Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence (39 page)
Read Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence Online
Authors: Robert Conroy
The groans became cries of agony and Owen used all his strength and energy to increase pressure. Finally, there was the terrible sound of bones breaking. Owen continued to squeeze even though he thought his own lungs would explode from the effort. Braxton tried to scream, but he couldn’t gather his breath to do it.
There was a nauseating crack as Braxton’s spine snapped. Braxton sagged and was still. His eyes were open, but he couldn’t move. In a moment, Braxton’s eyes glazed over and he was dead.
Owen allowed Barley to pull him off and help him to his feet, shaking and exhausted. “He’s dead and that’s good,” Barley said. “Now maybe you can get over your personal feud and let us get back to fighting the British.”
Owen inhaled deeply and realized his mistake. All his remaining men, maybe thirty of them, were gathered around them, wide-eyed. They’d been watching the brawl. Any survivors from Braxton’s group had fled and probably gotten back to the British lines. Worse, the little officer had managed to get up and run away as well.
“How many escaped?” he asked.
“Maybe six of them. Not more than ten,” Barley answered. “One of them was that officer. I saw him waddling away like he’d crapped his pants and he probably did.”
Owen wished Barley had thought to stop them as he counted his own survivors. Thirty-two effectives. Ten of his men were dead and another handful too wounded to continue. He ordered a couple of men to help the wounded back to the American lines. He turned and addressed the rest.
“The swamp ends in a little ways and there’s a hill just beyond it. I want to see what’s on the other side, don’t you?”
Barley laughed. “What if it’s the whole British Army?”
“Then we’ll run like our pants are on fire back into the swamp and hide. But before we do that, maybe we can cause some more harm to the Redcoats. Are you with me?”
His men gave him a ragged cheer. They had already begun picking up their rifles and other discarded weapons and were loading and cleaning. He told them to load any weapon they could find. He gave them a few moments to get organized and ordered them forward.
* * *
The old man’s open eyes stared vacantly in the direction of the two men who sat before him—one a young man and the other a boy barely into adolescence. Owl couldn’t see them, but he knew them well. He had sent them and others out to watch the white men and their armies. And to learn.
The young man was a skilled and brave warrior who had fought the Americans. He was named Little Turtle and the boy was his nephew, Tecumseh. The old man knew he was going to die soon, which was the reason he’d been chosen to make the important and terrible decision regarding their destiny. The fate of the tribes in the area depended upon his judgment. If he chose correctly, then his name would be remembered in song as a hero. If he was wrong, well, he’d still be dead. His bones ached and his leathery skin was cracked. He would not see another spring. Some days he thought death would be a welcome friend and in the cold and lonely dark of night he was certain of it.
The old man spoke. “And what is happening to our future enemies?”
“They are killing each other, grandfather,” Little Turtle said. “And they are doing so with ferocity and skill I never thought the white man possessed.”
The old man nodded. The loose alliance of tribes had first been shocked when the Americans came to their area, and their shock had turned to horror when they saw how many Americans there were and how well armed and disciplined they were. When they’d heard that another force of white men was gathering to drive the Americans away, they’d rejoiced at the thought that they would be rid of the white invaders. As they waited for this miraculous event to occur, they’d decided to remain peaceful with the Americans, trading with them and observing them until the British arrived. Then they would pounce and earn the gratitude of the British.
The British had come in astonishing numbers, but had brought the hated Iroquois as their allies. All the tribes in the area felt betrayed. If the English were allied with their enemy, then they too were the enemy.
“You are my eyes, Little Turtle, did you see the armies prepare?”
In the distance they could hear rumble of war. “I did, grandfather, and I watched them begin to fight. They are not like real warriors the way they march and move. In some ways it is almost funny, but in others it is frightening. They have discipline and guns, while we have neither. They also have numbers far larger than we can gather even if all the tribes united as one. And, despite the foolish way they fight, they are very brave. They would be formidable enemies.” He shook his head sadly. “Others of our people remain to observe them while I speak with you.”
Although Little Turtle had fought the Americans, it had been in the form of raids, not battles like the one beginning to take place.
