Washington and Caesar

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.