Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence (24 page)

Chapter 12

B
enjamin Franklin took his seat at the head of the long table. He adjusted his glasses and peered at the men gathered in the small room. They were the cream of the crop of the small army’s leaders. God help us, he thought, as he gazed at Schuyler, Wayne, Morgan, Glover, and Tallmadge. Only von Steuben wasn’t present. He was away with his Hessians and had said that he would support any decision that was made, just as long as he wasn’t given the command.

“The time for dreaming and hoping is over, gentlemen,” Franklin began. “Nathanael Greene is well and truly dead. And now the army needs a leader, a man who can inspire confidence in our soldiers and a sense of dread in the enemy. All of you are candidates for the position, yet all of you have serious flaws. Like it or not, I shall enumerate them.”

There was a small amount of shuffling that Franklin ignored. “You, General Schuyler, are a major general and, thus, the highest ranking officer at Fort Washington. By rights, you should have the command. Yet, the rank and file and many of the officers have no confidence in you because of what happened in the past.”

“Unfair,” said Schuyler, shaking his head sadly.

“Life is not fair,” Franklin retorted. “I too believe you were shabbily treated when you were removed from command by Congress, but it was done and cannot be undone any more than Ticonderoga can be returned to you. I believe that, if you were named to command now, many of our soldiers would simply melt away into the wilderness. Still, your obvious skills at organizing this settlement and creating the army we have cannot be denied. Indeed, they must be continued, which is a good reason for keeping you where you are. Without you, I am afraid that we would have starved to death a long time ago.”

Schuyler accepted the compliment with a small smile. “My work has been made easier these past few weeks thanks to the Jew, Goldman, and the Dutch woman, Van Doorn.”

Franklin understood the implication. Thanks to Goldman and Van Doorn, Schuyler would be free to lead the army in battle if named to command. He wanted it. He wanted to be vindicated. It wouldn’t happen.

“Tallmadge,” Franklin continued. “You have never led an army. Do you wish to start now?”

“Good God, no,” Tallmadge said with enough emphasis to make the others laugh.

“Nor do I,” said Brigadier General John Glover.

Franklin smiled. He appreciated their candor. “I didn’t think so. So that leaves General Wayne and General Morgan, unless you wish me to promote von Steuben.”

“That would be a disaster,” said Schuyler. “He is a fraud, has no command experience, and barely speaks English.”

“But he is such a genial fraud,” Franklin said. Franklin had given the rank of general to that genial fraud because he’d been convinced that Steuben could be of great use to the army, and that confidence had been proven correct many times over.

Franklin turned to Anthony Wayne. “But you are right. Von Steuben the German could never command an army of Americans.” He turned to Wayne. “Do you think you are ready for the honor, General Wayne?”

Wayne paled. He was ambitious and skilled, but inexperienced. He knew that his relative youth—he was under forty—was also against him. That and many considered his tendency to impetuousness to count against him.

“If offered, I would accept,” he said softly. “And I would do my best.”

“Thank you, and no man could ask for more than that,” Franklin said. “And you, General Morgan?”

Morgan, the gruff Old Wagoneer and veteran of numerous battles and campaigns, snorted, “I’d take it in a heartbeat if I were younger and in better health. And then I’d kick Burgoyne’s ass all the way back to London.”

He could have done it, too, thought Franklin. But Morgan’s health was against him. Although only a decade older than Wayne, the harsh and rugged life he’d led now conspired to keep him largely immobile. He’d had to be carried in a litter on many occasions because of the crippling aches in his bones.

Morgan shook his head sadly. “I could fight a battle, Benjamin, but I could not fight a campaign.”

Again Franklin smiled. Morgan understood exactly. There would likely be a campaign against the British, not just a climactic battle. He wondered if Schuyler and Wayne understood that.

Morgan leaned back in his chair and winced from the pain in his lower back. “It looks like all of us are soiled virgins, Benjamin. What will you do?”

