Cannons at Dawn Read online

  Mama did not scold me for losing sight of my brother — during church all of us had been praying with our eyes closed.

  We have learned that ten days ago General Washington gave Benedict Arnold a high honour: the command of West Point. This fort juts out into the Hudson, where there is a narrow S curve. Large vessels must slow down to navigate the turn, which allows our cannons and artillery to fire before being fired upon. Also to stop the British warships, there is an iron chain across the river. One end is anchored on Constitution Island, the other on the opposite shore. Log rafts attached to the chain keep it from sinking, and anchors keep it from drifting in the strong current.

  “Each link is the size of Johnny,” Mr. Campbell said, holding his hand over my brother’s head. “About two feet long, and thick as this boy’s leg. How about that?” He and other blacksmiths want to repair some weak spots, he told us, but General Arnold will not give his approval. They do not know why.

  “’Tis most troubling,” said Mr. Campbell.

  September 22, 1780, Friday

  This afternoon at sunset, Willie, Papa, and Victor ran into camp. They were out of breath and faint from the heat. They had not eaten for two days. Right away, Miss Lulu sat them down with a cup of mushroom broth and a piece of her honey cake.

  “An English warship is down near Stony Point,” Willie told us. “’Tis the sloop Vulture. I saw the name painted on her stern. Our troops fired, forcing her downriver. But all hands were on deck and not a bit afraid. I’d say, if the wind turns in her favor she shall return under the cover of darkness.”

  “Papa, what does this mean?” I asked.

  “’Tis not good,” he said. “Our enemies want to capture West Point. If they succeed, they shall control the Hudson River, from Albany all the way down to the ocean where New York Harbor is.”

  “What then, Papa?”

  He swallowed the last of his broth then stood to shoulder his musket. “The British Navy will own the Hudson, slicing us in two with their warships.”

  September 23, 1780, Saturday

  Esther and I were emptying a washtub into the brush when a messenger rode through camp. He reported disturbing news:

  An Englishman in simple clothing was stopped on the road near Tarrytown. Our guards questioned then searched him. When they found six papers in his boot describing the weaknesses of West Point, they realized he was a spy. He tried to bribe them with his horse and his watch to let him go, but they still took him to Headquarters in Tappan. His true identity is Major John André. It seems those papers were written by a high-ranking officer in our Army who is planning to defect to the British.

  September 29, 1780, Friday

  All of us in camp were eager to hear about Major André’s trial in Tappan. It was held today at Headquarters. We wanted to know who the American traitor is, and if harm has come to our Army. The story is this:

  John André sailed up the Hudson aboard the Vulture, which anchored below Stony Point. In the middle of the night he rowed to shore, for a prearranged meeting in the forest. Someone gave him the damning papers, but at his trial he would not say who.

  He is to be hanged in three days.

  After we heard this news, Esther and I went looking in the woods for apples. Her striped dress is ragged along the hem like mine and she has gone barefoot these warm months to save her shoes. Her feet are brown from the sun. As we walked, she told me two interesting things. One was a story about Major John André.

  “When the British occupied Philadelphia, he lived next door to us in Benjamin Franklin’s house. That was two winters ago,” she explained. “He’s a charming gent, an artist, and he speaks several languages. He drew a picture of me with my cat.”

  “Do you think he is truly a spy?” I asked.

  “That I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know he took some of Mr. Franklin’s belongings without permission. The cook told me he put a pen knife and an ivory comb into the cuff of his coat sleeve when he left the city.”

  The other interesting thing Esther told me is that she is expecting a baby!

  September 30, 1780, Saturday

  Distress. I write these words with panic in my heart. Johnny and Betsy Ewing have been missing all morning. They were playing at my side while I was grinding coffee beans. I turned to look for a heavier rock, but when I came back they were gone.

  They are not in anyone’s tent and they are not under any tree. Everyone is searching for their footprints in the soft dirt. I am sick with worry.

  Still Saturday — rainstorm

  Sally and I are by the fire, trying to dry off. Thunder is still rumbling in the distance and the earth is muddy. The rain stopped, but it washed away all signs of where Johnny and Betsy might have walked. How will we ever find them now?

  Miss Lulu is making each of us drink a cup of hot broth for nourishment. There is no honey cake today. All the mothers and children are taking turns searching, then warming themselves while others go out to look.

  Still Saturday—late afternoon

  The sun will set in an hour! Already shadows in the woods are dark, and still we have not found Betsy or my little brother. Mama keeps pressing her hand to her heart as if to quiet its pounding. If only we could make time stop and go back to this morning. I would have tied those two babies to my wrist.

  Mrs. Ewing is keeping Anna and Robert by her skirts.

  “Please God, not another one,” she cried. She told Mama that she has lost two children to small pox, one to measles. “Betsy is our little angel. God gave her to us to heal our heartbreak. I don’t know what I’ll do —”

  Mama hugged her.

  “There, there, ladies,” said Miss Lulu, trying to comfort them. “I am prayin’ for those dear little ones. Hang on.”

