When it was all over, we sat on upturned logs next to the table where the sergeant lay. The doctor let us keep a candle burning so that Eben could see his uncle’s face. The sergeant was overtaken by a violent fever deep in the night.
When the drums sounded the reveille at dawn, he died.
CHAPTER XXIII
Wednesday, December 31, 1777– Thursday, January 1, 1778
IT IS A TRUBLESUM TIMES FOR US ALL, BUT WORS FOR THE SOLDIERS.
—LETTER OF CONNECTICUT PRIVATE ICHABOD WARD WRITTEN AT VALLEY FORGE
WE PERFORMED THE LAST DUTY FOR the dead on the last day of the year.
We heated water to wash ourselves. Silvenus, Greenlaw, John Burns, and Aaron Barry shaved the best they could without soap. I used my knife to scrape off the few hairs that grew on my chin and under my nose. The rest were still beardless. We knocked the mud from our clothes and our hair and tried to clean our boots and shoes. We did not have any black cloth to wear around our arms. Faulkner came up with the idea of marking our sleeves halfway between the wrist and elbow with a heavy line of charcoal to show our mourning.
The graveyard was hidden in a small clearing deep in the woods near General Wayne’s regiment, tucked out of sight so British spies would not know how many of our army had died. For that reason, too, there were no crosses or headstones to mark the graves. The quiet mounds in the snow would settle by spring. The enemy would never count these dead.
We dug the grave in shifts except for Eben, who did not stop shoveling, sweating, and shivering until the man-size hole was deep enough. He never wiped away the tears that washed his face, nor did he speak a word to any soul. The pines around us bent in the heavy wind.
When the grave was ready, the litter was carried from the hospital tent to the grave by Henry, Greenlaw, Eben, and me; a bleak march across the Grand Parade and past the south-facing cannons of the artillery park down the Baptist Road. The sergeant’s face and naked body were covered with a blanket, all except for his one dirty foot. Clothes were too precious to be wasted on the dead. Sergeant Woodruff would go to his eternal reward wearing what he’d been born in.
Every soldier removed his hat when we approached. The women of the camp bowed their heads. As soon as we passed them by, they all went back to work.
We set the litter next to the hole. Eben walked away and stared into the woods while we picked up his uncle, laid him in the ground, and removed the blanket.
When we were done, he came back for the short service. The chaplain read from his Bible in a quiet voice that was hard to hear over the sound of the wind in the trees. There could be no firing of guns in his honor. The ammunition had to be saved for the enemy.
When he closed the book, Captain Stanwell nodded. Silvenus, Greenlaw, and me each picked up a shovelful of dirt to begin the filling in of the grave.
“No, wait!” Eben said.
The captain put his hand on Eben’s shoulder. “Mayhaps you should head back to camp.”
“Not yet, sir. Give me one moment.”
We put the shovels down without waiting for the captain’s reply.
Eben unbuttoned his coat—his uncle’s coat, now his—and slipped one arm free of it. “Does anyone have a blade?”
We all shook our heads at this unsettling question. Burns whispered something into Aaron’s ear. Crows called from the swaying branches above.
“Why do you need a blade, lad?” the chaplain gently asked.
“To keep the dirt from his face.”
Eben wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve, then grabbed the fabric and pulled so hard, the sleeve ripped at the shoulder. He pulled again until all the stitches gave way, and then he peeled off the sleeve, stuck his naked arm back in the coat, and buttoned it. “Can you read that prayer again?”
The chaplain fingered through the pages in search of the right passage. When he began reading, Ebenezer Woodruff folded his sleeve once, knelt, and laid it across the face of his uncle.
He stood and looked at us across the open grave. “Wait till you can’t see me before you start.”
That night was my turn to stand guard. Halfway through the watch, Eben appeared out of the gloom with an armful of firewood. I took the wood from him, heaped it on the fire, and sat on the log next to him. Eben sniffed in the dark and drew shaky breaths. He did not speak until all the wood blazed and crackled.
