A BATTLE PIECE

It was late on the night of August 26, 1776. The sun had set blood red beyond the Jersey palisades, touching, as it dipped, the British ships in New York harbor. The nine thousand Continentals camped on Brooklyn Heights, with their backs to the East River and their gun muzzles pointed toward the rugged hills which masked Flatbush, wondered where Howe kept himself and wished for the actual presence of Washington.

“Old Uncle Putnam!” grumbled the spruce Marylanders. “Galloping around here in his shirt sleeves and a dirty leather jacket. A —— New England farmer. A very fine appearing gentleman, indeed. Why doesn’t Washington put a military man in command of the Long Island troops?”

In this impatient mood they scanned the line of hill and timber before them. Through that dark mass were scattered their outposts and beyond it somewhere Howe moved his twenty thousand troops—of which number a great many were veterans of the continent—and waited for a chance to fling them against the rebellious Americans in the first open and pitched battle of the revolution.

“Why won’t he come and fight it now?” fretted the Marylanders. “Why won’t Washington force him? Why don’t we fight?”

High-strung men, these sons of planters and Baltimore shopkeepers; proud but green troops who did not yet know what iron discipline or patient waiting meant.

“Howe’s afraid,” said the New Englanders posted in the distant timbered defiles. “He’s remembering Bunker Hill and he wants to take his time. But why don’t they bring up reinforcements? We can’t hold these passes against the whole British army. Where is Washington?”

If they thought the commander-in-chief slept and forgot them they were mistaken. Washington stood in New York town and stared across the black tide of the East River; watching anxiously, knowing that the odds were heavy against the untenable position over there; knowing, too, that his general had not fully comprehended the spirit of his orders.

His last injunction to Putnam had been, “Keep an eye on the Jamaica road. I fear your main trouble will be from that quarter.” He had personally supervised the placing of the troops on Long Island. He himself had seen to the disposition of trenches on the Heights and had even gone so far as to pace off a distance of ten yards in front of these trenches. “Do not waste powder. If attacked, wait until the enemy is within this space before firing.” He, too, had placed the outposts in the two defiles of the broken hills; one on the southwestern end and one in the center. By these two passes only could Howe penetrate the jungle of brush, marsh and sharp inclines. But there was another road to the northeast which skirted the range entirely—the Jamaica highway. And Washington had repeated again, “Keep a sharp lookout along that road.”

Old Israel Putnam, a doughty, courageous veteran of the French and Indian campaigns, gaily agreed and rode away as if he were on a holiday. To fight was his business and if he found the enemy he would engage. Meanwhile, like a jolly old uncle he circulated among his soldiers quite as if he were at a town meeting.

Sergeant Abner Cotton led his detail back through the dark, answered the challenge of the sentry and trudged toward the general’s tent. There was no formality about speaking with Putnam. One private supposedly stood guard at the door but Putnam, hearing the sergeant’s voice, boomed out—

“Ne’mind that horseplay! Come in, sonny, come in!” Sergeant Cotton entered, saluted and stood straight.

“What’s the story, sonny?”

“I went as far as ordered, sir, and saw nothing. Another patrol passed me on the Jamaica road but the sergeant in charge said he’d found nothing suspicious either.”

“All right, sonny. Guess you’ve done your night’s work. Meanwhile your company’s moved out to the hills, so you just fall in with the nearest outfit—that will prob’ly be the Maryland boys.”

Cotton saluted and started to leave; Putnam held him with a gesture and looked at the young man’s face as if he were reading a book. There could be no mistaking the nativity of Abner Cotton. Yankee awkwardness and Yankee conscience were stamped plainly on his features. His nut-brown cheeks were almost cadaverous and a kind of parsimony of flesh was evident from head to foot; he was, in fact, bony and march-worn. When he moved, it needed no second glance to place him as one who had worked hard all his life and in consequence had learned to husband his efforts. The illusion was further sustained by a thin-lipped mouth that appeared to be keeping in attempted speech. All in all, it made the man seem a little grim, a trifle dour, a shade hard-bitten; as if living had been none too easy and as if there were nothing much to laugh about in a toilsome world. But the eyes told another story. They were veritable mirrors of the man’s conscience.

“Sonny,” said Putnam, worrying a quill pen in his chubby fist, “your face does look f’miliar. What’s name?”

