Liberty: 1784

Chapter 4

The trip south from Fort Washington to the Ohio River had been fruitless. From prior experience, Will had known that gathering intelligence was often like that. For every valuable piece of information you found, you wasted time chasing a hundred useless ones.

Will was now convinced that there was no significant British presence on the Ohio River. Of course, he and his men couldn’t check every canoe and flatboat for the odd spy or scout, but there was no army to threaten Fort Washington or the various villages collectively known as Liberty. Hell, he decided, there probably wasn’t even a company of Redcoats between him and Tarleton’s headquarters at Fort Pitt.

“See that, Major,” said Sergeant Barley, pointing in the direction of the opposite shore.

Will was still not quite comfortable with his new rank. A few months ago he’d been a prisoner. Now, he was a major in the American Army. Tallmadge had bestowed the rank on him just before they departed. Will didn’t really care what rank he held. He just wanted to stay free and stop the British.

He followed Barley’s gesture and saw a line of canoes in the shadows of the other side. With the mist on the river, they could easily have missed them.

Will thought quickly. A handful of canoes could not contain an army, but they were coming from the direction of Fort Pitt. Thus, they might be spies or scouts for the British. If nothing else, they would be civilians who had knowledge of what was going on closer on to Pitt. With their information, perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary to get any nearer to Pitt and Tarleton’s soldiers.

Barley read his mind. “And it would be a helluva lot easier paddling with the current than against it, sir.”

No argument there. Paddling upstream was brutal. Even though they were strong and in shape, and that now included Will, their arms and shoulders ached with the effort of arguing with the strong currents of the Ohio River.

“We’ll let them pass and turn into their rear,” Will said.

Their unexpected presence in the other canoes rear might frighten them, or even cause them to shoot, in which case his men would shoot back. He decided it was a chance worth taking. Innocence or guilt could be proven later.

They drifted for a bit and then turned and began to paddle with the current and across the river. They’d gone about half way when they heard gunfire. Will didn’t hesitate. “Everybody get ready to shoot,” he ordered. “Now paddle harder.”

They came upon the fighting within minutes. Bodies were in the water and there were individual struggles in those canoes that hadn’t capsized. It was too dangerous to fire their weapons. They couldn’t tell who was who. Then he saw a canoe with a handful of scrawny men in rags bearing down on another canoe that was in distress and appeared to contain what were clearly women though they were wearing men’s clothing. He quickly concluded that they were the victims and that the others were the attackers and fervently hoped he was right. Will pointed out the target canoe and gave the order to fire. Muskets roared, spilling the outlaws into the river in a display of very good shooting since the rocking action of the canoes made aiming difficult.

Will’s men roared into the fighting and ended it quickly, killing the surviving outlaws with tomahawks and knives. Will had a pistol, but didn’t find a target. None of the men in the canoe they’d fired on had come up from underwater and he presumed they were dead. He saw a small group of the outlaws on the riverbank suddenly dart into the woods.

“Let me go, sir,” asked Owen.

“Just take some of the men with you, Corporal, and try not to get hurt.”

Wells nodded and grabbed a couple of his new friends and headed into the woods where they quickly disappeared. Will almost felt sorry for the outlaws. Even the frontiersmen who came with Barley were impressed by his tracking skills.

In the short amount of time he’d been with the new American Army, Wells had proven himself to be an outstanding woodsman and an incredibly accurate shot, along with being a solid, experienced soldier thanks to his years in the Royal Navy. Will was thinking of recommending him to a lieutenancy.

Will gathered up the surviving pilgrims on the riverbank. Out of what he was told was more than twenty, only nine survived. Five were women and there was one child, a boy about seven, who clung to his mother. Most were in shock from the suddenness and savagery of the attack. Well, not all of them. One brown-haired woman glared at him. “I killed one of them,” she said, “and would’ve gotten another but my gun misfired.”

“You did well,” Will said. He noted that she was really quite attractive, even though she was filthy, exhausted, and dressed in unbecoming men’s clothes. Two other women were helping an older man with a leg wound. He would leave them alone. They were in good hands.

“And who are you, sir?” she added.

Will almost bowed. “Captain-I mean Major-Will Drake of the New American Army.”

The woman sagged visibly. “Then we’ve made it to safety?”

“I hope so.”

“My name is Sarah Benton,” she said and then named the others.

She was about to say more when Wells and the other soldiers returned. “We found one dead a little ways up and caught up with the other two of them real easy. They made a path like elephants.” Wells had never seen an elephant but he knew they were huge and it made sense that they would leave easy trails to follow.

