Chapter 52

We didn't see General Abercrombie or Lord Keith again for over two months, but there were plenty of other things to keep us busy in the meantime.

Major General John Moore was a rather stuffy Englishman, but he was fairly efficient. He added a number of people from his staff to the existing staff at the Philadelphia Headquarters. He was able to get things turned around and had the Army units that had arrived with him back on their transports for the return journey to England by the end of April.

They set sail on Friday, the 1st of May. They were accompanied and protected by a number of ships from the fleet that had arrived with them. All of the ships had additional Navy personnel assigned to their crews for the trip to reduce the number of excess Naval personnel here resulting from the sunken and destroyed ships.

Prior to this, those same soldiers and sailors had worked daily, stripping the guns and other salvageable gear from the hulks of the six first rate ships that we had scuttled during the engagement in Delaware Bay. The hulks were being sold for their timber and other remaining material. There were a number of people interested in acquiring them.

The Confederation Government had also sought our help in returning important and / or influential people to the various colonies to serve as their representatives and to try to convince the colonial administrations to join the North American Confederation. Their work had been fairly easy in the Southern and Mid-Atlantic colonies but proved to be more difficult in the New England colonies and Canada.

Then, of course, there was the problem of a Navy. It seems that the only warships that the Confederation had were a few small ships that guarded the lower Mississippi River and the approaches to New Orleans along with ships from the French Navy. The largest of the Confederation ships was a thirty-two gun frigate.

Consequently, they were quite interested in Captain Graham's proposition to form a squadron on the Atlantic coast to patrol the coast and protect the harbors. The Royal Navy was no longer performing these functions since the signing of the surrender documents.

Captain Billy had been to most of the major ports along the Atlantic coast with our help, and had formed a coalition with ship owners in those ports. It seems that a number of those owners already had armed ships that had been used for smuggling and other clandestine operations. Most of the ships were smaller than Rattlesnake however. Captain Graham was commissioned as a Rear Admiral and placed in charge of the Atlantic Squadron, as it was termed. He set up operations in Philadelphia, but was at sea much of the time patrolling or checking on operations at the other ports.

Captain Billy now being an Admiral requested, that we supplied a number of cannon tubes to those who were associated with him and were now a part of the Atlantic Squadron to increase the armament on their ships. They would construct appropriate carriages for them. All of these tubes came from the warehouses in the ports and were a part of the material that we had seized from the British. None of the large cannons used on Royal Navy ships would have been practical for use on these smaller ships.

During this time, we still had the more mundane tasks to continue taking care of. These included issuing food and other essential items to the British Quartermasters on a weekly basis, and keeping track of those British units moving out of the most distant posts. There were also the inevitable clashes that occurred between those units on the move and the normal citizens plus the partisans who were keeping track of the moving units. Most of these clashes were minor and the problem easily straightened out, but this was not always the case.

There were two major instances of violence involving British units moving to posts closer to the ports. One occurred in the western part of Virginia and involved two officers of the 13th Regiment. By the time that we were notified of it and arrived there to investigate, there had been a battle between the local Partisan forces and the British unit. There were dead on both sides. The British had established a secure camp but were unable to move without being ambushed by the Partisans. The local Partisan forces weren't strong enough to take the camp without significant losses.

Ken, Kell, and I used freeze spells on both sides, and then unfroze just the leaders of each side to determine what had happened. We used truth spells to get to the facts. It required some extra stimulation to get the British Officers concerned to confess that they had provoked the confrontation with the Partisans, but we eventually got to the truth. We transferred the Officers concerned to General Craddock's Headquarters in Richmond for court-martial, and returned with replacement officers from the General's Headquarters to assume command of the units. The Partisans were satisfied with our solution, and the two Companies of the 13th Regiment proceeded to their new post without further incident.

The second incident involved two Sergeants from the 30th Regiment. They had attacked and raped two women. By the time Seamus, Wolf, and I were notified and arrived there, the two had been court martialled and executed by a firing squad composed of British soldiers and Partisans having been found guilty. This occurred in the outback of North Carolina, and it required considerable time for us to reach the scene.

Also during late April, Wolf and Gerald returned to Fort Detroit and Fort Niagara to remove the Defensive Shells that they had created around those posts in early March. Word had been sent to both locations of the surrender and the units there were ordered to return to their parent unit as quickly as possible.

Another development that began with the better weather of spring in April was the arrival of merchant ships to load the merchandise that the English merchants had stored in the warehouses at each of the ports. Warehouses that were now surrounded by Defensive Shell, and that were presently inaccessible to them.

