Chapter 2: The distant back door to Quebec

Ben sat on the recently shorn stump and looked at the filthy rag of a map in his hand. The cursed thing told him he was in a place called appropriately "The Great Carrying Place". He didn't see anything "Great" about it only endless puddles of mud and mire that sucked boots off the feet and dried up into clumps of rock-hard consistency. The idiot who had drawn the map had misspelled or forgotten the "e" in place and he looked at the strange-looking "Plac" like it was an accusing finger chastising him for his acceptance of the map at face value.

The map had been delivered to him by a subordinate he trusted but now that he was beyond the point of no return he realized he had been duped by a probable loyalist sympathizer who had laughed at the thought of the fatal stranding over a thousand souls in the middle of a swamp. He could see the little weasel right now sitting in a Tory ale house raising his mug to the King and shouting out,

"Death to the Rebel bastards!"

The circumstances were mind-boggling what with the leaking boats hastily constructed with limited skills, the food rotting in the swamped bilges and the men coming down with the inevitable dysentery that came from drinking the brackish water of the virgin waterways. He looked back and the men watching him and slowly lit his pipe drawing in the rum flavored aroma of the tobacco from the far-away islands in the sun. He smiled as though they were on a picnic in the park just waiting for the band to break out in a stirring tune to lift their spirits. But there was no band, no music, and he forced himself to stand and issue orders to forge ahead to the next layover where they could get some much needed rest in the godforsaken wilderness of Maine. It was still a long trek to the St. Lawrence and his split forces were doing their best to survive in the unexpected hardship.

Ben had been surprised when General Schuyler had given his blessing to the alternate pronged attack on British-held Canada from the wilds of Maine. His more conventional advance up the Hudson valley from the apple orchards of New York would meet some resistance from the British bribed Indian tribes but it also would not face any regular troops and the capture of the fortress in Quebec would be a valuable signal that British rule was coming to an end in the new world.

His force of slightly over twelve hundred not including the Indian scouts and Pennsylvania riflemen who seemed to march to the sound of a different drummer was broken up into three camps to reduce the inevitable squalor and friction that comes with crowding large groups of fighters into small areas. He was, of course, in the lead element and his group bore the burden of breaking the trail for the boats and supplies.

He sat in his tent writing a letter to his wife hoping that she had recovered from the illness that had put her in her bed with Mistress Goodpenny tending the children. In this camp he had set aside an area for the sick to be deposited awaiting return to the point of origin near the coast. At least they would have the benefit of retracing their steps over marked trails and not encountering the stress of facing the unknown.

His adjutant a young lad from a farm just south of Niagara informed him that one of the Indian scouts had returned to the camp and reported that the Commandant of the garrison in Quebec was fully aware of their location because his dispatches to George and the other part of the attacking force was intercepted and deciphered. It was a crushing blow almost as bad as the loss of provisions and the inadequacy of the boats. The Indian who was not prone to humor relayed that the British and Canadian forces were much amused at his plight and wished him the worse of fortune.

Ben had hoped the enemy would be fooled into thinking his objective was the undefended bread basket of Nova Scotia to gain much needed larder for the fighting forces. The loss of his documents meant they knew he was for Quebec and the element of surprise was totally eliminated. It was at this juncture that he seriously considered giving up the enterprise and returning to the base on the coast. His Lieutenants convinced him otherwise and he drew some solace from their passion.

After a long period of rainy days, the sun broke forth and the lead group made good progress to the St. Lawrence. They did their best to find wild game to feed the men and had even been reduced to the boiling of leather straps and harness to gain some imagined sustenance from the tasteless soup. There were no dogs left in this lead group now with even their bones going into the pot for needed strength.

Just as they broke from the clutches of the clinging forest, long time settlers of the open spaces offered them their produce and livestock to save them from starvation. He offered to pay them for their largesse even if it had to come from his own personal funds with credit drawn on his shipping company back home. It astonished him that the larger number of donors refused any payment seeing their diminished condition due to lack of food. Their sense of patriotic duty in giving up their possessions to come to the aid of their emerging country impressed him to the point of writing to George and expression his opinion that this was one of reasons the continental army and the militias would eventually persevere in the face of adversity.