The American Chronicle 1 - Burr (15 page)

“We cannot move!” Knox was furious. “We don’t know the island. We’re from Massachusetts.”

“I know every path and trail from the Bowery to the Heights.” Which was true: as a boy I had often hunted in the island. “I’ll lead the way.”

Knox protesting, the brigade assembled and we marched straight into a nest of British infantry who, seeing us like so many wild beasts bursting upon them from the yellow wood, ran as fast as they could, without firing a shot.

For two miles I rode at the head of the brigade. Knox did not speak to me once as I led the men through thick woods and across those deep swamps and sudden streams that are a characteristic of what is now called, so affectedly, Manhattan Island.

At only one point were we fired on. Knox was terrified. But before he could give the wrong order, I cantered in the direction of the firing, two officers beside me. On a rocky ledge we found a small company of British infantrymen. With wild Indian yells, we rode straight at them, as if we were the advance guard of a vast horde. They fled into the forest. We chased them for half a mile, killing several.

The sun was almost gone when we returned to the trail to find that the brigade had vanished. I was terrified that Knox had surrendered to the first passing British officer, but luckily he was only lost. We found the brigade marching serenely to the west.

Knox was bewildered when I pointed out to him that a trail that led toward the setting sun could not help but bring him eventually to the city of New York, and the British gallows.

The day was dying when we saw before us the single church spire of Haarlem Village, surrounded by the lights of the American camp. The men cheered. Colonel Knox said not a word to anyone as he led his brigade into the camp.

Although my exploit was presently known to Washington, no official mention of it was ever made.

Three months later (December 1776) Colonel Knox became chief of artillery and a brigadier-general.

IN JULY 1777, I was at Peekskill with General Putnam when my commission as lieutenant-colonel arrived from General Washington. I thought it overdue. I said as much in a letter to His Excellency, remarking that officers junior to me at Quebec and Long Island now took precedence. Those things mattered greatly to me then because they mattered to everyone else. We were hungry for honour in those days.

Washington’s response was elevated and aside from the point. But then I was already known to be friendly with those commanders he disliked, particularly the brilliant if unstable General Charles Lee, late of the Polish army. It was a law of General Washington that the mediocrities who worshipped him like Knox should rise inexorably during the war, while the Lees, as inexorably, sank.

I was to be second-in-command of a regiment stationed on the Ramapo River in Orange County, New Jersey. The regiment was the creation of a wealthy and genial New York merchant named Malcolm. This gentleman desired nothing more than to be revered as the father of his regiment, preferably at a comfortable distance from any administrative or military duties. We got on famously. He moved twenty miles away from our encampment, rented a large house and there lived happily (and paternally) ever after with his family while I took command of the regiment.

I found the men lax because their officers were New York gentlemen, more interested in parties than drilling. I was strict but seldom resorted to The Horse. This meant constant vigilance. I was always on the move. Slept in my clothes; when I slept at all. Got the reputation for having a pair of eyes in the back of my head. All this at age twenty-one. It was glorious!

During this time George Washington was conducting the war in his own mysterious way. After losing the battle for Long Island, he was surprised at Kip’s Bay and so lost New York City to the British. He then sustained a defeat at White Plains after which most of the Continental Army went home. With what men remained, Washington scurried across the North River. Yet if in August of ’76 Washington had abandoned to the British everything east of the Hudson River, he would have been able to keep intact his army, dig in before Philadelphia, and hold that city. Instead he devoted nearly a year to losing New York Island and City, demonstrating to everyone that he had neither the resources nor the craft to defeat the British. The Revolution was nearly over and done with by the winter of 1777.

A number of young officers prayed for Washington to be relieved of command. Some of us wanted Lee. Others Gates. No one but the sycophants on His Excellency’s staff wanted another winter of Washington and failure. Had the British realized the extent of our confusion and weakness, they might then and there have forced a peace upon us for with each passing day Washington’s conduct of the war was creating Tories by the thousands, including a number of powerful if secret ones in the Congress itself.

