From Sea to Shining Sea

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  The message was that General Hamilton proposed a three-day truce, during which neither side would work on fortifications. He wanted to hold a secret conference with Colonel Clark inside the fort—or at the gate, if Colonel Clark was reluctant to come in.

  George scratched his whiskery chin while he read the lines, then between the lines. It was almost three weeks since he had left Kaskaskia to come on this forlorn adventure, an awful, painful three weeks worse than anything he had ever endured, with never a moment’s ease. But now he seemed to have Hamilton ground down further than he could have dared to expect. All the suffering seemed not to have been in vain.

  Bowman and other officers feared it was a ruse to get George close to the fort where he could be shot or seized.

  “No,” he said. “I think he’s stalling for time till his reinforcements come down the river. Way our boys are shooting, he’s afraid there won’t be anybody left in there for ’em to reinforce. And that about the fortifications: your tunnel-bugs got him worried, Joe.”

  “Somethin’s got t’ change perty soon,” said Captain McCarty. “My boys is fed, fat, and sassy, and’s sayin’ they’d like to get into that fort and get at the heart o’ th’ matter with that Hair-Buyer.” And so George wrote an adamant reply:

  Col. Clark will not agree to any other terms than that of Mr Hamilton’s surrendering himself and Garrison, Prisoners at Discretion—If Mr Hamilton is desirous of a Conference with Col Clark he will meet him at the Church with Captn Helm

  Feb 24th 1779

  G.R. CLARK

  The fort, battlefield, and town lay almost silent in the wintry midday sunlight as the messenger clambered gingerly through the barricade and went up the road and into the fort. But suddenly, from the commons beyond the town, faint yells and war whoops sounded, followed by a brief rattle of gunfire, then a few more sporadic shots. “Go see what that is,” George snapped. If it was an attack on his rear right at this moment when he had gained some advantage…

  But it was not. The word came in that Captain Williams and his boys had caught a band of Hamilton’s Indians coming in from the warpath.

  They trooped through the town soon, half-running, cursing, manhandling six war-painted savages, whom they yanked along by ropes tied around their necks. Williams’s teeth were bared like a snarling wolf’s, and his eyes were bulging. “There was twenty of ’em,” he said, “comin’ in with these.” He swung up a heavy fistful of scalps—brown hair, white hair, blond hair, each with its patch of skin encrusted with brown dried blood—and snarled: “Bringin’ these in to sell to Mister Hamilton! They musta thought we was Hair-Buyer’s agents a-comin’ out to greet ’em. Walked right up to us a-whoopin’ and a-poundin’ themself on their chest, jolly as ye please. Didn’t realize their mistake till they was plumb amongst us. Tried t’ light out. These here we caught. T’ others … Show ’im, boys!” His men whooped and waved fourteen fresh scalps in the air: scalplocks of black Indian hair, still dripping red. George set his jaw. Williams’s men were getting what they had come to Vincennes for, even if the rest hadn’t yet. “I thought,” Williams went on, “some o’ the boys might like to have a go at these murderin’ scuts. What sayuh, George?”

  “We’ll see. None o’ your boys hurt?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Good! Good job, Mister Williams. But now stand by. I’m concentratin’ on Hamilton himself right now. Meseems the Hair-Buyer’s about to knuckle under.”

  “Begumpus! Ye don’t say so!”

  “Yonder comes his messenger down.” George walked out onto the meadow to meet the messenger. They talked for a moment, then George came back to the church and his eyes were flashing and he was grinning big, but a bit dazed, as if he could not quite believe what he had heard.

  “Well, boys, look smart now! Mister Hamilton’s comin’ right down to talk about givin’ up. Bringing old Len Helm down with ’im!”

  “Bejeezus!”

  “Givin’ up? Don’t we git to kill ’im?”

  “He’s goan give up? Why, Gawd damn! He ought at least waited till our boat got here to cannon-shoot him a time or two!”

  “Why, a fort like that’n, we’d ’a helt it a year!”

  “Bo’, I’m let down! Be good to see ol’ Len, though.”

  “He gives up, that means we kin hang ’im sted o’ shoot ’im, that right, Cunnel?”