“I got in another fight.”
“Burns?”
“No. Cousin Aaron. He said I had no right to cry on account of Uncle Caleb wasn’t my father. I swung at him and he punched back, and I lost track of myself. Next thing I knew, the fellows were pulling me off him. I’m fair certain I broke his nose.”
He sniffed again and made a gulping noise. “Uncle would be disappointed in me for fighting like that.”
“Did you live in his house?”
“Aye.” Eben cleared his throat. “My father found himself a pretty widow after Mother died. Sent me to Uncle Caleb’s.”
“How old were you?”
“Five years and seven months. Uncle Caleb and Aunt Patience didn’t have any children. They wanted me to be their son. When we enlisted, Aunt Patience made us promise not to get shot and to come home as soon as the war was over.”
A log shifted and sparks flew up. I almost told him all my secrets then because he told me his. More sparks flew and I came to my senses.
“Can I punch Aaron too?” I asked.
“Don’t. You’ll hurt your hand.” He pressed his finger against one nostril, blew out the snot, then wiped his nose on his sleeve. “All the Barrys got cast-iron heads.”
We sat knee to knee, breathing in cold air and blowing out frost the rest of that night. Above us the sky passed from the Year of Our Lord 1777 to the Year of Our Lord 1778 in darkness. Someone had stolen the moon from the sky.
CHAPTER XXIV
Thursday, January 1–Saturday, January 10, 1778
STEEL: S. IRON REFINED BY FIRE; A WEAPON.
—SAMUEL JOHNSON’S DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, PUBLISHED 1755
THE NEW YEAR COULD NOT DECIDE if it wanted to snow on us or simply throw ice at our heads. Some days were colder than I’d ever felt as a boy in Boston.
Eben asked me to divide his uncle’s clothing amongst us and explained how I should do it. Silvenus got the sergeant’s boots and also Eben’s shirt with one sleeve for use in patching the holes and tears we all had in our breeches and shirts. One pair of stockings went to Greenlaw, the other to Benny Edwards. Aaron Barry got the sergeant’s hat. Henry Barry got his gloves, for his own hands had cracked from the cold and bled every time he picked up a hatchet. I was reluctant to turn over the sergeant’s blanket to John Burns, but Eben was unbending. Faulkner was near tears when I handed him the sergeant’s worn-down pencil nubs.
When the job was done, I walked with Eben to his uncle’s grave. My neck was warmed by the scarf knitted by Aunt Patience for her late husband. Eben himself wore his uncle’s shirt and his jacket. To wear the clothes of a good man who was now dead was a sorrowful thing, to be sure, but it kept us warmer.
We removed our hats in respect as we entered the small clearing. Slushy snow covered the grave like a tattered blanket.
“The fellows are grateful,” I said after a few quiet moments. “Even the Barry brothers and Burns.”
Sleet fell on our bare heads.
“They want to do something,” I continued. “In his honor. And to thank you. Only there’s nothing to do anything with.”
He did not move.
“Eben,” I asked, “did you hear me?”
He finally lifted his head. “Tell them the best way to honor Uncle will be to beat the British come spring.”
Captain Stanwell resigned his commission, joining the flood of officers who were giving up on the army. Privates were not allowed to quit. We belonged to the army until our enlistments expired, or the war ended, or the army disbanded, which Silvenus wagered would happen before February’s end.
Our new captain wa
s named Russell, a small lawyer who kept his chin forward and his shoulders hunched like a turkey. We rarely saw him, for he was muchly involved in the business of the brigade. He ordered us to finish our hut (the most unnecessary order ever given) and promised to find us a new sergeant. He also said that he would write to the leaders of Massachusetts day and night begging for blankets and shoes.
We elected Greenlaw to be in charge of the construction until the new sergeant arrived. Each day we drew straws to see who would have to carry the firewood and who would cook and who had privy duty, if it fell to our company to clean up an overfull piss-trench or dig a new one.
