I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan’s cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked and he clothed him not. Logan remained quiet in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen as they passed said, ‘Logan is the friend of white men.’ I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of one man … who the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even women and children.
There runs not a drop of my blood in any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life.
Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.
George clenched his jaw and swallowed. He thought of the first time he had seen Logan, that sunny, idyllic fall day two years before, when he had materialized so silently, bringing a friendship and wisdom and nobility that had inspired George as almost nothing had before. He thought of Logan’s fine clear eyes and benign features as he had seen them so often in the light of his hospitable fire. He remembered the rich sense of love and envelopment he had always felt in the midst of Logan’s people, almost as great as that in his own family. He thought of the soft voices and the laughter and the warmth of embraces, and looked back at the words Logan had sent:
There runs not a drop of my blood in any living creature.
The war was over. Lord Dunmore had secured what seemed a good treaty. The Ohio River was designated the boundary between the Indians and the whites. The Indians agreed not to go south of the river into Virginia. They agreed to return all white prisoners and stolen horses, and to let some of their chiefs, including Cornstalk himself, stand as hostages until they were returned. Even the officers who were suspicious of Dunmore admitted that he had bargained well.
Now the nights were cold and the leaves were blowing off the trees. George drank parting cups with men who would soon be dispersing back to every part of Virginia, and many like himself who, in defiance of Dunmore’s wishes, intended to go right back out to Kain-tuck, to make their own worlds and be their own kings. George drank with young Joe Bowman, pale-eyed and straw-haired, who had been so close to him that they could almost read each other’s thoughts; with Benjamin Logan, a solemn, deliberate soldier whose one apparent passion was for the land of Kain-tuck; Simon Butler, an auburn-haired wilderness scout of gigantic size, infinite endurance, and mysterious past; John Montgomery, a lean, dark lieutenant who followed orders to the letter but could think like a general himself when there were no orders; John Gabriel Jones, a bespectacled, thoughtful youth from down in the Holston Valley country; Daniel Boone, a cool-tempered, serene Quaker already widely known as a pathfinder and surveyor; Jim Harrod, a burly, impatient town-builder who had a half-finished town far up the distant Kain-tuck-ee River; and Leonard Helm, gray-whiskered, strong, and droll as a dancing bear, of whom it was said he must have found a whiskey-spring in the wilderness because he always had a flaskful to drink or share. George felt a bond with these men, an unexplainable notion that some of them, somehow, would be involved in his own destiny. These were all durable men, and bold. They all had boundless dreams and found honor in fighting, and were quick to adopt or quit causes. George remembered his fellow militiamen mutilating an Indian corpse at Pipe Creek, and the fate of Logan’s family, and was aware that these men could be as savage as the Devil himself. What’s going to happen when the land is filled up with this new kind of Virginians, George wondered. Who’s going to be able to govern them? How could there ever be a civilized country made up of men like these? What’s all this leading to? What does the Supreme Director of all Things have in mind for that country out there?
Leonard Helm said good-bye now with his old motto:
“Any time y’re thirsty, Clark, why, just holler!”
THERE WAS ONE MORE FRIEND FOR GEORGE TO SEE BEFORE heading downriver to the far Kain-tuck country to resume his surveying. It would be an awkward visit, perhaps even a disaster. But no white comrade-in-arms had influenced his life as much in the past year as had Tah-gah-ju-te, both as friend and as foe. Not to go and see him, George thought, would be dishonorable.
And so he rode to Yellow Creek.
At first George thought Logan had not recognized him, his look was so sullen and hostile.
But then Logan said simply, “Clark,” and did not even extend his arm, and it was worse than not being recognized.
Logan’s eyes were pouched and bloodshot and he stank of rum. He stood swaying slightly. His mouth corners were drawn down, and the skin of his cheeks was flaccid. George had never seen so drastic a change in a man in so short a time—except, of course, those on battlefields who changed from live men to dead.
It had cut him painfully when Logan had declined to reach for his hand. It hurt as badly now as Logan stood barring the door to his lodge and did not invite him to enter. George clenched his teeth to steady his spirit and tried to think of the right thing to say. He thought of speaking of friendship, but knew that would not do with Logan now. He thought about offering condolences, but knew that that, coming from a white man, would be even worse. He thought about saying something in praise of Logan’s eloquent reply to Lord Dunmore, but he knew that Logan had said those words to get them out of his heart and would not want them back.
Finally, George said, “Do you remember the day when we first met, and I was making lines on the land, and we smoked and talked?”
Logan went back deep behind his red eyes, and seemed to be remembering, but he did not speak or even nod. George went on:
“You began to teach me then, of matters that I could not learn from anyone else. You told me that the whole land is too small for our two peoples to live on together. Then Greathouse made this come true. You know it was Greathouse, don’t ye? Not Cresap. But if it had not been Greathouse it would have been someone else, someone of your people or mine.