  George held his hands up to hush their clamorings. “Keep your pants on, now! He hasn’t surrendered yet, he’s just comin’ down to talk about it. Now listen, all of you.” And there were a lot of them around now; having gotten wind of Williams’s captives, many had taken advantage of the white flag to wander over. “Listen now! You all know I’m a talker and I don’t like to be interrupted when I’m talkin’. So by God if any one o’ you kills Henry Hamilton while I’m talkin’ to ’im, I’m going to be mad.”

  Nasty laughter went through the crowd. George said:

  “Now you can give him all the hateful looks y’ want. They’ll do him good. But keep your mouths shut and don’t throw any knives or tomahawks at ’im, even by accident, because he is a bona fide representative of his Britannic Majesty. Ye hear me, now?” They were all leering happily. They loved it when he talked to them like this. They knew too that if he had not expressly forbidden it, someone among them actually might have used the Lieutenant Governor for mumbledy-peg practice, truce flag or no. There was nothing sacred or awesome to them about any British general, and this one in particular; to them he was simply the murderer of their kin. But Colonel Clark had his reasons for telling them not to kill him yet, and Colonel Clark was the only law they knew outside themselves. “All right,” he said. “Cap’n, take those savages o’ yours ’round that side of the church, out o’ sight, and you may inquire of ’em about when they were sent out and who sent ’em, and where they got those scalps. That’ll be nice intelligence to present Mister Hamilton with if he tries to act pious.” The Indians were jerked and booted around the corner. George had been glancing anxiously toward the fort as he talked, and now he saw the gate swing wide and two figures appeared, one in red, the other in a hunting shirt. “Now move back and give me talkin’ room,” he said, “’cause here comes Len Helm bringing His Lordship down.”

  Now, George thought, bracing himself for the confrontation that had brought him through so many months and so many miles and so many miseries, now we’re going to meet this Hair-Buyer and teach him th’ fear o’ God.

  “He walks proud,” Bowman mused as they came closer.

  “Now he does, aye. He’ll slink when I’m finished with ’im.”

  HAMILTON STOPPED FIVE FEET IN FRONT OF GEORGE AND stuck out his hand. “So you are Colonel Clark.” He was studying him keenly.

  George kept his arms folded across his chest. “So you are General Hamilton.”

  Hamilton’s gray-blue eyes hardened when his hand was ignored, but he did not blink or lower the drilling stare. The eyes were shrewd, hooded, under bristly reddish-black eyebrows. He was long-jawed, with a sensual, somewhat sulky mouth. He was lightly freckled, and there were bluish hollows under his eyes, and George could see at once that he was what his mother used to call one of those “starer-downers.” Hamilton lowered his proffered hand as inconspicuously as he could and clasped it in his left behind his back and braced himself to stare down this Virginian. George could see that was what he was doing, and although he was an unvanquished starer-downer himself, he was not going to bother with it. Instead, he grinned, crinkled his eyes, and winked at Leonard Helm, simply dismissing Hamilton’s challenge. He stepped past Hamilton and threw his arms around the grizzled stalwart, guffawing and pounding him on the back. “Godalmighty, Len,” he exclaimed, “it’s good t’ smell brandy again.”

  There were tears suddenly in Helm’s eyes, and he hugged hard. “Thankee, George. I didn’t know if ye’d talk to me agin.”

  George dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “What’s his chances in there?”

  Helm was quick. “He’s
forlorn. His Canadians are mopey and he doesn’t trust ’em an’ his Tawaways don’t cotton t’ bein’ shot at in a box. Troops boatin’ down but he don’t know when. But he has guts.”

  Hamilton in the meantime had turned his glowering stare onto Bowman’s ghostly pale eyes, but Bowman just looked amused, then headed over to greet Helm too. And so Hamilton, clenching his jaw and grinding his right heel into the earth, found himself left staring at the most piratical, snaggle-toothed, scrawny, unshaven, stinking, menacing mob of beings he had ever seen, all lumpish as trolls in their rags and disintegrating deerskins and animal-pelt hats, all smirking at him with a happy malevolence, winking at him, leering at him, spitting tobacco juice at his feet, nudging each other in the ribs and making kissy-lips at him, and it was obvious at once that he was not going to be able to stare down a single one of these insolent louts with his gimlet-eyes; to them he was no more than a hog at the butcher’s block. Every one of them felt superior to him. One gigantic and hideous specimen bowed his head to reveal a scalping scar, the pale skullbone visible through a thin integument, and then looked up and leered at Hamilton’s white wig while testing the edge of a hunting knife with his grimy thumb and saying softly, “Heighdy, Bub. Wanta see m’ new purty?” And he held up a bloody hank of hair which Hamilton realized at once was the fresh scalp of an Indian.

