Читать книгу Washington and Caesar - Christian Cameron - Страница 15

Mount Vernon, Virginia, May 3, 1775

It was a curious gathering, and Washington thought that the men who graced his house on the eve of his departure for the second Continental Congress could not have been more unalike. What brought them together was a desire to profit by his patronage; they were friends, most of them, but every one of them wanted something. It was a role to which he was used in a small way, but it was heady, nonetheless.

Major Gates, a half-pay retired officer who had served with Washington under Braddock and had a depth of military experience unrivaled in the colonies except for Washington’s own, desired a command if the Continental Congress should see fit to raise an army. Washington smiled; he knew Gates, and knew the man felt himself Washington’s superior in the art of war. Washington had never precisely warmed to him and had always feared his ambition; and he had odd, overly ingratiating manners, the product of too many years as an inferior officer in an inferior independent company. But he would need every skilled soldier he could find if Virginia went to war.

Richard Henry Lee wanted a commission in the militia; he had proposed to raise another independent company of horse for his son Henry. He was traveling with his brother Thomas, who wanted nothing but news. Charles Carter wanted the Continental Congress to enact land legislation that Parliament in London had refused, and young Henry Lee seemed pleased to sit with the gentlemen after dinner and sip from his share of one of Washington’s famous pipes of Madeira.

“Will Dunmore fight?” asked the elder Carter.

Washington shook his head. “He took the powder from Williamsburg to rob us of the means to violence, not to provoke it. He is a careful, thoughtful man, perhaps even a devious one.”

“Thomas Gage never had the repute of a hothead, sir, and I believe he has led the way to a greater act of violence than any seen in these colonies.” Gates looked particularly satisfied that Gage had blundered. There was some history there—had Gage refused Gates a commission when he raised his Light Armed Regiment for frontier service? Washington couldn’t remember whether that was a fact or a rumor.

“The attack was utterly unprovoked. ’Tis in the express. They marched out of Boston to take powder and stores in Concord, and the Massachusetts men gave them a drubbing.”

“While we let Dunmore take our powder and then sit on our hands and take no action!” cried Henry Lee. “All the horsed militia are formed and ready at Fredericksburg.”

“And they refused to say the words ‘God save the King!’ and insisted on ‘God save the liberties of America’,” interjected Richard Lee. “Exciting times, Colonel. Is this the time for Virginia’s foremost military son to travel to Philadelphia?”

“Dunmore has nothing but a half-company of marines and some sailors. We could take the palace tomorrow and hold him until they bring the powder off the ships.” Henry Lee was excited at the prospect.

“On what grounds, gentlemen?” Thomas leaned forward in the big library chair. “I misdoubt this talk of open rebellion. If we must show our mettle to preserve our freedoms, then let’s to it and no more debate. But attack the king’s appointed governor in his palace, with the only cause that he seized powder that’s legally his? I stand with Peyton Randolph and other moderate men on this; he’ll give it up without violence. Ben, I know you admire the spirit of those Massachusetts men, but they have taken a step that may lead us, God forbid, to civil war. And war’s an ugly thing.”

Washington nodded. His thoughts were far away; Virginia had not seen fit to offer him the command of her militia, and he had responded by moving his duties to the Continental Congress to the forefront of his mind.

“It is in my mind, gentlemen, that we have left my lady alone far too long. As she has no other ladies to support her, I think it only courteous that we restore the conversation to her.”

“Hear, hear,” said Thomas, who had not relished the conversation. It was becoming harder to be a moderate.

“I should never have thought to be so inconsiderate,” said Gates, as if searching Washington’s words for a hidden insult.

But when they were all abed, Martha smiled at him and chided him firmly.

“That’s a lonely way to spend my last evening with you.”

“I’ll be back soon, like as not.”

“You won’t, though. They’ll give you the command.”

He looked at her, surprised to have his innermost secret thought divined.

“I had not thought…” The words came perilously close to a lie, and he bit his lip and looked at her.

“I have waited for you to open your mind to me, husband. It is plain as the eyes on my face that the Virginia Convention is sending you to the Philadelphia Congress as a soldier. Why else do you not have the command of the militia?”

