Liberty: 1784

Chapter 23

Drake and Washington saw the British force start to turn and pull back and quickly recognized their peril. If they stayed put, they would be overrun by a mass of angry humanity. They quickly determined that pulling the guns to the American lines was not practical. “Destroy them,” Washington ordered.

Will Drake signaled and a number of men ran forward. They loaded as much powder as they could find down the barrels of the four cannon and then jammed in cannonballs and rocks.

Will set a long fuse, lit it, and ran like the devil was after him. As before, he had no idea what was a safe distance. Nor did any of the others. They all just ran. He found a depression in the earth and threw himself in it. He had just covered his head with his hands when the first of a rapid series of explosions rocked him, sending shock waves over him. He closed his eyes tightly as debris rained down on him.

“I think we’re still alive,” William Washington said after a moment. Drake looked up. He and the others were covered with dirt.

Drake stood and looked at the four craters that marked the location of the guns. Their barrels had been ripped apart and were lying well away from where they had been. Their carriages were nowhere to be seen. “Well,” he said happily, “I guess that was enough powder.”

They ran to their horses and mounted quickly. The retreating British had been slowed by the explosions, but had recommenced their movement to the rear. The small American cavalry force again skirted the British and moved back through the gap in the defenses. Once through, they rode to the rear of the American lines where hundreds of American and British wounded and dying were being tended. They found General Stark. His uniform was torn and he looked exhausted. Still, there was a ferocious glint in his eye.

“Well done,” Stark said to Washington. “Now I have another assignment for you.”

“Name it, sir,” Washington said.

“Look around you. Our army was mauled and is in disarray. It is exhausted, wounded, and out of ammunition. Right now we are trying to care for the wounded, bury the dead, and provide food and water for the living. While we do this, much of our defenses have been destroyed by the British. Since your men appear reasonably healthy, I want you to repair the earthworks and the wood thicket. Will you do that?”

Washington and Drake looked at the milling hundreds. Drake wanted desperately to find Sarah. Was she alive? Hurt? Was she as worried about him as he was about her?

Still, they had their duty. If the British attacked again, the American lines were wide open and would collapse.

Washington shrugged and grinned amiably. “Where are the shovels, General?”

* * *

Burgoyne’s head sagged and his chin nearly touched his chest. “How long has it been?”

How long since what, Fitzroy wondered. He pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s been a little more than two hours since the fighting began, sir.”

Both men looked at each other. It had taken just two hours for the rebels to defeat, at least temporarily, the greatest army in North America. Thousands of soldiers streamed disconsolately by them. Few bothered to look at their commander. The men were looking out for their own well-being and cared nothing for what generals thought. Despite the chaos, Fitzroy saw a number of officers trying to impose order and control and, to a large part, succeeding. The regiments had been stopped and mauled but not destroyed. Even so, it would be a while before they fought again.

Burgoyne walked away, heading to the privacy of his tent. He didn’t wish to see or speak with anyone until he had come to grips with the situation. Reports would be taken later. Everything could wait, along with the inevitable excuses and recriminations.

Fortunately, the Americans were in no shape to counterattack. From where Fitzroy could see, they were working on repairing their defenses. Thank heaven for small favors, Fitzroy thought.

“Have you noticed it’s raining?”

It was Danforth. His uniform was in shreds and a large scab had formed on his forehead. “Perhaps it will clean you up,” Fitzroy said and put his arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too, James,” Danforth said and plunked himself down on a folding chair that Burgoyne had been using. “And don’t ask me how bad it was, damn it; it was bloody awful. I’ve never seen such a slaughter and I’ve never seen British soldiers take such punishment. They only gave up after enduring more than any men should be called upon to endure. I hope history will be kind to them.”

“Agincourt,” Fitzroy said, “only we played the role of the French on this date,” he said referring to the climactic battle of 1415 in which a smaller British army had slaughtered a much larger French army that had attacked them on a narrow front.

