Chapter 59: Prisoners

Everything had changed when I returned to Williamsburg, a now almost-deserted town. Some 3,000 French soldiers were camped around Jamestown, commanded by a marquis called St. Simon who had put them, I was told, under Lafayette's leadership despite being a major general himself. Washington and his army and the other French force had not arrived, but the French fleet filled the mouth of the James and blockaded the York. Other troops were expected any day, thousands of them. Then on the morning of September 5, most of the bigger French ships sailed away, down toward the Chesapeake. No one seemed to know what was going on. All sorts of rumors spread.

That afternoon, long before sunset, we heard the booming of big guns far to the east. It had to be a naval battle although it sounded like distant thunder. The British, we guessed, were coming to rescue Cornwallis. The firing continued, almost continuously, until dark. We slept very little that night, wondering whose ships would be in the rivers the next day. Sunrise found the waters empty except for the smaller French frigates and lighters that had been landing St. Simon's men and supplies.

From his tent in Williamsburg, Captain Foster sent me and about half of his men across the York to take part in the siege of the fort at Gloucester. We were back in our role as scouts and skirmishers. The fort that had grown while I was out enjoying myself was a semicircle with an open side toward the southeast, almost on the shore of the point. Several redoubts fronted it, and there were obviously a number of emplacements for large cannon. The small town of York was visible just across the narrow river, and a bigger fort was still growing there. When I arrived at what they called "Gloster," Lafayette's soldiers were digging a line of trenches and gun emplacements facing the young fort.

Since I was late getting to the scene, they told me I had drawn the short straw, and my job would be to scout out the enemy's lines, measure distances to various points and discover the number and weight of his guns. I asked to see the straws, and my old comrades just smiled.

So on every moonless night for the next week, especially on those evenings when it rained, I was out there between the lines counting paces to the British redoubts, trying to estimate the size of the cannon I could see and getting myself scared blue, shot at and soaking wet. No one seemed to be in a hurry to do anything. Neither the Americans nor the French were eager to attack the fort, despite its small size and open side. I could not understand what they were waiting for, but evidently this kind of war had it rules and conventions.

One day the word was passed that Washington and Rochambeau, which we were told was the name of the French commanding officer, were at the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay, and, we were told, French ships would soon deliver them to the peninsula. That was the first indication we received that the French had driven off the British fleet in the fight we had heard the previous week.

Cornwallis was in a lot of trouble.

Captain Foster was a nervous and impatient man when he arrived to see how things were going on the far side of the York, so he soon received permission to send out a scouting party to bring back some captives who might provide useful information. Foster "volunteered" me and three other men for the job and put me in charge.

"We'd like a few Brits who can still talk when we receive them. No dead or dying bodies, please, or people missing important parts of their anatomy. And we'd prefer officers, if possible. Don't bother with Tories. We've found they are useless as prisoners since they're all convinced we are going to draw and quarter 'em as soon as the French turn their backs. The Redcoats, on the other hand, have a long, honest and reasonable fear of what the French will do to captives. Understand?"

I nodded, and we went and ate and took a nap despite the continuing heat. Around midnight, I roused out my mates, reminding one man to get rid of his white shirt for this job. We dirtied our faces more than usual, left our rifles and muskets in our tents and set out with bayonets, knives, pistols and a few lengths of rope. I decided to make our try at the redoubt farthest from the river bank which was also closest to our lines. We sat on the edge of a woodlot, taking about it for a while, wishing we could smoke. Then we all emptied our bladders and set out to do the task.

The redoubt's low walls loomed as simply a lump of darker shadow on a star-lit night. We could see and hear sentries pacing back and forth, and I sent two men after the one on the left while George Reedy and I took the guard on our side. We watched our man march back toward the center of the little fort and quietly crept around the end of the low wall. I almost fell into a rifle pit, but we were both in place when the guard returned, his long musket on his shoulder, walking his post in the proper manner. When he passed me, I stepped out behind him and made a hissing sound. He turned and George hit him in the back of the head with his pistol butt. It made what seemed a very loud "thock," and the man fell in a jangle of equipment as I grabbed his weapon. While George made sure he would not bother our work, I shouldered the fallen man's musket and paced back toward the center of the redoubt wishing I had remembered to take his tall uniform hat.

I could see the other sentry marching toward me, all in proper kit, crossed belts and all so I knew my boys had yet to do their job. When we were five or six paces from each other, the oncoming guard's eyes seemed to widen, but he kept marching toward the place where we would meet, stamp our feet, about turn and march back toward the outside once more. I pretended to stumble, swung the musket off my shoulder and hit the poor fellow in the mouth with the butt plate as he reached out a hand to catch me. He fell back against the inside wall, still trying to hold his musket on his shoulder, and I killed him with a bayonet jab to the center of his chest. He slowly sat down, looking surprised and closed his eyes as dark blood ran from his mouth. I put the two who had failed to get their man on sentry duty so the absence of the guards might not be noticed. They remembered to get the hats and seemed acceptable when I looked back at them.