“It would be unmannerly of me to expect such a command, and villainous to hope for such a thing that could portend such dire consequences.”

She turned her head on the pillow and looked him in the eye, hers glinting with humor.

“But you do. Is it hard, husband, for one vessel to hold so much honor and so much ambition?”

“You still possess the power to mortify me, madam.”

“None of your other friends dare. Your careful silence does not fool me, sir. I know you.”

“True enough. What can I fetch you from Philadelphia?”

“You can arrange that the clever fellow who manages all my estates and has so suddenly become a man of the first consequence be returned to me with all his limbs.”

“You honor me with your commands.”

“Do you remember promising me to leave the army, sir?”

“I remember that the subject came up when we discussed marriage.”

“I haven’t changed, sir. I dread every time my son leaves this house. Do you think I shall not dread ten times as much for you to face the cannon?”

“Hush, madam. It will not come to that.”

“It will, George Washington.” For if they give you this command, nothing will stop you if you have to force them to war, yourself. But she had made her point, and had no intention of spending their last night in further contention. Rather she smiled at him in a certain way, and changed the subject.

Great Dismal Swamp, late May 1775

“They at war!”

The boy was their most reliable contact with the world. Invisible in his poverty and his lameness, he could enter the settlements and buy goods, or tell them where to steal. That they were not the only band of runaway slaves in the swamp was for certain, as every community on the edge seemed to have a militia ready to turn out against them, but Caesar’s careful scouting and the boy’s tireless spying kept them safe.

They had covered dozens of miles in their original flight, and more since, slogging through the water or forcing a path through the deep tangles of the high ground. The column had to move at the speed of the slowest, which was not Old Ben or Long Tom, but a beaten-looking man called Fetch who seldom spoke or even looked at others. Caesar didn’t know why he had followed them, but he had, and he moved more slowly every day. Twice, Caesar looked at his body, but it had no unusual marks or wounds, nothing more than the casual cruelty and hard work of a life of servitude.

“He gon’ die,” Old Ben said, watching Caesar run his hand down the man’s leg.

“Why? He ain’t snakebit, and I can’t find anything else. He got a fevuh? Fever?”

“No. He jus’ don’ wan’ live. Simple as that.”

So Caesar, to cheat death, let them build a camp on a hummock in the northwest of the swamp. Virgil showed them how to lay up wigwams of reeds and poles, the way an Englishman had shown him. They built four. And Caesar went off every day to scout the area around them, and when he found the settlement to the north a day’s walk, he sent one of the men to find the boy.

“That boy need a name.” Old Ben seldom prefaced his remarks.

“Why?”

“He gon’ die young. Shouldn’ die called ‘boy’.”

“You name him, then.”

“I ain’t the big man.” Old Ben never seemed to miss a chance to remind him of his responsibility.

“You got a name, boy?” Caesar sat on a pile of brush bound up with roots. It made a passable seat.

“Not as I remember, suh.”

“Well, then.” He thought over all the names he knew. Others of his little band gathered around, or lay on pallets.

“Do you all know who James Somerset is?” he asked. He saw the flash of recognition from Virgil and Old Ben, but none of the rest seemed to stir.

“He was a man, a black man in England. He went to court to prove himself free. He won. He’s free, and there ain’t no slaves in England because he won.”

“What kind of court would let a black man speak?”

“Courts in England, I guess. He had a white man lawyer called Sharp, way I heard it.”

“Where’d you hear this?”

“I heard it from a free black sailor named King who been to England himself.”

They nodded, satisfied.

“So that’s what we call you now, boy. James Somerset, or James. Mostly Jim, I suspect. But you remember where that name is from, a brave man who made other men free.”

The boy—Jim—smiled so widely it looked as if his teeth might burst out of his mouth.

And Caesar sent him on his first mission to spy out the little town.

“Who they fightin’? War with who?” The men clustered around the boy, eager for the corn meal he had but more eager for news.

