From Sea to Shining Sea

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Annie laughed. “Fancy Jonathan not able to study, even if the house had been on fire!”

  “Hmhmhm! But. The happy life had to come to an end, as all happy things do, and so Mama, your Grandmama, took ill and began to pass away. But she said she wouldn’t go till she’d seen all her nine children one more time. And so we were all summoned to their house in King and Queen County, and it was a good while before we got there, as some of us had to come some distance, as far as Carolina, even. But by and by we were all there at Worcester farm, your uncles George and Giles and John and Byrd, and your aunts Rachel and Mary and Mildred and Lucy. Most all of us brought our mates and children, so we were great in number, and the place was a-hum like a hive. Mama lay propped up on big pillows, and we’d go in one or two at a time and sit by her, with Papa, your Grandpapa, always by the far side o’ the bed watchin’ her. Oh, he was a constant old sentinel! He’d sit there by th’ bed, deep in rememberin’, I suppose.

  “Well, after all, they were such lovebirds, and tho’ white-haired by then, why, I ’spect they were the same two in their bosoms as had courted on th’ sly with their whippoorwill calls, and she who’d given up her birthright for him. Not a soul came from the Byrds to see her.”

  Ann Rogers Clark looked at her own family around the table, and had to clear her throat before going on.

  “Well, once she’d counted us all, and knew we were all there, why, she decided I guess that she could go then. I … I suppose that’s th’ way I’ll want it when my time comes, too, t’ see you all. There in a big bright room, with your Papa beside me.”

  “Ann,” said John Clark. “Come now.”

  “Well, once she knew we were all there, why, Papa shooed the last of us downstairs, and then no one was called up for, oh, an hour or two. Then Papa came halfway down the staircase and asked me to go fetch my Georgie. I asked him why and he said, just do. So I went out, found Georgie under a big tree, a-tryin’ to teach that half-Indian language o’ his to a clutch o’ cousins, and I brought ’im inside and sent ’im up. And I stayed downstairs with brothers and sisters, all of us wonderin’ why he’d summoned this particular grandson at such a time—until we heard the saddest and loveliest sound:

  “There in the upstairs hall of that big house, we heard so clear and loud, once and then twice and many times, th’ call of a whippoorwill!”

  She looked around the table. All her children were absolutely still, watching her, seeming to understand. She cleared her throat again and blinked, because the points of candleflame were blurred and shimmering with rays.

  “Papa couldn’t do th’ whippoorwill call anymore, for he’d lost his teeth, but Georgie could do it to perfection, and that’s why he’d sent for ’im, so your Grandmama could hear those notes once more and maybe remember their willow tree.

  “Half an hour later a door opened and shut upstairs, and the whippoorwill stopped calling. Georgie came slow down the stairs with Papa’s arm across his shoulder. And we knew she was gone.”

  * * *

  WINTER TIGHTENED ITS ICY RING AROUND THE MISSISSIPPI Valley towns. Snows fell and melted, then fell and stayed. George had finished his Indian councils at Cahokia and returned to his base in Kaskaskia. Here he kept bargaining for flour and meat, leather, cloth, and rum for the little regiment of men, and waited with dwindling hope for a messenger to come from Virginia before the rivers froze and the trails drifted shut.

  It had been six months since he had sent Montgomery to Virginia with the prisoner Rocheblave and the report of the victories; it had been four months since he had sent Myers, his best courier, with more recent news of the occupation, the Indian councils, and the desperate problems of pay and supply. If those messengers had got there, surely some acknowledgement would have come back from Patrick Henry by now.

  Of course, they might not have got there. They had gone as far as the Falls of Ohio, he knew that. Word had come from the little outpost on the island of their passing through.

  But something could have happened to them beyond the Falls. The Shawnees, among other tribes along the upper Ohio, had not come to his councils, and were still active. News was that a large body of them had besieged Boonesboro for two weeks before Boone’s sharpshooters and bad weather had forced them off. And Simon Butler, George’s best scout, had failed to return from a reconnaissance in the Ohio country early in September. There were still hazards aplenty between here and Virginia, and maybe neither Montgomery nor Myers had made it through to Williamsburg. Or, if they had, maybe the returning messenger from Governor Henry had perished. That was just as likely. George and his invaders were too remote from their government to rely on the hope of messages getting through one way, let alone being answered.

