by Oliver North
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“Now, see how quickly young Nathanael can decrypt this message.” I began to write . . .
FM PS TO GW [from Philip Schuyler to George Washington?]
SCHUYLER APPROVES
PLAN BUT IS TOO
ILL TO TRAVEL.
MONTGOMERY TO
COMMAND.
As I was decoding the message, Col. Arnold asked, “Captain, why do you say the Committees of Safety have been using this type of code too long?”
“Well, sir, first, the British are better than we are at code-making and breaking. You may recall it was the intercept of a coded French message that alerted General Forbes about the deplorable conditions at Fort Duquesne in November of ’58. The French code was broken by the British nearly a year earlier, but the French were still using it. That’s why Forbes pressed on, despite Col. Washington’s advice, and the French garrison burned Fort Duquesne and fled.
“Second, our ‘calendar codes’ are simple to use. They can be encrypted and decrypted quickly and neither the sender nor recipient needs a codebook. Unfortunately, six of the ‘month codes’ have repeat letters like August’s two U’s. December is impossible with three E letters. ‘daily codes’ are somewhat better because they change every twenty-four hours but ‘Wednesday’ with two letters ‘D’ and ‘E’ is impossible. Given how many of these ‘calendar coded’ messages have been dispatched by our various Committees over the last two years, I have to believe the British can break them as fast as my young Adjutant.”
As Captain Morgan finished, I handed the decoded message to him. He quickly read it and handed it to Colonel Arnold, saying, “If I may be so bold, sir, it seems this message—and the silver ‘Courier Ball’ in which it was delivered to you—belong next door in General Washington’s Headquarters, where we met yesterday.”
Colonel Arnold, looked at it, nodded his head, and said, “Captain Morgan, you are correct. If the other commanders arrive while I am gone, please inform them I shall return in short order.” With that, he hastened out the door leaving the three of us alone in the room.
As soon as he departed, our Captain said, “Nathanael, I want you to write a letter today to your father, care of Rev. Thruston. Do not reveal where we are going. Ask your dad if he recalls the name of the British officer who caused me to be flogged while your father and I were on the ill-fated Braddock expedition in the summer of ’55. Not the officer I struck. He couldn’t speak for his broken jaw, but the engineer officer who testified falsely at my court martial. If memory serves me right, his name was Ensign John Montresor.”
“The same name that’s on Colonel Arnold’s map?”
“Yes. And if it’s not just the same name, but the same man, the scars on my back tell the tale of his perfidy. If that man had anything to do with the map that’s supposed to guide us through the Maine wilderness to Quebec, we better pray now for our Lord to do for us what He did for Moses: send us a pillar of cloud to guide us by day and a pillar of fire to guide us at night.”6
At that point, Col. Arnold re-entered the room and said, “Thank you, Captain Morgan, for your advice on the encrypted message. Adjutant General Gates is most grateful and said he will immediately deliver the message and your Adjutant’s translation to General Washington.
“While we await the arrival of our fellow commanders of this expedition, let me ask, Captain Morgan, how is it you know all these things?”
Our Captain shrugged and replied, “I do not know ‘how,’ sir. All I do know is our Good Lord has blessed me with ‘situational awareness’—the ability to realize what is happening around me and granted me the wisdom and experience to determine what needs to be done about it. That’s what has kept my Riflemen and me alive in some very challenging circumstances.
“Second, I have learned to keep company with the right kind of people. I now expect—as I did not when I was younger—those with whom I associate to admonish me when I need it, encourage me when I do what’s right, and hold me accountable if I fail to do my duty. I never ask others to do that which I cannot do. If we need a ‘Forlorn Hope,’ I will lead it and be in front of all the rest.”
“So Captain, you now know more about our mission to Quebec than any of the others will know until we get to Maine. What does your situational awareness—and all your experience—tell you about our upcoming expedition?”
Our Captain looked him straight in the eye and said, “Colonel, the sooner we leave here for Quebec, the better. The days are getting shorter. The nights are getting longer. And most assuredly, the days and nights ahead will get much, much colder.”
Their conversation was abbreviated by the arrival of the seven commanders and four other men who were not at yesterday’s meeting. Lt. Humphrey and I retired to the outer row of chairs while the Lieutenant Colonels, Majors, Captain Jones, and the four strangers took seats at the table with Col. Arnold and Captain Morgan.
The colonel began by introducing the four strangers: Capt. Christian Febiger, his Adjutant; Capt. Benjamin Catlin the expedition’s quartermaster; Dr. Isaac Senter, our physician; and Rev. Samuel Spring, our Chaplain.
He then directed all attendees to give his Adjutant the rosters of their respective units, insisting, “Every name on your list must be a volunteer who has either had smallpox or been inoculated within the last twelve months and have an enlistment that expires at year end or later or they cannot go with us.”