“British soldiers fought some men in ‘Choosets. They marched down a road and the militia killed ’em all dead. They killed some militia, and now it be war against the British.”

Caesar had heard talk of war with England for months, back before he was sent away from Mount Vernon. It was a persistent rumor, but this seemed to say there had been an actual battle. He had never felt much pity for the Virginians, when they talked of it, but perhaps that was just because they were the masters and he the slave. Perhaps they were themselves mistreated by the English, although he never saw any sign and the Englishmen who came to Mount Vernon had seemed little different from any other white men.

When the excitement of the news had died down, Jim told him the bad news in private, which was smart of him. Other overseers had reported the bloody escape and militia were seeking them in the swamp. Jim hadn’t heard much, just a hint from a little black girl that there was a hunt in the swamp and a garbled version of the killing, which had clearly magnified in the telling.

“You only killed they three men, I know. I saw them. I counted. Stories say you killed ten or mo’.”

“Didn’t bother you none, Jim?”

“Oh no, suh.”

“Get something to eat, Jim.” Caesar looked at the comfortable camp, with two brush huts and a covered fire pit. They’d been there for several days and his hands were less numb. None of the men would want to leave.

But they were hunted, and it was time to move.

Schuykill Tavern, Pennsylvania, June 17, 1775

Peyton Randolph, acting as speaker for the Continental Congress, was seated in the center of the head table. He rose carefully to his feet and demanded silence of the hubbub around him. The tavern’s common room was filled with members of the Continental Congress and wellwishers, some of whom had already adopted military dress, so that the dinner had something of the appearance of a council of war.

“Any man who studies the classics will tell you that the ancients knew that most good generals were good farmers,” he began, and Washington winced. Most of the great generals had never farmed in their lives; Caesar and Alexander leapt to mind.

“If that be true, then we have among us a man uniquely fit to command, a veteran of our wars with the French and a farmer whose success is a byword in Virginia. If the cause of liberty must resort to arms, therefore, I think we can ask no better than that those arms be borne and led by my friend,” and here he indicated Washington with a gesture.

“I give you the Commander in Chief of the American armies.”

Every man in the room rose to his feet. Men who had never worn swords in their lives but to funerals were wearing them now, even in the cramped quarters; and among the coats of hunting plush and dark velvet, Washington saw more than a few worn laced coats from the last war with France. Every glass rose as if in salute, and he stood, utterly at a loss for words, though the appointment had been his for a day and the dinner was in his honor. He had not expected to be so moved, and he looked at them—solemn and armed—with his heart full of fear.

“Gentlemen…I am not…I am most sensible…that is…” He stopped, and tried to raise his eyes from the table in front of him, abashed for the first time in many years, and wished that he could have a tenth of his neighbor Mr. Henry’s eloquence. But his courage stood by him; he was not nervous, only moved that they should stand so.

“Gentlemen. I am honored beyond words that you…that you have chosen me to lead this enterprise. I fear the result more than I wish, and I hope…I hope that no man present enters lightly into the notion of war. I fear my merits will fall short of the magnitude of the task. I should thank the gentlemen of the United Colonies…I should thank…them, for so much confidence in my abilities; but I dread to fail, and ruin my country and my reputation in such a task.”

He looked up then, aware that he had spoken mostly to the table, mortified that his speech must sound so craven, but every eye was on him, and no one seemed to censure it. Their glasses were still raised.

“I will bring to this contest a firm belief in the justice of our cause, close attention to the prosecution of it, and the strictest integrity. If these are sufficient to the task…If it must be war, so be it. I will lead as best I may, and may God be with us.”

Someone at the first table said “amen” very loudly, and there was a rustle as men drank off the toast, but those sounds served only to accentuate the silence of the crowd, and they stayed standing for some time, thinking of the war to come.

Billy hadn’t stood at his elbow in the tavern as he might ordinarily have done; northerners seldom thought to provide space for a gentleman’s slave as would have happened in Virginia. So Billy had to wait until Washington returned to his lodgings to hear of the evening, and Washington was in a far more solemn mood than Billy had expected.