Will gestured. “And?”

“Oh, sorry sir, we killed them.”

Will grinned. “What are you sorry for, Wells? They deserved killing.”

“Yes sir,” Wells said, not quite certain that a major made jokes with corporals. He understood the rank might be equivalent to that of captain of a ship, and those worthies never made jokes, at least not to ordinary folk like him. He fixed his eyes on Faith Benton. She caught him looking and smiled before returning to ministering to her father.

“New American Army?” Sarah asked. “What happened to the Continental Army?”

Will shrugged. “It lost. It’s time to start anew with a new name.”

Sarah thought it made sense. “Will you take us to Liberty?”

“With pleasure, Mistress Benton. In a way, you’re already there.”

* * *

Fitzroy was amazed that you could actually take a sailing ship up the Hudson River all the way to Albany. With a landsman’s lack of knowledge of rivers and things that float on them, he thought that the south-flowing current would be too strong to fight and that the crew would spend all their time at the oars, or sweeps as they were called. However, he found that a skilled captain could take advantage of the winds, do some sideways sailing he thought was called tacking, and arrive at their destination without too much difficulty.

Since the few roads northward were miserable at best, traveling by water was more than a convenience; it was both safer and swifter. It was no wonder that the larger and more important cities in North America were located on navigable waterways. So too were the major cities of England, he realized with mild chagrin.

It had been just such a sailing ship from New York that had brought a welcome addition to the British forces and some unwelcome news.

The addition was General James Grant. Like Burgoyne, he too was a lieutenant general, but his orders were to serve under Burgoyne. Grant was quite fat, almost obese, and had little interest in underlings. He tolerated Fitzroy because he was Burgoyne’s aide and distant cousin. Otherwise he was almost uniformly arrogant, rude, and contemptuous, which did not endear him to others on Burgoyne’s staff.

However, Grant could fight. Like many British commanders, he believed that the bayonet was the superior battlefield weapon for British infantry. Cold steel in their guts and the rebels will run, just as they had at Long Island and Brandywine, was his often stated motto.

Burgoyne had professed delight over Grant’s arrival. For all his faults, Grant was a vast improvement over Tarleton and Arnold. It meant Burgoyne now had an experienced and seasoned second in command in the sixty-four-year-old Grant. It further meant that he didn’t have to depend on Arnold and Tarleton, whom he considered mediocre talents at best. Now he could create three unequal divisions: Arnold’s, Tarleton’s, and a third grand division under Grant.

But it was not all good news. The war in France had deteriorated into bloody anarchy. The three factions fighting for control of France were now reduced to two. The French moderates, or those who wanted a constitutional monarchy like that of England’s, had been defeated by the radicals who were making every effort to kill all the aristocrats and nobility they could find. Savage and bloody massacres were taking place all over France as long boiling hatreds overflowed, causing cascades of blood. Some of the most ancient names in the French nobility had been wiped out, hacked to bloody pieces by outraged peasantry.

The second group consisted of the monarchists who wanted the king restored to his throne and life resumed as if the revolution hadn’t happened. Of course, this would occur after the appropriate revolutionary ringleaders had been executed for treason, and tens of thousands of others sent to prisons and worked to death as slaves.

Neither Burgoyne nor Fitzroy thought that France could ever return to an earlier world. Fitzroy had little sympathy for either group. Almost all of the French nobility he had met felt that the peasants they ruled were barely human at best and that they, the nobility, were godlike in comparison. Fitzroy felt that the nobles deserved some punishment for their actions in oppressing the peasants, but being hacked to death was far too extreme for the taste of Englishmen. The Bourbons might be fools, but killing them all was not a solution.

“Sad,” Burgoyne said, “but the voice of reason is often overwhelmed by that of passion. Hatred and vengeance are so much more satisfactory than contemplation and compromise.”

Fitzroy nodded. “And Calais has fallen?”

“Yes and our army has almost all fled to England, in effect leaving France to the French. Lord Jeffrey Amherst has been defeated, which must have been a great shock to him. He had a very high impression of his own abilities. You recall, don’t you, that he declined to command our forces in the colonies? As I recall, he felt that fighting rebels was beneath his dignity. The bumbling French king and his idiot queen Marie Antoinette are now in London.”

“Sir, I’ve read the reports, but I still find it difficult to believe that we were defeated by a French rabble.”

