The Fort (11 page)

“None on Dyce’s Head?” Hoysteed Hacker asked.

“Dyce’s Head?” Lovell asked, and Hacker, who knew the coast well, pointed to the harbor’s southern side and explained that the entrance was dominated by a high bluff that bore the name Dyce’s Head. “If I recall rightly,” Hacker went on, “that ground is the highest on the whole peninsula.”

“We have not been informed of any batteries on Dyce’s Head,” Todd said carefully.

“So they’ve surrendered the high ground?” Wadsworth asked in disbelief.

“Our information is some days old,” Todd warned.

“High ground,” Lovell said uncertainly, “will be a splendid place for our guns.”

“Oh indeed,” Wadsworth said, and Lovell looked relieved.

“My guns will be ready,” Revere said belligerently.

Lovell smiled at Revere. “Perhaps you will be good enough to tell our militia colonels what artillery support you will offer them?”

Revere straightened and William Todd stared fixedly at the tabletop. “I have six eighteen-pounder cannon,” Revere said robustly, “with four hundred rounds apiece. They’re killers, gentlemen, and heavier than any guns I dare say the British have waiting for us. I have two nine-pounders with three hundred rounds apiece, and a pair of five-and-half-inch howitzers with one hundred rounds each.” John Welch looked startled at that, then frowned. He began to say something, but checked his words before they became intelligible.

“You had something to say, Captain?” Wadsworth interrupted Revere.

The tall marine in his dark green uniform was still frowning. “If I were bombarding a fort, General,” he said, “I’d want more howitzers. Lob bombs over the wall and kill the bastards from the inside. Howitzers and mortars. Do we have mortars?”

“Do we have mortars?” Wadsworth put the question to Revere.

Revere looked offended. “The eighteen-pounders will topple their walls like the trumpets of Jericho,” he said, “and to finish,” he looked at Lovell with some indignation, as if offended that the general had permitted the interruption, “we have four four-pounders, two of which are French metal and the equal of any six-pounder.”

Colonel Samuel McCobb, who led the Lincoln County militia, raised a hand. “We can offer a field-mounted twelve-pounder,” he said.

“Most generous,” Lovell said, and then threw the discussion open, though in truth nothing was decided that evening. For over two hours men made suggestions and Lovell received each one with gratitude, but gave no opinion on any. Commodore Saltonstall agreed that the three British sloops must be destroyed so that his squadron could sail into the harbor and use their broadsides to bombard the fort, but he declined to suggest how soon that could be done. “We must appraise their defenses,” the commodore insisted grandly. “I’m sure you all appreciate the good sense in a thorough reconnaissance.” He spoke condescendingly as if it offended his dignity as a Continental officer to be dealing with mere militia.

“We all appreciate the value of thorough reconnaissance,” Lovell agreed. He smiled benignly about the room. “I shall inspect the militia in the morning,” he said, “and then we shall embark. When we reach the Penobscot River we shall discover what obstacles we face, but I am confident that we shall overcome them. I thank you all, gentlemen, I thank you all.” And with that the council of war was over.

Some men gathered in the darkness outside the parson’s house. “They have fifteen or sixteen hundred men?” a militia officer grumbled, “and we only have nine hundred?”

“You’ve also got the marines,” Captain Welch snarled from the shadows, but then, before anyone could respond, a shot sounded. Dogs began barking. Officers clutched their scabbards as they ran towards the lantern lights of Main Street where men were shouting, but no more musket shots sounded.

“What was it?” Lovell asked when the commotion had died down.

“A man from Lincoln County,” Wadsworth said.

“Fired his musket by mistake?”

“Shot off the toes of his left foot.”

“Oh dear, poor man.”

“Deliberately, sir. To avoid service.”

So now one less man would sail east, and too many of the remaining men were boys, cripples, or old men. But there were the marines. Thank God, Wadsworth thought, there were the marines.

From a letter by John Brewer, written in 1779 and published in the
Bangor Whig and Courier
, August 13th, 1846:

“I then told the Commodore that . . . I thought that as the wind breezed up he might go in with his shipping, silence the two
[sic]
vessels and the six gun battery, and land the troops under cover of his own guns, and in half an hour make everything his own. In reply to which he hove up his long chin, and said, “You seem to be damned knowing about the matter! I am not going to risk my shipping in that damned hole!”