  Hamilton spun and stood scowling. “Colonel Clark,” he rasped, “if you’re quite done there, I’ve brought down a page of articles. I trust you will find these reasonable and honorable.” George stepped over and took the sheet of paper, opened it, held it in his big hard hands, and read it while Hamilton stood clasping a wrist behind his back, now trying not to meet anyone’s eyes.

  George hid his astonishment at Hamilton’s proposed terms. The great Hair-Buyer, commandant of the whole British western theater, was actually offering to yield up Fort Sackville with everything in it. He wanted his troops and officers to be allowed to keep thirty-six rounds of ammunition per man and enough provisions for a long march back to Detroit, and his wounded cared for “through the generosity of Colonel Clark.” He wanted to surrender with the full honors of war.

  It would be so easy to accept those terms and end this strenuous campaign, George knew. But then Hamilton would go back to Detroit and resume his mischief. And Hamilton was not slinking yet, as George had determined he must. To George’s mind this was not just a chess game now. He and his men had a more severe judgment of Hamilton.

  George handed the document to Bowman and came to stand close in front of Hamilton. The general’s uniform—scarlet coat and gold epaulets, white trousers and shining boots—was impeccably clean and elegant, though the scarlet was faded and the gold braid was frayed; he was, after all, a frontier commander with many years of service.

  “Governor, hear me,” George said in a forceful voice. “I demanded you surrender at my discretion. In my language that means unconditionally. It’s as vain of you to try to bargain with me as it is to think of defending yon fort. My cannon will be up in a few hours, though I doubt I need ’em. The bankside of your post is already considerably undermined. I know to a man which o’ your Frenchmen ye can count on, and that’s precious few. Now, my boys been begging my permission to tear your fort down and get at you. If they do that, Governor, I doubt a soul of you will be spared. On the other hand, if y’ll surrender at discretion and trust my generosity, y’ll have better treatment than if you stand here and haggle for terms.”

  The muscles in Hamilton’s jaw tightened. “Colonel Clark, I’ll never take so disgraceful a step as long as I have ammunition and provision, and I have those in plenty. I can depend on my Englishmen!”

  George nodded, but replied: “Well, goody. But you’ll be answerable for their lives. The result of an enraged body o’ men like these falling on you,” he said, sweeping an arm toward the men crowding close, “must be obvious to you.”

  “Mister Clark, I perceive you’re trying to force me to a fight in the last ditch!”

  “Well you might suppose!” George shouted suddenly in Hamilton’s face. “Every fiber in me cries to let these men avenge their massacred families! Aye, I’d relish any excuse to put your Indians and partisans to death, and you too!” His eyes were blazing and his men were leaning forward and almost growling in an ominous chorus of assent. “No terms, Mister Hamilton.”

  Hamilton’s eyes narrowed and he did not flinch. It was true what Helm had said; he had guts. “Colonel,” he said in a crisp tone, “in December when your friend Captain Helm stood defenseless and alone at the gate of that very fort, I gave him the full honors of war. Ask him if that’s not so.”

  “And well ye should have,” George replied. “But the big difference between you and him is, Cap’n Helm’s never bought a woman’s or a child’s scalp.”

  Hamilton’s nostrils flared and his lips suddenly looked thin and gray. He could control himself well, but George knew that he had stuck him where it hurt. Soon Hamilton said in a low voice, as if hoping the woodsmen might not overhear: “Then nothing will do but fighting?”

  “Nothing but that or, as I’ve said, surrendering without conditions. You’re a murderer, Mister Hamilton, and you’re caught. Only honorable men may demand honorable terms.”