Burgoyne wagged a finger at him, teacher to pupil. “Fitzroy, never forget that it almost happened here a few years back. If the population of the colonies had been larger and more compressed, perhaps they too could have become the brainless hordes like those that simply overwhelmed our army at Calais without any thought of their own casualties. They might have taken New York or Yorktown and chased us out.”

“But we still hold Dunkirk, don’t we, General?”

“For the time being, yes, and for what reason? Oh, I know the rationale will be for us to use it as a base for future operations, but I rather think we’ll soon be walled into the city and port and never be able to break out.”

Burgoyne poured himself a brandy. He gestured for Fitzroy to help himself, which he did. “Our orders have changed, Major, and I need you to go to Tarleton, wherever he is.”

“Yes sir.” Recent messages had General Tarleton shifting forces between Pitt and Detroit in anticipation of Burgoyne’s arrival in the spring.

“This should not surprise you, Fitzroy, but as a result of the defeat at Calais, their lordships in London want most of their army back to defend England. They are terrified that the French might somehow cross the Channel and lay waste to England or worse yet, that the unwashed English multitude will rise up like the French peasants and commence slaughtering country squires. They are particularly fearful it will happen in Ireland, or even Scotland, or dear God, Wales. It appears that nobody likes us all that much. Therefore, I will have one chance and one chance only to win this war. If we falter, then the rebels will be left unmolested at best to form their own country. At worst, they will be inspired to further rebellion, rise again, and attack the cities in the east.”

“Dear God,” Fitzroy muttered.

“Dear God, indeed. And if we do win, or rather, when we do win, the government of the colonies will not be as originally planned with the Loyalists as a privileged group lording it over those who rebelled or simply wavered. Instead, it will be a military government. Thanks to the upheaval in France, London will not tolerate the possibility that there might be another revolution here, so the colonies are to be disarmed and all properties will revert to the king who will decide who will possess them as tenants and not as owners.”

Fitzroy was shocked. “But that effectively makes landless peasants out of even the Loyalists who now believe they own their property.”

“Correct, which means they won’t be able to vote either for local or colony representatives. That also precludes the already remote possibility that someday there might be elections for seats in our Parliament. And your second and unsaid assumption is also correct. The takeover will be perceived as a betrayal by the Loyalists who supported us all these years. The exact details are in a package of documents General Grant brought. It’s called ‘Plans for the Future of the American Colonies,’ and it’s to remain a secret. You will read it of course, so you can understand its importance to me and to Tarleton. You will impress on Tarleton the urgency to be ready for anything and to keep the report as secret as we can for the time being, which means until we’ve destroyed the rebels at this Liberty place. A man like Tarleton usually needs no urging to go out and kill people, but one never knows and I’ve certainly learned not to assume anything.”

Later in the privacy of his quarters, Fitzroy read the fairly lengthy document with both astonishment and dismay. There was good reason for it to remain a secret. It was inflammatory at best. It had the potential to outrage the most loyal of colonists. He finished, and returned it to the chest and locked it.

Fitzroy’s quarters were in a private room above a large and fairly decent tavern, the one recommended by his innkeeper in New York. It had proven a pleasant surprise at many levels. When he returned there in the evening, he always wrote of the day’s events in his journal. He referenced reading the “Plans,” and how they dismayed him, but did not go into detail.

There was a tap on the door and Hannah Doorn, the owner of the tavern, entered. She was a blond widow in her mid-thirties, very attractive although a little plumpish. And better, she liked him, which meant he received far better treatment than an ordinary guest, and the tavern was well appointed in the first place.

Hannah Doorn was a sort of woman he’d never met before. Not only was she quite lovely, but she possessed business acumen and had numerous financial interests in Albany and further west. She was a shapely reminder that the Dutch presence predated the British and, although it had faded in New York, places like Albany still had a number of Dutch families and merchants. Typical Dutchies, he’d concluded on meeting Hannah and others. They made money everywhere, just like the Jews.

At least as surprising, Hannah was an artist. Her drawings and paintings of life in the area were quite exact. She wanted to sketch him, but he’d demurred, at least so far.

Hannah wore a floor-length robe which swirled as she walked across the floor and exposed a length of bare leg. “I think you should go down to dinner before the food is all eaten,” she said.

“You’re right, of course,” he said. Hannah set a good table. Not up to London standards, but damn good and hearty nonetheless. “But must it be right now?” He pulled on the sash that held her robe together and it opened. As expected, she was naked underneath and totally blond. She laughed and they fell jubilantly onto the bed.