“Cotton, sir.”

The general’s face lighted with a rare, beaming smile.

“Thought so. Know your Paw. Carried a fowling piece with him in Canada years ago. Good heart, good mind—Cotton’s, I mean.”

He nodded.

Sergeant Cotton retreated to his detail, dismissed them and made his way slowly to the foremost fires which danced fitfully and brilliantly behind the rough earthworks. One particular blaze seemed less crowded than the others and he advanced to it. Within ten yards a remark floated out to him:

“There’s a —— Yankee now, in a regular Yankee suit of clothes. Good ——, don’t they know how to dress?”

His head was bent a little in reflection and so none could see the slight change of features. He passed the remark by as if he had been oblivious to it and advanced to the heat. The Marylanders regarded him in a speculative, disapproving silence. One gave way a little to admit him; he sat down and looked into the flames, offering nothing by way of greeting. He was more or less familiar with these proud, high-spirited Southerners, their fine manners and their well-kept buff-and-blue uniforms; he knew them to be prejudiced against anything savoring of New England. He knew they looked upon him as almost an alien. Perhaps if he could speak well he might mingle with these men, make them see that although he came from another province he was as they were. Clothes made no difference. They had ruffles on their shirts and their buttons were bright and their gaiters clean. He had no ruffles at all and no gaiters covered his homespun socks and cowhide shoes.

But they were all fighting for the same end. Moreover that fight had begun—and he felt a mild touch of pride in the fact—on Yankee soil. It was New England who first had shown her stiff backbone and given the other colonies the tempo of American humor. But, though he thought it, he could not say it. The words were landlocked; he had spent too many years at sober communion to change style now. So he kept his eyes lowered, listening to the idle talk around him.

“Sure’s my name is Alex Carroll, if we don’t fight soon I’ll walk home. I came to tote a gun, not a shovel. Let the —— Yankees dig ditches. They do it so well.”

A silence pervaded the circle. Sergeant Cotton would not take notice of them and presently the talk flowed again. Then he spent a brief glance around him. Handsome, flushed faces. All full of plain courage, all sighing for glory. But of other and more sober virtues, he told himself, perhaps he knew more. The same drawling voice broke in:

“Putnam! A fine general to command a Southern brigade. Man likes to feel at home under his commanding officer. For me, I need a Southern gentleman to give me orders. Sure’s my name’s Alex Carroll, I’ll not abide the word of a New Englander.”

Sergeant Cotton’s fine eyes were lighted with trouble. He seemed struggling with his conscience, as perhaps he had been doing all his life. At last his mild voice, waiting for a lull in the talk, broke in, hesitant but free from embarrassment.

“Guess you’ll find some New Englanders that know about war.”

The circle turned upon him, voicing their hereditary antagonism. Carroll swooped down with a single, malicious—

“Who?”

Sergeant Cotton ventured to put up his own general’s name.

“Putnam knows enough to win battles.”

A howl of scorn overwhelmed him. The Marylanders rent “Uncle Putnam” in a dozen shreds.

“He looks like a village blacksmith, not a soldier,” added Carroll.

“Clothes, now,” ventured the sergeant, “do they make a fighting man?”

“There are certain elements of military discipline and appearance that go with general officers,” stiffly admonished Carroll. “If they have not dignity and command, how can they inspire their subordinates?”

Cotton was imperturbable. He seemed to be searching himself to find the proper words, to gain these men over by the use of a mild reasonableness.

“He was good enough at Bunker Hill,” he reminded them. “Right smart amount of New Englanders there. Guess they did a little fighting. Seemed so to me.”

That silenced most, but not Alex Carroll the impatient, the scornful.

“Good ——! Must we be forever hearing about Bunker Hill? They talk as if it was the only battle under heaven. Why did you break and run when you had the British twice beaten and disorganized?”

Sergeant Cotton’s eyes were half closed; he seemed to be reviewing the memorable struggle in which he had played a part at the immortal redoubt.

“Powder and shot. Can’t fight without ammunition or parry a bayonet with a gun butt.”

“So? Maryland men, had they been there, would have died to the last private before quitting that hill!”

The resounding sentence met with the circle’s manifest approval. Alex Carroll raised his head, flushed by the sounding oratorical blast.