“We attacked in a narrow front mass that invited flanking attacks and eliminated our strength in numbers. “Had we won, of course, Burgoyne would be proclaimed a genius. Now what will happen to him, to us?”

Fitzroy thought that history would be kinder to the soldiers than it would be to the generals. “And General Grant is truly dead?”

Danforth found a bottle with some brandy in it and took a long swallow. “Well and truly dead and with a rock stuck squarely in the middle of his skull like some great and unblinking third eye.” Danforth shuddered. “Absolutely hideous. No man should die like that and he took forever to collapse and finally stop breathing. I swear he was trying to talk, to say something.” He laughed bitterly. “Perhaps he was saying something like take this fucking rock out of my head.”

“You stayed with him, I take it?”

“Of course. Now you’re going to ask me how I got away. Well, it was quite easy. When our own soldiers fell back, some of them knocked me over and likely trampled me for good measure. I do believe I was stunned for a few minutes. When I came to, I simply crawled away until I thought it was safe enough to stand up. At that point, I got up and walked back to our lines with as much dignity as I could muster. I wasn’t the only one. A lot of lightly wounded men or some unwounded soldiers simply trying to save their own skins were doing the same thing. Thank God the Americans were not in the slightest bit interested in stopping us from departing. They had a handful of men working to repair their defenses and, by the way, I think I saw the man you were negotiating with. Drake, I believe.”

Fitzroy took it in. For some strange reason he was pleased that the rebel had also lived to fight another day. It had begun to rain again, a fitting end to a miserable day and it was still early afternoon. Damn.

“What’s going to happen now?” Danforth asked.

“Well, we won’t be attacking again, at least not for a while. Burgoyne’s called for a council of war, which will now only include Tarleton and Arnold, since Grant is dead.”

Danforth shook his head. “Why in God’s name couldn’t either Arnold or Tarleton have been killed instead of Grant? Better yet, why not both of them?”

Why indeed? Fitzroy could not think of an answer.

* * *

Drake was working with men who were repairing the defenses and was soaking wet from the sudden rain and up to his knees in the mud it had created.

Along with repairing the earthworks and replacing the thicket, they’d been dragging dead British soldiers out to where other Redcoats could retrieve them and carry them back for a proper burial. The British wounded were allowed to either return to their own lines if they were able, or were cared for as best they could by the Americans. These activities caused the British and American soldiers into close proximity with each other. Either out of respect or exhaustion, there was little or no conversation and no hostility. Simple nods and grunts sufficed. There had not been a formal truce. The men simply decided to solve their problem without any help from higher-ups.

A mud-splattered British officer appeared and politely requested permission to search for the remains of General Grant and Will gave it. Within a few minutes the dead general was found and his body taken away. The officer thanked Will profusely. They both agreed it was a strange way to run a war.

Thus, Will had no time to search for Sarah. Instead, she found him. She rushed to him and they embraced, with both of them weeping from relief. No one noticed. Similar reunions were taking place around them as the fortunate ones found each other. There were also howls of pain and grief as a loved one was found dead. There was a cut on Sarah’s cheek and another on her arm. Both would leave scars. He didn’t care. Her clothing was bloody and torn. But she was alive.

Finally they pulled apart. “What about the others?” Will asked, half fearing the answer.

“Too many are dead,” she said sadly. “Faith is alive and unhurt, as is Owen who is still out in the swamp. But my uncle Wilford is dead with a bayonet in the chest, and my aunt is badly wounded and may not make it. Little Winifred Haskill is dead. She thought her friend Sergeant Bahlmann had been killed and went crazy. Ironically, Bahlmann did survive, but most of his fellow Hessians didn’t.”

The loss of so many civilians saddened him deeply. Soldiers were supposed to die, but the civilians? “Thank God Stark lives.”

Sarah nodded. “Unhurt, as you are aware, but Wayne and von Steuben are dead and Morgan is wounded. The army is in grievous shape. Dear God, Will, if there’s another battle there’ll be no one left to fight it.”