I gave our roster of the “Advance Guard,” which included all 100 of Capt. Morgan’s Virginia Rifle Company, names from the two Pennsylvania Rifle Companies and a handful from Capt. Stephenson’s Virginia Rifle Company—268 names in all—to Capt. Febiger. I watched as he began to assemble a stack of different-sized pieces of paper and whispered to him, “Sir, if you need any help with this, let me know and I will do so.”
Col. Arnold adjourned the meeting shortly thereafter with the command: “Each one of you, post a reliable, trusted aide or messenger here at our headquarters, by three o’clock this afternoon so I can notify you quickly of any new orders from General Washington. Have your messengers report here to Capt. Febiger and he will billet them in tents behind this building where there is a ‘latrine.’
“They need not bring water or victuals. We will feed them two good meals a day and we have ‘good water.’ Unless I inform you otherwise, we will meet here again at
eight o’clock, Sunday morning, September 3rd.”
After conferring quickly with Capt. Morgan and Lt. Humphrey, I stayed behind to help Capt. Febiger assemble the rosters. By noon we had compiled an alphabetical list for every unit in the expedition, a total of 1,373 names.
Among the four units: Advance Guard, 1st Infantry Battalion, 2nd Infantry Battalion, and Rear Guard, there were 169 duplications—meaning at least that many men volunteered to serve under different commanders at least twice—some, three times!
By dark, thanks to the messengers who arrived at Col. Arnold’s Headquarters as ordered, we winnowed the roster to 1,207 men. Or so we thought.
Endnotes
1.During the American Revolution, abatis, fascines, and gabions were used by both sides as hasty, defensive field fortifications. An abatis is an obstacle consisting of tree branches laid in a row with sharpened tips facing outwards toward an expected enemy approach. Fascines are rolled bundles of generally straight trunks of small trees which could be rolled into place providing defensive cover and shoring for trenches, revetments, and ramparts. Gabions of the day were cylindrical, wicker-type wooden baskets open at both ends. Turned upright, they are filled with hand-dug earth and/or stones and used to protect defenders from enemy fire.
2.“Camp Fever,” now known to be typhus, is a highly contagious bacterial disease transmitted by lice, fleas, and human contact. Symptoms include severe headache, a sustained high fever, cough, rash, severe muscle pain, chills, stupor, delirium, and death. Colonial-era doctors often mistook the onset of the rash as smallpox. The disease is treated today with antibiotics. In the 1770s the patient was bled, given water-diluted compounds containing ground dogwood and mustard, sassafras tea, and a lotion made from tulip poplar leaves.
3.The “cocked hat,” became a favorite in the Continental Army because it was the kind of head covering most often seen on General George Washington in the field and during battles. By early in the 19th century, this style of headwear was often described as a “tricorn hat” since its most distinguishing characteristic was having all three sides of the brim turned up (cocked) and either pinned, laced, or buttoned in place to form a triangle around the crown.
4.“Batteaux” [the plural of “batteau,” spellings extant in the late 18th century] of low freeboard, flat-bottomed, double-ended, shallow-draft boats used for ferrying freight and/or passengers on the interior waterways of North America. The size [length and beam] of the craft varied from 20 to 50 feet long and 3 to 6 feet wide depending on the nature of the water [calm or rapids] to be traversed.
5.“Courier Balls” were small, hollow, threaded silver balls, usually less than ½ inch in diameter, carefully crafted to be separated at the center and inside which, very brief messages could be enclosed.
During the American Revolution, both sides used these devices to transmit very sensitive intelligence, orders, and reports. If a courier, messenger, or spy was intercepted by the enemy, he was instructed to “swallow the ball.” By 1775, Express Messengers and Trusted Couriers could only pray their feces would not reveal a silver container if they were captured. The penalty was death by hanging.
6.Morgan was referring to Exodus 13:21. In the King James Bible of the day, the verse reads, “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.”
Chapter Nine
1775: THE ORDER IS GIVEN
Colonel Benedict Arnold’s Headquarters,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Saturday, September 2nd, 1775
We have spent nearly every waking minute since the meetings on Wednesday, preparing for what everyone in the Patriot forces surrounding Boston now call “The Arnold Expedition to Canada.” So much for security. If the British don’t know about what we’re up to, they must all be blind, and most certainly, deaf.
Both our wagons are now packed with all the powder, shot, and lead sheets we brought from Virginia, plus locally acquired barrels of salted beef, pork, fish, corn, beans, salt, flour, coffee, several baskets of oranges, lemons and limes, a farrier forge, charcoal, medical equipment and supplies, cold weather clothing, canvas for tentage, candles, lanterns, fuel, heavy carpenter and engineer tools, my meticulously stocked field desk, and seventeen half-barrels of rum.
