Smutchy was cleaning his rifle when he discovered, to his surprise, that in the excitement and confusion of battle he had put no fewer than four cartridges into his piece. His mouth being so busy with Hot staff, he had not thought to bite off the ends: he had snapped his piece in vain, because he had also omitted to prime the pan. If these cartridges had exploded together the overcharge would have burst the gun and perhaps injured him fatally. ‘However,’ Smutchy said, ‘there was no confusion as to my baggonet’; and, glancing at it, I observed blood upon the blade. There was a sudden sick revulsion in my belly at the sight of a fellow-creature’s blood smeared on steel, and I went apart into the bushes and vomited.
This having been a hand-to-hand engagement, unlike my first skirmish at Three Rivers, I must describe the course of my feelings during and after it. Before the fight opened, I was seized with apprehensions, in the knowledge that my life hung upon awful accident. This natural instinct, the anxiety for self-preservation, caused a quick pulsation and agitated my breast; so that during the hot climb up the hill-side my lungs came nigh to bursting. But, at the moment when the first bullet whizzed by me, all emotion vanished, my breast calmed, and my limbs drew upon an unsuspected source of energy. I was entirely lost in the ardour of the battle, wherein it was my duty not only to fight but to direct others in fighting. Reflection upon the brutal nature of war or the sanctity of human life suffered temporary suspense; I acted like one in a trance; and trees, bushes, my comrades, the enemy, were as one sees pictures dancing in the flames of an open fire. It was not until we came to burying the dead that a thousand severe and painful feelings recalled the thoughtful mind and all the affections. The sight, especially, of dear comrades agonized with mortal wounds harrowed the recesses of my heart – some writhing and groaning in misery, some with brains oozing from shattered skulls, others sitting up or leaning on their elbows, pale with loss of blood, observing with a dull horror the extent of their injuries. I suffered sorrowful pangs, too, for the ragged enemy dead, whose cause their stubborn courage had in a manner ennobled. Worse than this, we found among the bushes two unfortunate Americans, wounded in the legs, who had lost their scalps to the Wyandots, but were pronounced recoverable by the surgeon. It was shocking to see a live man so ferociously disfigured; and I wondered that I had ever allowed myself to be enrolled in an Indian tribe.
I found occasion for reflection, too, upon the hairbreadth escapes with which many had been blessed in battle, while others were terribly taken off in the first onset. Lord Balcarres, our tall, gallant commander, whose glittering uniform made him the target of every rifleman in the American rear-guard, had his coat and trousers pierced with about thirty balls, yet escaped with a slight flesh wound in the hip; while Lieutenant Haggard of The Marines was shot dead between the eyes in the opening attack, and Major Grant of The Twenty-fourth through the heart, before ever the battle was joined – having been twice wounded in previous wars at this very placer
Not only solemn emotions possessed my unwrought mind. I recall with what an excess of laughter I greeted the story of Captain Harris’s wound and his humorous sally. He was commanding the Grenadiers of The Thirty-fourth when he was struck, and scrambled on hands and knees to the shelter of a tree. Lieutenant Anburey of The Fourteenth, passing by, asked him: ‘Are you badly hurt?’ Though in great agony from a broken hip-bone, he clapped his hand to the part adjoining, which had also been pierced, and with an arch look, replied: ‘You can ask my a—e, Anburey, you can ask my a—e!’
Now, a disagreeable happening to be related will show that the agreed rules of civilized warfare were either despised as tyrannical or not well understood by the New England soldiery. Stratagems and ruses are one thing, but to trade cunningly upon the mercy and humanity of the foe, quite another. General Schuyler, for example, made use of a legitimate and witty ruse about this time. He arranged for a letter written by himself, as from a Tory partisan behind the American lines, and enclosed in the false bottom of a canteen, to fall into General Burgoyne’s hands, which perplexed him for days.