She was a wild thing, he thought moments later as she wrapped her legs around him and drew him deep inside her, and she really seemed to like the idea of bedding British nobility. Of course, he’d told her he was the most minor of nobility, but that meant nothing to her. She said he intrigued her.

Their coupling was sweaty and brief, a promise of even more satisfying things to come. “Now you really had get to dinner before your hoggish fellow officers eat everything, especially your friend Danforth. His stomach seems bottomless.”

He grinned happily and concurred. When he was dressed he kissed her fondly on the forehead. She really was a fun creature. Too bad he would have to leave her and head west where he was afraid that the only women would be flat-faced and stupid Indians who likely carried every disease known to man.

“Do you want me to wait for you?” she asked as she stretched out like a yellow-haired cat on his bed, utterly shameless.

“No, I’ve got some errands to attend to.” Like playing cards with Danforth and a couple of others and taking their money. He was always short of money. “May I wake you when I come back?”

She smiled coquettishly, enjoying the fact that she was still naked and that he was staring hungrily at her.

“Of course, my dear Major, you go and I’ll clean up your room. It seems like we’ve made quite a mess of it.”

When he was gone, she dressed quickly, picked up the scattered bedclothes and made the bed. Then she checked the door and bolted it. Fitzroy’s journal was on the table and, as usual, unlocked. She scanned the day’s entry. She was puzzled. What on earth was the “Plan for the Future of the American Colonies,” and why on earth did Fitzroy think it was so awful that it had to be kept secret?

She put the journal back where she’d found it. Then she unbolted the door and stepped into the hallway. Once in her own room, she would write the question as a message and send it on its way west where others could try and figure out its significance.

She laughed to herself. Fitzroy was sweet but he thought he was so superior. He didn’t realize there was more than one way to screw the British.

* * *

After their rescue and escorted by Will and his men, Sarah, her family, and the other survivors of the raid, canoed farther west and then walked north from the Ohio towards Fort Washington. During the several weeks it took, she had a number of pleasant conversations with Major Will Drake. They’d solemnly exchanged stories of the horrors they’d endured. For her sake, she could not imagine anything as despicable as keeping naked, freezing, and starving prisoners incarcerated in a hulk like the Suffolk. She almost wept at the thought of so many young lives ending in the ships anchored in the Hudson River and elsewhere off Manhattan Island. Damn the British for their cruelty.

To her immense surprise, she found herself opening up to Will about what happened to her after she refused the sexual offer from Sheriff Braxton. She omitted the fact that Faith had accepted the offer and noted the look of gratitude in Faith’s eyes when she realized what they were talking about. Faith was more than a little interested in the squat and muscular Welshman, Owen Wells, and didn’t need her past brought up at this time, however involuntary her actions might have been. Sarah had made one choice and Faith another.

Still, Sarah concluded that whatever had happened to her was dwarfed by the prolonged agonies inflicted on Will.

On arrival at the sprawling community of Fort Washington, Sarah and the other women were assigned quarters in barracks made of logs and raw wood and assigned bunks that were even more crudely made than the barracks. The buildings were hot and stifling, and she wondered just what they’d be like in the winter with the wind and the snow blowing through the cracks. If she was still in them, she would see to it that the cracks were filled with mud, which would keep out the worst of the weather.

Of course, they were separated from Uncle Wilford, although Aunt Rebecca was with them. They were assured that there were married quarters, just not enough to go around just yet. Faith allowed that she was old enough to live away from her parents and the American authorities accepted that. Sarah had doubts, but kept her peace. If Rebecca and Wilford were satisfied, she would be too.

Sarah was further surprised when each of them was asked to write a summary of their skills on a page of paper. If nothing else, she thought wryly, it would separate those who were literate from those who weren’t.

A couple of days later, she and Faith found themselves seated across a table from a pleasant-looking woman who seemed older than someone not yet forty. And why not, Sarah thought. Abigail Adams’ husband John was likely dying in Jamaica.

“I hope you two are willing to work,” Mistress Adams said with a faint smile.

“We are,” Sarah answered for the two of them.

Abigail turned to Faith. “Your father is a blacksmith, is he not? What do you know of working with metals yourself?”

Faith was astonished. “Surely you do not expect me to be a blacksmith?”

“Of course not,” Mistress Adams answered sharply. She was not used to having her questions answered with another question. “I only want to know if you’ve worked with metal.”

“I have,” Faith admitted.