At 8:00 this morning we were informed Col. Arnold has called a “Commanders Meeting” for 11:00 a.m. at his headquarters. As usual, Captain Morgan, Lt. Humphrey, and I arrived a half hour early.
Capt. Febiger, Col. Arnold’s Adjutant, saw us coming and greeted us at the door before the sentry could detain us. He waved us into the house saying with a great smile, “Welcome, Virginians! Good news. We have our orders. The Colonel is next door making final arrangements.”
He escorted us into the dining room and offered us coffee and tea and a small, flat, circular confection he called a “pancake.” It was coated with a sweet liquid he described to be “maple syrup.” I had never eaten anything quite so delicious and proceeded to devour three of them before Lt. Humphrey scowled when I reached for a fourth.
As we waited for others to arrive, our Captain asked Colonel Arnold’s Adjutant, “Can you tell us when we’re leaving here for Maine?”
Capt. Febiger’s response was both direct and diplomatic, “Colonel Arnold deserves that privilege, sir. And in truth, we do not know for certain our departure date since much depends on British sea-borne patrols, tides, winds, and ship availability to transport us from Newburyport to Gardinerston, Maine, where we shall disembark from sea-going transports to batteaux for transport further up the Kennebec River.”
At this point the door opened and in trooped Colonel Arnold, our fellow “Arnold Expedition Commanders,” and the remainder of Colonel Arnold’s staff. We all rose immediately and remained so as Colonel Arnold said, “Chaplain Spring, let’s begin with a prayer.”
The Reverend responded immediately: “Almighty God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—we bow down before You and no other. We beg You to bless our endeavor, protect us in carrying out our mission, and pray You will deliver us from harm and return us to our families. Amen.”
Col. Arnold, said, “Take your seats, gentlemen,” and as soon as we did, he stated, “General Washington has ordered us to depart here on Monday, the 11th of September and proceed to a Massachusetts seaport where we will board vessels to commence offensive operations against the forces of Great Britain.”
There was an immediate shout, “Huzzah!” Those at the table slapped it with their palms while those of us seated against the wall applauded as though we had just heard a great oration.
The colonel held up his hand to stop the celebration and there was immediate silence as he resumed more quietly, “All of us—you and your men—are about to make history. We are part of the first offensive operation conducted by the new Continental Army. We will be taking the fight to our oppressors, the most powerful army and navy on earth. It is important you impress upon our men how important this mission is to them, their families, and to our freedom.”
After a long pause he continued, “When we leave Cambridge, every man is to carry on his person, five days of rations and sufficient powder and shot for fifty discharges of his rifle, musket, or pistol. A special allocation of powder, shot, and flints for our units will be made at this headquarters one week from today, Saturday, the 9th of September, beginning at eight o’clock in the morning. Units will report on the following schedule:
“Advance Force: Eight o’clock to nine thirty.
“1st Battalion: Nine thirty to eleven o’clock.
“2nd Battalion: Eleven o’clock to twelve thirty.
“Rear Guard: Twelve thirty to two o’clock.
“All your soldiers will bring with them all of their equipment. After drawing fresh ammunition, we will establish a temporary tent-bivouac, with your units intact, in a fie
ld one mile east of here so we will all be together after we draw ammunition and are ready to deploy. No one will be allowed to return to where you are now billeted.
“When you return from this meeting, in addition to what I have just said, tell your men the following:
“First, we will likely be at sea less than three days.
“Second, the smallpox epidemic now sweeping through Boston and several other communities near here has not yet infected the port where we will embark. But on the way to our ships, we will pass through several places that are quarantined. Officers and sergeants must insist our soldiers avoid any contact with residents of these neighborhoods.
“In the days ahead, I shall provide additional information as it becomes available. Unless I direct otherwise, the order of movement to our port of embarkation will be in the same sequence as we draw ammunition next Saturday. Are there any questions?”
There were some, mostly, very practical.
“Will there be sanitary facilities at our new bivouac here in Cambridge?” Answer, “Yes. Each of our four units will dig one. Make sure they are downhill and downwind.”
“Whenever we get new powder and shot, our officers and men always test fire their rifles, muskets, and pistols. Given the General Order against wasting ammunition, will this be allowed?” Answer, “Good question. I will try to make it so and let you know?”
“Many of our men are farmers, watermen, merchants, storekeepers, clerks, and laborers from this area. Will they be allowed time between now and departure to say ‘good-bye’ to their families?” Answer, “Each unit Adjutant, give Captain Febiger a list of names of those so affected and I will try to make that happen.”
And this question from Major Return J. Meigs, “No one in my Battalion has ever been where I suppose we are going. Will we commanders be issued maps?” Answer—after a long pause, “I will do my best to make that happen.”