My task in September 1777 was to make the enemy regret that they were not Americans. I think we succeeded. Certainly they were never able to adapt to our Indian-style fighting which relied on darkness, stealth, surprise. We knew the wild forests around Paramus. They did not. We never met them in battle. Rather, we were always near by, ready to shoot them down one by one, preferably in the dark.

Our night-rides became famous through all that part of New Jersey, and at least one young commander thought this a delightful way of living. But then I had met at the Hermitage, a fine house just beyond Paramus, the lady who would one day become my wife.

It was a peculiar joy to creep like an Indian through dark pine woods, past enemy pickets, in order to join a brilliant party at the Hermitage and then, at an alert from a posted servant, to leap out a back window and vanish like a shadow when the moon is gone.

THOSE “BLOODY FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW” at Valley Forge! I have never enjoyed anything so much as the memoirs of James Wilkinson, author of this pretty image. But then Jamie could not tell the truth even if it were convenient to do so. There were ragged men and broken shoes at Valley Forge but I recollect no blood upon the snow. I do recollect the series of disasters which brought us to that windy Pennsylvania hill-side, and the bleakest hours of the war.

In September 1777 the British out-manoeuvred Washington once again and occupied Philadelphia (the Congress now became a burden to the city of Baltimore). Contrary to accepted legend, the Philadelphians did not at all mind the presence of the British army in their city; in fact, many of them hoped that Washington would soon be caught and hanged, putting an end to those disruptions and discomforts which had been set in motion by the ambitions of a number of greedy and vain lawyers shrewdly able to use as cover for their private designs Jefferson’s high-minded platitudes and cloudy political theorizings.

Shortly before Christmas 1777, I reported to General Washington at Valley Forge, some forty miles from Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. The commander’s quarters were, as always, comfortable (in February the Lady Washington would arrive to preside over the court).

I waited alone in a cold ante-room. Aides came and went, including General Knox who bestowed on me his fish eye as he went inside. I recognised Colonel Hamilton who was pleased to see me, as well as an old friend and contemporary, Colonel Troup, who told me, “You’re to be a diversion. Go on in. His Excellency is in a rage.”

I entered what must have been the dining-room of the original house. Washington stood in front of a fire, facing two gentlemen in civilian clothes.

He responded to my salute without ceasing to attend the burghers. “You gentlemen will recognise, no doubt, Colonel Burr who was at Quebec with General Montgomery.” My name was indeed known to these two members of the Pennsylvania Assembly who were also suppliers to the army—which is to say thieves. One was large; the other small. Their names are respectable now in the history of Pennsylvania and so I will not embarrass their descendants, who doubtless venerate as noble patriots the heavy-set villain and his slight accomplice.

The large one said, as though in explanation, “You will admit, Excellency, that this site is ideally suited for your purpose.” He waved his arms to north and south. “Plentiful water, a mill, timber from which you can build cabins. I have a consignment of nails, just arrived, at your disposal ...”

“I trust the Pennsylvania Assembly has already paid for the nails.” One could hardly blame Washington for his bad temper; he had wanted to go into winter quarters at Wilmington in Delaware, but Pennsylvania’s delegates to the Congress threatened to withdraw all financial support for Congress as well as for the army if he did not remain in Pennsylvania. So in order to make money for a pack of merchants, our half-starved army was now perched on the side of a wind-swept hill and those few who were not sick were now expected to build a camp, and survive somehow without provisions until the spring.

The small one got the subject away from nails. “We have all manner of supplies at hand. Or nearly at hand. Certainly you will lack for nothing a grateful colony ... uh, ‘state’ can offer.”

There was a sudden loud noise of cawing. The small man stopped talking. Even Washington allowed his dull face to relax into bewilderment. The cawing grew louder. A thousand crows, two thousand crows were sounding in the winter stillness. “Caw, caw, caw!”

Colonel Troup entered. “It’s the men, Your Excellency.”

“Caw, Caw, Caw!”

“They want food, Your Excellency.”

Washington turned to the Pennsylvanians. “There are only twenty-five barrels of flour in the camp. Presently the men will mutiny. If you do not supply us by tomorrow, there will be no one to protect you from the British hangman. Nor will there be anyone, gentlemen, to protect you from me.”

Colonel Troup showed the shaken Pennsylvanians out.