Hannah van Doorn approached and interrupted. “Then let’s see that there isn’t another battle,” she said grimly. Like the others, she was filthy and exhausted and the once plump woman had lost a considerable amount of weight.

“How do you propose to stop it?” Will asked.

She handed him a folded piece of paper. “When you next see Major Fitzroy, will you give him this? Since his place was with his general, I am presuming that he too lives.”

Will was puzzled. “Just why do you think I am going to see the British again?”

“Because General Tallmadge asked me to find you and bring you to him and General Stark. I can think of no other reason than that you are going to speak again with the British and that likely means Major Fitzroy.”

Despite his exhaustion, Will almost laughed. What kind of world was it coming to when women were part of the military?

* * *

“I have decided to assume direct command of our center as well as the army as a whole,” Burgoyne announced. Night had fallen and only one small and flickering candle lighted the interior of the general’s tent. Arnold and Tarleton simply nodded. Each knew that neither was acceptable in Burgoyne’s eyes as eligible for promotion to Grant’s position. Nor did they think for one second that Burgoyne would divide the army into two divisions instead of three.

“What are our casualties?” Burgoyne asked and winced. He didn’t really want to know the answer to that question.

Fitzroy took a deep breath. He’d been all over the field for as long as daylight lasted, inquiring and compiling the awful numbers.

“I can only give estimates, sir, but we have suffered at least twelve hundred dead and likely twice that many wounded, with many grievously.”

He shuddered, thinking of the long rows of moaning and crying soldiers, some of whom were being cared for by their comrades while others simply lay and waited for someone to help them, or for death to end their pain. The worst ones were those whose wounds were the most terrible and who said nothing, simply awaiting their fate. Even if they lived, many, perhaps most of the wounded would never fight again. So many had lost limbs or eyes, or even both, that a host of smashed and broken men would have to be carted back to Detroit to begin their long arduous trek to England. If they lived, of course. It was understood that many would die en route to New York, and so many others would pass on before ships made it back to England.

There had to be a better way to care for the wounded, he thought ruefully, but could think of nothing. Doctors were not an answer. Few in their right mind would trust anyone’s health to a barber-surgeon who thought it wise to bleed people who had already bled copiously because of their wounds.

Fitzroy continued. “And there are at least two thousand missing, although most of them will doubtless turn up sooner or later when they get tired of running and regain their senses. When all is said and done, I estimate our total casualties will be in excess of four thousand.”

There were gasps. Even the normally unfeeling Tarleton was shocked. Four thousand was about a third of the force they’d committed this day and four thousand was approximately the number of men in the whole American army. This did not include the women and old men among the rebels. Those old men and women had inflicted terrible casualties while sustaining many of their own.

“It is worse than the numbers,” Fitzroy added. “Many of the survivors are the remnants of the regiments that were in the fore of the attack and those units no longer exist as anything more than disorganized clusters of men. I would estimate that our true fighting strength is about half of what it was this time yesterday.”

“Any thoughts on American casualties?” Tarleton asked.

“None whatsoever, except for the obvious. They too must have suffered heavily. I would not be surprised if they lost half their army as well.”

“Then what do we do?” Arnold asked.

“Attack,” Tarleton snapped. “We do what we should have done in the first place. We attack all along the line and overwhelm them. They are too few and cannot be everywhere in strength.”

“With respect, General,” Fitzroy said, “Based on what I’ve seen, it’ll be some time before the army is able to attack. Even so, I doubt there’ll be any enthusiasm for another frontal attack, however overwhelming our numbers might appear. Our men might just refuse to go. It wouldn’t be the first time an army has refused to attack. Besides, we have other problems, ammunition and food, for instance.”

Burgoyne smiled tightly. “You are simply full of good news, Major.”

Fitzroy flushed. “Sorry, sir, but I assumed you wanted the truth.”

“I do, however little I might like it. Continue.”

“Our food supplies might last us a week, sir, but that’s all. We must either withdraw to our closest depot or arrange for supplies to be shipped to us. Either way, our men might be hungry for a day or so before we got there.”

