Dreams of Glory (2 page)
Authors: Thomas Fleming
“CHAPLAIN, DO YOU THINK I'M damned?”
The feverish eyes pleaded for hope. Caleb Chandler knelt beside eighteen-year-old Private Stephen Sprague of the 4th Connecticut Regiment and struggled to supply it.
“None of us can know the answer to that question,” he said. “All we can do is strive to merit the reward God has promised those whose faith in Him is pure.”
The northeast wind moaned through the surrounding woods. To Caleb Chandler it was a gloating, almost malicious sound.
“But you saidâyou said in your sermon last weekâthat maybe the Lord God had turned his face from America. Weâwasn't worthy of salvation. Don't that mean we're all damned?”
“Noâno. I wasn't speaking of men like youâgood soldiers. You're too sick to wrestle with the mystery of God's intentions. Trust Him. Place yourself in His hands and ask Him to restore your health.”
The young eyes searched Caleb Chandler's face for another moment. The chaplain tried to meet their challenge, but his mind was elsewhere, searching a face that was totally different from this innocent boy'sâa man's face, craggy, aristocratic, commanding, with hollowed, haggard eyes and a deep-cleft chin, the face, Caleb had always thought, of a heroic archangel. But those wise, resourceful eyes did not respond to his stare; the proud, knowing mouth did not curve into a welcoming smile. Instead the mouth gaped; the glazed eyes saw nothing. Blood oozed from the slashed throat of the Reverend Joel Lockwood.
“Could you get me a drink of water, Chaplain?”
Private Sprague had closed his eyes, as if he did not like what he had seen on Caleb Chandler's face. Caleb filled a tin cup that dangled from the side of the nearby water barrel and held it to the soldier's parched, swollen lips. His eyes remained closed. Was it a reproach?
Caleb tried to pray for the dying boy. He tried to summon the memory of the sweet sense of God's mercy, the awesome awareness of His justice, that had filled his youthful soul when he listened to the Reverend Joel Lockwood's sermons in the white-walled church in Lebanon, Connecticut. But all the chaplain could see was Lockwood's dead face on the floor of the New Jersey tavern.
Liberty Tavern. That was the name of the place. The Reverend Joel Lockwood, who had confidently told Caleb Chandler that America could not lose the war because God had chosen her people to demonstrate the great truth, that liberty was the handmaid of grace; Joel Lockwood, who had declared that the war would prove for all time the power of grace, its ability to inspire the virtue of an entire people; Joel Lockwood, whose subtle mind used to imagine liberty and grace as dancers on a divine stage, so intimately, ecstatically joined that only God's eye could distinguish them, had cut his throat in Liberty Tavern, after three years as a chaplain in the Continental Army of the United States of America.
Private Sprague's breath grew shallow. The fever was devouring the last of his strength. Around him groaned and tossed at least fifty other men with the same disease. Camp fever, the army doctors called it. They did not know its cause or its cure. The sick men lay on straw pallets on the floor of the one-room log building that served as the hospital of the Continental Army in Morristown. As the flames dwindled in the huge stone hearth, winter crept into the room like an intimation of death.
Caleb threw more wood on the fire. He wrapped his cloak around him and prodded a fat orderly snoring in an anteroom.
“I'm going now, Lodge. Watch that fire. Those men must be kept warm.”
“I'm going now, Lodge. Watch that fire. Those men must be kept warm.”
“Aye, Chaplain, aye,” Lodge muttered sleepily. “Did y'hear the latest from Philadelphia? Stopped printin' money. They might's well. Nobody'll take the stuff. I can remember when you could tar and feather a man who wouldn't take Continental money. But them days is long gone, Chaplain. New days, new ways, some say. Sad days, bad ways, I say.”
Lodge was from Massachusetts. He had been in the army since the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. When Lodge talked about the glorious days of '75 and '76, he made it sound like the war had lasted fifty years. Soldiers of those good old times were all heroes and every civilian was a patriot. Vanished now, gone as totally as ancient Sparta, to hear Lodge tell it.