The old man was concerned. “You and Tecumseh have not been detected have you?”
Tecumseh answered. “No, grandfather, we have not. But I wonder if it would matter if we were? Both sides know we are out here because these are our lands. Indeed, grandfather, I would be surprised if they did not expect us to be out here, watching and waiting. I’m sure they wonder what we are going to do as do we.”
The old man smiled inwardly. The boy was so smart. Little Turtle was a war leader, but Tecumseh possessed the wisdom of a far older man. Tecumseh, if he lived, was the future. If there was a future for the red man, he thought sadly.
The old man smiled. “Tecumseh, tell me what you did when you heard the first cannon?”
Tecumseh grinned. “I nearly jumped out of my skin.”
Owl grinned and Little Turtle laughed, “And the second time?”
“Then I merely flinched, grandfather, as I realized they weren’t aiming their flying stones at me. Then they became like the thunder in a rainstorm.”
The old man nodded. “Little Turtle, could we fight them?”
Little Turtle shrugged then remembered with mild chagrin that the old man couldn’t see the gesture. “Of course we could fight them, but we wouldn’t win, not even against their smallest army. They all have muskets or rifles, which we do not, and, as has been said, they have many more warriors then we have. You are right, father, we must not have the white men as enemies.”
“Yet at least one of the two groups must be,” the old man said softly.
But which one, he wondered? The Americans who said they only wished to return to their homes in the east, or the British who wished to drag the Americans away? Both groups had said they wished to depart, which would be good for the tribes. But who could believe either of them? The white men always came, but they never left and it didn’t matter who they fought for. The British, if they won, would doubtless leave a fort, like Mackinac, and traders would come who would corrupt the tribes with liquor and cheap goods in return for furs. The Americans would return to their homes in the east if they won, but would all of them depart? Certainly not. Where the white men went, they always stayed. They had contempt for the red man who they thought of as ignorant, drunken savages. Sadly, the white men were often correct. Alcohol and smallpox had ruined so many tribes.
So which of the two armies would be the enemy? Or would it be both? The several hundred warriors gathered in the woods behind him wondered the same thing.
* * *
Danforth was in the middle of the British Army with Grant, and it was rapidly becoming a mob. Even General Grant grudgingly admitted that he was losing control. Grant professed to be unconcerned. “Everything breaks down when the fighting begins. Just keep marching towards the enemy and all will be well.”
Danforth agreed except for one thing—the fighting hadn’t really begun. American and British cannon had been firing at each other for some minutes and to little effect. American riflemen were firing slowly and carefully at the ponderously moving British horde, but were of no concern to any but the men in the first few ranks. Those men in front would be terribly bloodied before this day was over, but that was their fate. The ones who fell would be replaced by those behind and the inexorable advance would continue.
Danforth was concerned that the structure of the British force was proving even more unwieldy than thought. Even Grant had been a little surprised by that fact. Still, the British Army moved forward. The Americans would be crushed.
A soldier near them screamed and fell to his knees. “What the devil?” Danforth exclaimed. The man had been wounded by a falling rock.
* * *
Benedict Arnold looked at Ensign Spencer with some sympathy. The boy’s left arm dangled uselessly and there was a large and growing welt on the boy’s forehead. He was in intense pain and was having difficulty standing.
“General, we went into the swamp as you ordered and we were ambushed. There must have been hundreds of them and they had us surrounded. Only a handful of men managed to get away.”
“Where’s Braxton?” Girty snapped.
“I don’t know,” Spencer said and began to blubber.
Arnold was sympathetic to the boy. “Go have your wounds tended to. Your first battle is over. And for God’s sake wipe your nose.”
Arnold thought quickly. He doubted that “hundreds” of rebels had infiltrated through the swamp, but there had obviously been more than enough to overwhelm Braxton’s and Spencer’s command. Whatever numbers out there could play hell in the British rear unless he did something to stop it.
As if to punctuate his thoughts, puffs of smoke appeared on the hill blocking his view of the swamp. Arnold stood and swore. The insolent bastards were firing on them. He made up his mind.