Sergeant Cotton’s ancestry permitted him a dry, wintry smile. It skittered over his face and vanished.

“Guess you’ll most all have a chance to do that before this war’s over,” said he and drew within his shell.

He had done an undue amount of talking and he had not succeeded. He could not find the words that would touch them; he could not penetrate that fraternity of spirits and he felt a little lonely, a little disappointed. Brotherhood was a very real thing to Cotton; he believed in it with a stronger faith than he believed in anything else, saving only everlasting salvation. He would have made a great many sacrifices to show these Southerners that he, as a New Englander, was a man of their own stamp and standing, possessing their own optimisms and follies. He wanted to vindicate his people; he wanted sorely to do his mite to ease a little of that antagonism and prejudice which existed so heartily in America. And he wanted, in his wistful way, to join that cheerful camaraderie. But he was a mute instrument; regretfully he thought of precious pen and ink. He wanted to inscribe in his neglected diary—he had not written in it for five days—that which he could not put in speech.

Alex was again speaking.

“As for me, I will never believe New Englanders make good fighters. They lack spirit. ——, they’ve no dash! They go at a battle as if it were a job in ditch digging. It stands to reason that a people so accustomed to spade and ax lack the flame that goes with good soldiers. My name’s not Alex Carroll if I ever let one give me orders.”

The fire veered and spent a momentary gleam upon Sergeant Cotton and upon the narrow red flannel tabard pinned to his shoulder which indicated his rank. Once more had Carroll arrived at a challenge and once more did the circle wait. Sergeant Cotton’s sturdy democracy, of the same part and parcel as old General Putnam’s, spoke forth.

“Guess I’ll never ask a man to do anything I’d be afraid or unwilling to do,” said he with just a shade more than the usual vigor. “But if he doesn’t do it then I shall name him a coward.”

The camp fires along the Heights flickered and died. Most of the men were rolled in their blankets and sleeping under the open sky. A few of the more suspicious or forehanded kept the blanket rolled and ready, themselves stretched by the flames, dozing lightly. Sergeant Cotton sat cross-legged and communed with himself, now staring at the orange point of the seeking blaze, now watching the star-scattered heavens. His eyes, so perfectly mirroring the inner man, were a little sad. He had tried very hard to join this circle of men. In his own quiet fashion he admired their dash and their gallantry. His own manner was so different.

Howe, the ever-cautious, at last satisfied himself of the enemy’s position and under cover of the night set in motion the ranks and columns of the twenty thousand. There were only three routes of advance upon the American position; he dispatched Grant and a brigade of Highlanders to push through the southwestern gap; De Heister and the Hessians moved directly onward to the central pass; while he, himself, with the main body, pressed onward over the Jamaica road. Thus did the British army advance upon the dark woods in three separate columns. It was half a night’s journey and the trampling feet sent clouds of summer’s dust rolling over farmer’s hedges and rosebushes while accouterments clinked and bayonets gleamed. But Long Island was Tory and no word or suspicion of their progress was heralded until, in the early morning, Grant’s Highlanders met the American pickets at the southwestern pass and set up a skirmishing, tentative fire.

It was three o’clock when a messenger from the outpost made the three miles back to Putnam’s tent on Brooklyn Heights. He dropped off his horse with a weary gesture that was meant to be, but was not, a salute.

“Captain Ord begs to report, sir, that the enemy has advanced and opened fire. Very heavy force, and it sounds like it might be a general attack. Our line has retreated to heavier timber.”

Sergeant Abner Cotton, still sitting cross-legged by the fire, saw them waiting for further sounds. He heard snatches of talk among the staff officers—

“Howe may be over there—sounds like attack in force, all right—but the left flank?”

Putnam was impatient; he made a pretense of listening for warning in another quarter. Washington had warned him of the exposed Jamaica road. But there was action ensuing in the southwest, and where powder burned the stanch old warrior was reluctant not to join the issue. Nothing indicated that the enemy was anywhere save in the southwest. On that basis he made his decision.

“General Stirling, take the Delaware and Maryland battalions and support the pass to the southwest.”

Abner Cotton rose and inspected his gun. Presently the drums rolled and the cry went down the line.

“Marylanders, roll out, roll out! We’re going to march! Roll out, roll out!”