  Still Saturday—night

  Papa and Willie are searching with Mr. Ewing along the creeks with torches. So are Victor and Mr. Campbell, but in the opposite direction. Thomas is here by the fire. Though he is just eleven years of age, he patted my hand to comfort me. I keep forgetting that he has suffered the loss of his parents.

  All of us are drowsy but cannot sleep. Fear is eating at my stomach.

  October 1, 1780, Sunday —dawn

  The worst has happened.

  I am looking out our tent at a mist rising through the woods. Shouts just came from across the creek. Someone has found a child’s body.

  Still Sunday — noon

  Victor came into camp, two babes in his arms. Betsy’s golden hair was dripping. It looked white against his black skin. My heart raced when I saw Johnny’s sopping shirt.

  Mama and Mrs. Ewing cried out, weeping at the sight.

  But Victor shouted, “Ma’am, this one’s breathin’!”

  I shall forever rejoice that my brother lives. Victor found him on a sandbar, soaked and shivering inside a tangle of driftwood. Betsy was floating facedown in an eddy.

  We do not know what happened. It seems they went to the creek to play, all in the instant that I turned my back. Johnny does not know how to swim, so he must have waded over to the sandbar — the water is shallow enough.

  Why his sweet little friend drowned, yet he did not, I shall never understand. It was not for lack of a mother’s fervent prayers.

  October 2, 1780, Monday

  This morning Willie and young Thomas made a small coffin from slabs of bark they gathered in the forest.

  Mrs. Ewing came to me. “’Tis not your fault, Abigail dear. Our Betsy was always running off. Now she’s in Heaven with my other children. Some day I shall see them again.” When Mrs. Ewing put her arms around me, I wept like a baby. I thought my heart would burst.

  Just before sunset a horseman brought news into camp, but we were too spent to ask questions. All we know is that Major John André was hanged today. And that the American traitor is Benedict Arnold.

  October 6, 1780, Friday

  The heat of summer is gone. My thoughts are heavy, remembering little Betsy. Though her mother does not blame me, I
cannot ease this heartache. If only I had kept better watch.

  Days are cool as the leaves change color and fall into swirling piles. Soon the Army shall march to winter camps. Many of the women will follow their husbands to West Point where General Washington had his Headquarters last year. More shall winter in Burlington, others near Boston. Our family and new friends are returning to Jockey Hollow with the Pennsylvania line — about 2,000 soldiers.

  We are learning more about General Arnold:

  For many months he has been sending secret codes to the enemy about our troops, our locations, and our artillery. He was to be paid handsomely — thousands of pounds — and given a command in the Royal Army if he succeeded in turning over West Point to the British. It was he who wrote the papers hidden in Major André’s boot.

  When told that the major had been arrested, Benedict Arnold left his young wife and baby in his quarters at West Point and ran to shore. A bargeman rowed him downriver to the Vulture, thus he escaped. His wife, Peggy, was a Loyalist and in on the plot.

  General Washington was stunned when informed of this treachery.

  “He was beside himself,” the messenger told us. “Later, I was in a tavern with him. His aides urged him to join them at the table with their maps, but he would not. His Excellency paced back and forth in the barroom, holding a bowl of milk, too upset to drink it. His face was red with fury.”

  How much damage has been done to the Continental Army, no one yet knows. At least West Point did not fall into the hands of the British.

  I wonder if Peggy will be executed like Major André.

  October 9, 1780, Monday

  Johnny has a deep cough from being on the sandbar all night in wet clothes. Mrs. Campbell and Miss Lulu help Mama by taking turns holding him. They wrap him in a blanket with a heated rock upon his chest.

  We are praying for him. Also we are praying that God bring comfort to Betsy’s family. Anna is so heartsore she will not go near the creek, not even to fetch water. I am trying to keep the children busy with reading and writing, but for now they are not interested in school.

  I deserve to be shunned, but the Ewings are not doing so. I am humbled by their graciousness.

  December 25, 1780, Monday

  Jockey Hollow, New Jersey. Two months have passed since I last opened these pages. We have been consumed caring for Johnny’s pneumonia. At last his cough is gone, but suddenly it’s Christmas!

  This morning Thomas came to our hut with gifts. He is taller by the month, and now has freckles across his nose. His red hair was tied back in a queue like the older men.

  “Merry Christmas!” he said.

  For us ladies, he had made a beautiful wreath of pine to hang on our wall. Woven into the branches were sprigs of holly and some golden leaves left over from autumn. Its fresh aroma sweetened our crowded cabin.

  “Thomas dear, how very thoughtful of you,” said Mama.

  He then held out a little drum he had made, with two sticks. “Johnny lad, this is for you. Your very own, as I promised when you were ailing.”

  “Tom, thank you! I like drums!”

  Ow, our ears! The noise from a three-year-old with a banging toy is painful. After some minutes Mama said, “Johnny, we shall rest your drum for now. You have a very important job — to announce supper for everyone.”

  That is how Mama got my brother to make his noise just once a day.