Excerpts of a letter from John Preble to the Honorable Jeremiah Powell, President, Council Board of the State of Massachusetts Bay, July 24th, 1779:

I have been upon Command with the Indians five Weeks there is now there about 60 warriors the greater part firce for War and wait only for Orders to march and assist their Brothers the Americans. The Enemey coudent incurd their displeasure more than comming on their River or near it to fourtify they have declared to me they would Spil Every drop of their Blood in defense of their Land and Liberty they seem to be more and more Sensible of the diabollical intentions of the Enemy and the Justness of our Cause. . . . This moment the Fleet appears in Sight which gives unival Joy to White and Black Soldiers Every one is Antious and desirious for action and I can acquaint your Honors that on my passage here in a burch Canoe the people at Naskeeg and up a long shore declared they were Ready . . . to fight for us altho they had taken the Oath of Fidelity to the British party.

Chapter Four

The fleet sailed eastwards, driven by a brisk southwesterly, though the privateers and naval ships, which were the quickest, had to shorten sail so that they did not outrace the lumbering transports. It took only a day’s sailing to reach the Penobscot River, though it was a long day, dawn to dusk, that was livened when a strange sail was seen to the southward. Commodore Saltonstall ordered the
Hazard
and the
Diligent
, both brigantines and both fast sailors, to investigate the stranger. Saltonstall stayed inshore while the two brigs crammed on more sail and raced away southwards, leaving the fleet to creep up the coast past rocky headlands where the great seas broke white. Every few moments a thump would echo through a ship as her bows struck an errant tree trunk that had been floated down one of the rivers and had escaped the loggers at the river’s mouth.

This was Commodore Saltonstall’s first voyage in the
Warren
and he fussed over her trim, ordering ballast moved forrard to improve her performance. He twice ordered more sails set and let the frigate run at her full speed through the fleet. “How is she?” he asked the helmsman during the second run and after Midshipman Fanning had supervised moving another half ton of ballast from the stern.

“She isn’t bridling as much, sir. I reckon you tamed her.”

“Seven knots and a handful!” a seaman who had trailed a log line from the taffrail called. Men on the transport ships cheered at the fine sight of the frigate charging under full sail through the fleet.

“We might have tamed her upwind,” Saltonstall said wearily, “but I dare say she’ll need trimming again before she goes close.”

“I dare say she will, sir,” the helmsman agreed. He was an elderly man, barrel-chested, with long white hair twisted into a pigtail that reached his waist. His bare forearms were smothered with tattoos of fouled anchors and crowns, evidence that he had once sailed in Britain’s Navy. He let go of the wheel, which spun clockwise, then checked itself and moved slowly back. “See, sir? She’s well liking it.”

“As I am,” Saltonstall said, “but we can do better. Mister Coningsby! Another two hundred weight forrad! Lively now!”

“Aye aye, sir,” Midshipman Fanning said.

The
Hazard
and
Diligent
caught up with the fleet late in the afternoon. The
Diligent
shortened her sails as she slid to the leeward of the
Warren
and made her report on the strange sail that had been glimpsed to the south. “She was the
General Glover
out of Marblehead, sir!” Captian Philip Brown hailed Saltonstall. “A cargo vessel, sir, carrying baccy, rum, and timber to France!”

“Take station!” Saltonstall shouted back and watched as the brig fell aft of him. Captain Brown, newly appointed to his command, had been first lieutenant of the sloop
Providence
when it had captured the
Diligent
from the Royal Navy and his ship still bore the marks of that battle. Brown’s old ship, the
Providence
, her hull similarly patched with new timber, now sailed at the van of Saltonstall’s fleet where she flew the snake and stripe banner of the rebel navy.

The fleet was impressive, and had been joined by three more ships which had sailed direct to Townsend so that forty-two vessels, half of them warships, now sailed eastwards. Brigadier-General Lovell, gazing at the spread of sails from the afterdeck of the sloop
Sally
, was proud that his state, his country indeed, could assemble such number of ships. The
Warren
was the largest, but a dozen other warships were almost as formidable as the frigate. The
Hampden
, which carried twenty-two guns and was thus the second most powerful ship in the fleet, had been sent by the state of New Hampshire, and when she had arrived at Townsend she had sounded a salute, her nine-pounder guns thumping the air with their percussive greeting. “I just wish we could encounter one of King George’s ships now,” Solomon Lovell said, “’pon my word, but we’d give her a pounding!”

“So we would, by God’s grace, so we would indeed!” the Reverend Jonathan Murray agreed wholeheartedly. Peleg Wadsworth had been somewhat surprised that the rector of Townsend had been invited to join the expedition, but it was evident that Murray and Lovell liked each other, and so the clergyman, who had appeared on board the
Sally
with a brace of large pistols belted at his waist, was now the expedition’s chaplain. Lovell had insisted that they sail from Townsend in the sloop
Sally
, rather than in Saltonstall’s larger frigate. “It’s better to be with the men, don’t you think?” the brigadier inquired of Wadsworth.

