Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence (12 page)

Chapter 5

B
enjamin Franklin stood in the open second-floor window and held his arms wide. He was stark naked and he enjoyed the gentle caress of the early morning the breeze on his pale, flabby body. It was likely one of the last days he’d be able to do this. In a brief while, it would be too bloody cold. In fact, it was chilly this morning, but he would not be deterred.

Franklin sighed at the thought. This would be his second winter at Fort Washington and he wondered how he’d survived this long without the comforts of civilization. He’d lived in London, Paris, and Philadelphia, but never a frontier outpost like Fort Washington or the surrounding villages collectively known as Liberty. He loved good food and wine and there was little of the former and less of the latter. He liked art and theater and there was none of either. Nor did many of the buildings have proper floors. Instead, the floors were dirt.

Franklin loved beautiful women, and some might be attractive, but there were damned few in Liberty who were up to his standards. That and so many of them bathed so rarely that they even smelled worse than the French women he’d flirted with at the court of Louis XVI. At least they’d had the decency to cover their personal stench with perfume, although that sometimes became suffocating.

Still, Franklin understood how fortunate he’d been. When the American Revolution collapsed, he’d been in Paris. A fearful King Louis decided to placate a victorious and vengeful England by turning him over to them to be tried for treason. His execution, like Washington’s, would be all but guaranteed. But Franklin’s friends had smuggled him out of the country and, after a tortuous voyage, followed by hiding in numerous American houses, and several close brushes with the British, he’d found himself in Liberty.

“Mr. Franklin, will you please get dressed,” demanded a female voice.

“Mistress Benton, will you deny an old man one of his few remaining pleasures? Or are you shocked by the sight of a magnificent naked man?”

Sarah grinned at him. “First, sir, I would never deny you your pleasures, but the people in the street below are getting a marvelous view of your distinguished presence, which might just terrify those who’ve never seen such a treasure. Second, I have indeed seen a naked man or two in my life, and, while you are truly magnificent, please note that I am not struck dumb or otherwise shocked.”

Franklin laughed and reluctantly wrapped a robe around him without admitting that he was indeed cold. Sarah Benton had been his secretary for only a few days, and had quickly become his confidante. The fact that she was more than lovely further brightened his days and was making life in the frontier quite tolerable. She was a delectable exception to the general rule that women in the Fort Washington-Liberty area were plain at best. Just as important, she smelled clean.

“You’ve seen a naked man? I’m shocked,” he said wickedly. “I was under the impression that you’d never been married, at least not by clergy.”

“Since when are a marriage ceremony and a clergyman required for love and marriage? There are places in this vast land where the presence of clergy is nonexistent; therefore, young lovers do what young lovers must and consider themselves married in the eyes of man and God. And that is what my poor dead husband Tom and I did.”

“What happened to him?”

“He went off and got himself killed at Brandywine. A friend told me he was hit by a cannonball and died instantly. Part of me says that’s a polite fiction, but I am thankful for the information. So many families heard nothing after their men went off to war. They spend their time waiting. Many will never find out whether their missing husband or son is dead or alive.”

“I am saddened for you. Still, there is a place where people love freely and where there is no clergy? How absolutely wonderful; I think I shall go and live there when I grow older.”

Sarah’s responsibilities to Franklin were simple. She saw to it that he ate properly, dressed, and prepared himself to represent his beloved Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress that met in a large crude hall less than a hundred yards away.

“And what will Congress do today?” she asked.

Franklin snorted derisively. “Dither. You’ve seen them at what they call work. Instead, they dither.”

Sarah had indeed seen Congress at what they called work. At first, she’d been fascinated to see men like John Hancock and others try to make a nation. Then she’d realized they had no idea what to do. With the British gathering themselves to come at them, talk of nation building seemed like an exercise in irrelevancy.

“We must make a constitution for this poor nation,” Franklin said. “If we do that, then we are proclaiming to the world that we are a proper nation with a true entity. Right now, we are nothing more than a bunch of defeated revolutionaries who are on the verge of extinction.”

“A constitution will change all that? Wasn’t the Declaration of Independence enough?”

“No, not at all. The Declaration was magnificent, even though I didn’t write it, but it was only a beginning. But a constitution will show that we have a purpose and laws along with a set of ideals. Thus, even if we should fail, history will recognize that we were far more than a pack of brigands who deserved to be destroyed by England. No, Sarah, even in our deaths we would then say to the world that men deserve to be free.”

“And what about women?” Sarah asked.

Franklin winked, “Only the pretty ones.”

* * *

Winifred Haskill jumped as she heard a sound from outside the cabin. Winifred was always jumping because she was always scared. She was thirteen and hated the fact that her parents had dragged her and the others in their deeply religious community out into a forest filled with wild creatures just so they could be nearer to a God who didn’t seem to like them at all.

Why did she feel that God didn’t like them? Was it because they lived in self-inflicted poverty in a land of wealth? Or was it because their neighbors in Philadelphia had mocked and laughed at them because of their extreme faith which required continuous bible reading, fasting, and hymn singing at all hours of the night and day—practices which had greatly annoyed their neighbors? Perhaps it was everything, she reluctantly concluded. Finally, even the tolerant Quakers had asked them to leave Philadelphia if they would not keep silent.

But why did her father have to locate them in the middle of a dense forest hundreds of miles away from home and who knew how far from other people?