“Girty, I will take your command and all but two companies of regulars and attack those rebels coming at us from the swamp. That should be more than enough to send any American force packing.”
That and it would show him acting decisively in the face of an unexpected enemy. Perhaps the day would turn out well for him after all.
* * *
Burgoyne also saw the firing from the hill and was dismayed by the obvious fact that an unknown number of rebels had worked their way behind him. The impassible swamp was obviously not as impassible as he’d been led to believe. Had a large force gotten in his rear, or was it just a minor thing?
Damn Arnold, he seethed, could the man do nothing right? Quite obviously reinforcements were needed to plug the rebel entry point from the swamp.
“Fitzroy, get over there and tell Arnold to send more men to reinforce the swamp area. Damn it,” Burgoyne raged, “must I do everything myself? Why the devil didn’t I get generals who could think?”
Fitzroy was about to ask for a clarification of the orders, but the look of fury on Burgoyne’s face told him it was not a good idea. If the general wanted more men sent to their left, then more men would be sent.
Fitzroy mounted his bedraggled excuse for a horse and urged it where Arnold was supposed to be. If Arnold wasn’t there, he would issue orders on General Burgoyne’s behalf. He would do it and return as quickly as possible as the furious sounds to his right and front said that the battle was rapidly approaching its climax.
Chapter 22
A
t just under three hundred yards, American riflemen opened fire, carefully aiming at the officers. These were easily recognized by the metal gorgets, reminders of medieval armor, that hung from their necks. The shiny devices also made excellent aiming points, and, even at extreme range, the riflemen quickly made kills.
At two hundred and fifty yards, both Morgan and von Steuben realized that there was no reason to hold back the musket-firing regulars. Even though their weapons weren’t at all accurate at that range, the mass of enemy meant that shots didn’t have to be aimed or accurate to hit someone.
The American Hessians in von Steuben’s brigade grinned openly as they began to blaze away with their new weapons.
In the British mass, General Grant listened to the volume of fire to his front and realized something was wrong. “What the devil is happening?” he said to Danforth. “They can’t possibly reload a musket as quickly as they are. Could people be passing extras to them?”
Danforth thought it was a logical conclusion and one that didn’t bode well for the men in the British front ranks. It now looked like they would suffer even heavier casualties than expected. Worse, the absurd but potentially fatal steady rain of rocks continued.
Danforth hopped onto a fallen tree and got a view of the field in front of him. He watched as some of the Americans received loaded weapons passed on to them while others continued to load and fire at an astonishing rate. The truth dawned on him.
He jumped down and grabbed the general by the arm. “Some of them appear to have Ferguson rifles,” Danforth said breathlessly.
Grant paled. The breech-loading Ferguson rifle that could be loaded and fired many times faster than a musket was thought to have disappeared after the defeat and death of their inventor, Colonel Patrick Ferguson, at the Battle of King’s Mountain. The British army had earlier rejected them as too expensive and the totality of Ferguson’s defeat had put an end to any further debate on the value of the weapon.
But now, somehow, Ferguson rifles, or something very much like them, were being used against them. What in God’s name were the rebels up to, Grant wondered? First they threw rocks at them like uncivilized barbarians and then they followed up with a gun that might be superior to anything the British had.
This was indeed going to be a long and bloody day.
* * *
As the first British ranks neared the American lines, their dead and wounded were pushed aside, even trampled, some to a bloody pulp, but the mass of Redcoats continued on. At fifty yards, they were at the lip of the shallow dirt moat that protected the Americans.
Behind the earthworks, General Stark looked to where a number of Schuyler’s men were waiting to pull the lanyards that were connected to the jugs that were half buried in the ground. He took a deep breath, nodded, and turned away.
One of the men pulling a lanyard was Sarah’s uncle, Wilford. He looked at the approaching mass of screaming faces and pulled.
The entire front of the British line was shattered by the explosions that blew up clouds of dirt, flames, bodies, and parts of bodies. Behind them, others were shredded by the rocks and pieces of metal that had been buried in the jugs along with quantities of gunpowder, or burned by the oil that had been in the jugs. There was silence and then the screams began. The entire mass of British soldiers seemed to groan and then stop.