John Burns volunteered to report the roll to the captain each day and run messages or requests to the brigade headquarters. We all gave the matter a hearty “Aye!” His sour humor and idleness made him the most difficult fellow to work with. I was certain he volunteered for the errand duties so he could continue his scavenging, tho’ the farms near camp had all been picked clean by then. As long as I didn’t have to put up with his noxious presence, I cared not what he did with himself.
The walls of our hut were at half height. Each night we suspended our tent canvas as a roof in the corner. We told ourselves it was a fine hut, but it most resembled a pigsty, floored with cold mud and occupied by the runts of the litter. Each morning we took down the canvas and returned to the business of chopping trees, fitting logs, mudding up the walls, and trying to build a chimney with stones and prayers. Our progress was slow but steady. After a week Greenlaw put Eben to work fashioning shingles with a froe and mallet, and we kept our eyes open for tree trunks straight enough for our roof rafters.
Reveille on the morning of the tenth day of January was extended into a quarter-day’s rest so we could all watch the execution of a soldier from the Second Virginia named John Reily. He had freed two of his friends held prisoner in the guardhouse, then the three of them tried to run away. They’d been caught and court-martialed. The two prisoners got off with two hundred lashes each, delivered on the bare back. Sergeant Reily was not so lucky.
Every soldier with enough clothes to cover himself stood silent on the Grand Parade, all eyes on the gallows. A blue-coated officer helped Reily, his hands tied behind his back, climb upon the stool that stood on the gallows platform. If Reily was crying or cursing, the wind stole the sound of it. I could hear only the fellows around me coughing and scratching.
I opened and closed my hands, though it pained me. The cold had gotten into the bones of my fingers. We’d heard of fellows losing hands and feet to the frostbite. I did not want to join their ranks.
The noose was lowered over Reily’s head. The rope was tightened around his neck.
A lone drum played.
Eben had found a small knife in the woodlot and was trying to sharpen it against a smooth stone. Benny Edwards prayed quiet and low. Henry Barry yawned. John Burns did not take his eyes from the gallows. Nor did I.
The stool was kicked away from Reily’s feet. His body jerked, then crashed to the platform.
“The rope broke!” came the shout.
We all moved forward a few paces to see what happened, but sergeants and corporals barked at us to step back. Because of the shift in the crowd, the shorter of us—namely, me and Benny—could no longer see the gallows.
“What’s going on?” Benny asked.
Greenlaw rose up on his toes, craning for a look. “Didn’t kill him,” he said. “Fellow’s standing again.”
“A broken rope at a hanging is a sign of God’s mercy,” Benny said. “He should be spared the hanging and flogged instead.”
“Can’t have lads running off because they don’t approve of the accommodations,” Silvenus hawked, then spat in the mud. “We need discipline to beat the British. He needs to hang.”
“If we defy God, we’ll never win,” Benny argued. “He will cause the army to break apart.”
“God didn’t break that rope,” I said. “It was weak from overuse.”
“Rotten, like the army,” said Aaron Barry.
“Hush,” warned his brother.
“Look around you!” Aaron opened his arms wide. “It’s a miracle more of us don’t run.”
“That’s treason,” said John Burns. “You can’t say such things. You shouldn’t even think them.”
Aaron turned on him. “You said you’d run as soon as we were paid.”
Burns scowled. “I’ve changed my mind. So should you.”
We all studied the ground, surely thinking the same thoughts. How much longer could we hold out? What would happen if we couldn’t? Soldiers had begun to desert and there was talk of mutiny in some regiments. We woke each morning not knowing if the day would bring food or despair, sunshine or death. Icy doubts were creeping into our bones.
Eben had not been following any of this, so intent was he on sharpening his newfound knife. “Blast!” he murmured.
“Won’t hold an edge?” asked Greenlaw.
“Likely why it was abandoned,” Eben said.
“There’s a fellow up there about to die and you’re complaining about a dull blade,” said Benny. “You should have more respect.”
