Your loving wife,
Eliza
And they say I am the eloquent one, Alex thought as he wiped at his eyes, which had grown curiously moist.
“Must be the dust,” he said wryly, though no one was there to hear him. He folded the letter quickly and put it away in his pocket; the words within it had stirred his soul and spurred him forward—he grabbed his bayoneted rifle and an axe leaning against a tent pole and ran outside, ready for battle.
A quick glance showed him that Laurens, Gimat, and Fish had taken their positions at the heads of their respective battalions. Their men were arranged in line on one knee, like so many sprinters at their marks.
“On my command!” he called out.
No one answered him, yet there was a palpable sense of attention—of leather creaking and sabers rattling in their sheaths.
A moment later, the first cannon barked its explosive BOOM! and a whistling tore through the night.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
One after another, the cannons fired. By the time the fifth went off, the first shell was exploding high in the sky. A flash, as of long, slow, branched lightning, turned night to day, exposing four hundred grim, determined faces.
“Sappers forward!” Alex yelled.
Fish’s faint voice answered him, even as the flash flickered out. “Sappers forward!”
Twenty men sprang up as the second shell exploded, puncturing the darkness with another brilliant flash of light. The next several minutes were an eerie spectacle, as darkness fell only to be ripped away again and again. With each flash of light, the sappers seemed to have surged ahead like hungry swarming locusts, breaking into two groups and advancing toward the long line of angled pikes, or abatis, that formed the first line of British defense. Hop, hop, hop, hop: Every flash brought the two mobs five feet closer to the thicket of sharply pointed trunks and limbs. Then, as the last shell exploded, Fish’s men were upon them, their axes and saws glinting in the final flickering light.
Ribbons of smoke drifted down from the sky, lighter than the renewed darkness, and a smell of burned gunpowder wafted through the air. From across the wide no-man’s-land could be heard a bugle on the far side of the palisade.
“We are under attack!” Alex was just able to hear a British voice call. “The rebels are coming!”
We are rebels no longer, Alex thought. We are Americans.
He pulled his watch from its pocket and glanced at it in the glow of a shaded lantern. Some two minutes had elapsed since Fish’s men had charged forward. He thought of the major’s boast that his team would have breached the pikes in that time, and almost considered ordering the charge ahead of schedule. Each minute saved would give the British that much less time to prepare their defenses.
Calm yourself, Colonel, he told himself in his best approximation of Laurens’s voice.
The subsequent two minutes were the longest of his life. As the clock ticked its final seconds, he raised his axe high above his head. Again, the sense of tensing bodies and focused attention rippled across the arrayed men. His watch ticked past the 120-second mark.
“Charge!” he screamed, then turned and ran toward the enemy’s walls.
The next minutes were a blur. Alex had a vision of himself as from the British palisade, racing forward with his hatchet held above him. Behind him he heard a great roar as nearly four hundred soldiers let out a blood-curdling cry and surged after him. The thud of their boots—even Corporal Fromm’s worn-out ones—shook the ground beneath his feet. Rather than throw him off balance, though, they propelled him forward like a swimmer on a wave being hurtled toward shore.
In the ghostly light of the partial moon, a shadowy wall appeared in front of him. In three more steps, he could see it clearly enough to tell that it was the British abatis. The enemy soldiers had cut thousands of branches and slim trunks from nearby forests and orchards, leaving the twigs and leaves attached at one end but sharpening the thicker part into evil-looking points. The branches were netted together and weighed down with rocks so that a spike-fronted wall nearly five feet tall faced the advancing soldiers. Anyone who ran headlong into them would be impaled in a dozen different places. Anyone who stopped to pull the wall apart faced being picked off by enemy rifles.
But Major Fish’s sappers had done their work. A pale void opened up in the prickly wall, no more than five feet wide, but large enough so that three men could run through abreast. The confluence was still dangerous, but safer than attempting to try to scale the timber wall piecemeal.