  A tic had started under Hamilton’s left eye, and George made a point of staring at it, with a suggestion of a sneer. Hamilton now made a feeble attempt to explain something that seemed very important to him. “I always urged my Indians to bring me prisoners, not scalps; never encouraged barbarity. But you know how they …”

  He stopped, because the Virginian seemed to be swelling up and tensing as if he were about to strike him dead on the spot, and Hamilton realized that no victims of Indian warfare would ever swallow such an excuse. So he said now: “Will you stay your hand, Colonel, till I return and consult with my officers?”

  “Do that. Good day, Gov’nor.”

  MOST OF THE WAY BACK UP TO THE FORT, HAMILTON WAS too busy composing himself to say anything to Helm. Hamilton was a dutiful son of a noble Scottish family, and this was the first time in his long and effective career that he had ever been faced down or humiliated—and this by a man who, according to Helm, was but about twenty-five years old, about half Hamilton’s own age. Helm had been prattling on exuberantly: “God dang, ol’ George ain’t changed nary a bit! He, hee! A regular, ring-tail, rum-suckin’ fire eater, ain’t he? Sure made you look ’bout big as a piss-ant, Gov’nor! Hee, hee.”

  “Captain Helm, shut up or I shall hang you from the flagpole, I swear it.”

  “Wal, y’ could, I reckon,” Helm twanged on cheerfully, “since there won’t be no Majesty’s flag up there t’ be in my way! Boy, ain’t them some—”

  “Stop calling me ‘Boy,’ damn you!”

  “Boy, ain’t them some fine-lookin’ soldier-boys he got? Every one of ’em’s dangerous as a den o’ bobcats! Hee! Most ’mazing thang ’bout ol’ George, t’ me, is how he can keep a thousand such blood-guzzlin’ runagates under control.”

  Helm glanced out of the corner of his eye at Hamilton’s finecut profile as they walked up the slope toward the gate, and he could see that his seemingly harmless prattle was having its intended effect.

  THE SIX CAPTIVE INDIANS WERE STANDING IN A CLUSTER with rope tethers around their necks, and their hands bound cruelly tight with thongs behind their backs. They were surrounded by the jeering, hissing frontiersmen, who were only awaiting Colonel Clark’s permission to execute them for their crimes. George came around the church and stood looking at them. They stood there with that dignity that George had seldom seen in any men except Indian braves who expect to be killed and know that to be killed by an enemy is a high honor.

  Captain Williams was determined that the savages should be killed. He had learned that the scalps they had been carrying had been taken from families down along the Kentucky River. “These here are murderers,” he said, “and they come in wavin’ all the bloody confession in their hands. They don’t need a trial.” Ge
orge himself looked at them with rage and loathing. What they had been doing was exactly what he had exerted himself and his men so hard to stop. Still, he dreaded saying, “Kill them.” To him that was something no one less than God had a right to say.

  Williams went on. “My boys got scalps. I say anyone here who’s ever lost a blood relative to such polecats as these is welcome to put ’em to the ax. If nobody else wants to, we’ll be glad to finish up.”

  George looked at the captives and pondered. Their painted faces were Satanic and did not stir any pity. It was not a matter of pity.

  Hamilton had gone back up to the fort an hour ago to talk with his officers and still had not returned a decision. George suspected that he had recovered some of his nerve after getting back inside his fort and among his Redcoats. Maybe his officers were urging him to hold out for honorable terms.

  The Willing still had not been heard from. Bowman’s diggers had a long way to go in the collapsing mud before they could get their powder-keg bomb placed under the magazine. The men had been firing at the fort some eighteen hours or so before the truce flag and were running on grit alone, and if they were forced to start shooting again they might have neither the powder nor the stamina to keep it up another night.

  Hamilton seemed to be hesitating and apparently needed one more sign of the Americans’ resolve. So George said it now.

  “So be it, Cap’n. Take these murderers up to the gate road. I want His Lordship to get a good look at this.”

  The six Indians were put in a circle and forced to their knees. The Kentuckians milled around them and poked at them with knives and swords and hatchets. Thirty yards away, Redcoats, Tawaway Indians, and Canadian militiamen lined the palisade like spectators at a Coliseum and looked down with a horrified fascination.