Billy had his boots off without complaint, and had laid out his waistcoat for a brushing before Washington spoke, his shirt open and his stock hanging from his hand.

“I don’t think they know what war is,” he said suddenly.

Billy took the stock and nodded. It wasn’t really his role to speak.

“They think making me their general shows that they are in earnest, and perhaps it does. But none of them has seen a real war. Indeed, I think that veterans of Frederick would laugh at my pretensions to knowing war. Do they expect me to keep them safe?”

Billy took the silver buckle off the sweat-stained stock and threw the stock on a pile of laundry.

Washington drank off a glass of wine from the stand next to the bed and pulled his nightshirt over his shirt, as he often did. Billy grimaced inwardly. Wearing shirts at night meant more work for the laundresses.

“We have no army to speak of, no artillery, no ships, no fortresses, no magazines full of arms.” Washington snapped around and looked at Billy. “And when we are beaten, they will blame me.”

Billy thought that Washington had invited the appointment, but kept quiet. He had Washington’s coat over his arm and Washington gestured at it.

“You can press that and send it home,” he said.

Billy looked at the coat, perfectly good broadcloth in dark blue.

“Sir?”

“I’ll be in uniform tomorrow. And until this contest is done.”

Great Dismal Swamp, June 28, 1775

Long Tom and Virgil had the pistols, though neither had fired them often; he had the fowler. Each had powder for a few shots, and no more; every man had a knife and an ax. The militia all around them had good muskets and hatchets; some had swords. What they lacked were dogs, because the dogs had balked at the deep swamp and the pepper Long Tom had used.

They were all lying in a deer hollow. The militia were close enough that every movement could be heard, every complaint about the heat. One man was sure he had seen a footprint; the others were less sure.

“Ain’t no bunch of ’em,” said one man. “Just the one print.”

“That ain’t no print, you fool.”

“Deer might make that mark, if’n he slipped on the bank.”

“Deer don’t slip.”

“Do too.”

“Shut up. Crafter, go back and look at the last crossing again. We all have shoes, so you look for barefoot marks. Dixon…Dixon.”

Caesar looked and looked for the speaker, who seemed to be right in front of him but had to be on the other side of a finger of open water. If he could shoot the officer…

…Then all the other men would rush in and massacre them. He might try to kill the officer to redress the balance, but they were nearly doomed. Caesar wondered what Dixon had done and if he was as dull as Long Tom. He continued to make useless plans as fast as his mind could work, all the while wishing for some luck.

Fetch saved them. Perhaps his nerve broke, or perhaps he chose to sacrifice himself; later, most of the men chose to believe the latter. But he moved away as silently as he had lived with them, and suddenly rose to his feet and began to run. It drew the attention of the militia gradually; he wasn’t loud, and he didn’t shout. But in a few moments all the militia were after him, too experienced to risk shooting in the dense cover of the high ground in the swamp but excited enough to crash through the brush after him.

Caesar waited only a few moments; he couldn’t afford to hesitate.

“Move! March! This way!” and he plunged off to the south, away from Fetch’s flight. The running militia didn’t hear them, and their luck held.

Fetch’s did not. A few minutes later there was a shot and a scream, then a fusillade of shots and some shouting. Caesar thought he heard them laugh.

They camped without a fire, hot and miserable in the flies and mosquitoes, with little food. Someone had dropped the black iron kettle in their flight, the corn meal bag was long empty, and Caesar didn’t dare risk a shot to bring down an animal, even if he could find one. The water was brown and warm and tasted of mud. The dead man’s boots were beginning to separate where the sole met the upper, and his stockings had rotted away inside the boots.

The boy was already asleep, utterly exhausted. Old Ben wasn’t much better.

“We can’t live like this,” said Virgil, giving voice to what every one of them felt. But to Caesar, it sounded like an accusation. He was too young to feel it otherwise. He flared.

“I’m doin’ the bes’ I can! The best! Would you rathuh be slaves? Be workin’ till you bleed?”