The enemy will concentrate their fire on the breaches, Alex thought.
As if an answer, Alex heard the familiar pop of a rifle from about a hundred feet away, and one of the sappers fell to the ground. Alex didn’t pause to see if the man were dead or capable of being saved. Helping one man risked losing a dozen, a hundred others. He leapt the body of his fallen compatriot and continued to race forward, joined now by the sappers, who had dropped their saws and pulled out axes. Together with the horde of soldiers behind them, they ran toward the next obstacle, the twenty-foot-tall wall of the palisade itself. The palisade was made of the tree trunks from which the pikes had been sheared. Some were a foot thick and more, tightly bound together with hempen rope and smeared with pitch besides, to make them all but unclimbable.
This was the most dangerous part of the mission. The only way into the British fort was through the palisade. Literally. With axes. It would take at least ten minutes to cut through the walls, during which every American soldier would be a sitting target for British soldiers firing down from the walls. Men would die. There was no getting around it. But there was no other way.
Alex reached the wall first, his axe still shaking over his head. He glanced up the wall and saw a pale face looking down at him over the long snout of a rifle. He threw himself to the side as a cloud of smoke burst from the rifle and heard the whizz of a musket ball fly past his ear even before he heard the report of the weapon. He rolled on the ground but was up immediately, shaking his axe at the face above him, knowing it would be half a minute and more before the man could reload his gun. He drove the axe into the timber wall of the fort, biting a chunk of wood from it and leaving a pale cut behind, then waved the axe at the soldier above him.
“The next cut is in your skull, you British blackguard!”
It was all theater, of course, both to frighten the enemy and rouse his own men. Having struck the symbolic first blow, he handed off his axe to the first Continental soldier who came within reach.
“Sappers, get those ladders in place!” he called to four teams of men, each of whom carried a twenty-five-foot ladder. The purpose of the ladders wasn’t to get the men into the fort, just to apply extra pressure on the British defenders, and draw their fire. The sappers leaned the ladders against the walls and fearlessly began scaling them. As expected, the British concentrated their guns on the ladders, lest the sappers take the upper tier of the wall and all but assure that the Continental forces would break through.
“Rear line, fall in!” Alex called. “Take out those defenders! Protect our boys on the wall!”
A predetermined group of twenty men fell to a knee behind the advancing soldiers and trained their rifles on the top of the palisade. They fired in rounds, five men shooting, then reloading while the next five fired and the next and the next, keeping a steady round of bullets flying at the wall. It was unlikely that they would hit the British soldiers, who were protected behind the spike top of the palisade, but their fire kept the enemy jumping about, making it harder for them to take aim at the sappers scaling the ladders.
At the same time, nearly fifty Continental soldiers armed with axes began hacking at the base of the walls. There were so many blades flashing in the moonlight that it seemed as if a swarm of fireflies had appeared out of thin air. The rain of repetitive blows against the timber walls sounded like a flock of maniacal woodp
eckers. Wood chips flew through the air like sawdust. It seemed like the trunks would collapse in seconds. But wood is wood, and not even bloodlust can make it disappear. The blades continued to flash, but the wood held. There was nothing to do but wait until the wall fell.
On the near ladder, the first sapper reached the top of the wall. His rifle was at his shoulder in an instant, and he fired. Then, with the agility of a monkey, he swung about to the underside of the ladder and swung himself to the ground, allowing the next soldier to charge for the top.
At the next ladder over, however, things didn’t go so smoothly. The sapper reached the top of the wall, but before he could bring his weapon to bear, a shot ran out and he fell backward off the rungs. One of his feet caught the soldier behind him, nearly knocking him from the ladder. Only when he saw the tattered sole of the falling soldier’s boot did Alex recognize him. Corporal Fromm.
But there wasn’t time to mourn. Alex dropped to one knee and aimed his rifle at the top of the wall. He found the sniper who had taken out Corporal Fromm, who was frantically reloading his weapon. He took aim and squeezed the trigger. The soldier twitched, not like he’d been hit by a bullet, but as though a bee had stung his shoulder. Then his rifle fell from his hands and he slumped forward over the spiked top of the fence.