No matter how he’d tried to phrase it, the statement was an implied criticism of Burgoyne. The army had continued to use supplies when it had been expected that they would be on their way back down the trail to the depots with large numbers of prisoners.

Fitzroy continued. “Ammunition is a more severe crisis.” He turned to Arnold. “I hope I don’t have to remind you that our reserve supply is now on the bottom of the St. Joseph River. What ammunition we now have is what our men carried less what was expended today. We were perversely fortunate that General Grant insisted that only his front ranks actually fire their weapons so that the bulk of the army still has what ammunition it started with. However, there is little more. One more battle and we will be using bayonets simply because we are out of powder and lead.”

Burgoyne looked stunned. He stood and the others did as well out of courtesy to his rank. In the dim and flickering light, Burgoyne looked like a confused and wounded animal.

“What now, my dear General? What will you do to save the situation and our hopes?” Tarleton asked sarcastically. Fitzroy wanted to punch the smug bastard in the mouth.

Burgoyne had too much dignity to respond in kind. “We will rest this night. All of us, and that includes every general and private in the army, will rest so we can think clearly and dispassionately. Tomorrow we will have hard decisions to make.”

* * *

Hannah Van Doorn deposited Will with General Stark and departed with a sad smile on her face. The note she’d given him was in his pocket. Stark was in conference with Schuyler and Tallmadge. Both of them were bloodied and worn, but they had survived. Stark, by far the older, looked exhausted. Tallmadge looked up and nodded. Will stepped forward and stood at attention.

“Relax, Drake,” Stark said. “We’ve got more important things to do than stand on useless formality.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you well? You’re not wounded, are you?”

“Only in spirit, sir. This has been a dreadful day.”

Stark continued. “Indeed it has, which is why I wish you to once again be an intermediary for me. We must do whatever we can to end this, once and for all, at least once and for all for this time. I wish you to get a good night’s rest, either alone or with your lovely Sarah. Then I wish you to be dressed in a fine and clean uniform and then to go out and discuss a serious proposition I wish to make to General Burgoyne. As a sign of my good faith, you will also take with you the sword that once belonged to their General Grant and return it. One of our men had liberated it,” he said wryly. The once lucky soldier had doubtless thought it was worth a fortune.

“I’m sure the gesture will be appreciated, sir.” Will was astonished that General Stark even knew about Sarah.

Stark clasped his hands behind his back. “I hope more than that. I hope it will be an opening as well as a reminder. Go get some rest. I need you alert when you meet with the British.”

Later that evening, Will thought he’d be too tired to even think of making love. However, Sarah had other ideas. She wanted to purge herself of the savagery of the day and her way of doing it was to draw him into her, crying and sobbing, and hold him so tightly that there was nothing else in their world. Then they slept.

* * *

Will and Sarah were awakened a little past dawn by Tallmadge, who wasn’t in the least embarrassed to see the two of them in bed and scrambling to cover themselves. “I hope you’re not planning to sleep all day, Drake, we have a task for you. I’ll be outside. Don’t dither. And Sarah, you look absolutely lovely.”

“You can go to hell, too, General Tallmadge,” Sarah snapped, but then smiled.

Will washed and dressed in a clean blue uniform, the same one he’d used the last times he’d met with the British officer. He then ate a couple of biscuits with butter and washed them down with something that was called coffee but was not. After that, he reported to duty.

A visibly shaken Tallmadge was again with Stark and, to Will’s mild surprise, so too was Benjamin Franklin. The old man looked haunted by what he had seen, although he managed to smile warmly at Will, while Tallmadge looked away. Will thought he saw a hint of madness in his eyes. He wondered if stresses were finally getting to his friend.

They sat Will down and discussed with him what they wished him to say and do. What they told him more than surprised him and he shook his head, puzzled.

“Why are you having me do this? This isn’t like the first meeting where we were all fencing around. Shouldn’t someone of higher rank be involved in something this important? Why not yourself?” he inquired of Stark.