Mistress Adams relaxed and smiled. “Wonderful. While the men are out training for war, those women who have some skills will take their place. We have also found that many women have the dexterity necessary to work with weapons. We would like you to help assembling muskets. Do you accept?”

“Certainly,” Faith said, just a little overwhelmed by Mistress Adams. After all, she was the wife of one of the leaders of the revolution.

“Excellent.” Abigail Adams turned to Sarah. “I have a very cranky old man who needs a clerk and a nursemaid.” She held up the paper Sarah had written. “According to this, you obviously read and write well, and you say you took care of your father before he died.”

“I did,” Sarah answered with some hesitation.

Abigail’s eyes twinkled. She really was quite attractive when she was happy, and she seemed to be enjoying the conversation with Sarah for some reason.

“Don’t worry, Mistress Benton, I will not have you emptying chamber pots or wiping drool from the mouth of some demented old goat. No, there is an older man who may or may not be a little insane, but is certainly eccentric, and who is quite capable of caring for himself. He needs a clerk as much as a housekeeper, and he works well with women. Sometimes too well, if you understand my meaning.”

Sarah laughed. “I believe I can stop an old codger from pawing me.”

“I don’t doubt it at all. Do you accept?”

Do I have a choice, Sarah thought. She did not want to work assembling muskets with Faith, whatever and however one assembled muskets in the first place.

“Of course,” Sarah smiled.

* * *

Braxton wasn’t impressed with General Banastre Tarleton, at least not at first. The British general looked indolent, even pudgy and soft, and not the bold fighter and sadistic killer he was reputed to be.

Braxton had never seen a Frenchman, but Tarleton looked spoiled and pouty and he suspected that was what Frenchmen looked like. But that was until Braxton looked into Tarleton’s eyes and saw coldness and death, and realized that Tarleton was a poisonous viper. For the first time in a long while, Braxton knew the meaning of fear. He silently vowed that he would not make an enemy out of Tarleton.

“Burned Man Braxton,” Tarleton said without emotion, “How incredibly fitting.”

Braxton remained silent. Instead of the revulsion so many people felt when they saw him, Tarleton was not repulsed. Instead, he stared at Braxton almost approvingly. He was calculating.

“And you wish to kill rebels, do you not?”

“I do indeed, sir,” Braxton said with what he hoped was proper humility.

It was for that reason and with Burgoyne’s permission that Braxton and his band had traveled north and west to the British fort at Detroit. What had been a squalid little outpost had been augmented by the more than fifteen hundred British regulars Tarleton had brought from Pitt to reinforce the original garrison of only a couple of hundred soldiers. Rumor had it that Tarleton wanted to attack the rebels now, and not wait for Burgoyne to come with still more reinforcements. He felt that he had more than enough men to crush them this fall and there was no need to wait for reinforcements to arrive in the spring. If the British could get stronger, then so too could the rebels, he’d argued but to no avail.

He’d been overruled by both Cornwallis and Burgoyne. He would have to wait while more British soldiers arrived. Additional rumors said that several thousand more were coming overland and by boat from Montreal. Braxton wondered where they’d all eat, sleep, and shit, but that was not his problem.

“Other than killing people, what can you do for me?” Tarleton asked with a cold smile. “If I wanted people butchered in their beds, I can just turn loose the Indians.”

Braxton nodded. “But will they report back on what they’ve found and will they do that in a language an educated man like you would understand? Hardly, General. What the redskins will do is kill, get drunk, fuck their squaws, and then exaggerate their enemies’ numbers ten times over to make themselves seem like great warriors.”

Tarleton smiled mirthlessly and looked out the window of his cabin and down to the muddy bank of the wide Detroit River. Across the river was Canada, under the control of General Frederic Haldimand, hundreds of miles away in Montreal. Tarleton was absolutely appalled at the thought of spending a winter in this miserable place. “The Indians are rather useless bastards, even when they are sober, aren’t they?”

“Indeed, sir, and I have eighty men who can spread havoc among the rebel communities and kill them, which will mean fewer men for you and General Burgoyne to face.”

From the look on Tarleton’s face, Braxton was afraid he’d gone too far with his assessment of his own abilities. But then the British commander looked intrigued and treated him to another icy smile. “Can you make your attacks look like Indian assaults?”

For a moment, Braxton was puzzled, but then it dawned on him. “So the rebels will attack the Indians in revenge and actually turn the red savages against them? I can do that, sir. Just turn me loose, sir, and I’ll raise bloody fucking hell with the rebels.”