  And so the ice locked the rivers, and no more boats came from anywhere. Now and then some hardy courier would arrive from the Falls by way of the Buffalo Trace, or down from Bowman’s outpost at Canokia, or across the windswept prairie from Helm at Vincennes, but finally even these stopped traveling, and every settlement closed itself off from the frigid wilderness and began living close to the hearth, neither sending out anyone—except hunters—to other places nor expecting anyone to come.

  Very well, George thought as Christmas came and went and the year turned. Here we’ll sit till spring, and that’s good enough, I reckon, as the Indians and the British likewise will sit where they be, as no bear gains ground from another when they’re all hibernating.

  And come next spring we’ll get more troops from Virginia, and then we’ll cross to Vincennes and pick up Len Helm and the militia there, and then up the Wabash we’ll go and down the Maumee, and with most of the tribes in our way laying neutral, by heaven, we can own Detroit by June next, and that’s the end of Britain in the West.

  IT WAS A PLEASANT ENOUGH WINTER, HERE IN KASKASKIA. The French were vivacious and hospitable. They had snug houses, and imported wines and brandies and chocolates, and real silver and crystal glinting on their tables. They had fiddles and zithers and flutes, and Monsieur Cerré, the leading merchant, even had in his home a harpsichord, upon which his wife could play tolerably well, and a billiard table, upon which he himself could play tolerably well. The belles of Kaskaskia were flirtatious and charming, and on many a cold night George and his officers were kept warm with dancing. Some of the American soldiers had found wenches in the town to keep them company in their off-duty hours, and many a young Virginian found himself unofficially adopted by some warm-hearted family or other. Grandmères knitted woolen socks for them; grandpères played backgammon and chess with them and cracked walnuts and hickory nuts with them by the fire and taught them a little of the French language. All in all, it was a more luxurious winter season than most of them would have had in their own frontier settlements, and so the morale stayed high. The troops had little to worry about except living up to Colonel Clark’s expectations of them as soldiers, and that, for the most part, they were eager to do.

  George spent a good portion of his time alone in his quarters in Rocheblave’s old house. He had set up a comfortable bed in a small downstairs room off the study which served as his headquarters. Madame Rocheblave and her servants had removed to the home of a friend in the town, and her upstairs rooms now housed the duty sergeant and guard detail. George’s solitude mystified several of Kaskaskia’s young ladies. He liked to dance with them and talk with them, drink tea with them, accept their kindnesses and let them tutor him in their tongue. But he let them know that his heart was already given. Two or three tried to test the strength of his vows and quickly found that he was faithful and could not be misled.

  George had to keep negotiating for food and services, and calculated like a countinghouse clerk to keep his accountings straight. He had signed his name to a thousand vouchers by now; he had expended more in Virginia’s name than all his lands and belongings were worth. He sensed that this bulging packet of records might yet be all that could save him from personal ruin, and though he hated it, he guarded it as he guarded his own life
.

  A few days into the new year, George was laid low by an onslaught of intestinal cramps, chills, and fevers, worse than anything that had ever hit him. Old Dr. Laffont of Kaskaskia bled him and gave him barks, and, when he worsened, called in a younger colleague, Dr. Conard, for consultation. Conard was more modern, a believer in chemical medicines, the more the better, and between the two physicians they very nearly killed George in the next fortnight, until he came out of a delirium one evening with a healthy appetite for beef, the image of Teresa in his mind, and a conviction that he was going to live after all.

  And it was then that the first awful rumors came:

  That the Hair-Buyer General, Governor Henry Hamilton, was in the Illinois Country with an army of eight hundred soldiers and Indians, coming to recapture the Mississippi Valley.

  George was aghast. Could Hamilton somehow have stolen such a move on him without the least warning? The old notion of the chess game came back to George, and he castigated himself for having got so complacent and distracted that Hamilton might have jumped him in his moment of triumph.

