Robert Conroy - Liberty - 1784

Little Turtle was furious. “We must fight. We are not cowards.”

With that, he stormed away. The old man was saddened. “He will do something terrible.”

Tecumseh did not answer.

Drake and Washington saw the British force start to turn and pull back and quickly recognized their peril. If they stayed put, they would be overrun by a mass of angry humanity. They quickly determined that pulling the guns to the American lines was not practical. “Destroy them,” Washington ordered.

Will Drake signaled and a number of men ran forward. They loaded as much powder as they could find down the barrels of the four cannon and then jammed in cannonballs and rocks.

Will set a long fuse, lit it, and ran like the devil was after him. As before, he had no idea what was a safe distance. Nor did any of the others. They all just ran. He found a depression in the earth and threw himself in it. He had just covered his head with his hands when the first of a rapid series of explosions rocked him, sending shock waves over him. He closed his eyes tightly as debris rained down on him.

“I think we’re still alive,” William Washington said after a moment. Drake looked up. He and the others were covered with dirt.

Drake stood and looked at the four craters that marked the location of the guns. Their barrels had been ripped apart and were lying well away from where they had been. Their carriages were nowhere to be seen. “Well,” he said happily, “I guess that was enough powder.”

They ran to their horses and mounted quickly. The retreating British had been slowed by the explosions, but had recommenced their movement to the rear. The small American cavalry force again skirted the British and moved back through the gap in the defenses. Once through, they rode to the rear of the American lines where hundreds of American and British wounded and dying were being tended. They found General Stark. His uniform was torn and he looked exhausted. Still, there was a ferocious glint in his eye.

“Well done,” Stark said to Washington. “Now I have another assignment for you.”

“Name it, sir,” Washington said.

“Look around you. Our army was mauled and is in disarray. It is exhausted, wounded, and out of ammunition. Right now we are trying to care for the wounded, bury the dead, and provide food and water for the living. While we do this, much of our defenses have been destroyed by the British. Since your men appear reasonably healthy, I want you to repair the earthworks and the wood thicket. Will you do that?”

Washington and Drake looked at the milling hundreds. Drake wanted desperately to find Sarah. Was she alive? Hurt? Was she as worried about him as he was about her?

Still, they had their duty. If the British attacked again, the American lines were wide open and would collapse.

Washington shrugged and grinned amiably. “Where are the shovels, General?”

* * *

Burgoyne’s head sagged and his chin nearly touched his chest. “How long has it been?”

How long since what, Fitzroy wondered. He pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s been a little more than two hours since the fighting began, sir.”

Both men looked at each other. It had taken just two hours for the rebels to defeat, at least temporarily, the greatest army in North America. Thousands of soldiers streamed disconsolately by them. Few bothered to look at their commander. The men were looking out for their own well-being and cared nothing for what generals thought. Despite the chaos, Fitzroy saw a number of officers trying to impose order and control and, to a large part, succeeding. The regiments had been stopped and mauled but not destroyed. Even so, it would be a while before they fought again.

Burgoyne walked away, heading to the privacy of his tent. He didn’t wish to see or speak with anyone until he had come to grips with the situation. Reports would be taken later. Everything could wait, along with the inevitable excuses and recriminations.

Fortunately, the Americans were in no shape to counterattack. From where Fitzroy could see, they were working on repairing their defenses. Thank heaven for small favors, Fitzroy thought.

“Have you noticed it’s raining?”

It was Danforth. His uniform was in shreds and a large scab had formed on his forehead. “Perhaps it will clean you up,” Fitzroy said and put his arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too, James,” Danforth said and plunked himself down on a folding chair that Burgoyne had been using. “And don’t ask me how bad it was, damn it; it was bloody awful. I’ve never seen such a slaughter and I’ve never seen British soldiers take such punishment. They only gave up after enduring more than any men should be called upon to endure. I hope history will be kind to them.”

“Agincourt,” Fitzroy said, “only we played the role of the French on this date,” he said referring to the climactic battle of 1415 in which a smaller British army had slaughtered a much larger French army that had attacked them on a narrow front.

“We attacked in a narrow front mass that invited flanking attacks and eliminated our strength in numbers. “Had we won, of course, Burgoyne would be proclaimed a genius. Now what will happen to him, to us?”

Fitzroy thought that history would be kinder to the soldiers than it would be to the generals. “And General Grant is truly dead?”

Danforth found a bottle with some brandy in it and took a long swallow. “Well and truly dead and with a rock stuck squarely in the middle of his skull like some great and unblinking third eye.” Danforth shuddered. “Absolutely hideous. No man should die like that and he took forever to collapse and finally stop breathing. I swear he was trying to talk, to say something.” He laughed bitterly. “Perhaps he was saying something like take this fucking rock out of my head.”

“You stayed with him, I take it?”

“Of course. Now you’re going to ask me how I got away. Well, it was quite easy. When our own soldiers fell back, some of them knocked me over and likely trampled me for good measure. I do believe I was stunned for a few minutes. When I came to, I simply crawled away until I thought it was safe enough to stand up. At that point, I got up and walked back to our lines with as much dignity as I could muster. I wasn’t the only one. A lot of lightly wounded men or some unwounded soldiers simply trying to save their own skins were doing the same thing. Thank God the Americans were not in the slightest bit interested in stopping us from departing. They had a handful of men working to repair their defenses and, by the way, I think I saw the man you were negotiating with. Drake, I believe.”

Fitzroy took it in. For some strange reason he was pleased that the rebel had also lived to fight another day. It had begun to rain again, a fitting end to a miserable day and it was still early afternoon. Damn.

“What’s going to happen now?” Danforth asked.

“Well, we won’t be attacking again, at least not for a while. Burgoyne’s called for a council of war, which will now only include Tarleton and Arnold, since Grant is dead.”

Danforth shook his head. “Why in God’s name couldn’t either Arnold or Tarleton have been killed instead of Grant? Better yet, why not both of them?”

Why indeed? Fitzroy could not think of an answer.

* * *

Drake was working with men who were repairing the defenses and was soaking wet from the sudden rain and up to his knees in the mud it had created.

Along with repairing the earthworks and replacing the thicket, they’d been dragging dead British soldiers out to where other Redcoats could retrieve them and carry them back for a proper burial. The British wounded were allowed to either return to their own lines if they were able, or were cared for as best they could by the Americans. These activities caused the British and American soldiers into close proximity with each other. Either out of respect or exhaustion, there was little or no conversation and no hostility. Simple nods and grunts sufficed. There had not been a formal truce. The men simply decided to solve their problem without any help from higher-ups.