There was no more time to gloat than to mourn. Alex reloaded as quickly as he could, emptying his rifle, pouring in more powder, packing it, then dropping a ball in place. He didn’t really expect to get another chance to fire his weapon, though.
He checked the axemen’s progress. They’d concentrated their effort on three different areas. As their tools struck the wood, the tree trunks rattled. Gaps were opening up between them, exposing the light of the enemy’s fire behind.
He heard a voice in his ear.
“Won’t be long now.”
He turned to see a familiar face beside him.
“Laurens!” he said with warmth. “I am so happy you made it through.”
“The British are scared,” Laurens answered. “They’re barely trying to defend the line.”
“Do you think they’ll try to run when we break through?”
“I think there’s a good chance.”
“That is unacceptable,” Alex said, as though he were sending back a burned slice of pie at an inn. “General Washington wants them defeated but captured, not regrouped farther inland.” He paused to consider. “Our best intelligence suggests there are no more than one hundred twenty men holding the redoubt. I want you take your battalion and circle around the rear of the fort. If the British soldiers try to run, let them know there is no escape. Exercise prudence. We want prisoners, not a slaughter. I will lead the charge here with Fish’s and Gimat’s battalions.”
“You will have no more than two hundred men. That’s a numerical advantage, but not a guaranteed victory. Are you sure?”
“The enemy will not have time to count our numbers. They have seen what’s on the field, and will expect all of us coming through the breaches here. Fear will do the work for us.”
In the dim light, he could see pride in his friend’s eyes. Laurens stepped back and saluted. “I won’t let you down, sir,” he said, and disappeared into the crowd.
As soon as he was gone, Alex headed toward the closest breach. He found Major Gimat there and ordered him to assemble his men for the assault. He ran to the next breach, dodging the bodies of fallen Continental soldiers—and the occasional redcoat shot from the wall—in a macabre game of hopscotch. The sappers on the ladders had secured their positions at the top of the wall, however, making it all but impossible for the British soldiers to take potshots, so at least the carnage had stopped.
He made it to the next breach and found Major Fish, gave him the same order. Even as he spoke, there was a splintering sound and a voice called mockingly, “Timber!”
Alex looked up to see one of the trunks twist and fall to the ground as his sappers ran out of the way. The gap weakened the whole line. Within seconds, two more trunks had fallen, then a fourth and a fifth. A six-foot gap stood in the wall now.
Gimat reappeared. “The men are ready, sir.”
“Very good, Major. I will lead the charge myself.”
Gimat blinked, but that was the only reaction he showed. “As you wish, sir.”
He moved back, and Alex stepped to the front of the line.
He turned to the sea of pale faces. “Gentlemen,” he said. “We do this not for glory but for America.” He held his bayoneted rifle above his head. “Charge!”
11
Home Invasion
The Schuyler Mansion
Albany, New York
October 1781
All summer and into the fall, Eliza’s thoughts continually drifted to her husband, off on his command, off at battle, and she had learned to live with the constant worry. The few letters she received from the front had done much to assuage her concerns, but it was hard to find comfort in the pastoral peacefulness of home when she knew Alex was far from safety. Even months later, she still chided herself for their less-than-ideal parting, and kept the letters that did make their way to her tucked safely in her pocket at all times, so that she might remind herself of the reality of his existence and his love.
“He is all right,” said Angelica, as if reading her thoughts. Her sister linked arms with her as the remaining womenfolk walked the heavy steps between the rows of flowers that lined the garden path that morning.
Eliza squeezed her sister’s elbow in gratefulness.
“Tell me something, Mama,” said Angelica, attempting to keep Eliza occupied with more trivial matters. “Why is it that the Pastures lacks a porch?”