Washington proceeded to deal with me. “I have heard of your night-raids in Jersey. They have been appreciated.”

“Thank you, Your Excellency.” I wondered if I should drop to one knee. With each year’s new defeats, the ceremony of Washington’s court became more royal. “I had hoped I might be of the same service now.”

“In Pennsylvania?” Washington waved a large ink-stained hand toward the window.

“No, Sir. Staten Island. I know every inch of it, and I know we can do serious damage to the British there. Particularly with night-raids.”

“How many men would you need?”

“Two hundred, Sir. From my own regiment.”

“You mean from Colonel Malcolm’s regiment.” This was flat. We were fated to dislike one another. On my side I found irritating the slowness of his mind; not to mention his awesome gift for failure in the field. In three years he had lost
every
engagement with the enemy except for a small victory at Trenton and that had been an accident: the Hessians had not posted guards the night of his attack. At this point in the war the only American victories were those of Gates at Saratoga and Lee at Charleston. Quite naturally, many officers wanted Washington replaced. They had my sympathy.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

As Washington invented reasons for keeping me at winter quarters with nothing to do, the crowing continued and I saw that he was much shaken by it. Finally he dismissed me with “You will employ Colonel Malcolm’s men in the building of wooden cabins.” Thus was I domesticated.

Outside headquarters, I found Colonel Hamilton. He was staring down the side of the hill to the first of the tattered tents where a number of patriots were crowing and flapping their arms. A comical sight when described on the page but downright sinister to observe in what was supposed to be an army. Interspersed with the cawing was the cry “No meat, no meat!”

“We must do something, Burr.” This was one of the few occasions that I ever knew Hamilton not to begin a conversation with a charming salutation.

“Yes.” I was agreeable. “We must find food for the men. It should not be hard ...”

“You don’t know these Pennsylvanians.” He shook his handsome head; a thin little fellow with patched breeches like the rest of us.

“I would go to the nearest town and take what I needed.”

Hamilton gave me a contemptuous look. “If we did, every last one of those ‘business men’ would take the oath to the King.”

I was not impressed. “Then we can hang them.” I enjoyed shocking Hamilton, or rather allowing him to play at shock. Actually, he was far more devoted to demonstrations of
force majeure
than I. Mischievously, I asked him if he enjoyed the position I had found unendurable on Washington’s staff.

Hamilton was oblique. “I find my place discouraging. Between the fools in the Congress and the treachery of certain of our general officers ...” He launched into a scathing attack on Gates. “A vile intriguer, constantly writing to Congress behind His Excellency’s back, conspiring with officers right here in camp.”

For the first time I learned of the so-called Conway Cabal which was, at that very moment, aiming to replace Washington with Gates. Although Hamilton was no admirer of Washington, he had elected to rise through him and so was not a part of the cabal whose leader was a newly-arrived French officer named Conway. An intelligent but impetuous man, Conway had somehow persuaded Congress to make him inspector-general of the army. This was a blow at Washington. Fortunately for His Excellency, it was also a blow at every senior officer in the army and their bitterness at Conway’s undeserved promotion enabled Washington to play on the common jealousy, thus isolating Conway.

But the Frenchman was resourceful. A series of letters between him and Gates convinced the latter (as if he needed convincing) that he alone could defeat the British. What an extraordinary winter it was! Within the log cabins of our starving, half-clothed army there flourished intrigues of a complexity unknown at the court of the Sultan, as hundreds of letters in cipher passed back and forth between the various conspirators. Close to the centre of all this activity was—who else?—James Wilkinson.

I saw Jamie Christmas day as he passed in splendour before my hut. In October he had been sent by Gates to Congress with the news of our army’s first and only true victory of the war, the surrender of the British general Burgoyne and his army in the north. With the good news was a request from Gates that the bearer be promoted to brigadier-general. By this peculiar criterion, if the news had been bad, Jamie would have been broken to major. Without demur or reflection, the jubilant Congress complied. The promotion of Conway had been bad enough but Wilkinson’s absurd elevation caused some twenty colonels to write in protest to Congress. I was not one of them: Jamie was still my friend. I was still his “idol.”