CHAPTER XIV
ADVENTURES IN THE SERVICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
Soon after they reached home Jack received a letter from Doctor Franklin who had given up his fruitless work in London and returned to Philadelphia.
It said: 'My work in England has been fruitless and I am done with it. I bring you much love from the fair lady of your choice. That, my young friend, is a better possession than houses and lands, for even the flames of war can not destroy it. I have not seen, in all this life of mine, a dearer creature or a nobler passion. And I will tell you why it is dear to me, as well as to you. She is like the good people of England whose heart is with the colonies, but whose will is being baffled and oppressed. Let us hope it may not be for long. My good wishes for you involve the whole race whose blood is in my veins. That race has ever been like the patient ox, treading out the corn, whose leading trait is endurance.
"There is little light in the present outlook. You and Binkus will do well to come here. This, for a time, will be the center of our activities and you may be needed any moment."
Jack and Solomon went to Philadelphia soon after news of the battle of Lexington had reached Albany in the last days of April. They were among the cheering crowds that welcomed the delegates to the Second Congress.
Colonel Washington, the only delegate in uniform, was the most impressive figure in the Congress. He had come up with a coach and six horses from Virginia. The Colonel used to say that even with six horses, one had a slow and rough journey in the mud and sand. His dignity and noble stature, the fame he had won in the Indian wars and his wisdom and modesty in council, had silenced opposition and opened his way. He was a man highly favored of Heaven. The people of Philadelphia felt the power of his personality. They seemed to regard him with affectionate awe. All eyes were on him when he walked around. Not even the magnificent Hancock or the eloquent Patrick Henry attracted so much attention. Yet he would stop in the street to speak to a child or to say a pleasant word to an old acquaintance as he did to Solomon.
That day in June when the beloved Virginian was chosen to be Commander-in-Chief of the American forces, Jack and Solomon dined with Franklin at his home. John Adams of Boston and John Brown, the great merchant of Providence, were his other guests. The distinguished men were discussing the choice of Colonel Washington.
"I think that Ward is a greater soldier," said Brown. "Washington has done no fighting since '58. Our battles will be in the open. He is a bush fighter."
"True, but he is a fighter and, like Achilles, a born master of men," Franklin answered. "His fiery energy saved Braddock's army from being utterly wiped out. His gift for deliberation won the confidence of Congress. He has wisdom and personality. He can express them in calm debate or terrific action. Above all, he has a sense of the oneness of America. Massachusetts and Georgia are as dear to him as Virginia."
"He is a Christian gentleman of proved courage and great sagacity," said Adams. "His one defeat proved him to be the master of himself. It was a noble defeat."
Doctor Franklin, who never failed to show some token of respect for every guest at his table, turned to Solomon and said:
"Major Binkus, you have been with him a good deal. What do you think of Colonel Washington?"
"I think he's a hull four hoss team an' the dog under the waggin," said Solomon.
John Adams often quoted these words of the scout and they became a saying in New England.
"To ask you a question is like priming a pump," said Franklin, as he turned to Solomon with a laugh. "Washington is about four times the average man, with something to spare and that something is the dog under the wagon. It would seem that the Lord God has bred and prepared and sent him among us to be chosen. We saw and knew and voted. There was no room for doubt in my mind."
"And while I am a friend of Ward, I am after all convinced that Washington is the man," said Brown. "Nothing so became him as when he called upon all gentlemen present to remember that he thought himself unequal to the task."
Washington set out in June with Colonel Lee and a company of Light Horse for Boston where some sixteen thousand men had assembled with their rifles and muskets to be organized into an army for the defense of Massachusetts.
2
A little later Jack and Solomon followed with eight horses and two wagons loaded with barrels of gunpowder made under the direction of Benjamin Franklin and paid for with his money. A British fleet being in American waters, the overland route was chosen as the safer one. It was a slow and toilsome journey with here and there a touch of stern adventure. Crossing the pine barrens of New Jersey, they were held up by a band of Tory refugees and deprived of all the money in their pockets. Always Solomon got a squint in one eye and a solemn look in the other when that matter was referred to.