  The people of Kaskaskia were petrified. They had gladly given their oath of allegiance to the Americans, but had never dreamed that the British would return in such force. They knew it would go badly with them when the British came, and they were voting to capitulate. They wanted George and his Americans to take asylum on the Spanish side of the river so there would be no war fought over their town. George snorted, ordered their spokesmen out of his headquarters, and sent for his officers and scouts to track down the source of the rumor.

  At last it was traced to a French hunter and some Negro woodcutters who had stumbled upon a hidden Indian encampment beside the road to Cahokia. The Indians had told them they were part of General Hamilton’s army of eight hundred, which was coming to attack the town. George’s scouts then went out and found the abandoned encampment, and said that apparently no more than thirty Indians had been there. They had fled eastward since, along the main trace between Kaskaskia and Vincennes. The scouts had ridden long and hard, but had found no sign of an enemy army within thirty or forty miles of Kaskaskia.

  So it had been a false alarm. But to George and his officers, it was as ominous now that the alarm was past as it had been before. It raised questions that he had to ponder long after the Kaskaskians had breathed their sighs of relief.

  “They weren’t friendly Indians,” George told his officers. “They’d been hiding there for days. Any Indians I’ve treated with know they can come camp right in the shadow o’ this town.”

  “If they really were enemy, though,” Johnny Rogers queried, “why would they spoil Hamilton’s surprise by explaining their presence all so handily like that?”

  “A joke,” said Dick Brashears, a lieutenant. “Just a prank by some mongrel band. I’ll bet it is.”

  “No,” George said. “We have to presume they’re hostile. Why would they say those numbers, eight hundred? Well, like as not, to keep the Long Knives from swarming out and catching ’em. That’s what I’d ha’ said if I was them, caught prowlin’ like them.” He stalked around and around his desk, frowning at the floor, stroking his chin. He stopped in front of the hearth and kicked a log in the fireplace. It sent up sparks and began burning brighter. He gazed at the strengthening flame. “Get me a brandy, Johnny, and pour one for anyone else thirsty.” He sipped and stared at the flames and thought. Then he turned to them. “Now let me tell ye what confounds me. When they skedaddled, they went toward Vincennes. Meseems they wouldn’t go thataway, between two forts flying our flag, now would they?”

  He was concentrating like a chess player now, tapping himself on the temple. “Some little things been botherin’ me. Len Helm hasn’t sent a word since early last month. I just blamed that on th’ weather. But another thing. Mister Vigo started over there last month to trade. I gave him some news for Len, requiring replies. Vigo should ha’ been back long since.”

  There followed a silence so complete that the officers could hear the soft flutter of the flames in the fireplace. Finally Johnny Rogers said, “What are y’ thinking, Cousin?”

  His answer chilled them.

  “It would surprise me, but then it wouldn’t surprise me, if the Hair-Buyer really was somewhere out there nearabouts, and has a ring around Vincennes. A net across the trail, maybe.”

  Another dreadful silence held until Captain Dick McCarty coughed and said, “What might y’ mean by nearabouts, Colonel?”

  “The upper Wabash, maybe. Ouiatanon, or Post Miami.” It was an awful thought. Ouiatanon was but a hundred miles or so up the Wabash from Vincennes. Ouiatanon was an Indian town where Hamilton’s agents had had a trading post before the Long Knives came. George was calculating, counting weeks, trying to imagine whether Hamilton could possibly have raised and moved a large force from Detroit to there between late summer and December, when the rivers froze. It didn’t seem likely. George had presumed Hamilton to be a rational and orthodox English officer, not one who would try a bold stroke like that. A Strategy of the Absurd.

  At last he turned to them from the fire. “I sent some scouts on toward Vincennes, to take a careful look-see. We should know ere long whether there’s a net out.”

  “I’ll be eager t’ know,” said Brashears. “I can stand even bad news better’n my imagination.”

  “My boys,” growled Lieutenant John Bailey, “came out here with’ee t’ fight Redcoats an’ Indians. I reckon they’d still like t’ get a chance to.”

  ON THE TWENTY-NINTH OF JANUARY THE ANSWER CAME. The portly trader Francisco Vigo from St. Louis brought it. He rode in splattered with mud to his shoulders. His heavy dark eyebrows were peaked with worry and his red tongue kept licking his chapped lips.