In the middle, but now much closer to the front as the result of heavy British casualties, General Grant quickly recovered from the shock of the explosions. He had to get the army moving again or everything was doomed. Beside him, Danforth was almost too stunned to speak.
Grant lay about him with the flat of his sword. He screamed and cajoled and, within moments, so too did his officers and sergeants and they began to reassert control. Slowly, painfully, the British mass began again to inch its way forward, covering the remaining few yards to the American earthworks. American bayonets protruded and rifles fired, but the British pressed on until, finally, the two forces collided with screams and primal howls.
* * *
Only half aware of what was happening to the bulk of the army, Fitzroy galloped up to the captain commanding the remainder of Arnold’s command. Arnold wasn’t there, which puzzled him, but no matter. He quickly gave the order as he understood it to a captain of regulars—reinforcements were to be sent to stop an attack from the swamp to their rear. The captain saluted and began to bark out orders. Satisfied that his orders would be obeyed, Fitzroy turned and rode back to Burgoyne.
The British captain was puzzled. How many men were needed to plug the exit from the swamp? The silly boy, Spencer, had gone and failed, and he had been followed by reinforcements led by Girty and Arnold, and yet, apparently, it wasn’t enough.
He had fewer than two hundred men with which to hold a flanking position that now seemed irrelevant. The two armies had made horrible contact and were locked in mortal combat.
He came to a conclusion. Nothing was going to be decided where he was and his latest orders were specific—reinforce the flank. At least he would be away from the horror of the two armies clawing each other to pieces and the possibility that he would be ordered into the charnel house. He ordered his remaining men to follow him and move rapidly towards the hill where they’d seen shooting.
* * *
From the top of Mount Washington, William Washington watched incredulously as the last of the British skirmishers trotted, almost ran, towards whatever fighting was going on in the swamp. What the devil was happening there, he wondered. It didn’t matter. He decided that what he saw was an opportunity.
At his command, men ran forward and cleared away enough of the thicket to permit horsemen to ride through them in a column of twos. He signaled and his men rode their horses forward at the trot. They could not gallop. In his opinion, half of the nags would collapse and die if they tried it. They were less than a hundred yards away from the side of the British phalanx; most of whom didn’t even see his men, so preoccupied were they with advancing forward over their dead and dying comrades. Those who did turn and see just looked on incredulously. Not a shot was fired in the direction of the small force of American cavalry, and it occurred to Washington that the British weapons were empty to prevent accidentally shooting their own side.
Will was with Washington’s force and soon found himself in the position of being behind both the main British army and out of sight of the British force that had just disappeared over the hill.
“Now what?” he asked of Washington.
Washington winked. “Damned if I know. Never thought we’d get this far and still be alive. See those cannon to our right front?” Will did. “Why don’t we ride over there and take them?”
With yells and whoops, Washington’s hundred-odd cavalry trotted towards the two pair of guns that had been firing ineffectively at the American works.
Some of the gunners ran, but most tried to defend their weapons with pistols and cutlasses. Washington’s men responded with the blunderbuss-like Franklins and sabers.
Will slashed at a British sailor and saw him fall. Another tried to pull him from his horse, but Will hit him on the head with the handle of his sword, while, a moment later, another American ran the man down with his horse.
It was over in a couple of minutes. A dozen dead British and half as many Americans littered the field. The remainder of the British contingent was running in all directions. It was a sweet little victory, Will thought. It felt good, damned good, to finally come to grips with the enemy, and even better to win a fight, however small.
Will Washington was flushed but happy. He’d come to the same conclusion. He looked at the four cannon and grinned. “Anybody here know how to work these damned things?”
“I do, at least a little bit,” Will heard himself say.
Washington grinned engagingly. “Damned if you aren’t a man of parts, Drake.”
* * *
Astonished by the surprisingly overwhelming British response to their foray, Owen led his men back into the swamp where they continued to snipe at the British who were lined up at its edge, apparently unwilling to get their feet wet. Girty’s men, never the bravest, were holding back, content with occasionally firing their rifles at some target visible only to themselves.