"'Twere all due to the freight," he said to a friend. "Ye see their guns was p'intin' our way and behind us were a ton o' gunpowder. She's awful particular comp'ny. Makes her nervous to have anybody nigh her that's bein' shot at. Ye got to be peaceful an' p'lite. Don't let no argements come up. If some feller wants yer money an' has got a gun it'll be cheaper to let him have it. I tell ye she's an uppity, hot-tempered ol' critter--got to be treated jest so er she'll stomp her foot an' say, 'Scat,' an' then--"
Solomon smiled and gave his right hand a little upward fling and said no more, having lifted the burden off his mind.
On the post road, beyond Horse Neck in Connecticut, they had a more serious adventure. They had been traveling with a crude map of each main road, showing the location of houses in the settled country where, at night, they could find shelter and hospitality. Owing to the peculiar character of their freight, the Committee in Philadelphia had requested them to avoid inns and had caused these maps to be sent to them at post-offices on the road indicating the homes of trusted patriots from twenty to thirty miles apart. About six o'clock in the evening of July twentieth, they reached the home of Israel Lockwood, three miles above Horse Neck. They had ridden through a storm which had shaken and smitten the earth with its thunder-bolts some of which had fallen near them. Mr. Lockwood directed them to leave their wagons on a large empty barn floor and asked them in to supper.
"If you'll bring suthin' out to us, I guess we better stay by her," said Solomon. "She might be nervous."
"Do you have to stay with this stuff all the while?" Lockwood asked.
"Night an' day," said Solomon. "Don't do to let 'er git lonesome. To-day when the lightnin' were slappin' the ground on both sides o' me, I wanted to hop down an' run off in the bush a mile er so fer to see the kentry, but I jest had to set an' hope that she would hold her temper an' not go to slappin' back."
"She," as Solomon called the two loads, was a most exacting mistress. They never left her alone for a moment. While one was putting away the horses the other was on guard. They slept near her at night.
Israel Lockwood sat down for a visit with them when he brought their food. While they were eating, another terrific thunder-storm arrived. In the midst of it a bolt struck the barn and rent its roof open and set the top of the mow afire. Solomon jumped to the rear wheel of one of the wagons while Jack seized the tongue. In a second it was rolling down the barn bridge and away. The barn had filled with smoke and cinders but these dauntless men rolled out the second wagon.
Rain was falling. Solomon observed a wisp of smoke coming out from under the roof of this wagon. He jumped in and found a live cinder which had burned through the cover and fallen on one of the barrels. It was eating into the wood. Solomon tossed it out in the rain and smothered "the live spot." He examined the barrels and the wagon floor and was satisfied. In speaking of that incident next day he said to Jack:
"If I hadn't 'a' had purty good control o' my legs, I guess they'd 'a' run erway with me. I had to put the whip on 'em to git 'em to step in under that wagon roof--you hear to me."
While Solomon was engaged with this trying duty, Lockwood had led the horses out of the stable below and rescued the harness. A heavy shower was falling. The flames had burst through the roof and in spite of the rain, the structure was soon destroyed.
"The wind was favorable and we all stood watching the fire, safe but helpless to do anything for our host," Jack wrote in a letter. "Fortunately there was another house near and I took the horses to its barn for the night. We slept in a woodshed close to the wagons. We slipped out of trouble by being on hand when it started. If we had gone into the house for supper, I'm inclined to think that the British would not have been driven out of Boston.
"We passed many companies of marching riflemen. In front of one of these, the fife and drum corps playing behind him, was a young Tory, who had insulted the company, and was, therefore, made to carry a gray goose in his arms with this maxim of Poor Richard on his back: 'Not every goose has feathers on him.'
"On the twentieth we reported to General Washington in Cambridge. This was the first time I saw him in the uniform of a general. He wore a blue coat with buff facings and buff underdress, a small sword, rich epaulets, a black cockade in his three-cornered hat, and a blue sash under his coat. His hair was done up in a queue. He was in boots and spurs. He received us politely, directing a young officer to go with us to the powder house. There we saw a large number of barrels.
"'All full of sand,' the officer whispered. 'We keep 'em here to fool the enemy,'
"Not far from the powder house I overheard this little dialogue between a captain and a private.
"'Bill, go get a pail o' water,' said the captain.
"'I shan't do it. 'Tain't my turn,' the private answered."
The men and officers were under many kinds of shelter in the big camp. There were tents and marquees and rude structures built of boards and roughly hewn timber, and of stone and turf and brick and brush. Some had doors and windows wrought out of withes knit together in the fashion of a basket. There were handsome young men whose thighs had never felt the touch of steel; elderly men in faded, moth-eaten uniforms and wigs.