“Hey, Caesuh. Don’t fret so. We got nowheahs else to go. But we can’ live like this long. Boy and Ben’ll go next, when the food stay sparse.” He smiled a little. “And they ain’t no women.” That raised a murmur of a chuckle.

Frustration and anger and fatigue warred in Caesar. He wanted to walk off and leave them. He wanted to tell them how inadequate he was to the task of keeping them alive. He had never expected the militia so deep in the swamp. He had made so many mistakes about camps and food, and he felt that they all knew his every error.

“I don’ think I can get us free,” he admitted. “I ain’ made a good decision in days.”

“Don’ fret yo’sef, boy.” Old Ben sounded sleepy. “Tiuhd men don’ think straight. We all ‘live ‘cept Fetch, and that was his own choice.”

Virgil leaned forward so his face almost touched Caesar’s, and he whispered. “I ain’ sayin’ you done nothin’ wrong. I’m sayin’ we ain’ gon’ make it like this, and we need a new plan. I says we leave the swamp.”

“An’ go where?”

“South, to Florida. Spanish let you live free, I hear.”

“That famous man, John Canno, lives in Florida,” said Caesar. He still didn’t believe in John Canno. He knew how fast his own single victory had been embellished. “Let’s stay here a little longah. Longer. The militia may leave. We ought to get free o’ them tomorra anyway. We’ll go south an’ west.”

“Gon’ need food.”

“An’ powder an’ shot.”

“Whea’ we gon’ get all that?”

“I don’ know, Mastuh Virgil. But we need a li’l, a little luck. Say a prayer.”

Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 3, 1775

The day had turned warm, but Washington didn’t show it. His stock was buckled, his smallclothes spotless; he looked very much a commander, and much more so than most of the Massachusetts officers who had gathered for general orders.

“I should like an immediate return, by battalion, of the troops and their equipage.”

“Who would take that? I suppose one of us can ride the rounds.”

“I would expect that every battalion has an adjutant?”

Many of the officers looked at each other. General Ward, still irked at being superseded in a New England army by a Virginian, felt the criticism was personal.

“Many do, right enough, General. Not all.”

“And I expect they are formed in brigades, each of which has a brigade major?”

“I expect so, General.” Ward sounded dangerously close to anger.

“Gentlemen. I mean no censure, here, but these are not trivialities that I have cooked up with my staff. We need to know the state of the army’s powder and ball. We need to know what we have and what we lack. And to be frank, we need to know these things every day, and we will. Please see to it. I do not expect to see my officers riding the common from camp to camp to gather the numbers. Rather, I expect to see every battalion adjutant report to his brigade major, and that major to his brigadier, and hence to my chief of staff, General Gates. In his absence, to General Lee. Am I clear? Excellent.” He looked around at them. Any hesitation he had felt as recently as the night before was gone; this morning, he had seen the sentries of the Fourth, or King’s Own Regiment, on Boston Neck. He was in the face of the enemy, and operations were under way.

“Gentlemen, you have done well, and the entire continent applauds you. But whether we end this year at peace with the mother country, or whether we are doomed to civil war, we must not lose here. We cannot afford that the king’s troops mount a successful coup de main against our works.

“We do not need to win any great battles, and I wish to reassure you that I have not come before you seeking useless laurels. But neither will I squander the reputation you have garnered. Our defenses are, to be blunt, pitiful. Over the next few days I will ride over them with you, gentlemen, and our staff. But you have only to look at the two great redoubts the enemy has constructed and filled with guns on Boston Neck to see how this matter should have been carried forward. The defenses immediately below this town are insufficient, and as this is our headquarters, I have little reason to believe that matters will be better elsewhere.”

None of the New Englanders could be expected to listen to this thinly veiled criticism with pleasure, and Washington had been warned that Ward, at least, thought that the religious superiority of the Massachusetts men was a stronger armor than any regular entrenchment. He was certainly red in the face.

“God has granted us great victories, at Concord and Monroe Tavern and Breed’s Hill, General Washington, and no one can doubt that His cloak lieth over this army, and His shield stands before it.”