Franklin smiled impishly. “John Hancock once offered to lead the army. Perhaps he can be talked into it again.”

There were brays of laughter. “Johnny Hancock doesn’t even know which end of a musket to use,” Morgan said and then turned serious. “Benjamin, you didn’t bring us here to ridicule us or to choose any one of us. You’re too damned smart for that. You already have a man, don’t you?”

“General Glover,” Franklin smiled impishly and said, “Would you be so kind as to bring in your good friend and traveling companion?”

Glover stepped away and into another room. He returned in a moment with a thin man with long white hair and a full white beard. He wore a suit of dark blue cloth, which was vaguely military. Tallmadge recognized him as the man who had arrived at the tail of Glover’s column. Then the light dawned.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

The white-bearded man smiled. “Don’t blaspheme. I am not Jesus, Tallmadge. The beard has fooled better men than you.”

“Enough,” said Glover, grinning. “Since not everyone recognizes you, introduce yourself to the others, sir. Give them your name.”

“John Stark.”

* * *

Further discussions regarding leadership of the army were anticlimactic. Franklin asked Stark if he would command the Continental forces at Fort Washington and he agreed that he would. Franklin then asked the other assembled generals whether they supported Stark’s ascension to command. They did. For a moment it appeared that Schuyler would protest, but he did not. Some later thought he hesitated, but they may have been wrong. But who could have begrudged Schuyler a moment’s pause at what might have been?

John Stark was in his mid-fifties and, thanks to the beard and the hard life he’d recently led, looked older. Still, he was in far better health than Morgan.

Stark explained that he had escaped the British sweep by the simple accident of being out fishing when the British had descended on his home.

“When I returned home I found my house burned to the ground and my wife beaten to death. Why did they have to kill Molly?” he said, the anger surging. “I can only surmise that they thought she knew where I’d gone, but she didn’t. All she knew was that I’d gone fishing, but had no idea exactly where and there were a score of places to choose from. So in their blind anger, they killed her.”

Stark blinked away the sudden moistness in his eyes. “I figured they’d be back looking for me and, a few days later, they were, but this time I was waiting. There were just a three of them so I killed two of them right off. I shot one with my musket and killed the second with my knife. The third one ran. I know who he is and maybe someday I’ll catch up to him as well. Then I took some supplies and, after saying goodbye at my wife’s grave, headed into the woods.”

“Which is where I found him,” Glover said quietly. “Eating berries and nuts and looking like shit. I thought, is this what the man who saved our left flank at Bunker’s Hill and destroyed the British advance on Bennington deserved to become? I convinced him to come with us.”

“It was not my choice. He dragged me along,” said Stark with a trace of a smile.

Glover’s meeting him was not quite accidental. Glover had known of Stark’s escape and had gone to find him en route to Fort Washington with his regiment of Marblehead men.

“So what are your plans now that you command us?” asked Franklin.

Stark glowered and there was a sudden fire in his eyes. “To destroy the British. When they move on us I want to make every step a living hell for them. I want them to pay in blood for Molly and everyone else they’ve killed or abused.”

“That’s not quite a civilized approach to war,” said Franklin.

“War is always barbaric,” Stark retorted. “And anyone who attempts to put rules to it is a fool, and anyone who thinks that any war can be civilized is worse than a fool. War is the killing of people by other people. It is mean, miserable, and destructive. It blows human flesh to pieces and leaves the survivors screaming for mercy, and their widows and children to starve.”

“Is it safe to say you will fight such an uncivilized war?” asked a mildly surprised Schuyler.

“I will use any and all means at my disposal to kill them,” Stark said. “We will poison their wells and their food, and knife them in their sleep.” He turned to Franklin. “And for you, most revered doctor, I wish you to use your most inventive mind to conjure up diabolic devices to assist me.”