In their possession were rifles and muskets of varying size, age and caliber. Some of them had helped to make the thunders of Naseby and Marston Moor. There were old sabers which had touched the ground when the hosts of Cromwell had knelt in prayer.
Certain of the men were swapping clothes. No uniforms had been provided for this singular assemblage of patriots all eager for service. Sergeants wore a strip of red on the right shoulder; corporals a strip of green. Field officers mounted a red cockade; captains flaunted a like signal in yellow. Generals wore a pink ribband and aides a green one.
This great body of men which had come to besiege Boston was able to shoot and dig. That is about all they knew of the art of war. Training had begun in earnest. The sergeants were working with squads; Generals Lee and Ward and Green and Putnam and Sullivan with companies and regiments from daylight to dark.
Jack was particularly interested in Putnam--a short, rugged, fat, white-haired farmer from Connecticut of bluff manners and nasal twang and of great animation for one of his years--he was then fifty-seven. He was often seen flying about the camp on a horse. The young man had read of the heroic exploits of this veteran of the Indian wars.
Their mission finished, that evening Jack and Solomon called at General Washington's headquarters.
[Illustration: Jack Irons and Solomon Binkus with General George Washington.]
"General, Doctor Franklin told us to turn over the bosses and wagons to you," said Solomon. "He didn't tell us what to do with ourselves 'cause 'twasn't necessary an' he knew it. We want to enlist."
"For what term?"
"Till the British are licked."
"You are the kind of men I need," said Washington. "I shall put you on scout duty. Mr. Irons will go into my regiment of sharp shooters with the rank of captain. You have told me of his training in Philadelphia."
3
So the two friends were enlisted and began service in the army of Washington.
A letter from Jack to his mother dated July 25, 1775, is full of the camp color:
"General Charles Lee is in command of my regiment," he writes. "He is a rough, slovenly old dog of a man who seems to bark at us on the training ground. He has two or three hunting dogs that live with him in his tent and also a rare gift of profanity which is with him everywhere--save at headquarters.
"To-day I saw these notices posted in camp:
"'Punctual attendance on divine service is required of all not on actual duty.'
"'No burning of the pope allowed.'
"'Fifteen stripes for denying duty.'
"'Ten for getting drunk.'
"'Thirty-nine for stealing and desertion.'
"Rogues are put in terror, lazy men are energized. The quarters are kept clean, the food is well cooked and in plentiful supply, but the British over in town are said to be getting hungry."
Early in August a London letter was forwarded to Jack from Philadelphia. He was filled with new hope as he read these lines:
"Dearest Jack: I am sailing for Boston on one of the next troop ships to join my father. So when the war ends--God grant it may be soon!--you will not have far to go to find me. Perhaps by Christmas time we may be together. Let us both pray for that. Meanwhile, I shall be happier for being nearer you and for doing what I can to heal the wounds made by this wretched war. I am going to be a nurse in a hospital. You see the truth is that since I met you, I like all men better, and I shall love to be trying to relieve their sufferings . . ."
It was a long letter but above is as much of it as can claim admission to these pages.
"Who but she could write such a letter?" Jack asked himself, and then he held it to his lips a moment. It thrilled him to think that even then she was probably in Boston. In the tent where he and Solomon lived when they were both in camp, he found the scout. The night before Solomon had slept out. Now he had built a small fire in front of the tent and lain down on a blanket, having delivered his report at headquarters.
"Margaret is in Boston," said Jack as soon as he entered, and then standing in the firelight read the letter to his friend.
"Thar is a real, genewine, likely gal," said the scout.
"I wish there were some way of getting to her," the young man remarked.
"Might as well think o' goin' to hell an' back ag'in," said Solomon. "Since Bunker Hill the British are like a lot o' hornets. I run on to one of 'em to-day. He fired at me an' didn't hit a thing but the air an' run like a scared rabbit. Could 'a' killed him easy but I kind o' enjoyed seein' him run. He were like chain lightnin' on a greased pole--you hear to me."
"If the General will let me, I'm going to try spy duty and see if I can get into town and out again," he proposed.
"You keep out o' that business," said Solomon. "They's too many that know ye over in town. The two Clarkes an' their friends an' Colonel Hare an' his friends, an' Cap. Preston, an' a hull passle. They know all 'bout ye. If you got snapped, they'd stan' ye ag'in' a wall an' put ye out o' the way quick. It would be pie for the Clarkes, an' the ol' man Hare wouldn't spill no tears over it. Cap. Preston couldn't save ye that's sart'in. No, sir, I won't 'low it. They's plenty o' old cusses fer such work."