“Perhaps later,” Stark answered. “In fact, hopefully later. For this preliminary meeting, I still think it best that you meet with someone of equivalent rank and that you are simply a messenger, although a messenger who is free to discuss and even negotiate.”

“Dear God,” Will said.

“Doubtless so, if you believe in God,” Franklin said with a twinkle in his eye.

Stark put his hand on Will’s shoulder. “Just do your best and if you fail, we shall try again. Perhaps what you say will be rejected out of hand, which would not surprise me. Burgoyne may require more time to come to grips with reality. Thus, while a rebuff to you would be annoying, a rebuff to me or Schuyler or Tallmadge would be far more serious.”

“I will do my best,” Will answered in a soft voice. He wondered if he would be up to the task at hand. Then he thought of the tremendous opportunity he’d been given and the easy out if he failed.

A few moments later, he stood on the earthworks with Grant’s blanket-wrapped sword under his arm while a boy drummer beside him banged away on his drum. On the earthwork behind him, a corporal frantically waved a white flag. Nobody was shooting this day, but nobody wanted a mistake to happen.

All of the dead had been dragged away and much of the earthworks had been repaired. The thicket of tree limbs had been replaced, with only a narrow path for Will to walk through. The rain of the previous day had washed away much of the blood, although there were dark stains here and there as ghastly reminders. One could almost imagine that thousands of men had not been killed or wounded on this field. Even the craters caused by Franklin’s exploding bombs had been filled in, perhaps to give the impression that there were more exploding bombs. The ground was still muddy and slippery, which would further impede any British attacks.

Will had a dire thought. What if there actually were more bombs, or what if all the bombs hadn’t gone off? What if one exploded when he walked over it? He smiled and supposed that Stark would find another volunteer.

A white flag waved from the other side. Will signaled the silly little boy to stop his drumming and began the lonely walk to meet the future.

* * *

Will and Fitzroy greeted each other reservedly. Whatever good will they might have felt for each other after the first meeting had been dispelled by the flowing of so much blood. Still, each was pleased that the other had survived the carnage. For his part, Fitzroy was slightly embarrassed that he had personally seen no combat as he’d been beside Burgoyne throughout the fighting.

“Let me extend our thanks for the return of General Grant’s sword,” Fitzroy said as he received the peace offering. “It will be sent back to England along with his remains which you so graciously permitted our men to retrieve.” Fitzroy smiled wanly. “Grant’s remains will be pickled, of course, which is a devil of a demotion for one so brave.”

Will nodded and reached into his pocket. He withdrew the note from Hannah. “This is for you. A very nice lady who apparently thinks highly of you requested that I give it to you.”

Fitzroy blinked and took it. He looked over Will’s shoulder and grinned. “Is that her on the earthworks?”

Will turned. Hannah was a couple of hundred yards away but her blond hair stood out like a beacon. “I believe so,” he laughed.

Amenities done, Will turned serious. “I have a message from General Stark. The slaughter of yesterday was a lesson for both of our sides. It cannot be allowed to repeat itself. He has a very simple proposal to end it. Are you interested?”

“Of course, assuming that you realize we are both pawns.”

“Indeed we are. If our conversation turns to nothing, then we will be removed from the board.”

Fitzroy chuckled. “Understood. Now let me hear your proposal.”

“General Stark implores General Burgoyne to surrender.”

Fitzroy nearly staggered. “You must be joking.”

“I am not.”

“We are within an instant of destroying you Americans. One more attack and what’s left of your army will crumple and disappear.”

“Quite possibly, but you know as well as I do that there will be no second attack. Your army is spent both physically and emotionally. It needs time to recover and refit, and you will not have that time. Neither General Stark, nor Cornwallis, who wants his army back, by the way, nor the weather, which will begin to turn cold in a few weeks, will permit you that luxury. And let’s not forget the fact that you must replace your brave General Grant and many others who fell yesterday.