Of course she was scared. The surrounding forest was filled with wild animals, and even wilder red savages who wanted to do unspeakable things to her, things she’d only heard about and didn’t quite understand. Winifred did not try to fool herself. She was just thirteen and skinny as a twig and had stringy brown hair and a bad complexion. But, still, she was a female and was afraid.

In the year they’d been in the forest, they’d at least managed to build cabins and a barn as well as clearing out a field for planting. The cabin was made of rough logs chinked with mud, and did a miserable job of keeping out the weather. Wind, rain, heat, and cold air all took their turns entering through the cracks they didn’t quite know how to fill properly. Even the shack they’d called home back in Philadelphia had been a better place.

And now they had to become farmers in order to survive since hunting could never provide enough food. It was backbreaking work, especially clearing out the stumps of chopped down trees, but she’d gotten used to that. Her mother often said it was God’s Will that they work so hard and were all so thin. Winifred thought they were thin because there still wasn’t much food and that God had very little to do with it. She kept those thoughts to herself lest she be whipped for them as she had in the past for being impertinent.

She heard a sound and jumped fearfully. She jumped again when she heard the sound of yelling. What was happening? Nobody yelled in their community except her father when he was angry. Muskets were fired and there was screaming. Then Winifred began to scream. And scream.

* * *

Burned Man Braxton’s following had shrunk from a high of eighty to around thirty. A half dozen had been killed in raids, and another handful wounded, but they were not the main cause for the shrinkage of his band. A number had departed in disgust and shame at what they were being called on to do.

“I came to fight,” said one as he led ten of his companions away from the camp, “not slaughter helpless women and children.”

Braxton wanted to kill the man, but it would have started a brawl that, while he could win, would mean the deaths of some of those men devoted to him. The hell with what he considered deserters. However reduced, he had a company that was loyal to him and thought nothing of performing the most depraved acts to punish the rebel scum who deserved everything they got. He was more than pleased that Harris and Fenton, two of his deputies from Pendleton, had elected to stay with him. They’d always liked the way he operated.

The defections meant that pretending to be Indians was over with. That little secret was out. Tarleton professed not to care. Just keep killing, he’d instructed them.

Braxton and his men were about fifty miles south and west of Detroit, which, according to Tarleton, meant they were in rebel country. They should, therefore, assume the worst about anyone they met. That pleased Braxton. Anybody they met was going to get their worst.

Harris had been scouting and had reported finding a small settlement a couple of miles to their front. Three houses, a couple of barns, and a stable all indicated an extended group of probably a dozen people. He guessed that at least half would be male and able to fight. He also assumed that they were used to life in the wild and would be as ready as they could be for an attack. Well, Braxton thought, he would be even readier.

Braxton always chose midday for his attacks. At first that surprised his men, but then they understood his logic. Dawn was the traditional time for a surprise assault, which meant dawn was the time when people in hostile territory were watching most intently for danger. By midday, they should feel relatively secure and be going about their chores comforted by the fact that they could at least see clearly, which sometimes led to overconfidence.

Dead of night was out too. Braxton had learned from hard experience how difficult it was to coordinate a group of men and move them silently in the dark. At one settlement they’d made so much noise finding each other that the settlers had been prepared. It hadn’t done the settlers much good, although they’d killed two of Braxton’s men and wounded a third before they’d been overwhelmed. So much for his men being skilled woodsmen and able to move silently as a cat as some of them had bragged. Braxton couldn’t either, but at least he understood his limitations.

Harris returned again and reported that the settlers had one man out in a field and a second man in the woods, probably hunting for squirrels and rabbits. Both were armed. The man in the field was out of sight of the main buildings.

Braxton smiled. With one man hunting, a distant musket shot would not alarm the rebel settlers.

Harris and three men were sent to deal with the farmer in the field, while Fenton and another three stalked the hunter. Fenton reported back within a couple of minutes. The hunter had been so engrossed in stalking a rabbit that they’d crept up behind him and stunned him with a thrown tomahawk and then Fenton hacked him to death with it.

Half an hour later, Harris and his men returned. A fresh and bloody scalp hung from Harris’ belt. “At first we couldn’t get close to him, but then he laid down his rifle and went and squatted in a hollow to take a shit,” Harris laughed. “We rushed him so fast he never had a chance to even pull up his pants.”

Even Braxton found that amusing. He had his men fan out in an arc and move towards the settlement. There was a point in the woods where they could get to about a hundred yards from a barn and one of the buildings. When they were settled and still in the shade of the trees, he paused and looked. Nothing. A child was playing in some dirt and a woman was hanging wash.

Braxton pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew one short burst. Immediately, his men began running towards the houses. They made very little sound and nobody had noticed the whistle which they might have taken for a bird call. Nobody saw them until they were halfway there, and they were in the compound before anybody could respond. The woman hanging wash went down from a rifle butt, and the child gained her voice and ran screaming.

Men and women tumbled from the houses and were cut down by Braxton’s men. Perfect, he thought. He signaled and others of his band entered the barns and the houses. A couple of shots were fired, followed by screams and very soon all was silence.

“Bring me the survivors,” Braxton ordered. Two men, four women, and a pair of small children were all that remained. His men knew what to do. The woman who’d been hit with the musket butt looked stunned and there was blood on her head. The men and the children were taken to a barn where they would be bound and gagged and then have their throats cut without the women knowing it.