“Watch that fire,” Caleb said. “Give some rum to Private Sprague. It may help.”
“Ain't a drop of rum left in the camp, Chaplain. Mark my words, it's going to tear this army apart if they don't do somethin'. Not that the great man from Virginia gives a tarnation. He's sittin' there in his mansion, drinkin' his madeira wine.”
Caleb nodded, tacitly agreeing with Lodge's criticism of George Washington. “When more rum arrives, give some to Sprague. I'm sure we'll get more in a day or two.”
“Day or two will be judgment day for Sprague. You know that, too, Chaplain.”
Lodge hoisted his squat frame erect. His foot struck something against the wall.
Clunk.
An empty bottle rolled out of the darkness.
Clunk.
An empty bottle rolled out of the darkness.
“No rum for dying men but plenty for the hospital orderlies, is that it?” Caleb said.
“I bought that rum with my own money, Chaplain,” Lodge said. “A man can't live at this work in this cold without rum. Why waste it on these pukers? They die just as fast with as without it.”
For a moment Lodge's greedy whine personified everything
that was wrong with Caleb Chandler's world. Although he was only half Lodge's weight, Caleb lifted the orderly off the floor and slammed him against the wall. “I said give Sprague rum!” he roared. “Or I'll come back here with a horsewhip and take the skin off you.”
that was wrong with Caleb Chandler's world. Although he was only half Lodge's weight, Caleb lifted the orderly off the floor and slammed him against the wall. “I said give Sprague rum!” he roared. “Or I'll come back here with a horsewhip and take the skin off you.”
“Yes, sir, Chaplain. I'll give it to'm,” Lodge gasped. “I'll give it to'm reglar.”
Caleb Chandler flung open the door of the log hospital and strode into the darkness. The wind struck him as if it were a solid object, a slab of ice, battering his entire body. Maybe he deserved it, deserved punishment, for losing his temper again. There was no point in pounding underlings like Private Lodge against the walls. The orderly would only complain to the army's medical director and one more officer would be convinced that Caleb Chandler was either a fool or a madman. The chaplain stumbled down a path cut through the waist-high drifts and reached the road that led from Jockey Hollow, where the enlisted men and junior officers were encamped, to his own quarters near the Morristown green, two and a half miles away. It was hard for Caleb to believe that six short months ago he had stood before the president of Yale College, receiving his diploma, proud of having turned his back on a half-dozen lucrative pulpits to volunteer as a chaplain in the Continental Army.
He had been responding once more to the example of the Reverend Joel Lockwood, who had resigned as pastor of the church in Lebanon in 1776 and marched to war as chaplain of the 4th Connecticut Regiment. Lockwood had taught Caleb the Latin and Greek he had needed to pass his entrance examinations to Yale. He had persuaded Caleb's father and older brothers to pay his way for the honor of having a minister in the family. Even then it had been understood that Caleb would enter the church.
Now, after four months in Morristown, Joel Lockwood's suicide no longer seemed incomprehensible to Caleb Chandler. He understood why anyone, even a man whose faith had
once been as vibrant as Joel Lockwood's, could slide into despair if he were a member of the Continental Army of the United States of America in the fifth year of the rebellion against King George III.
once been as vibrant as Joel Lockwood's, could slide into despair if he were a member of the Continental Army of the United States of America in the fifth year of the rebellion against King George III.
Instead of the band of brothers, committed to the defense of liberty, that Caleb had pictured, the army was closer to a pack of surly slaves, chained to their duty by their enlistment papers, the chains reinforced by rings of sentries with bayonets at the ready. Beyond the boundaries of the camp the people were indifferent, even hostile to the army. Farmers refused to accept the worthless Continental currency. For whole days, sometimes longer, the army commissary had not a scrap of food to issue to the merr. Ugly rumors drifted up from Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress, the army's legal masters, sat and debated and occasionally legislated. Scarcely a congressman was not in the pay of America's powerful but dubious ally, France, went one story. They were conniving to let the war remain a stalemate in America, pinning down half of England's army, while France carved off juicy chunks of the British Empire in the West Indies, Africa, India. Another story, which dovetailed neatly with the first one, portrayed the whole Congress as a pack of profiteers, busily making their fortunes, while the army starved. From the South came even worse rumors. Georgia had surrendered and South Carolina was planning to do the same. A British army was about to capture Charleston.