For a time Jack abandoned the idea, but later, when Solomon failed to return from a scouting tour and a report reached camp that he was captured, the young man began to think of that rather romantic plan again. He had grown a full beard; his skin was tanned; his clothes were worn and torn and faded. His father, who had visited the camp bringing a supply of clothes for his son, had failed, at first, to recognize him.
December had arrived. The General was having his first great trial in keeping an army about him. Terms of enlistment were expiring. Cold weather had come. The camp was uncomfortable. Regiments of the homesick lads of New England were leaving or preparing to leave. Jack and a number of young ministers in the service organized a campaign of persuasion and many were prevailed upon to reenlist. But hundreds of boys were hurrying homeward on the frozen roads. The southern riflemen, who were a long journey from their homes, had not the like temptation to break away. Bitter rivalry arose between the boys of the north and the south. The latter, especially the Virginia lads, were in handsome uniforms. They looked down upon the awkward, homespun ranks in the regiments of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Then came the famous snowball battle between the boys of Virginia and New England. In the midst of it, Washington arrived and, leaping from his white horse, was quickly in the thick of the fight. He seized a couple of Virginia lads and gave them a shaking.
"No more of this," he commanded.
It was all over in a moment. The men were running toward their quarters.
"There is a wholesome regard here for the Commander-in-Chief," Jack wrote to his mother. "I look not upon his heroic figure without a thought of the great burden which rests upon it and a thrill of emotion. There are many who fear him. Most severely he will punish the man who neglects his duty, but how gentle and indulgent he can be, especially to a new recruit, until the latter has learned the game of war! He is like a good father to these thousands of boys and young men. No soldier can be flogged when he is near. If he sees a fellow tied to the halberds, he will ask about his offense and order him to be taken down. In camp his black servant, Bill, is always with him. Out of camp he has an escort of light horse. Morning and evening he holds divine service in his tent. When a man does a brave act, the Chief summons him to headquarters and gives him a token of his appreciation. I hope to be called one of these days."
Soon after this letter was written, the young man was sent for. He and his company had captured a number of men in a skirmish.
"Captain, you have done well," said the General. "I want to make a scout of you. In our present circumstances it's about the most important, dangerous and difficult work there is to be done here, especially the work which Solomon Binkus undertook to do. There is no other in whom I should have so much confidence."
"You do me great honor," said Jack. "I shall make a poor showing compared with that of my friend Major Binkus, but I have some knowledge of his methods and will do my best."
"You will do well to imitate them with caution," said the General. "He was a most intrepid and astute observer. In the bush they would not have captured him. The clearings toward the sea make the work arduous and full of danger. It is only for men of your strength and courage. Major Bartlett knows the part of the line which Colonel Binkus traversed. He will be going out that way to-morrow. I should like you, sir, to go with him. After one trip I shall be greatly pleased if you are capable of doing the work alone."
Orders were delivered and Jack reported to Bartlett, an agreeable, middle-aged farmer-soldier, who had been on scout duty since July. They left camp together next morning an hour before reveille. They had an uneventful day, mostly in wooded flats and ridges, and from the latter looking across with a spy-glass into Bruteland, as they called the country held by the British, and seeing only, now and then, an enemy picket or distant camps. About midday they sat down in a thicket together for a bite to eat and a whispered conference.
"Binkus, as you know, had his own way of scouting," said the Major. "He was an Indian fighter. He liked to get inside the enemy lines and lie close an' watch 'em an' mebbe hear what they were talking about. Now an' then he would surprise a British sentinel and disarm him an' bring him into camp."
Jack wondered that his friend had never spoken of the capture of prisoners.
"He was a modest man," said the young scout.
"He didn't want the British to know where Solomon Binkus was at work, and I guess he was wise," said the Major. "I advise you against taking the chances that he took. It isn't necessary. You would be caught much sooner than he was."
That day Bartlett took Jack over Solomon's trail and gave him the lay of the land and much good advice. A young man of Jack's spirit, however, is apt to have a degree of enterprise and self-confidence not easily controlled by advice. He had been traveling alone for three days when he felt the need of more exciting action. That night he crossed the Charles River on the ice in a snow-storm and captured a sentinel and brought him back to camp.
