
Knox had been a bookseller in Boston. He was one of the few men familiar with books (or at least their bindings) that Washington was at ease with. He served loyally in the first Cabinet.
I saw Knox in action—if that is the phrase—September 15, 1776, the day the Continental Army enjoyed its resounding defeat at Kip’s Bay and fled (or as Washington put it “withdrew”) to the village of Haarlem.
With two junior officers I was caught in the melee. Thinking to find Washington at Richmond Hill, I rode in that direction. Communication had entirely broken down, and if there were new orders none knew them. It was, as usual, every man for himself.
Half-way across the island we came to a makeshift fort of hastily prepared earthworks behind which cowered an entire brigade. I assumed that they had not known or understood the original order to retreat to Haarlem.
“Who commands?” I shouted to the first sentinel.
“Colonel Knox!” was the answer. Then himself looked above the dirt like a fat mole just flushed from ground. I introduced myself. Asked why the brigade had not moved out.
“Not possible, Major. The British have split the island. But we shall do our duty. We shall hold this fort to the end.” The young voice trembled. The staff officers eyed us nervously. No one wants to hold a fort to the end; particularly a non-fort.
“Sir,” I was respectful but urgent, “you cannot defend these earthworks against one howitzer.”
“We are dug in, Major.” For an instant it occurred to me that Knox might not want to move his brigade quickly because he was, simply, too fat.
I turned to a captain. “Have you water? Provisions?”
“No, Sir. We are only just dug in.”
“Then, Colonel, I propose you obey His Excellency’s orders and withdraw to Haarlem.”
“We cannot!” The usually brazen loud voice was a squeak. “The British are already between us and Haarlem.”
“Sir, they are not.” Knox’s officers had now joined us in that pleasant autumnal glade where yellow leaves diffused bright sunlight. A cool breeze rattled branches overhead; and carried to my nostrils that unmistakable odour men exude when frightened: no one wants to be killed. And death was now at hand.
“My intelligence tells me that since three o’clock this afternoon the British are drawn in a line straight across New York Island, a half-mile to the northeast of us. Listen. You can hear them firing.” Knox did his best to look martial in the presence of his own unimpressed staff. We listened. Heard scattered musketry to the south. Nothing more.
“Sir,” I said, “I cannot tell whose muskets those are but I propose you move out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Sir, I command here.” The round face swelled like a bullfrog’s at mating time.
I turned to the officers. “Gentlemen, if you stay here you will be slaughtered by the enemy. You are outnumbered and out-gunned. Worse, those who are not killed will be taken prisoner and hung as high as Master Hickey.” I was inventing freely but in a good cause. The officers began to talk all at once. Knox was drowned out. A vote was taken. The brigade chose to move on to Haarlem.
“We cannot move!” Knox was furious. “We don’t know the island. We’re from Massachusetts.”
“I know every path and trail from the Bowery to the Heights.” Which was true: as a boy I had often hunted in the island. “I’ll lead the way.”
Knox protesting, the brigade assembled and we marched straight into a nest of British infantry who, seeing us like so many wild beasts bursting upon them from the yellow wood, ran as fast as they could, without firing a shot.
For two miles I rode at the head of the brigade. Knox did not speak to me once as I led the men through thick woods and across those deep swamps and sudden streams that are a characteristic of what is now called, so affectedly, Manhattan Island.
At only one point were we fired on. Knox was terrified. But before he could give the wrong order, I cantered in the direction of the firing, two officers beside me. On a rocky ledge we found a small company of
British infantrymen. With wild Indian yells, we rode straight at them, as if we were the advance guard of a vast horde. They fled into the forest. We chased them for half a mile, killing several.
The sun was almost gone when we returned to the trail to find that the brigade had vanished. I was terrified that Knox had surrendered to the first passing British officer, but luckily he was only lost. We found the brigade marching serenely to the west.
Knox was bewildered when I pointed out to him that a trail that led toward the setting sun could not help but bring him eventually to the city of New York, and the British gallows.