Franklin looked shocked. He had never before been asked to do any such thing. Even his invention of the weapon that bore his name was more of a lark than a serious endeavor. And the production of muskets and pikes was nothing at all unique. He wanted to prove his concept of using interchangeable parts, not necessarily destroy people. “I will do it,” he finally said.

“I have one question,” said Glover in an attempt to lighten the mood. “John Stark, how the hell much longer are you going to keep that ugly damned beard?”

“Until the last Redcoat is gone.”

* * *

Erich von Blumberg was a colonel in the army of Hesse. He arrived at Detroit accompanied by a hundred or so Hessian soldiers. They’d come by boat, jammed in one of the barges, which made their journey somewhat more comfortable than marching along the coast.

Von Blumberg was in his early forties, stout, and wore his gaudily colored uniform and numerous medals as if he’d been born to them, which he had. Military service to the rulers of Hesse ran deep in his family. His command of the English language was excellent and he was angry.

“What you are telling me, my dear General Burgoyne, is that you have managed to round up only four deserters?”

“If indeed they are deserters,” Fitzroy answered for his general. “We began with twenty and, after careful investigation concluded that only these four could possibly have been in your army.”

The Hessian stood and stared directly into Fitzroy’s face. “Why? Who gave you such wisdom?”

Fitzroy decided he would like to slap the pompous twit. “Common sense, Colonel. Several of the twenty were very young boys and others were very old men. A few were crippled and at least one was a babbling idiot. How many such ancients, infants, cripples, and idiots do you have in the armies of Hesse and the other German states?”

“None,” von Blumberg said grudgingly as he ignored the jibe.

“You’ve interviewed the four,” Burgoyne said to von Blumberg. “What do you make of them?”

“I want them hanged.”

“But what proof do you have that they were ever in the army of Hesse or any other principality?” asked Fitzroy.

“They are Germans and they are the right age.”

“But Colonel,” Fitzroy continued, “Germans have lived here for decades, generations. I interviewed them too, and they all claimed to be born here. How can you be certain they are your deserters? And wouldn’t they be beyond stupid to live near a British army encampment if they were deserters?”

Von Blumberg glared at him. “And perhaps they are stupid, Major. I talked with them and I am convinced there is a strong likelihood that they are deserters.”

“But likelihood is not proof,” Fitzroy insisted. “Would you hang men who might just be innocent?”

Von Blumberg merely sniffed. “Innocence and guilt are totally irrelevant. They must hang as an example to others that the armies of the German states are not to be trifled with. We had a contract with Lord North to provide soldiers and there have been so many desertions that they have cost us money as well as credibility.”

“But you’re not positive of their guilt, are you?” Fitzroy repeated, thinking that the Hessians had been sent to the colonies as cannon fodder, little more than brutally drilled puppets. Who wouldn’t desert under the circumstances? North America was a huge continent in which a man could disappear.

Von Blumberg pulled a piece of paper from his jacket. “This is from your king, who is, you will recall, of the Germanic House of Hanover, which he still rules along with reigning in England. He says that I and I alone will determine who is a deserter. You don’t have to be convinced of their guilt, only I do.”

He turned to Burgoyne. “According to my orders you are required to turn those men over to me and I demand it be done immediately. If any of the others your major so foolishly let loose are still around, I wish them taken and hanged as well.”

“They have departed,” Burgoyne said stiffly and glancing at Fitzroy who nodded. If the others hadn’t yet departed, they would soon be far, far away. “As to these four, they are yours. I cannot prevent you from taking them, however much I too doubt their guilt.”

Less than an hour later, the four men were dragged from their prison by von Blumberg’s men. Chains shackled their hands and feet, which made them shuffle rather than walk. They were confused and stared around at the growing crowd. A rough scaffold had been hastily thrown up and they were dragged to it. Nooses were placed around their necks. One man began to scream while another prayed loudly in German when they realized what was going to happen to them. The men were hauled up on barrels and, without ceremony and only a moment later, the barrels were kicked away.