“And even if you did manage to muster an attack, it is highly unlikely that your army would be willing to destroy itself again against our defenses. They would simply go to ground rather than repeat yesterday’s horrors. And even if everything I’ve said is wrong and you do indeed manage to push us off this bloody hill, you will have accomplished nothing. We have changed our strategy. If you take Fort Washington and Liberty, you will have taken nothing. We will burn everything and retreat west with all the food and supplies that we can carry and leave you here to starve and freeze. At least until Burgoyne is again reminded that he has to return what would then remain of his army to Cornwallis.”

This last statement was a lie. Will knew that nothing had changed and that his fellow Americans were not in a position to migrate anywhere at this time.

Fitzroy found himself both amused and frightened. The Americans fully understood Burgoyne’s dilemma. “We would hardly starve. We would get supplies from our depots or by water from Detroit. I think Burgoyne would decide that Cornwallis can bloody well wait.”

Will smiled. “You will get no supplies.”

He gestured and a man appeared on the earthworks. He was guarded by two American soldiers. Will gestured again and the man began to stumble forward. A few minutes later, he stood before them, his hands bound behind his back. Fitzroy was astonished.

“Girty?”

Simon Girty, bloody and bruised, his clothes in rags, snarled his answer. “Of course it is. Now untie me so I can kill this rebel bastard.”

“Time enough for that,” Fitzroy said quietly but firmly. Girty’s eyes glowed with hate. “There is a truce here, and I don’t want it broken.”

Will nodded agreement and Fitzroy continued. “What happened, Girty? You and your men deserted, didn’t you?”

Girty spat on the ground. “You can call it deserting if you want, but I call it retreating to save our skins. But it didn’t work out that way. First we were attacked by the fucking red savages on our way east. Then, when we’d fought our way through them we were attacked by rebels coming east from the bloody damned depot. They captured me and killed the rest of my men. The rebels have taken your depot and all the supplies, and yes, Fitzroy, and don’t look so damned shocked. The Indians have declared for the rebels and there’s another rebel army coming down the road and ready to jump all over your ass.”

Will smiled. “Why not send him on to tell his tale to Burgoyne?”

Fitzroy recovered from his shock and agreed, sending Girty stumbling toward the British lines. “I rather wish you’d kept the pig,” he muttered.

“I like the idea as well, but there would have been a riot. Too many of our people wanted to skin him alive. Now, let me elaborate on what Girty said. There are two American armies in your rear. One consists of a force commanded by Isaac Shelby and has come from the south. They have taken Detroit and are rolling up your precious depots. Detroit fell quite easily, by the way. The defenses were in ruins, the garrison stripped by Burgoyne, and a very discouraged Major De Peyster was found drunk in his bed.

“The second force came from Boston and is commanded by General Edward Hand and, while he isn’t the best and brightest of the litter, he is smart enough to have taken a defenseless Fort Pitt and is moving on your base at Oswego.

“In sum, Cornwallis holds only New York and Boston and may be evacuating Charleston. Further in sum, you and General Burgoyne hold the ground on which you stand and nothing more. Girty will confirm what he has seen and heard and Burgoyne will, of course, send scouts out to confirm it. You have not won anything, although you might yet take some useless ground and cause more deaths. You are surrounded and cut off with any possible reinforcements half a continent and many months away. That is, if Cornwallis sends them at all on something which he might think is a fool’s errand. General Burgoyne is in even worse shape than he was at Saratoga. In effect, the frontier of our new nation has been pushed westward by a good five hundred miles and I cannot imagine Parliament at all enthused by the thought of sending another army to take it all back.”

“I’m sure General Burgoyne will be glad to hear that,” Fitzroy said drily. He dreaded the possibility that Drake’s claims were true. His worst fears would have been realized-his own career would be just as ruined as Burgoyne’s. He would have to leave the army and find another way of supporting himself, which would be more than difficult. He had no family money like Danforth to fall back on. If what Drake said was true, he faced a dismal future.