The sergeant leaned on his weapon and waited for formation. Uncle Putnam was pacing back and forth like an impatient mastiff. He saw his scout and came up.

“Now take care of yourself, sonny.”

The sergeant saluted gravely, fell in, and marched through the darkness.

The firing that came out of the southwest seemed to advance on successive waves, rising and falling, running in ragged volleys and in sharp, explosive detonations. The column fell over the hill and groped along an uncertain road. Up at the head of the line a cry was picked up and carried on.

“Watch out for horsemen! Make way to the right!”

They grudgingly relinquished the road for the uncertainties of marsh land. Three riders came by at a gallop. Questions were flung after them and a shouted, unintelligible answer was returned.

Sergeant Abner Cotton stumbled in the file-closers as they descended the hill and crossed the lone bridge over Gowanus creek. The column swung sharply to the southwest with the Delawares under Colonel Haslet in the lead and the Marylanders following. To a man they were jubilant. They sang, they swore, they laughed hilariously. After all the weary weeks of waiting they were going into battle. Moreover, they were going into battle under a Southern general and a man who boasted being a Scottish lord. Fit commander for proud troops. If they did not distinguish themselves this coming day, then let Maryland never again claim them as sons. Somebody crooned a melody and in a moment the line broke into song.

“Stop that singing, men. Want to draw the whole British army down on us? Close up—close up! We’ve got a long ways to go.”

The singing subsided amid muttered rebellion.

“Sure’s my name’s Alex Carroll, I’ll not vote for Ben Marshall as captain next company election. He’s too strict to suit me.”

“Well, old horse, we’re going to fight for a change. How’s that suit your liver? Bet you wish Polly Mellis could see you now.”

“That’s what we came for, wasn’t it? Let the New Englanders dig ditches.”

“Hurrah for Baltimore, boys! Guess the old town’ll hear something soon enough.”

“Well, anyway, the general had sense enough to pick out fighting troops to take care of the heavy work. Wonder if we’re goin’ to have the honor of whipping the whole British army on Long Island?”

Sergeant Cotton was silent. In all the extravagant, boisterous speech he caught the twang of nervousness, the note of anxiety. They spoke a little too loud and their laughter was pitched in an abnormally treble key. He contrasted these fellows with his comrades who had stood behind the redoubt at Bunker Hill and watched the flashing, close-ordered line of British bayonets advance up the incline. They had not jested to hide their nervousness. They had not been ashamed of that nervousness, even though they were starting a great war and knowing that if they failed they were all doomed to hang, as traitors to the English king. They had been deadly sober when face to face with death. And they had fought as well as men can fight.

The column passed into the woods. The gravel crunched under their feet. Accoutrements clacked and swished. They had worn off a little of their vigor and for a half hour, and then another half hour, slogged along, nearly silent.

“Close up, men! Close up!”

“You’d think, by ——, we were on the drill ground,” muttered Alex Carroll. “Ain’t that fool got anything better to think of than ‘close up?’”

The sound of firing grew stronger in the cool air. A rooster crowed for the morning and a light flared in a farmhouse window, winking through the trees. A draught of wind struck Sergeant Cotton. The night shadows were dissolving into the first false dawn. He saw the tree-tops against the sky and found them parting to admit the road as it slashed through the hills. Suddenly the firing bore down on them from ahead. The column came to a halt while one of the lonely pickets who had borne the brunt of the first attack filtered through the brush.

The Marylanders were uneasy.

“What’re we stopping for? This ain’t no place to leave a column. Might be ambushed.”

The picket laughed.

“Glad to see you boys come. They ain’t in the woods. They’re out on the far side of a meadow, poppin’ away like it was target practice. Ain’t moved ten feet forward all night. Noise and bluster, but no real attack. Wait ’till morning comes and then you’ll see fighting.”

“That isn’t far off,” said a Marylander. “I’m right curious to see how this gun shoots.”

“Guess you’ll find that out, too,” prophesied the picket. “You Southern boys been wantin’ to fight. Sure get a belly full of it before sundown. Mark my word.”

A Maryland corporal was thinking of grand tactics.

“This may be a feint to draw us away from the main point of attack. Sounds queer to me they don’t push forward.”

“Why, you don’t figure we’re bein’ led away from the hot work?”

“Either that,” replied the corporal darkly, “or else they mean to crush us from the side.”