“A ‘porch’?” Mrs. Schuyler repeated, as if the word were a Native American term she had never heard, like squash or moose. She preceded her daughter into the octagonal gazebo at the center of the ornamental garden south of the mansion and took her seat in a low-angled chair fashioned from round sawn logs whose bark had been abraded to polished smoothness over the years.
“Yes, a porch, Mama,” Angelica repeated, laughing slightly as she took a seat beside the older woman. Her pregnancy had grown noticeably more pronounced in the three months since she had revealed it to the family. She pulled a little at the waistband of her dress, which, even though it had been let out, was still tight around her midsection.
“Baby Kitty wants to know, too,” Eliza agreed, looking down at the moon-faced bundle in her arms as she followed her sister and mother into the gazebo. Her youngest sister had just been fed and changed and was swaddled in the lightest bit of lace because of the unseasonable October heat, which, while not oppressive, was still warm enough to make Eliza wish that she could go without a petticoat like little Kitty.
As she seated herself, Mary, a housemaid, began efficiently unpacking foodstuffs from a large wicker basket, preparing a picnic with the assistance of Lew, who carried a second basket filled with china and silver.
“Gently, Lew,” Mary chided. “Just because it’s called bone china don’t mean it’s hard as your bones—which the mistress will have me crack if you break any of her mother’s Spode.”
“A porch?” Mrs. Schuyler repeated for the second time. Eliza, glancing at her mother, couldn’t tell if she was teasing Angelica, or really was that obtuse.
“A porch, Mama,” Angelica said with theatrical exasperation. “You are familiar with the concept, yes? A covered but open-air addition to a house whereupon the residents of said house can enjoy a nice spot of mint tea without having to walk a quarter mile up and downhill.”
“Don’t forget the scones!” Lew threw in, his wide eyes staring at a mound of sugar-dusted pastries that Mary was unwrapping from a brightly flowered kitchen towel.
“Mary, do give that young boy a scone and send him off before he upsets that entire basket of dishes,” Catherine Schuyler said. After Lew had accepted
his treat, she continued. “Why on earth would I want to take my mint tea on a porch when I can have it in such a bucolic setting as this, with the smell of flowers in the air, and the most lovely views in every direction, and birdsong, too?”
In fact, the only thing that could be heard were Johnny, Philip, and Ren engaging in some kind of brotherly activity somewhere out of sight. Judging from the amount of screaming, they were either having a great time, or one of them was going to show up at dinner with a blackened eye. Probably both.
“I believe the trek Angelica mentioned has something to do with it,” Eliza said. “It is seventy-eight steps down the hill from our house. And while this is indeed a lovely setting, there are nearly as many flowers to smell right next to the house, including those roses Papa planted when Cornelia was born, and the birds sing at the top of the hill just as sweetly as they do down here, and I daresay the view is actually a bit better, what with the higher vantage point, and no shrubbery in the way.”
“Ah well, there you’re wrong, little missy.” Catherine Schuyler gloated with the air of someone who has caught out her interlocutor in a grievous error. “On a porch”—she still said the word as if it were a foreign concept, although it was clear now she was having a bit of fun—“you could only see in one direction, whereas down here you can see in all four.”
“There’s one thing you can’t see from here, though,” a breathless voice added. It was Peggy, trotting down the steps with a clutch of fans in her hand. “The road,” she finished as she distributed the fans among the three women already seated.
Eliza glanced over and realized that it was true. A line of lilac trees, out of bloom now, but still thickly covered in green heart-shaped leaves, blocked any view of the road.
“And if we can’t see the road,” Peggy continued as she took her own seat and snapped her fan open and began immediately waving it at her face, “it only follows that anyone passing on the road can’t see us, which is of course the point. Mama is a fine modest member of the Reformed Dutch Church. She sleeps in a rear bedroom and has her dayroom on the sunset side of the house rather than the sunrise side like everyone else. She doesn’t believe in a family displaying its activities for all to see. She finds it unseemly.”