“I am sorry, General Ward. Does that mean you do not feel we should improve our entrenchments?” Washington spoke coldly, his courtesy strained. He did not intend to give an inch on his first day in command, lest his authority be eroded.

“I mean, General, that the hand of the Lord is more to us than all the science of the Romans.”

“General Ward, God’s cloak and shield would be greatly strengthened by a proper redoubt with ravelins below this town and some strong entrenchments on Dorchester Neck, if I am not very mistaken. I would add, for your private ear, that God may not forever tolerate behavior in a camp like I saw last night—with both alcohol and lewd women—and that as long as this army behaves in such a manner, it would be hubris, sir, to expect special consideration. If those observations are not sufficient, please remain behind when this meeting is dismissed and we can discuss the matter.”

Ward seemed likely to explode, but several of the other officers were smiling. A colonel standing behind General Ward raised his hand as if to be recognized. Washington looked past him, but the man began to speak anyway.

“We can best get men to dig…”

Washington stopped him in his tracks. “This is not a council of war, sir. When I want your opinion, I shall ask it.” Washington realized how that sounded as soon as the words crossed his lips, and he forced a small smile. “Gentlemen. Only one man can command. I do not wish to be here as a foreigner, taking command after your notable victories, but here I am at the behest of the continent.” He looked around the room, ignoring Lee’s open amusement and Gates’s solid presence, looking for reaction from the New Englanders. They looked back, sullen and closed. He sighed. He knew himself to lack the temperament to court men to his way.”General Ward, if any of my remarks could be interpreted as illiberal, please forgive me. I am moved only by my zeal for our duty, and mean no disrespect to the efforts of this army.”

Ward bowed in return, but his face remained red.

Wherever the conversation might have gone, it was interrupted by cries of “Alarm” in the camp on the common. Washington looked at Ward; the man had handed over the command, but Washington didn’t even know the names of all the brigadiers. He should let Ward respond to the alarm. Ward glared at him, and Washington stamped on his impulse.

“Get me a report of the alarm.”

A young man in a good brown cloth coat and a round hat, wearing a fine silver smallsword and sea boots, was introduced to the room in minutes.

“Captain Poole of Marblehead,” said one of his aides from the doorway.

“We can see the British moving on the Neck, sir.”

“In what strength?”

“Five or six regiments and a battalion of light infantry.”

“Do they have packs?”

The man looked crestfallen. “I don’t know.”

“How long until they are ready?”

“They are just forming, sir. An hour.”

Washington dreaded an assault on the nonexistent fortifications opposite the Neck. He looked at the door. “Get me General Lee.”

Charles Lee was an enigma to Washington, more like a British officer than an American, with a vicious turn of phrase, a certain contempt for other men, and little habits of dress that made him stand out. Today he wore blue and buff, as prescribed by Washington, but gave it a fashionable air utterly at variance with Washington’s severity. His lapels were unbuttoned, which gave the coat a look of informality; his beautiful smallsword was thrust through a pocket; he wore a small tricorn unlike any other in Massachusetts; and his watch fob dangled below a double-breasted waistcoat that in no way matched Washington’s views on the dress of his officers. Yet alone of all the men on his staff, Lee entered and presented a perfectly correct salute, bowing and putting off his hat without flourish or awkwardness, every inch the soldier.

“Ward is a hypocritical fool. I don’t know how you stand him, sir.”

“I don’t wish to discuss General Ward.”

“All the better. I await your orders.”

“Are the men standing to arms?”

“I think they fancy they are. No full battalion is under arms, much less a brigade.”

“Ride through the camp and send every battalion to the head of the camp. Tell them to line the road and prepare to march off to the right by companies.”

“Very well, sir. I took the liberty of sending your slave for your horse.” Lee saluted with his hat and withdrew, his spurs making a martial noise on the red pine floor.

Great Dismal Swamp, July 3, 1775

Virgil and the boy Jim slipped into the brush behind the log barn and crouched, safe in the green and screened by high grass. There were voices in the barn, all African. Jim started to move, but Virgil waved his hand.