“Indeed, sir,” Wadsworth agreed, though privately he suspected that Solomon Lovell found Commodore Saltonstall’s company difficult. Lovell was a gregarious man while Saltonstall was reticent to the point of rudeness. “Though the men do worry me, sir,” Wadsworth added.

“They worry you!” Lovell responded jovially. “Now why should that be?” He had borrowed Captain Carver’s telescope and was gazing seawards at Monhegan Island.

Wadsworth hesitated, not wanting to introduce a note of pessimism on a morning of bright sun and useful wind. “We were expecting fifteen or sixteen hundred men, sir, and we have fewer than nine hundred. And many of those are of dubious usefulness.”

The Reverend Murray, clutching a wide-brimmed hat, made a gesture as if to suggest Wadsworth’s concerns were misplaced. “Let me tell you something I’ve learned,” the Reverend said, “in every endeavor, General Wadsworth, whenever men are gathered together for God’s good purpose, there is always a core of men, just a core, that do the work! The rest merely watch.”

“We have enough men,” Lovell said, collapsing the telescope and turning to Wadsworth, “which isn’t to say I could not wish for more, but we have enough. We have ships enough and God is on our side!”

“Amen,” the Reverend Murray put in, “and we have you, General!” He bowed to Lovell.

“Oh, you’re too kind,” Lovell said, embarrassed.

“God in His infinite wisdom selects His instruments,” Murray said effusively, bowing a second time to Lovell.

“And God, I am sure, will send more men to join us,” Lovell went on hurriedly. “I’m assured there are avid patriots in the Penobscot region, and I doubt not that they’ll serve our cause. And the Indians will send warriors. Mark my words, Wadsworth, we shall scour the redcoats, we shall scour them!”

“I would still wish for more men,” Wadsworth said quietly.

“I would wish for the same,” Lovell said fervently, “but we must make do with what the good Lord provides and remember that we are Americans!”

“Amen for that,” the Reverend Murray said, “and amen again.”

The waist of the
Sally
was filled with four flat-bottomed lighters commandeered from Boston harbor. All the transports had similar cargoes. The shallow-draught boats were for landing the troops, and Wadsworth now gazed at those militia men who, in turn, watched the coast from the
Sally
’s portside rail. Tall plumes of smoke rose mysteriously from the dark wooded hills and Wadsworth had the uncomfortable feeling that the pillars of smoke were signal fires. Was the coast infested by loyalists who were telling the British that the Americans were coming?

“Captain Carver was grumbling to me,” Lovell broke into Wadsworth’s thoughts. Nathaniel Carver was the
Sally
’s captain. “He was complaining that the state commandeered too many transports!”

“We anticipated more men,” Wadsworth said.

“And I said to him,” Lovell went on cheerfully, “how do you expect to convey the British prisoners to Boston without adequate shipping? He had no answer to that!”

“Fifteen hundred prisoners,” the Reverend Murray said with a chortle. “They’ll take some feeding!”

“Oh, I think more than fifteen hundred!” Lovell said confidently. “Major Todd was estimating, merely estimating, and I can’t think the enemy has sent fewer than two thousand! We’ll have to pack two hundred prisoners into each and every transport, but Carver assures me the deck hatches can be battened down. My! What a return to Boston that will be, eh Wadsworth?”

“I pray for that day, sir,” Wadsworth said. Did the British really have fifteen hundred men, he wondered, and if they did then what possible reason could Lovell have for his optimism?

“It’s just a pity we don’t have a band!” Lovell said. “We could mount a parade!” Lovell, a politician, was imagining the rewards of success: the cheering crowds, the thanks of the General Court, and a parade like the triumphs of Ancient Rome where the captured enemy was marched through jeering crowds. “I do believe,” the brigadier went on, leaning closer to Wadsworth, “that McLean has brought most of Halifax’s garrison to Majabigwaduce!”

“I’m certain Halifax is not abandoned, sir,” Wadsworth said.

“But underdefended!” Lovell said warmly. “My word, Wadsworth, maybe we should contemplate a raid!”

“I suspect General Ward and the General Court might want to discuss the matter first, sir,” Wadsworth said drily.

“Artemas is a good, brave man, but we must look ahead, Wadsworth. Once we’ve defeated McLean what’s to stop us attacking the British elsewhere?”

“The Royal Navy, sir?” Wadsworth suggested with a wry smile.

“Oh, we’ll build more ships! More ships!” Lovell was unstoppable now, imagining his victory at Majabigwaduce expanding into the capture of Nova Scotia and, who knew, maybe all Canada? “Doesn’t the
Warren
look fine?” he exclaimed. “Just look at her! Can there be a finer vessel afloat?”