But an altogether different case was presented at this battle of Hibberton (or Huberton or Hubbardtown as it was indifferently named). Two companies of Grenadiers stationed in the skirts of the wood, close to a clearing, observed a force of about sixty Americans coming across this clearing with their arms ‘clubbed’ or reversed, the recognized sign of soldiers who wish to surrender. The Grenadiers held their fire and stood in a relaxed posture, ready to disarm such voluntary prisoners; but when these had come within ten yards they turned their muskets round in a single concerted motion, and, firing a destructive volley upon the Grenadiers, ran as fast as they could into the contiguous forest.
This seeming treachery greatly exasperated the surviving Grenadiers, who gave no quarter for the remainder of the campaign; but I would name it ignorance rather than treachery – a mistaken application to warfare of a principle allowed as legitimate in trade throughout New England. The principle was that of caveat emptor, ‘let the purchaser beware of being over-reached’, and the good people of Massachusetts and Connecticut would tell you droll tales for your entertainment of how they had tricked and defrauded, not only strangers but friends and neighbours, in a manner that in Great Britain or Ireland would bar them from the society of respectable men. I was a long time accustoming myself, during my residence in America, to this moral obliquity, which I will say, however, very positively, did not belie their natural good fellowship and hospitality. Rather it was a sort of sport with them, as among the knavish, jovial horse-swappers of Yorkshire, or the tinkers of my own country. Yet it must have caused a householder a deal of inconvenience never to be sure that the sack of corn that he had accepted as ‘country pay’ – for where coin is scarce one must pay in kind – might not in reality be one-third corn and two-thirds chaff mixed with earth; or that in a consignment of hams that he had bought for his winter use from a travelling merchant, one-half might not be made of bass-wood, carved and painted to a lifelike similitude of the sample he had approved. If he were duped, he was expected to laugh heartily and to remark: ‘I guess it was a regular pedlar’s trick and serves me well right for being so green and sleepy-eyed.’ Nor was scriptural authority wanting for this smartness. The son of Sirach in the Book of Wisdom had declared: ‘A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doing wrong, and a huckster shall not be declared free from sin.’
The enemy had fled in great disorder, leaving two hundred dead on the field, and many more disabled by wounds: besides, the remains of a whole regiment, two hundred men, gave themselves up. But we did not press the pursuit for fear of out-running our supplies, of which we were so deficient that our breakfast that morning was bullock’s flesh broiled in the wood-ashes and eaten without bread or salt; these animals were found running in the wood. We were not to know that General St Clair’s failure to reinforce his rear-guard had been due to the contumacious refusal of two militia regiments to march; and that, had we pressed the pursuit, we might have captured prisoners by the thousand, and supported ourselves upon the food and ammunition that they strewed behind them in their rout.
General Fraser had immediately dispatched a messenger to General Burgoyne, should he be at Ticonderoga, acquainting him with his success. He now desired to send the same message to him at Skenesborough, should he have succeeded in destroying the enemy’s forces at the bottom of the South River, and reached that place, whither he himself now intended to march. He therefore called for a volunteer to carry the message ahead of his advance; and when I informed his aide-de-camp that I had lived for three months among the Mohawk Indians, and was ready to go, the mission was confided to me. The General allowed me to choose a companion; Mad Johnny Maguire at once recommended himself. We set off together a few minutes later, being ordered to travel as expeditiously as possible. We took the road through Castleton, a wretched hamlet of twenty houses, which lay a few miles away. This place we avoided by a circuit, for fear of meeting the enemy, but stumbled on a great stone
jar of cider in a field near by, covered with grasses against the sun, and refreshed ourselves from it.
It was not until the middle of the morning that we observed armed Americans: a large party of militia marching up the road towards us.
Chapter XXI
OUR FLEET, having forced the bridge at Ticonderoga, had pursued the enemy vessels down the South River and overtaken them in the afternoon previous to our Hibberton battle. There was no escape for the Americans, who were at anchor in South Bay, a naval station close to Skenesborough. Two of the five galleys struck their flags, the remaining three were burned by their own crews: of more than two hundred batteaux the most were captured and the remainder sunk. The Americans, as they retreated, set fire to their stockaded fort, their storehouses, saw-mills, forges, repair-sheds, slips. The flame caught the hanging forest above the station, and up it all went in the greatest conflagration imaginable. Not one earthly thing was saved for the Americans, of whom about thirty were intercepted and captured by men of The Ninth, who had been disembarked before the attack began and ascended the hill from the flank. Others fled towards Castleton; and these were the men whom Maguire and I now observed coming towards us down the Castleton road.