The day was dying when we saw before us the single church spire of Haarlem Village, surrounded by the lights of the American camp. The men cheered. Colonel Knox said not a word to anyone as he led his brigade into the camp.
Although my exploit was presently known to Washington, no official mention of it was ever made.
Three months later (December 1776) Colonel Knox became chief of artillery and a brigadier-general.
Night-riders
IN JULY 1777, I was at Peekskill with General Putnam when my commission as lieutenant-colonel arrived from General Washington. I thought it overdue. I said as much in a letter to His Excellency, remarking that officers junior to me at Quebec and Long Island now took precedence. Those things mattered greatly to me then because they mattered to everyone else. We were hungry for honour in those days.
Washington’s response was elevated and aside from the point. But then I was already known to be friendly with those commanders he disliked, particularly the brilliant if unstable General Charles Lee, late of the Polish army. It was a law of General Washington that the mediocrities who worshipped him like Knox should rise inexorably during the war, while the Lees, as inexorably, sank.
I was to be second-in-command of a regiment stationed on the Ramapo River in Orange County, New Jersey. The regiment was the creation of a wealthy and genial New York merchant named Malcolm. This gentleman desired nothing more than to be revered as the father of his regiment, preferably at a comfortable distance from any administrative or military duties. We got on famously. He moved twenty miles away from our encampment, rented a large house and there lived happily (and paternally) ever after with his family while I took command of the regiment.
I found the men lax because their officers were New York gentlemen, more interested in parties than drilling. I was strict but seldom resorted to The Horse. This meant constant vigilance. I was always on the move. Slept in my clothes; when I slept at all. Got the reputation for having a pair of eyes in the back of my head. All this at age twenty-one. It was glorious!
During this time George Washington was conducting the war in his own mysterious way. After losing the battle for Long Island, he was surprised at Kip’s Bay and so lost New York City to the British. He then sustained a defeat at White Plains after which most of the Continental Army went home. With what men remained, Washington scurried across the North River. Yet if in August of ’76 Washington had abandoned to the British everything east of the Hudson River, he would have been able to keep intact his army, dig in before Philadelphia, and hold that city. Instead he devoted nearly a year to losing New York Island and City, demonstrating to everyone that he had neither the resources nor the craft to defeat the British. The Revolution was nearly over and done with by the winter of 1777.
A number of young officers prayed for Washington to be relieved of command. Some of us wanted Lee. Others Gates. No one but the sycophants on His Excellency’s staff wanted another winter of Washington and failure. Had the British realized the extent of our confusion and weakness, they might then and there have forced a peace upon us for with each passing day Washington’s conduct of the war was creating Tories by the thousands, including a number of powerful if secret ones in the Congress itself.
My task in September 1777 was to make the enemy regret that they were not Americans. I think we succeeded. Certainly they were never able to adapt to our Indian-style fighting which relied on darkness, stealth, surprise. We knew the wild forests around Paramus. They did not. We never met them in battle. Rather, we were always near by, ready to shoot them down one by one, preferably in the dark.
Our night-rides became famous through all that part of New Jersey, and at least one young commander thought this a delightful way of living. But then I had met at the Hermitage, a fine house just beyond Paramus, the lady who would one day become my wife.
It was a peculiar joy to creep like an Indian through dark pine woods, past enemy pickets, in order to join a brilliant party at the Hermitage and then, at an alert from a posted servant, to leap out a back window and vanish like a shadow when the moon is gone.
Winter 1777–1778. Valley Forge
THOSE “BLOODY FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW” at Valley Forge! I have never enjoyed anything so much as the memoirs of James Wilkinson, author of this pretty image. But then Jamie could not tell the truth even if it were convenient to do so. There were ragged men and broken shoes at Valley Forge but I recollect no blood upon the snow. I do recollect the series of disasters which brought us to that windy Pennsylvania hill-side, and the bleakest hours of the war.