At twilight the fleet turned into the vast mouth of the Penobscot River where it anchored off the Fox Islands, all except the
Hazard
and
Tyrannicide
, which were ordered to make a reconnaissance upriver. The two small brigs, both from the Massachusetts navy, sailed slowly northwards, using the long evening’s gentle light to probe closer to Majabigwaduce, which lay a full twenty-six nautical miles from the open sea.

Commodore Saltonstall watched the two brigs until the gathering darkness hid their sails, then he took his supper on the quarterdeck beneath a sky bright with stars. His crew left him alone until one tall figure crossed to the commodore. “A pot of wine, sir?”

“Captain Welch,” Saltonstall greeted the tall marine, “I’m obliged to you.”

The two officers stood side-by-side at the
Warren’s
taffrail. A violin sounded from the foredeck of the brig
Pallas
, which was anchored closest to the frigate. For a time neither the commodore nor the marine said anything, but simply listened to the music and to the gentle sound of waves slapping against the hull. “So,” Saltonstall broke their companionable silence, “what do you think?”

“The same as you I reckon, sir,” Welch said in his deep voice.

The commodore snorted. “Boston should have demanded a Continental regiment.”

“That they should, sir.”

“But they want all the credit to go to Massachusetts! That’s their idea, Welch. You mark what I say. There won’t be many thanks offered to us.”

“But we’ll do the work, sir.”

“Oh, we’ll have to!” Saltonstall said. Already, in his brief tenure of command, the commodore had earned a reputation as a difficult and daunting figure, but he had struck up a friendship with the marine. Saltonstall recognized a fellow soul, a man who strove to make his men the best they could be. “We’ll have to do their work,” Saltonstall went on, “if it can be done at all.” He paused, offering Welch a chance to comment, but the marine said nothing. “Can it be done?” Saltonstall prompted him.

Welch stayed silent for a while, then nodded. “We have the marines, sir, and I dare say every marine is worth two of the enemy. We might find five hundred militiamen who can fight. That should suffice, sir, if you can take care of their ships.”

“Three sloops of war,” Saltonstall said in a tone that suggested neither confidence nor pessimism about the prospects of destroying the Royal Navy squadron.

“My men will fight,” Welch said, “and by Christ they’ll fight like fiends. They’re good men, sir, well-trained.”

“That I know,” Saltonstall said, “but by God I won’t let Lovell throw them away. You only fight ashore with my permission.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And if you get orders that make no sense, you refer them to me, you understand?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

“He’s a farmer,” Saltonstall said scornfully, “not a soldier, but a goddamned farmer.”

On board the
Sally
, in the captain’s cramped cabin, the farmer was cradling a mug of tea laced with rum. Lovell shared the table with his secretary, John Marston, and with Wadsworth and the Reverend Murray, who appeared to have been promoted to senior aide. “We should reach Majabigwaduce tomorrow,” Lovell said, looking from face to face in the feeble light of the lantern that hung from a beam, “and I assume the commodore will prevent the enemy ships from leaving the harbor and so obstructing us, in which case we should land immediately, don’t you think?”

“If it’s possible,” Wadsworth said cautiously.

“Let us be hopeful!” Lovell said. He dreamed of the victory parade in Boston and the vote of thanks from the legislature, but small doubts were creeping into his mind as he gazed at the crude map of Majabigwaduce’s peninsula that was spread on the table where the remains of supper still lay. The
Sally
’s cook had produced a fine fish stew served with newly baked bread. “We shall need to anchor off the land and launch the lighters,” Lovell said distractedly, then used a crust of cornbread to tap the bluff at the western end of the peninsula. “Can McLean really have left this height undefended?”

“Unfortified, certainly, if the reports are true,” Wadsworth said.

“Then we should accept his invitation, don’t you think?”

Wadsworth nodded cautiously. “We’ll know more tomorrow, sir,” he said.

“I want to be ready,” Lovell said. He tapped the map again. “We can’t let our fellows sit idle while the commodore destroys the enemy shipping. We must put the men ashore fast.” Lovell gazed at the map as though it might provide some solution to the morrow’s problems. Why had McLean not placed his fort on the high bluff? Was there a trap? If Lovell had been given the task of defending the peninsula he was sure he would have made a stronghold at the harbor’s entrance, high on the point of land that dominated both the wide bay and the harbor, so why had McLean not done that? And McLean, Lovell reminded himself, was a professional soldier, so what did McLean know that Lovell did not? He felt a shiver of nervousness in his soul, then took comfort that he was not alone in his responsibility. Commodore Saltonstall was the naval commander, and Saltonstall’s ships so outnumbered the enemy that surely no amount of professionalism could redress that imbalance. “We must believe,” Lovell said, “that our enemies are afflicted by overconfidence.”