  “My colonel,” he said, “is it known by you that the Governor General Hamilton occupies Vincennes since the last month?”

  George swallowed. “Him in person? Good God! And what of Helm?”

  “His prisoner, but well treated. Eh, then! Sit down, my colonel, and hear the news, for I’ve been there a long time and I have much that you must know. For weeks he would not let me to leave there, though I protest I am a Spanish citizen. He is afraid I would come tell you of his presence.”

  George was rubbing his forehead and trying to grasp the whole consequence of that staggering news. “Thanks be to God he let ye loose! I’m surprised ’e did!”

  “Only after he make me promise I would not come and tell you on my way to home. Such a perplexion I had, for my word is my honor! So, I do honorably: I hasten to my home first. I touch my door. Then I turn and hasten here to tell you!”

  17

  KASKASKIAS, ILLINOIS

  February 3, 1779

  TO GOVERNOR PATRICK HENRY

  COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

  Dr Sr

  As it is now near twelve months since I have had the least Intelligence from you I almost despair of any Relief sent to me

  A Late Menuvr of The Famous Hair Buyer General, Henry Hamilton Esqr. Lieut. Governor of Detroit, hath allarmed us much; on the 17th of December last he, with a Body of Six Hundred Men Composed of Regulars, French Voluntier and Indians Took possession of St. Vincent on the Waubach, what few men that Composed the Garrison not being able to make the least Defense

  He is influencing all the Indians he possibly Can to Join him: I learn that those that have Treated with me have as yet Refused his offers. I have for some time Expected an attack from him as he has Blocked up the Ohio R

  I fortunately got every peace of Inteligence that I could wish for, by a Spanish Gentl Mr. Vigo that made his Excape from Mr. Hamilton:

  No attack to be made on our Garison at Kaskaskias until the Spring as passage is too difficult at present. Braves sent to war against different parts of the country Especially Kentucky. Both presents and Speaches sent to all the Nations South of the Ohio Amediately to meet at a great Council at the Mouth of the Tennessee R to lay the Best plans for Cuting off the Rebels at Illinois and Kentucky. t
he Grand Gate and his Nation living at Post St Vincent told Mr Hamilton that he and his people was Big Knives and would not give their hands any more to the English. Ninety Regulars in Garrison a few Voluntiers and about Fifty Tawaway Indians that is shortly to go to war they are very busy in Repairing the Fort which will Shortly be very Strong, One Brass Six-pounder two iron four pounders and two Swivels Mounted in the Bastians plenty of Amunition and provitions and all kinds of warlike Stores, Making preparation for the Reduction of the Illinois & has no Suspition of a Visit from the Americans This was Mr Hamilton’s Circumstance when Mr Vigo left him

  Being sensible that without a Reinforcement which at present I have hardly a right to Expect, I shall be obliged to give up this Countrey to Mr Hamilton without a turn of Fortune in my favour, I am Resolved to take the advantage of his present Situation and Risque the whole on a Single Battle

  I shall set out in a few Days with all the Force I can Raise of my own Troops and a few Militia that I can Depend on the whole to only one Hundred, rest goes on board a Small Galley Mounting two four pounders and four large Swivels one nine pounder on Board

  This Boat is to make her way good if possible and take her Station Ten Leagues Below St Vincents until further orders

  I shall March across by Land my self with the Rest of My Boys. the principal persons that follow me on this forlorn hope is Capns Joseph Bowman John Williams Edwd Worthington Richd McCarty & Frans Charlovielle Lieuts Richd Brashears Abm Kellar Abm Chaplin Jno Jerault And Jno Bayley and several other brave Subalterns. You must be Sensible of the Feeling that I have for those Brave officers and Soldiers that are Determined to Share my Fate let it be what it will. I know the Case is Desperate but Sr we must either Quit the Countrey or attack Mr Hamilton No time is to be lost

  Was I sure of a Reinforcement I should not attempt it Who knows what fortune will do for us. Great things have been affected by a few Men well Conducted, perhaps we may be fortunate We have this Consolation that our Cause is Just and that our Countrey will be greatful and not Condemn our Conduct in Case we fall through if so this western countrey as well as Kentucky I believe is lost