  We are in a different shelter from last year. While we were gone during the summer, many of the huts were torn down by the farmers. They needed the logs to rebuild the fences that our soldiers had taken for firewood. Still, Jockey Hollow looks like a little village with rows of cabins and muddy paths in between.

  The weather is not as cruel this December, though food is still scarce. Mama is so thin, her cheeks have shadows.

  I read back in this diary to remember a merry Christmas in Valley Forge, before our house burned. I had a stomachache from drinking too much Egg Nog, and did not like the scarf Elisabeth had knit me. I was such a child.

  This is now our second year of following Papa and the Army.

  I think of my dear friends back home, but their faces are becoming pale memories.

  December 27, 1780, Wednesday

  I am feeling sorry for myself today.

  I do not care about silk or satin, but how I would love some new clothes. My sleeves and apron are dotted black from sparks off the cooking fire — soon the cotton will shred from so many holes. The strings on my cap have rotted. I need one that won’t blow off in the wind, and I would love new shoes as well. My feet are always wet, always cold.

  But when I see the other girls and mothers in rags, the soldiers with bare legs, I feel ashamed. All of us are in need.

  Every day after the men drill and clean artillery, Willie comes calling. He is nearly nineteen now and has the handsome face of his father.

  First he greets his mother with a kiss then he says, “Miss Abigail, will you do me the honour?”

  We walk to the edge of the forest and up a small hill where we dust the snow off a tree stump. There we sit. It’s too cold to be out for long. We chat until we start shivering, then he offers his arm so I won’t slip on the icy path.

  “Careful, Abby,” he always says.

  But today when I took his arm, instead of watching my step, I glanced up at his face. He is a fine-looking boy. That instant, my feet slid out from under me and down I went, pulling him with me. We slid on our rumps to the bottom of the hill.

  “Whoops!” we both said, laughing. His new tricorn, given to him by the quartermaster, bounced from his head and slid with us in the snow.

  Now I know why I want a new dress. It’s because of Willie Campbell. Being with him makes me want to look pretty.

  December 28, 1780, Thursday

  Once again the soldiers are talking mutiny. While Mama and the other women pleaded with them to stay in camp, we served them ash-cake — this is just flour and water mixed together on a rock then thrown in the ashes to bake. It has a bitter, grainy taste but it was their supper. The men devoured it with cups of hot coffee.

  “Husbands, please,” said Mrs. Campbell. “They execute spies and mutineers. You could all be hanged!” Though her husband is a blacksmith for the troops, he, too, is ready to take up arms on behalf of the men.

  “Pardon me, ladies, but we are practically skeletons. Look.” One of the soldiers lifted his shirt to show his ribs. “If Congress wants us to fight the enemy, they must put something in our bellies. We cannot keep eating the bark off trees.”

  “We have not been paid in months,” my father reminded everyone.

  “And for many of us,” said Mr. Ewing, “our three-year enlistments are expiring. They cannot force us to stay in this misery.”

  Mama pulled me away from the campfire. We hurried back to our hut. The men’s voices were low and rumbling, like something about to happen.

  Still Thursday, late at night

  Before bed, we looked out the door. In the darkness we could see candlelight among clusters of men. They were talking in small groups, walking around camp, meeting with others.

  Mama brushed my hair in long, quiet strokes, then plaited it. I am old enough to do this myself, but I like being close to her. And I like being close to Sally. She sat in my lap while I plaited her hair, and she plaited Mazie’s five pigtails.

  “What will we do if there’s a mutiny?” I asked no one in particular. I could see Miss Lulu and Mrs. Campbell exchange looks, and I could feel Mama behind me taking a deep breath.

  “We have spoken to some of the other wives,” she answered. “Many of us are going to follow our husbands.”

  Mrs. Campbell nodded. “If anything happens to our men, we want to know about it. We want to be there.”

  “That’s right,” said Miss Lulu.

  “But where are the soldiers going?” asked Sally. “Is it far? What will they do?”

  “They are taking their complaints to Congress, Sally dear. Philadelphia is perha
ps a three-day march, that is, if there are no blizzards.”

  Sally jumped up. “Elisabeth is in Philadelphia. We can see our new baby!”

  A look of worry came into my mother’s eyes. She knows I have written many letters to my sister. We are distressed by her lack of response. “I dream of that day,” Mama said, “when we can all be together again.”

  New Year’s Eve, 1780

  It is late. I am by the fire to keep warm. Throughout the Pennsylvania camp, men are shouting and cheering, welcoming the New Year. But we in our hut are quiet. We know another reason they celebrate.

  Tomorrow eleven regiments will desert their posts!

  New Year’s Day 1781, Monday

  We can hear the clatter of muskets being shouldered and footsteps from hundreds and hundreds of soldiers lining up to leave Jockey Hollow. There is jangling of harnesses from the horses hitched to cannons and baggage wagons.

  Gunshots are frightening us. Captain Bitting was killed trying to stop the mutiny. We saw his body sprawled in a puddle of red snow. Several others were wounded. We watched Captain Tolbert go down, bleeding from the throat. Men carried him into a hut but if he lived or died, we do not know.