Owen had received a few dozen reinforcements and was using them to good effect. The British force now numbered several hundred men and, if they chose to advance into the swamp, could easily push him back and leave the way open to the American rear. He could not allow that to happen, although it seemed that, at least for the moment, the British had little intention of trying it. He saw a man he presumed to be some general running around and waving a sword. Just out of range, he decided, and Barley concurred. Too bad, they both concluded. It would be great to take down a British general.
* * *
The American army was dying.
Nearly half of von Steuben’s Hessians were dead or badly wounded or crawling back to find help that didn’t exist. The same was true with Morgan’s men. There were just too many British and, no matter how hard or how desperately the Americans fought, additional Redcoats clambered over the growing pile of bodies to hack and slash at the dwindling number of rebels.
Musket fire had ceased to be effective and the battlefield was strangely void of the sound of gunfire, with only howls and screams being heard. Slowly, the Americans were forced back from the earthworks. As the rebels fell back, the British instinctively stretched their lines to the left and right in an attempt to overlap the Americans. In desperation, Stark called for Wayne to attack from his flank even though it meant virtually abandoning the works confronting a strangely quiet Tarleton. It was a chance that had to be taken. Every chance had to be taken.
General John Stark stood a few feet behind the churning, howling mass of humanity that was the battle. His orders to Wayne meant he had no more men left. It was over. He had no other troops to add. Now the real dying would begin.
He turned to Daniel Morgan who had painfully struggled out of his litter. Stark drew his sword and shrugged. “Live free or die,” he said softly. “Time to make good on that statement, isn’t it, Daniel?”
Morgan grinned and drew a pistol and a tomahawk from his belt, while Stark pulled out one of Franklin’s maces. “As good a time as any, I’d say.”
Both men bulled their way into the savage fighting.
* * *
Tarleton read the order and dismissed it. Burgoyne wanted him to use the regiments at his disposal to attack the American lines directly in front of him, the very same defenses that had cost him so dearly just a few days earlier. Didn’t the man realize that nothing had been done to reduce them?
Apparently Burgoyne thought that the rebels had abandoned their works and sent all their men to support those trying to stop the advance of the British phalanx.
But why, Tarleton wondered. The phalanx seemed to be making progress and Redcoat soldiers were beginning to lap over the rebel works like an irresistible wave. And yes, he could hear guns firing to his left and beyond the main British thrust, but surely Arnold had things well in hand. The man might be a turncoat and a traitor, but he was a damned good fighting general for all that.
No, Tarleton thought. He would not advance, at least not yet. His original orders called for him to attack when the main attack broke through and that must be what Burgoyne was reminding him of. With just a little more than a thousand men at his disposal, even a small number of rebels behind their defenses could stymie him and cause enough casualties to result in another sardonic tongue-lashing from his beloved commanding general. Another debacle as perceived by Burgoyne might be injurious to Tarleton’s career.
Tarleton smiled. He would not attack. At least not just yet, he repeated. If Burgoyne had gotten himself into trouble, he had more than enough men to solve his own problem. He, Banastre Tarleton, would wait for the right moment and then strike. That, he decide, would be the way to win glory for himself and erase any memories of the disaster at Cowpens.
* * *
The naval gun carriages had been built for use on a ship and were designed to be stabilized and controlled by ropes and pulleys. On land they were awkward and cumbersome and prone to topple over. However, some clever minds in the British Army had figured out how to stabilize them through the use of strong tree limbs that projected in various directions.
The British were not able to develop wheels for the cannon, which meant that the American soldiers who had captured them had to use muscle power and their horses to drag them into a better position to damage the British advance.
After what seemed like forever, the American cavalrymen wrestled the four guns—two four pounders and two nine pounders—into position. Under Drake’s cautious direction, they charged them with powder and poured a combination of rocks and trash down their muzzles. Drake wasn’t certain just how much powder the guns took, so he intentionally underloaded them. At least he hoped he had. An exploding cannon could kill a lot of men.