“I came to tell you this, Logan: Whatever happens between our peoples, in my memory ye’ll always be my greatest teacher. If we never meet again, I’ll keep learning from you, just by remembering and thinking on what you’ve said. Listen:
“I’ll never hate your people. And I’ll never give them a cause to hate me. Probably someday we will have to fear and respect each other, but never hate. D’ye hear me? That’s what you taught me.”
Logan stood, still swaying and scowling, looking at George, saying nothing. George wanted to reach out and offer his arm again, but knew Logan would not take it. So he dipped his head, turned on his heel and leaped onto his horse, and started to ride out of the dismal camp. He had gone ten yards when Logan’s voice came: “Clark!”
He halted the horse and turned in the saddle.
Logan had not moved or changed his expression. “No one can teach you how to act when you are betrayed,” he said, raising a rum bottle. “But I choose this way.”
He turned and stumbled into his lodge and George rode away toward Kain-tuck.
4
RICHMOND, COLONY OF VIRGINIA
March 23, 1775
IT WAS A CLEAR, FRESH DAY AFTER A LONG SPELL OF RAINS, and Jonathan Clark reluctantly left the sunny Richmond Street and entered the musty old St. John’s Church.
He took a pew midway back, sat down, yawned, and shut his eyes. He hated to be indoors on a day like this, but he had to be here. He was Dunmore County’s delegate to the Second Revolutionary Convention. The delegates had been meeting here in Richmond since Governor Lord Dunmore had dissolved the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg.
Jonathan kept his eyes closed for a while, hoping that by pretending to snooze he might avoid conversation. He had many unsettling things in his mind. The Colonies and the lives of the Colonists seemed to be coming all apart. One could not proceed along one’s chosen course because of all that was happening.
; His father wanted him to take a leave and come home to help on the plantation. Extra grain would have to be planted this year, because all the counties had pledged to grow quotas of food for Boston, which the British fleet had blockaded in retaliation for the destruction of a shipment of British tea.
Tea, Jonathan thought. Tea! The world turned topsa-turva over tea! He sat and worried about all this, and about the effects on his career, eyes still shut, and listened to the noises of the arriving delegates.
He listened to the scuffing of shoes on the wooden floors, the scooting of chairs, the echoing knocks of canes on furniture, as the delegates wandered in and settled themselves. There were phlegmatic bursts of throat-clearing and coughing. It almost sounded like a hospital for the aged and infirm. That, he thought, might account for the plodding and cautious conduct of the Convention’s business so far: all these old men.
He heard greetings and jokes and chuckles in voices familiar and unfamiliar. He heard the stertorous voice of Edmund Pendleton, Caroline County’s conservative delegate. He heard Tom Jefferson’s voice nearby, so soft it was barely audible; he heard George Washington and Benjamin Harrison talking close behind him. He heard several voices rise in greeting to Patrick Henry, and heard Henry’s sonorous voice answer. Henry sounded grumpy—probably because the tone of the convention so far had been too calm, too careful, too conciliatory, for Henry’s taste. So many of the important delegates seemed still to yearn back to those pleasant and comfortable times when connection to the motherland had been all benign and sunny. But was it ever? Jonathan thought. Well, maybe it had been for them, the old favored families, the magistrates, those who flattered the Royal Governors. But never for the rest.
He opened his eyes as the session came to order, closed them again for the invocation, opened them again.
The business opened this morning with a resolution concerning Jamaica’s stance “in the unhappy contest between Great Britain and her colonies,” followed by a wish that Virginia might soon “see a speedy return of those halcyon days, when we lived a free and happy people.” Jonathan’s eyes started to close again. This, combined with spring fever, was the kind of atmosphere to put a man to sleep.
Suddenly there was a general shuffling and stirring and a volley of coughs, as Patrick Henry asked for the floor. His brow was knit as he held a piece of paper and began to read:
“Resolved, that a well-regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government …” There were murmurs throughout the church. Henry read on: “… that such a militia in this colony would forever render it unnecessary for the mother-country to keep among us, for the purpose of our defense, any standing army of mercenary soldiers, always subversive of the quiet, and dangerous to the liberties of the people, and would obviate the pretext of taxing us for their support.” The murmuring grew louder. Patrick Henry glanced around the room over his spectacles, then continued to read: “… that the establishment of such militia is, at this time, peculiarly necessary …” Now the voices were rising in volume, drowning out Henry until he raised his own voice, adding: “… to secure our inestimable rights and liberties from further violations.
“Resolved, therefore, that this colony be immediately put into a state of defense …” Again he was drowned out; again he raised his voice further:
“… to prepare a plan for imbodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose!”