“No rush, boy.” He listened, and in a moment heard the white woman’s voice from the cabin. Two whites, two slaves. And two extra horses. The extra horses grazing at the short grass beside the house’s chimney made him cautious, the more so as one had a long gun of some sort tied to the saddle.

“I got corn meal heah befo’,” said Jim, just audible. “Black folks is ol’. Whites is po’.”

He watched the clearing. Far across it against the other edge, the white man and the male slave were girdling a tree in a field where crops and stumps seemed evenly intermingled. Men laughed inside the cabin.

“They is too many men heah, Jim.” He turned his head as slowly as he could, but Jim was already gone.

He missed the boy’s ghostly advance through the grass, but saw him just as he reached the edge of the barn, and then there was no sign of him for a while, except that he noticed that the black female voices in the barn disappeared in a moment. Virgil checked his priming.

The woman who appeared around the log barn with Jim was the first that he had seen in some time, and that may have added to her appeal. She wasn’t wearing a jacket; most girls didn’t, in the little farms around the swamp. She had the sun full behind her and he could see the shape of her legs and most of her top through her shift, and her breasts, outlined in sweat, made him smile. She had a tiny, pointed face, too small for the body, but nice.

Jim had a small sack of meal; far more precious, he had a brass kettle like the ones the whites gave to Indians to store dried goods in. He was almost bouncing as he crossed the grass, and the woman stood with her hands on her hips and watched the boy go.

“Ol’ Nellie say those men be aftuh us!” said Jim, ducking into the brush. Virgil watched the girl, who walked along behind the barn with deliberate coquetry.

“You nevuh said they was a gal,” Virgil hissed.

“They wasn’t, las’ time. Maybe they bought her?”

“Ol’ lady say they slave-takuhs?”

“That what she say.”

“They got dogs?”

Jim looked guilty. “I didn’ ax.”

“Don’ fret. You done good on that kettle. If’n they had dogs, I reckon we’d know by now. We gone have to do some walkin’ round befo’ we goes to camp. Jus’ in case they follow us.” He smiled back at Jim and rose for a last look at that handsome girl, but she was gone.

“Let’s git.”

Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 3, 1775

He sat on Nelson and watched his army, a chaotic mob, as they attempted to form themselves in battalions. Men ran from company to company, yelling for their own officers; in fact, several approached him directly. Some had the sense to look for their militia banners displayed in the center of their regiments, but the lack of uniforms and the total want of standard places for assembly told against them. It was over an hour before he had six regiments formed and marching on the roads; he had failed to find any of the ranger companies that he knew abounded to scout the way, and the Massachusetts general officers were conspicuous by their glacial inefficiency or by their absence. It seemed possible that General Ward resented him more than he hated the British; it seemed that Israel Putnam was nowhere to be found. Washington sent his own aides as scouts to keep watch on the enemy, but eager as they were, they were untrained and talkative, and he waited in the summer sun, baking in his uniform, and watching his motley army of militia while imagining his outworks stormed, his camp taken, and his reputation ruined before he had learned the names of his own staff.

His six battalions marched slowly, the sixty different companies all marching with different steps when they marched at all. Gaps opened and closed all down the line, making any thought of complex maneuver impossible, and Washington began to wonder if he could actually form a line and fight if he had to. He could only hope that a show of force would be sufficient.

He rode up to Dorchester Neck at the head of his staff, the six battalions fifteen minutes behind him and strung out for a mile and a half. If the British were assaulting the Neck, he had fifteen eager gentlemen to stop them, all mounted. He was half-tempted to try, and avoid the consequences of disastrous defeat; indeed, he had thought of ordering the troops back to Cambridge rather than face the British with them. The truth of the battle at Breed’s Hill was obvious. Unless these untrained men were sent into entrenchments, they would never stand in the field, or even form; they lacked the ability to march up in column, form line under fire, and give their volleys.

But no thick red column ascending the Neck met his eyes. The Neck was empty. Away toward the British lines and their south battery, two companies of light infantry were drilling, their files extended wide. Washington was comforted to see that they did not appear overly proficient.