Those who had assumed control in the port cities after removing the Tories following the surrender had come up with the idea of charging the English merchants, or their representatives, a tax to retrieve their goods. They termed it 'A Secure Warehouse Tax'. The idea seemed to catch on very quickly in all of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic colonies, but was much slower to be adopted in the Northern Colonies and Canada. We weren't sure if the idea for the new tax had originated in the Southern Colonies, or if the idea had been suggested to them by those representing the North American Confederation. It was very unpopular with the English merchants, but most of them eventually paid the tax rather than lose the investment in their merchandise. We allowed them access to the warehouses when the city officials informed us that the tax had been paid.

During this time, a few more merchant ships had continued to arrive in the various ports to deliver more supplies to the Army -- mostly food. Their Captains had expected to return with cargoes of North American goods. Instead, we insisted that they carry troops back to England. A few had refused for a short time, but enclosing them in a Defensive Shell in the harbor for a while quickly changed their minds. They retained enough of the supplies that they had delivered to feed the troops they would be carrying on the return voyage.

General Abercrombie and Lord Keith returned to Philadelphia on a fast frigate on Wednesday, the 10th of June. We met with them that evening.

"Parliament and the King were both very upset and not at all understanding when we reached London," General Abercrombie told us at the start of the meeting.

"However, once we had a chance to explain the entire story and present the sworn statements from all of the Commanders here and from my subordinates, Admirals Seymour and Parker, their disapproval turned to shock at the events that we and they described to them. Prime Minister Pitt, the Younger, was extremely upset and King George threw a fit when we explained things to him in private," Lord Keith explained.

"The report of the loss of ten first rate ships and all of our supplies soon brought both the King and Parliament back to reality, however. Before we left there were plans in progress to send ships to remove the Army, but it will require some time to extract all of the units here. They will be concentrating on the units in the southern colonies first," General Abercrombie informed us.

"The ships should begin arriving in a few weeks. The Royal Navy ships currently on station here will be providing escorts for the returning ships. The ships will be bringing provisions with them for the men on the return journey," Admiral Keith added to assure us that the men would receive proper care while traveling to their next assignment. General Abercrombie and Admiral Keith would be issuing directives and movement orders to their respective Commands in the next few days we were assured.

All of this was welcome news to us, as we had all been spending considerable time the last several months keeping tabs on the British supplies and units. We would now hopefully have time for the things that we were more interested in doing. We had held a number of family meetings and discussions over the last two months, and a number of decisions had been reached. The most far reaching of the decisions was that the majority of us wished to remain here in the Third Reality and start our own clan here. We all realized that we would need to finish our schooling, both high school and college, before we could remain here permanently, but that was something that we could work around. Ken, Kell, and their Wives were in the same predicament with regards to their Castles in the Other Reality. Gerald seemed to be the only one unsure of where he wanted to settle down. He was only interested in Erika, and they would decide where they would settle later.

"So that brings us to the question of where do we settle?" Gwyn had asked at our last meeting.

"Not here in Kentucky, or Ohio either," Glanda had insisted.

"Is there really any question of where we should establish our clan holdings?" I asked and then added, "The same place that our ancestor Chauncey O'Connell did in the Ogeechee River Valley near Statesboro, Georgia!"

"Yes, our ancestral home!" Wolf and Carl shouted in glee.

"What if someone already has the land there?" Seamus asked throwing a wet blanket on the proceedings.

"Perhaps we could persuade them to relocate, but we'll tackle that problem if and when we come to it," I told him. That had of course been at the end of May. Now it was June, and we had a bit of time to check on things in the Georgia outback. Friday morning, the 12th of June, there was another meeting to discuss the clan resettlement.

"How many of us should go to check out the area around Statesboro?" Seamus asked after everyone had arrived.

"I don't think that we should take the entire family for the first visit. It will need to be more like a reconnaissance," I told him. "Perhaps just two or three of us should go to check things out initially."

"Okay, but who?" Seamus asked.

"You, Wolf, Carl and me," I suggested.

"Okay, Mark! That sounds good. When?" Gwyn asked.

"How about now," I answered. "Do any of you have anything pressing to do?"

"Not anything that couldn't be put off," Carl told me, excitedly.

"All right! Let's change into civilian clothes before we leave. I don't think we want anyone to know who we are, or that we are in the Military just yet," I suggested. We all returned to our rooms to change clothes, returned to Hickory Hill, and then prepared to transfer to the area near Statesboro where our ancestral home had originally been. Of course there was no town of Statesboro, or Statesborough, as it was initially called. It hadn't been created by the Georgia Legislature until 1803 in our Reality. However as we learned later, there were still a few cabins in the area where it would be.

"It might be best to not appear right in front of where the house was in case anyone is living there," Wolf suggested as we prepared to transfer.

"Where then?" Carl asked his Cousin.

"How about where the fields ended near the woods?" Wolf asked.

"Yes, that would give us a chance to look things over first if there is a house there now," Seamus agreed. We joined hands before Carl and Wolf cast the transfer spell. It was a very familiar destination to all of us.