A Girl Called Samson (16)

Nathaniel, Benjamin, and Phineas left for Boston with a local regiment of one hundred men right after the battle at Breed’s Hill. Elizabeth’s husband, John, was already in Boston. He’d gathered a militia from Lenox after Lexington and Concord, and arrived, ready to serve, the following day. Elizabeth wrote of his fervor, and she seemed to share it, though she was under the assumption he would return in a few days’ time.

He didn’t. None of the men did. John Paterson was elected captain by his regiment and then made a colonel within days of their arrival.

Nathaniel left without an answer from me. He’d been right. Time had run out, and though I knew I did not love him and would not marry him when he came home, I was grateful I had not been forced to declare myself, one way or the other.

“It is better this way. You’re too young, and it wasn’t fair of me to speak,” he had conceded. “But I haven’t changed my mind, and I can wait for you to make up yours.”

“Will you write to us, Nathaniel?”

“I’m no good at that, Rob, but you must write to me.” His use of my nickname made me smile. I didn’t much care for Deborah on Nat’s lips. It felt like a corset pulled too tight.

“But I’ll be back before you know it,” he vowed.

“I’m not coming back until every redcoat has been booted out of Boston. And maybe not even then,” Phineas said, darting an apologetic look my way.

Benjamin simply gave me a smile and patted my shoulder, and the three of them left amid waves and tears.

General Washington took command of all colonial forces in July, and Jacob slipped off in August, telling Margaret, the girl he planned to marry, he would be back when the conflict was over.

Fall came, and Elizabeth reported that the men who had enlisted in haste in spring were ill-prepared for service in winter, and Mrs. Thomas and I worked feverishly to card and spin wool from the Thomases’ herd and then weave two dozen blankets. I became so fast on the loom, the town commissioned me to produce the cloth for a hundred more, and I set up my operation in a room at Sproat’s Tavern, accepting donations of carded wool for the soldiers. I spun and wove for long hours into the night and rode the old mare back home in the dark so I could fulfill my duties at home.

The days passed in a blur, the clap and the clack of the loom and the whir of the spinning wheel accompanied me into the winter and propelled me toward spring, waiting for news that never came.

Then, on March 17, 1776, General William Howe, commander of the British forces occupying Boston, boarded a ship and evacuated the city, ending the siege that had lasted almost a year. Washington and his army had managed, in the dead of night, with a storm rolling in, to mount cannons in Dorchester Heights, the highest point in the harbor, and train them on the British warships anchored below. It was a stunning victory, and Reverend Conant brought us word of the triumph with a bottle of wine and utter conviction that the trial would soon be over.

“They had to get the cannons onto the heights, but the ground was frozen, so digging trenches was out of the question. Old Put—that’s what General Putnam’s men call him—came up with a plan to build the fortifications in sections. Then they hauled the sections up the hills, quiet as church mice. They even put hay bales between the path and the harbor to keep the sound from carrying. Building parapets and hauling cannons isn’t quiet. Neither are twenty-five hundred troops. Still, by 4:00 a.m., they’d done it. General Howe said the rebels had done more in one night than his whole army could have done in a month.”

Deacon Thomas slapped the table in triumph, and Mrs. Thomas began to cry tears of pride and joy, but Sylvanus wasn’t finished.

“The general also agreed not to burn the city if his men were able to leave unmolested.” He threw up his hands, triumphant. “They’re gone.”

“Are they going back to England?” I asked. “Is it over?”

“Not quite. The British forces that were in Boston have taken temporary cover in Nova Scotia, but they’ve lost control of the ports in New England. General Washington is heading to New York. Some think the British will strike there next.”

Phineas said he wasn’t coming home until every redcoat had been booted from Boston, and that had just been accomplished.

But Phineas did not come home.

Nat, Benjamin, and Jacob did not come home either.

We expected them in June; they’d signed a one-year enlistment after Bunker Hill. Instead, buoyed by the end of the siege in Boston, they reenlisted, and Elijah and Edward joined them, whittling the number of brothers still at home to four. The deacon’s shoulders began to droop, and Mrs. Thomas grew quiet and gray. Gone were six of their sons, seduced by a revolution that had grown significantly more trying and considerably less exciting.

I continued to labor and wait, though for what I did not know.





5

OF THE EARTH

In the early months of 1776, a pamphlet was widely distributed throughout the colonies, one I read and reread with paper and quill at the ready. Written by an anonymous author, it was titled Common Sense, and it called not just for redress from England but independence.

The pamphlet was too long for the papers to print, and too lengthy to nail to a tree, but Sylvanus Conant read sections aloud from the pulpit, though some hissed when he said “independence” and a few stood and left.