This time Tarleton’s smile was genuine. Death and destruction were going to be spread to his enemies. “Then go forth and smite the bastards, Captain, in full knowledge that whatever you do to them, however awfully it is done, will be forgiven by both me and a grateful king. And, oh yes, try not to get caught.”

* * *

Major General Nathanael Greene lay in his bed. His once healthy and robust frame was but a distant memory. He was gaunt and pale, and his breath was shallow and each one a struggle. Nathanael Greene, the man who was once George Washington’s trusted right hand, was dying at the age of forty-three. It was only a question of time.

Will Drake stood behind General Tallmadge at the foot of the bed. General Philip Schuyler stood beside Greene. Will had made his report on the trip up the Ohio to Tallmadge, who had thought Greene would like to hear it in person. He had. It meant that rumors of a British column approaching from the direction of the Ohio were unfounded. It also meant it was increasingly unlikely that any attack would occur this year.

“Burgoyne’s in winter quarters or will be very shortly. It will be some time before he has the strength to mount an assault on us,” Greene said weakly. “I only wish we had the strength to launch a surprise attack him like Washington did at Trenton.” He took a deep breath. “However, that will not happen. We are more than two hundred miles away from Detroit, not the night’s march from the enemy we were at Trenton.”

“Still, perhaps we can do something?” inquired Tallmadge.

“What do you propose?” asked General Schuyler.

“Raids to keep them occupied and to possibly destroy their resources,” Tallmadge answered. “Whatever we destroy this coming winter won’t be available to use against us in the spring and summer.”

Greene stared at Will. “I presume you’d send someone like Major Drake against them?”

Schuyler answered. “In some instances yes, General; however I was more thinking of George Rogers Clark and his men. I have it on good authority that he is in Kentucky and eager to help us. I’ve sent for him.”

Greene managed a wan smile. “You mean there’s somebody else the British didn’t send to Jamaica?”

“Yes sir,” said Tallmadge, “although there are rumors he’s drinking heavily. Again.”

Greene struggled to a sitting position. The effort seemed to exhaust him and he had to pause before continuing. “Actually, Clark is not in Kentucky and I have no idea whether he’s drinking or not. Last summer we sent Clark out west to check on the feasibility of our retreating farther towards the Pacific if the need arose. He has not yet returned and I don’t expect him until spring.”

Tallmadge was surprised and puzzled, as well as a bit annoyed. He was the spymaster and supposed to know about things like Clark going west instead of getting drunk in Kentucky. “But who will lead the raids?”

“No raids,” said General Schuyler and Greene nodded. “Not by him and not by Major Drake. We don’t want to aggravate Tarleton into disobeying what may be Burgoyne’s orders and coming after us. We might beat him, and we might not. Worse, we might provoke Burgoyne into bringing everything he has in a winter attack and we aren’t ready for that.”

Will wondered if they’d ever be ready enough to fight the British. Each day, the British got stronger. Were the rebels getting stronger than the enemy? He’d read the reports describing British numbers and knew better than to think that. He chaffed at the thought of doing nothing.

Will’s frustration emboldened him to interrupt Schuyler. “By sending Clark westward, are you sending a message that we’ll flee if the time comes?”

Greene chuckled. “We have no more intention of fleeing than you do of returning to that prison hulk, Major.”

Will flushed. He had no idea that Nathanael Greene knew of his story. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Greene waved off the apology. “Major, the problem is that people already see the British coming in one direction and a vast continent beckoning to the west. They rightly wonder whether we could or should pack up and move another thousand miles away, or even all the way west into lands held only lightly by the Russians or the Spanish, or by the widely scattered Indian tribes. If the land is fertile, there are those who feel we could exist out there for years, even decades, before the British even cared to come after us. With time on our side, we could truly become stronger, and who knows, the British might be more conciliatory after a generation or two. Lord North and King George can’t live forever, can they? Perhaps their replacements would be more reasonable men.”

Greene began to cough harshly. The speech had drained him of what little strength remained. When he gained control of himself, he looked sadly at those in the room. “Of course, some of us could easily be dead in the morning.”

“If we are not going to raid, what would you have us do?” Tallmadge asked.

Schuyler answered for Greene. “We must have information, information and still more information. We must know their strengths and their weaknesses. More British troops are arriving almost daily and more are on the way. We want to know who they are, what they are thinking and what resources they have. General Tallmadge, I want you to send men like Drake and others to find out the answers to questions we haven’t even thought of.”