“I have plenty of respect for him,” snapped Eben, turning so that his back was to the gallows. “So much so that I don’t want to watch.” He looked at me. “If I heated up this blade red-hot, like in a forge, could you pound on it and make it into steel?”
“Doubtful,” I said.
“Why not?” Eben asked.
“Some iron has a magical quality that comes out when you work it. If that knife was made from such iron, it would stay sharp. No amount of forging will make a difference.”
“Huh.” Silvenus spat again. “Sounds like this godforsaken place.”
“We can mine iron here?” Eben asked.
“No, blunderhead,” Silvenus said. “This camp is a forge for the army; it’s testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?”
The gallows drum beat again. The second rope was ready. The wind shifted to the northwest, carrying the stench of rotting horse flesh. The crowd fell quiet.
Reily stepped on the stool, then bowed his head for the noose. Benny Edwards bowed his head, too. The officer kicked the stool away.
This time the rope did not break.
Captain Russell hurried toward us as soon as we were dismissed, walking with unusual vigor with his shoulders pulled down where they belonged.
“Good news, lads!” The captain’s smile made him near unrecognizable.
“Yessir.” We touched the brims of our hats and caps.
“The brigadier general has approved my recommendation.” Captain Russell motioned for Burns to step up alongside him. “Your new sergeant is Mister Burns here, who has recently proved an able assistant to me. I am sure you will all accord him the respect and obedience he deserves.”
Burns studied us all gape-mouthed at this news, then focused his attention upon me like a weasel baiting a fox.
“I know these men well, sir,” he said. “I will not let you down.”
CHAPTER XXV
Sunday, January 11–Monday, January 19, 1778
JETHRO, A NEGRO FROM GUILFORD BELONGING TO CAPT. HALL’S COMPANY, DIED.
—SEVENTH CONNECTICUT SURGEON’S MATE JONATHAN TODD, LETTER TO HIS FATHER
BURNS WAS EVER WATCHFUL OF MY movements, looking for an excuse to report or punish me. I stayed alert to the point of exhaustion, waiting for the blow to fall or disaster to strike. I took care to act the model soldier—never late for duties or shirking my share of the work. John Burns did not speak to me. He just stared.
Eben sensed the threat and roused from his melancholy to become my shadow again. He never let me walk alone, which was as comforting as it was annoying, and cautioned me constantly to guard my temper and my tongue.
But Burns did nothing.
He did not single me out, or spread falsehoods about me, or manufacture an excuse to send me to the gu
ardhouse in shackles. In fact, other than the staring, his actions for the next fortnight were exemplary. He continued our democratic habit of rotating the duties of the company. He secured an extra froe to speed up the shingle-making and delivered a rasp so we could smooth planks of wood. The new tools were certainly stolen. Burns told us to bury them in the snow if anyone came nosing around.
He conjured up food, too, appearing after dark with extra bread, butter, peas, and, once, a piece of meat, still warm from cooking.
“Those Rhode Island bandits are too fat for their own good,” he said. “Eat quick and don’t ask questions.”
First Benny Edwards warmed to the new sergeant, then Faulkner and Greenlaw joined him for a game of cards, and soon old Silvenus started to laugh at his feeble jokes. Eben remained on his guard, thank goodness.
And me? I did not sleep much.
We finished our hut a week after Burns was raised to sergeant. It had no window and the chimney smoked fierce, but it was a palace compared to what we’d been accustomed to.
The first night properly enhutted, we slept sitting up, for there was not enough room for everyone to lie down at once. Next day we constructed sleeping shelves called “bunks.” We dug postholes in the floor, then stood poles in them. We lashed more poles crosswise, with Silvenus making sure our knots were tight enough. We laid planks on the poles to create sleeping platforms; one close to the floor, one an arm’s length above that, and the third above the second. Six fellows could sleep on the left side of the hut and six could sleep on the right. Burns somehow acquired straw to spread out on our platforms, which made for a softer laydown.