In September 1777 the British out-manoeuvred Washington once again and occupied Philadelphia (the Congress now became a burden to the city of Baltimore). Contrary to accepted legend, the Philadelphians did not at all mind the presence of the British army in their city; in fact, many of them hoped that Washington would soon be caught and hanged, putting an end to those disruptions and discomforts which had been set in motion by the ambitions of a number of greedy and vain lawyers shrewdly able to use as cover for their private designs Jefferson’s high-minded platitudes and cloudy political theorizings.
Shortly before Christmas 1777, I reported to General Washington at Valley Forge, some forty miles from Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. The commander’s quarters were, as always, comfortable (in February the Lady Washington would arrive to preside over the court).
I waited alone in a cold ante-room. Aides came and went, including General Knox who bestowed on me his fish eye as he went inside. I recognised Colonel Hamilton who was pleased to see me, as well as an old friend and contemporary, Colonel Troup, who told me, “You’re to be a diversion. Go on in. His Excellency is in a rage.”
I entered what must have been the dining-room of the original house. Washington stood in front of a fire, facing two gentlemen in civilian clothes.
He responded to my salute without ceasing to attend the burghers. “You gentlemen will recognise, no doubt, Colonel Burr who was at Quebec with General Montgomery.” My name was indeed known to these two members of the Pennsylvania Assembly who were also suppliers to the army—which is to say thieves. One was large; the other small. Their names are respectable now in the history of Pennsylvania and so I will not embarrass their descendants, who doubtless venerate as noble patriots the heavy-set villain and his slight accomplice.
The large one said, as though in explanation, “You will admit, Excellency, that this site is ideally suited for your purpose.” He waved his arms to north and south. “Plentiful water, a mill, timber from which you can build cabins. I have a consignment of nails, just arrived, at your disposal …”
“I trust the Pennsylvania Assembly has already paid for the nails.” One could hardly blame Washington for his bad temper; he had wanted to go into winter quarters at Wilmington in Delaware, but Pennsylvania’s delegates to the Congress threatened to withdraw all financial support for Congress as well as for the army if he did not remain in Pennsylvania. So in order to make money for a pack of merchants, our half-starved army was now perched on the side of a wind-swept hill and those few who were not sick were now expected to build a camp, and survive somehow without provisions until the spring.
The small one got the subject away from nails. “We have all manner of supplies at hand. Or nearly at hand. Certainly you will lack for nothing a grateful colony … uh, ‘state’ can offer.”
There was a sudde
n loud noise of cawing. The small man stopped talking. Even Washington allowed his dull face to relax into bewilderment. The cawing grew louder. A thousand crows, two thousand crows were sounding in the winter stillness. “Caw, caw, caw!”
Colonel Troup entered. “It’s the men, Your Excellency.”
“Caw, Caw, Caw!”
“They want food, Your Excellency.”
Washington turned to the Pennsylvanians. “There are only twenty-five barrels of flour in the camp. Presently the men will mutiny. If you do not supply us by tomorrow, there will be no one to protect you from the British hangman. Nor will there be anyone, gentlemen, to protect you from me.”
Colonel Troup showed the shaken Pennsylvanians out.
Washington proceeded to deal with me. “I have heard of your night-raids in Jersey. They have been appreciated.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency.” I wondered if I should drop to one knee. With each year’s new defeats, the ceremony of Washington’s court became more royal. “I had hoped I might be of the same service now.”
“In Pennsylvania?” Washington waved a large ink-stained hand toward the window.
“No, Sir. Staten Island. I know every inch of it, and I know we can do serious damage to the British there. Particularly with night-raids.”
“How many men would you need?”
“Two hundred, Sir. From my own regiment.”
“You mean from Colonel Malcolm’s regiment.” This was flat. We were fated to dislike one another. On my side I found irritating the slowness of his mind; not to mention his awesome gift for failure in the field. In three years he had lost every engagement with the enemy except for a small victory at Trenton and that had been an accident: the Hessians had not posted guards the night of his attack. At this point in the war the only American victories were those of Gates at Saratoga and Lee at Charleston. Quite naturally, many officers wanted Washington replaced. They had my sympathy.