About this time he wrote another letter to the family, in which he said:
"The boys are coming back from home and reenlisting. They have not been paid--no one has been paid--but they are coming back. More of them are coming than went away.
"They all tell one story. The women and the old men made a row about their being at home in time of war. On Sunday the minister called them shirks. Everybody looked askance at them. A committee of girls went from house to house reenlisting the boys. So here they are, and Washington has an army, such as it is."
4
Soon after that the daring spirit of the youth led him into a great adventure. It was on the night of January fifth that Jack penetrated the British lines in a snow-storm and got close to an outpost in a strip of forest. There a camp-fire was burning. He came close. His garments had been whitened by the storm. The air was thick with snow, his feet were muffled in a foot of it. He sat by a stump scarcely twenty feet from the fire, seeing those in its light, but quite invisible. There he could distinctly hear the talk of the Britishers. It related to a proposed evacuation of the city by Howe.
"I'm weary of starving to death in this God-forsaken place," said one of them. "You can't keep an army without meat or vegetables. I've eaten fish till I'm getting scales on me."
"Colonel Riffington says that the army will leave here within a fortnight," another observed.
It was important information which had come to the ear of the young scout. The talk was that of well bred Englishmen who were probably officers.
"We ought not to speak of those matters aloud," one of them remarked. "Some damned Yankee may be listening like the one we captured."
"He was Amherst's old scout," said another. "He swore a blue streak when we shoved him into jail. They don't like to be treated like rebels. They want to be prisoners of war."
"I don't know why they shouldn't," another answered. "If this isn't a war, I never saw one. There are twenty thousand men under arms across the river and they've got us nailed in here tighter than a drum. They used to say in London that the rebellion was a teapot tempest and that a thousand grenadiers could march to the Alleghanies in a week and subdue the country on the way. You are aware of how far we have marched from the sea. It's just about to where we are now. We've gone about five miles in eight months. How many hundreds of years will pass before we reach the Alleghanies? But old Gage will tell you that it isn't a war."
A young man came along with his rifle on his shoulder.
"Hello, Bill!" said one of the men. "Going out on post?"
"I am, God help me," the youth answered. "It's what I'd call a hell of a night."
The sentinel passed close by Jack on his way to his post. The latter crept away and followed, gradually closing in upon his quarry. When they were well away from the fire, Jack came close and called, "Bill."
The sentinel stopped and faced about.
"You've forgotten something," said Jack, in a genial tone.
"What is it?"
"Your caution," Jack answered, with his pistol against the breast of his enemy. "I shall have to kill you if you call or fail to obey me. Give me the rifle and go on ahead. When I say gee go to the right, haw to the left."
So the capture was made, and on the way out Jack picked up the sentinel who stood waiting to be relieved and took both men into camp.
From documents on the person of one of these young Britishers, it appeared that General Clarke was in command of a brigade behind the lines which Jack had been watching and robbing.
When Jack delivered his report the Chief called him a brave lad and said:
"It is valuable information you have brought to me. Do not speak of it. Let me warn you. Captain, that from now on they will try to trap you. Perhaps, even, you may look for daring enterprises on that part of their line."
The General was right. The young scout ran into a most daring and successful British enterprise on the twentieth of January. The snow had been swept away in a warm rain and the ground had frozen bare, or it would not have been possible. Jack had got to a strip of woods in a lonely bit of country near the British lines and was climbing a tall tree to take observations when he saw a movement on the ground beneath him. He stopped and quickly discovered that the tree was surrounded by British soldiers. One of them, who stood with a raised rifle, called to him:
"Irons, I will trouble you to drop your pistols and come down at once."
Jack saw that he had run into an ambush. He dropped his pistols and came down. He had disregarded the warning of the General. He should have been looking out for an ambush. A squad of five men stood about him with rifles in hand. Among them was Lionel Clarke, his right sleeve empty.
"We've got you at last--you damned rebel!" said Clarke.
"I suppose you need some one to swear at," Jack answered.
"And to shoot at," Clarke suggested.
"I thought that you would not care for another match with me," the young scout remarked as they began to move away.
"Hereafter you will be treated like a rebel and not like a gentleman," Clarke answered.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you will be standing, blindfolded against a wall."
"That kind of a threat doesn't scare me," Jack answered. "We have too many of your men in our hands."