“Where is this column?” Washington looked over the Neck, relieved that he would not have to fight today with such a clumsy instrument. No one answered. A single understrength company of Marbleheaders stood farther down, where a rough tangle of felled trees had been thrown across the Neck to slow an enemy approach.

“Captain Poole’s company?” Washington asked, sitting his horse easily.

The man smiled and nodded.

“Where are the British?” Washington waved his crop down the Neck toward Boston.

Another man came up, smoking a pipe. “Oh, they formed up, right ‘nough. Jus’ a field day, I’d say. A walk in the pahk.”

“Where is your captain?”

“He went to find the Virginny general.”

Washington shook his head, and the smoking man wandered off. He rode back to Lee.

“Turn them around and march them home. Tell the general officers I want a complete muster and a complete return of military stores tomorrow.”

“What do you want me to tell the churchwarden, General?”

“I fail to take your meaning.”

“General Ward, then.”

“Tell him the same as the others.”

“He should have turned to with the rest. Sir.”

“That will be enough, General Lee. I mean to have absolute command, but I will not stoop to personal remarks about my officers.”

Lee, unfazed, looked back where the first four companies, hundreds of yards ahead of the rest of the column, were wandering toward them, each company a small crowd of men without formation.

“I imagine the only way to use them would be to ride up and down, showing each man his place and how to load his musket.” Lee laughed at his own sarcasm.

“On your way, sir.” Washington tried to sound cool; Lee both amused and irritated him. Lee swept him a bow from horseback and was gone.

It was a byword among farmers that often you had to make a tool before you could even start a job.

He would train the army and officers, and bring the Massachusetts men to heel. They would obey and respect, and men would not smoke pipes while talking to generals. It would all be a great deal of work, and it wouldn’t succeed if the British attacked him before any part of it was done. He headed back to Cambridge, already composing his notes on the drill of the army, but as he began to pass through the chaos of the leading battalion, a thought occurred to him and he pulled up.

“You there,” he shouted at a man in a good coarse smock and proper military equipment. The man looked something like a soldier.

“Sir?” The fellow at least had the sense to come to the recover, still the manner of a soldier.

“How many cartridges do you have, soldier?”

“Ten rolled, sir! Powder for six more.”

Sixteen rounds. Washington saluted and rode on, checking soldiers as he went. By the time he reached the end of the column, he knew his Massachusetts men a little better, and he knew they averaged only nine rounds a man.

Sometimes, before a farmer built a tool, he had to get the materials for it. Washington started a new set of notes. He was still dictating to his secretary when he climbed the stairs to his rooms and flung himself in a wingback chair.

“What can I get you, sir?” asked Billy.

“An army, Billy. Saving that, a staff of professional officers, sixty thousand rounds of ball cartridge, and ten thousand muskets.”

“I’ll just get goin’ then, sir.”

“I’ll settle for brandy and water.”

“They have ice from an ice house, sir. It’s prime.”

“Better and better. Iced brandy, then.”

Washington turned to his secretary. “I’ve led you a damned chase today, sir, and you’ve held up well. Put down the notes about sashes as badges of rank and then get yourself a glass downstairs. I won’t trouble you again today.”

The young man bowed and retired. In a moment, Billy returned, with a glass and some Naples biscuits. Washington devoured the biscuits and drank off half the glass. “They have no concept of discipline,” he said.

Billy polished a silver salver quietly.

“They do not seem to believe in subordination. Every man must have his say, no matter how half-witted.”

Billy nodded to him.

“I do not intend to discuss every notion of fortification with some Yankee captain who has read a book on the subject. Braddock may not have been the greatest general of the age, but his staff was a tool in his hand, an extension of him. He thought out the plans and gave orders. When will I reach a state where these men will obey me? I doubt that General Gage shares these troubles in Boston.”

“You want to get those boots off, sir?” asked Billy, unmoved by his master’s tirade.

“I thought that commanding this army would be like running a plantation, Billy. I would plan, dictate my orders, and the army would execute my designs. I’m not sure these men even know how to obey!”

Billy looked up from the boots and smiled. But he didn’t speak his mind, and Washington didn’t note it.