“Will you convey General Stark’s message?” Will asked.

“Of course. And will you convey my regards to the lovely Hannah?”

Will grinned wickedly. “Surrender and I’ll see to it that you convey them yourself.”

* * *

Burgoyne awoke with a splitting headache. He groaned and swung his legs off his cot and tried to blink away the pain that throbbed behind his eyes. He, Tarleton, and Arnold had waged a long and furious argument while drinking brandies the night before. Tarleton wanted to withdraw and regroup, while Arnold, true to his belligerent nature, wanted to attack and damn the results. This had confirmed Burgoyne’s notion that Tarleton was basically a coward, and that Arnold was an opportunist who was most concerned about his own advancement, no matter how many people were killed in the process.

He groaned again. Where the devil was Grant? Why the devil had the man gotten himself killed? What the hell was he supposed to do now without his right-hand man?

Surrender had not been discussed, other than to be ridiculed. Still, the word and the concept had hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles. Girty had been interviewed and the disgusting man had repeated his original story: a large rebel force under Isaac Shelby was in their rear. Whether they had actually taken Detroit or not wasn’t relevant, although they did believe it was likely. Burgoyne had left Detroit with only a virtual corporal’s guard under De Peyster and taking it would have been no great achievement. So too with Pitt. If the rebel General Hand had conquered Fort Pitt, that too would have been easy.

He sighed. Obviously, he should have left a stronger force behind him. Why had he believed Cornwallis’ vague assurances that the rebel’s strength was concentrated at Liberty and Fort Washington and that any other rebel forces in the colonies could be discounted?

Or had Cornwallis actually said that? He seemed to recall something about rebel activity simmering and the need for the rebel forces to be destroyed, but had there been any mention of other rebel armies? Not that he could recall. He had a terrible thought. Perhaps he was supposed to believe that there were no other rebel forces that could threaten him. Neither the war nor his position as commanding general was popular in England. Had he truly been set up to fail? The thought made him even more ill.

Burgoyne dressed and opened the flap of his tent. As usual, Fitzroy was there, like a faithful dog.

“Some coffee, General?”

“Splendid thought.” Why, he wondered, did Fitzroy look so concerned? “I have made a decision, Major, we shall attack and damn the mud. Arnold shall lead and we shall press them at several points. Please send messengers and call them for a council of war.”

Fitzroy looked stricken. “I can’t, sir.”

“Why not?” Burgoyne asked, confused.

“Sir, I thought you might wish such a council so I set out a while ago to inform the two generals to be prepared.”

“And?”

“They’re gone.”

Burgoyne staggered as if shot. “Gone? Where? How in God’s name can that be?”

“No one seems quite sure, but they departed during the night along with a number of men and several other ranking officers. Apparently they felt that surrender was all too likely and neither man felt they would survive capture and imprisonment because of the crimes they’ve committed against the rebels. Tarleton is a murderer and Arnold is a traitor to the rebels. Joseph Brant and his handful of surviving Iroquois have also fled, as has Girty.”

Burgoyne sat heavily on his camp stool. He began to shake and an unbidden tear fell down his cheek. It couldn’t be happening again, could it? He had spent so much time and political capital recovering from his surrender at Saratoga and now was history going to repeat itself? The gods could not be that cruel, could they?

Of course they could, he thought bitterly. His army was effectively leaderless, low on food and ammunition, and surrounded by an enemy that would only grow stronger as word of his weakness grew. He could march his mauled army to a strong point and fortify, but to what avail? What relief column would be coming to help him? No, they would starve. The rebels ate the fish from the lakes, but he doubted there were enough fish to sustain his mauled army.

Even if Cornwallis were so inclined, he had been left with only a small, defensive force with which to hold New York and a handful of other cities.

Burgoyne pulled himself to his feet. He loved theater and it was time for him to put on a bravura performance. He forced a smile.

“James, my dear cousin, kindly find a drummer and inform General Stark that I would talk with him.”