Since we had no wish to engage in any fighting, we concealed ourselves in the bushes and let them go by; our vanguard would snap them up, we judged, in an hour or two. I had suggested the precaution of turning our jackets inside out, so that the fustian lining should show, instead of the scarlet, and render us less conspicuous – but Maguire said that this fashion reminded him too sadly of punishment drill at Waterford Barracks; he begged me not to make it an order. Since the scarlet of both our jackets was faded almost to a brick colour from long exposure to the torrid sun, I consented.
A party of about twenty Americans went by, arguing loudly among themselves on politics, their muskets slung. Behind them came two more men, a little dandiacal officer and a huge hairy-bosomed private soldier who limped. The private, as he passed our lodge, cried to the other: ‘Hold hard, Andy, there’s a tarnationed stone in my shoe. I must halt to shake it out.’
‘I am thankful of a respite, Neighbour Benaiah,’ replied the officer smoothly, sitting down plump a few paces from us. ‘But, hark ye, I can’t rightly agree with you that the Britainers intend to push on beyond Skenesborough. I calculate that ’tis but a feint to deceive us, and that’s the reason of the plan of attack being openly published and advertised these months afore. No, my dear Benaiah, Johnny Burgine an’t a-going to march down south on Albany with but eight thousand men agin the full thirty thousand we can oppose to him – for who’s to guard his communications, eh? Be sure old nasty Carleton won’t, seeing that he is Johnny’s mortal foe and eaten with jealousy. No, no, dear Benaiah, and Billy Howe an’t a-going to move up North to meet him, neither, and I’ll tell you for why. I calculate old Billy Howe’s a-going to transport his army by sea and land to the neighbourhood of Boston – for Boston, as we all know, is the centre and hearth of Independency; and Johnny Burgine, he’ll return all his men, but a few, back up the Lakes and down the St Lawrence River and join forces with him within the month. The Britainers an’t such fools as they pretend, not by nation much, that they an’t. I’m bound back home to Boston to repel the landing with God’s help, and I’m a-taking the company with me.’
‘No, neighbour Andy,’ said Benaiah, ‘that you are not. You shall stay here to captain us, you tarnal skunk, or we’ll shoot you for sure. No hooking it off and giving us the slip, mind, you jockey! The bloody-backed rascals are here, and here we’ll fight ’em, so soon as ever we have refilled our pouches and sacks.’
The officer attempted to reply, but Benaiah with a growl told him to hold his rattle. Just then we heard shots, as of a brisk skirmish at some distance away in the direction whither we had been proceeding; whereupon the two Americans arose, the man Benaiah coolly and resolutely, his officer showing great apprehension, and passed on.
Maguire and I, who had both experienced a great desire to burst into laughter during this confabulation, now went cautiously in the direction of the shots. They ceased as we approached, and soon we came in sight of a detachment of our own regiment, under Captain Montgomery, who had secured a number of prisoners and were about to return to Skenesborough with them. We directed Captain Montgomery in the pursuit of Captain Andy’s company; and in return he told us where to find General Burgoyne, to whom our message was addressed. We delivered it to him that evening, having come a matter of thirty miles, and arrived three hours in advance of the brigade. General Burgoyne was most affable to us and greatly encouraged by the news. Our reward was a bumper of Madeira wine apiece.
