Jack Fernley - America Über Alles

And then the tide had turned and all Hand’s hopes and dreams were washed away.

First came the defeats of the army. The sudden and dramatic change of affairs that placed the impetus with the British and led to people disparaging the ability of the Colonists’ army and the incompetence of its leader, Washington. In August, Hand played a major role in ensuring the Colonists’ army’s successful retreat from Brooklyn Heights with no casualties. No sooner had his feet landed on Manhattan’s soil than came the letter that crushed him. A simple note: ‘Your wife’s confinement has ended early. She and your son both lost.’

Hand broke that night from camp with Washington’s blessing. He reached his home in Trenton, the candles burning dimly, a hearth barely heated, his sister Sarah waiting for him, Catherine and the baby Edward cleaned and dressed. He buried them the following day and entered a period of fog, of drinking, of simply getting through the days to hit the bottle at night. Anything to avoid the grief that threatened to swallow him whole.

He returned to the army, Sarah coming to the camp with him, to serve as a cook and a nurse. She and his best friend, Patrick O’Leary, proving himself to be more than the Irish oaf he pretended to be, provided comfort and support, trying to minimise the damage he was wont to do to himself. But the failures of the Colonists at Fort Washington, Fort Lee and elsewhere in the autumn only seemed to illustrate the hopelessness of everything. And yet, without the war, what did he have?

Tonight, as on so many recent nights, Hand sat in a nameless tavern with Sarah and Pat, arguing with anyone who cared.

‘I’ll say it one more time: what would be the point in going back to Lancaster now? We have nothing and we’ll have even less if the English win. Their revenge will be pitiless.’ They were debating whether now was the time to face the truth. Give the war up, Hand was adamant. After all, he had nothing else now, now Catherine was no longer there to return to. ‘They’ll dig out all us bogtrotters and any rights we might have will disappear. We’ll become like Cromwell’s people, slaves.’

Hand pointed to Oliver Cromwell, former slave, now a freeman fighting alongside them.

‘And that’ll be a true disaster,’ replied Patrick, shouting over to Cromwell. ‘Oliver, what’ll it be like for us poor Irish boys when the English put us to work alongside you Negroes down on those cotton farms?’

‘What? You think you redheaded boys with your puny white skin will last more than a few days wi’ that sun beating down on ya? “Oh, mister, please get me out of the sun, have you got me a parasol I can use while I pick this here cotton?”’

Cromwell gave a large belly roar, so much so that even Hand felt happy to join in.

‘I’m no redhead, that’s Pat you’re talking of. And you’re right, he wouldn’t last a day.’

‘I’d last longer than you, they’d end up putting you in the scullery, dressed up in a maid’s outfit, fella.’

‘There’s freshly laundered maid’s uniforms, fresh linens as well? I’ll have some of what those Brits are offering!’ shouted Sarah to more laugher.

Cromwell left his group and walked over to the Irish. ‘You Irish, anyways, you be so beaten down, you’ll be slaves to us niggers by sundown on the first day! You’d be the lowest of the low! It’ll be a good day for the African man. At last we’ll have somebody to master!’

‘That’s my point: we’ll be slaves to these idiots, and our children will be slaves if we give up this fight.’

‘You might be right, Eddie Hand, you might be wrong, but I would say it’s not a question you would like to put to the challenge. In which case I would say that we shouldn’t much bother to find out, but keep to this struggle for as long as we can muster arms.’

The two men splashed their pewter tankards together, drowning another gulp of warm, foaming beer.

‘A happy Christmas to yer, Cromwell!’

‘And to you, Hand. And to a good year to come. You’ve suffered more than most this past year. We all know that.’

A little later that evening, just past the time when the songs had been sung and thoughts of drink were being overwhelmed by tiredness, the door of the tavern opened to a new group of men.

They were members of the Continental Army, but unlike many of the men who had joined the army, these four were gentlemen from the slave-owning lands of Virginia. Their fancy coats underlined their prosperity.

They came in, the four of them, more swanky than the northerners – not for them beer but rye and whiskey – different in taste and attitude. As they threw back the drams, their leader spied the now sleeping Oliver Cromwell.

‘What have we got here, a nigger in our camp? Boy, what are you doing here with these fine gentlemen?’

He kicked the sleeping Cromwell’s foot.

‘What? What you playing at?’ Cromwell awoke confused.

‘I’m asking what a nigger is doing drinking in this bar.’

‘My name is Oliver Cromwell and I’m a free farmer from New York and I have every right of a freeman to drink here, among my fellow soldiers.’

‘Not in my book, you ain’t. We don’t need any niggers to win this war. King George may be wanting slaves to run from their masters and take up arms, so why don’t you take your black arse over to Howe and beg for your freedom, boy. But first, take that nigger arse outside and find some drinking place more suited for ya, get cha now, boy!’

‘I ain’t going nowhere.’

‘You’ll go where I tell you to go.’

‘I was born a slave, but I won my freedom squarely and rightly, ain’t no man, white or coloured, going to tell me where I rest my head.’

‘Is there a problem here?’ Hand came to stand firmly by the side of the southerner. ‘Who are you?’

‘Sir, Lieutenant Harold Penny of the Virginian Rifles. I have a problem with your drinking companion. I don’t like to take my drink where there’s niggers.’

‘I see no such thing. I see one of the most loyal members of the 2nd New Jerseys. One of the best, most honest fighters in the Continental Army. A man I have been proud to fight alongside. A man free to drink wherever he pleases. If you don’t like that, well, you’re free to go find your drink somewhere else.’

‘I don’t intend taking my drink anywhere else but here, but I do intend to take this nigger and any nigger lover with him outside, so I can have my drink and not be contaminated. You understand, Paddy?’

‘I understand perfectly.’

‘Good.’

‘You better pay up and leave then.’

‘You Irish bogtrotter, you’re the one that’ll be leaving.’

Penny swung a fist, missing the Irishman who stepped sharply back, but then Hand moved forward and threw a punch to the southerner’s stomach. As Penny reeled back, his three friends joined in and so did Cromwell, O’Leary and a few other regulars from the Pennsylvanian Rifles. Now a proper fight had started. Penny came back at Hand, striking him a blow to the right temple and then pushing him over a table, scattering glasses and bottles to the floor. Hand fell to the floor, Penny’s boot striking him in the side. Rolling away, he tried to get to his feet, but the Virginian was on him, pinning him to the ground, punching him in the side and then the face. Dazed, Hand groped around him for anything that might serve as a weapon. He found the neck of a bottle, grabbed it and swung at Penny.

Only when the bottle sliced open the artery and blood began to spurt across them both, did Hand realise it was a jagged broken bottle.

‘You know my rules, Hand. Discipline in an army is everything. Once discipline breaks down, you lose the army. This incident is especially ill-favoured. The Continental Army is a confederation, an alliance of different parties. If we are to win this war and gain our independence, I need to keep all the interests aligned. North and south, aligned together. God damn it, sir!’