Then Henry pushed his spectacles up onto his scalp and stepped down amid the hubbub that he had raised. Jonathan’s heart was pounding. He had expected nothing more radical to be proposed at this convention than a few petitions, or at most a resolution to quit importing goods from Great Britain. But this hotspur was talking the language of rebellion.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” someone was shouting. It was Richard Bland. He was one of the warmest of the patriots, a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, and Jonathan half expected him to take up Henry’s cry. But when the clamor died down, Bland said instead:
“Really, sir, those resolutions are not only rash, but harsh and, and, well-nigh impious!” There was a rumble of voices.
Benjamin Harrison then arose, stiff with age but elegant in satin and silk. “There are still friends of American liberty in Parliament,” he exclaimed, “and as yet they’ve no cause to blush for our indiscretion! His Majesty himself appears to relent, and to look on our sufferings with an eye of pity. Is this a time to disgust our friends, extinguish their sympathies, turn their friendship into hatred, their pity into revenge?”
“Hear, hear!”
One by one, delegates got up and addressed the assembly, though in truth they were talking at Patrick Henry, who sat with his glasses on top of his head, sometimes laying a finger beside his long nose, and scowled.
They demanded to know how he could think the colony was ready for war. They wanted to know what military supplies there were, what arms, what generals, what money. “We’re poor,” cried one delegate. “If we had troops, they’d have to go naked. And yet you talk of assuming a warlike front against the most formidable nation in the world? A nation ready and armed at all points, her navies riding triumphant in every sea? Your measure, sir, sounds brave, but it’s the bravery of madmen!”
Others got up and spoke of the security and luster and domestic comforts the colony had derived from its connection with Great Britain, and of the ray of reconciliation that was beginning to dawn on them from the east, and they contrasted this with the storms that would be raised by a call to arms. “And in such a storm the world would not even pity us,” intoned a speaker, “for we’d have rashly drawn it upon ourselves!”
“Hear, hear!”
Jonathan found himself sitting on the front edge of his bench. He was on the verge of rising to speak himself, but wasn’t sure which side he would take if he did. The men opposing Henry’s call to arms were no less patriotic than Henry; Jonathan knew that. They were just cautious; they, like Jonathan and Jonathan’s own father, felt themselves to be still Englishmen. But they had all, at times, cursed the high-handedness of the British ministry.
At length, the orations against Patrick Henry’s resolutions began to lose steam, every objection having been made several times, and suddenly Henry gathered his legs under him and stood up again. He kept his glasses on top of his head and strode to the front, and stood there, no paper in his hand now, looking from face to face until each man had grown still. He began in a gentle but distinct voice.
“No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism and the abilities of you worthy gentlemen.
“But different men often see the world in different lights. Therefore I hope it won’t seem disrespectful if I should speak forth my very different sentiments freely.”
There was considerable chair-scooting and throat-clearing as they all settled to listen to him.
“The question before this house is one of awful moment to the country. For my part, I find it no less than a question of freedom or slavery. We have a responsibility, to God and our country, to arrive at truth. If I should keep back my opinions now for fear of giving offense, I would be guilty of treason toward my country, and an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven—which I revere above all earthly kings.”
Jonathan loved Henry’s voice, and the pregnancy of his words. Sometimes it was hard to believe that a man so eloquent had failed at so many ordinary pursuits, that a man so solemn could be such a make-merry as Jonathan knew him to be.
“Mr. President,” Henry went on, “it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. But should wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty, shut our eyes to painful truth and listen to the siren song of hope? For my part, whatever anguish of the spirit it might cost, I am willing to see the whole truth, and to provide for it. I know of no way to judge the future but by the past. Judging by the past, what has there been in the conduct of the British Ministry in the la
st ten years to justify those hopes with which you have tried to solace yourselves? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has lately been received? Trust it not; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Rather, ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?
“Let us not deceive ourselves. These are the implements of war and subjugation—the last argument to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen: What means this martial array, if not to force us to submission?” Now he put a keener edge on his voice, and continued: “Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us. They are sent over to rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long a-forging!”
Then he dropped his voice again, and asked what the colony had with which to oppose armies and navies. “Argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years,” he said. “Entreaty and humble supplication? We have already done this to exhaustion.
“Our petitions have been slighted. Our remonstrances have produced more violence and insult. We have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after this, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.”
He now took a deep breath and cried out in a tone that made shivers run down Jonathan’s cheeks:
“There is no longer any room for hope! If we wish to be free, if we wish to preserve those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must FIGHT! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!”
Jonathan’s pulse was throbbing in his temples. He saw that the faces of many of the delegates had gone white.
Henry now lowered his voice again, but spoke with such precise enunciation that his words were as forceful as when he had shouted.
From Sea to Shining Sea Page 12