On his informing us that The Ninth had been detached that morning in pursuit of the enemy, who were retreating by Wood Creek towards Fort Anna, and that hard fighting was there expected, we begged leave to be allowed to join them; our excuse was that we bore a report to Lieutenant-Colonel John Hill, who now commanded The Ninth, of the losses we had suffered at Hibberton. These included the captain of our Grenadier Company, dead of his wounds, and a lieutenant seriously injured. The General consented to our petition, and we joined Captain Montgomery, who was proceeding in the same direction. The next morning we were rowed up Wood Creek, which was shaded by enormous trees, in cedar-wood canoes: a gracious voyage. At the point where we were obliged to disembark because of obstructions in the stream made by the retreating enemy, we found ourselves in a camp of about five hundred Algonquin and Wyandot Indians, under the charge of the Deputy-Quartermaster-General of our army, Captain J. Money of The Ninth; they directed us to the Regiment. Several of these savages wore bloody scalps attached to their belts, and I observed with horror and disgust that one of these was that of a fair-haired woman. The warrior who wore it seemed fatigued after a long journey, and was rolling in the grass to refresh himself, as if he were a horse.
After marching along difficult roads and wading through rivulets, where the bridges had been destroyed by the enemy, we overtook our comrades about dusk. They had captured a number of American boats in Wood Creek laden with luggage, women and invalids, and were now encamped within a quarter of a mile of Fort Anna, which appeared to be strongly held. The fort consisted of a wide square formed by palisades with loop-holes between; inside was a large block-house and a store-shed. The whole stood on a slight eminence above the creek, with a sawmill adjacent, the mill-race of which gushed from a steep wooded hill.
I handed the message to Colonel Hill, who complimented me upon the speed with which I had delivered it. Knowing that I had some slight knowledge of surgery, he bade me report to Surgeon Shelly (who had exchanged with Surgeon Lindsay from another regiment) as his mate; for a hot engagement was expected. Maguire he ordered to remain with Captain Montgomery’s company. We lay upon our arms all night, and I confess that I slept well, undisturbed by fears of the morrow, for I now accounted myself a veteran soldier. Lest the enemy should slip away from us, we had posted piquets on the skirts of the wood around the Fort, in front of which there was a cleared held of about a hundred paces broad. The enemy did not hold the sawmill, which lay outside the palisade.
The weather was sultry and a storm approached, to judge by the distant rumblings of thunder to the northward; but when dawn showed, the sky was still clear, though sudden gusts of wind blew hither and thither.
A man then came running out from the Fort, pursued with musketry-fire, which, however, did not injure him. He declared breathlessly that he was a loyal subject of King George and willing to serve in our ranks. Being questioned, he said that the thousand men in the Fort were in great consternation, as expecting to be attacked and stormed by us immediately. By the detachment of our flank-companies to General Fraser’s division, The Ninth were reduced in strength to less than two hundred men, including the officers. Colonel Hill therefore instantly sent off a message to General Burgoyne, asking for support; for the rest of our brigade lay eight or ten miles away. The pretended deserter then slipped away, and it proved that he
had been sent to spy out our weakness: for within half an hour the Americans came pouring out of the Fort with great fury and shouting.
The sentinels of the piquets immediately discharged their pieces, and their comrades hastened up from the woods to support them. A number of Americans fell. The remainder ran back to the palisade, re-formed, and came on again with redoubled violence. From where I stood with Surgeon Shelly, carrying his salve-box and bandages in my hand, I could see nothing, for the woods were very thick; but Captain Montgomery came marching by us with his company and we fell in behind. The noise of musketry in a close wood is very terrible, the discharges echoing from tree to tree and the bullets smacking among the leaves. Our whole line held firm and we shot down a number of men; but the rest ran across our right flank and we could hear their officers bawling to them to ‘Follow up, follow up.’ Colonel Hill then put us to a severe test of drill by bidding us change front and retire up the hill to our left. At this moment a party of Americans in blue and buff came at us, firing as they advanced; Captain Montgomery fell, wounded in the thigh, from which the blood rose in a little fountain. Surgeon Shelly had just finished dressing the wound of another man with my assistance. He ran to the Captain’s side and says he to me: ‘Sergeant Lamb, while I press upon the artery, wind the tourniquet tightly, close above.’
I complied with his order. We were glad of Mad Johnny Maguire’s protection, for he ran forward with charged bayonet and sent the foremost Americans back; then returned to us, observing in a matter-of-fact voice, to the wounded Captain: ‘They don’t take the bayonet home, your Honour, so naturally as they should.’