Then came a blow that seemed direct from God's hand. Early in December it had begun to snow. Caleb watched the soldiers, many of them shoeless, up to their knees in icy drifts, struggling to build log huts. On January 2, 1780, the intermittent storms became a blizzard that lasted four incredible days. By that time the army was a freezing, starving mob. The men swarmed into the countryside, robbing local farmers at gunpoint. Since that storm the temperature had not risen above zero. The northeast wind had never ceased its punishment The man were on half, often one-third rations. Some said another
blizzard or even another week of cold would be the end of the army.
blizzard or even another week of cold would be the end of the army.
Failure, defeat, was engulfing America. Why? There had to be a reason. Was the armyâabove all the enlisted menâthe victim of a fundamental spiritual flaw? A moral inertia traceable to the character of America's leaders? Caleb Chandler had begun to think that was the answer.
By now the chaplain was well past the center of Morristown's long rectangular green; he was approaching the Ford mansion, George Washington's headquarters. Was this man, as rich as any English earl, the source of America's, the army's corruption? John Hancock of Boston was as wealthy as George Washington, but his money had come from trade. Washington's fortune was in land, worked by hundreds of black slaves. How could a slaveowner lead a revolution in the name of liberty?
When Caleb Chandler had raised the question at Yale, his classmates had laughed in his face. The best people in Connecticut owned slaves; there were thousands of them in neighboring New York and New Jersey. Rome and Greece, the great civilizations of antiquity, sanctioned slavery. Caleb had dropped the subject. It did not seem important enough to argue about, in the warm comfort of his room on Chapel Street. He never dreamed the question would haunt him in the freezing hell of Morristown.
Caleb trudged into the wind, brooding on George Washington. His ownership of slaves was not the only reason the chaplain saw him as an evil influence on the army. More than once, in Lebanon, he had heard Joel Lockwood's best friend, William Williams, one of the Continental Congressmen for Connecticut, criticize Washington for his attempts to mold the army in his own aristocratic image, with extravagant pay and pensions for the officers. Worst of all, Williams had fumed, Washington, like most Southerners, despised New England men.
The Ford mansion's windows were still aglow with yellow
candlelight. Often, on his way back from the hospital, Caleb had heard drifting from the house the sort of hearty laughter created by madeira wine and a full belly. Now he saw an oblong of light appear in the front door. A man carrying a lantern. Caleb heard jovial goodnights. The lantern bobbed toward him.
candlelight. Often, on his way back from the hospital, Caleb had heard drifting from the house the sort of hearty laughter created by madeira wine and a full belly. Now he saw an oblong of light appear in the front door. A man carrying a lantern. Caleb heard jovial goodnights. The lantern bobbed toward him.
A gust of wind burst under Caleb's cloak. He clutched at the flapping cloth. His toes, his fingers, were totally numb. He stopped and stamped his feet, hoping to restore a little circulation. The wind faltered for a moment and he heard something else: the groan of a human being. The wind whirled and died again. Caleb stood there, his heart pounding. Uhhhhh. There it was again. An unmistakable, separate sound. A death groan. It came from the deep snow in the center of the green. But he could see nothing in the darkness.
“Sir,” he called to the man with the lantern. “Sir, could you bring your light over here? I think there's someone hurt nearby.”
The man approached. Muffled to his ears in a greatcoat of brown fur, he might have been a bear. They stood together for a moment while the wind gusted and died again. Once more it came:
Uhhhhhhhhh.
The groan.
Uhhhhhhhhh.
The groan.
Caleb seized the lantern and plowed his way through the unpacked snow on the green. The man in the fur coat followed him, calling somewhat querulously, “Sir, that's my lightâ”
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