A Girl Called Samson (78)

Two men, convicted of plotting a mutiny, were marched up on the gallows to be hung, but at the last moment, Agrippa Hull had stepped forward and presented a pardon from General Paterson. The onlookers cheered, and the two men were brought back down, hardly able to stand, tears streaming down their cheeks at the mercy they’d been granted.

Two more men took their place, ropes hung around their necks, their sins read for all to hear. One man had killed a local farmer with a pitchfork, raped his wife, and set his house on fire. The other man had stood by while he did, eating the farmer’s food and walking away in the farmer’s boots. They were not pardoned. The thump of the platform being dropped beneath their feet brought a gasp of delight and a moan of thrilled terror from the onlookers. To remain safe and alive while others died was its own, albeit brief, transcendence.

I had watched it all in horror, not because I thought it unjust—I had no reason to believe the men were not guilty as charged—but because it had happened at all. Because such things were even necessary. My eyes were opened, yet again, to my own vulnerabilities. To be lashed would result in the discovery of my sex. But that was only a small part of my awakening. I had been steeped in revolution, indoctrinated with the language of liberty, and baptized in clear purpose. I knew, down to the soles of my feet and the depth of my spirit, that the fight was just and the cause was great. I was not without my own motivations, my own personal reasons, for engaging in the conflict, but I was a believer.

Not all the soldiers were.

Some of them were animals.

Maybe war made them that way, but I suspected that war just revealed their hooves and snouts.

A barely contained chaos bubbled beneath the order of the garrison. The barracks and the officer class housed all types, though some were better at masking it than others. Murderers, thieves, liars, and cheats were mixed in with the brave, the upright, the faithful and true. All had been tossed into the boiling pot that made up the Continental army, and the result was a simmering, seething stew.

At Yorktown, I’d watched British soldiers surrender and be led into prison ships, and I had resolved then that I would take my own life before I was taken by the enemy. Better for me to die than be captured.

The crimes of DeLancey’s Brigade had only reinforced my conviction. But the British and DeLancey were one thing. To fear your fellow soldiers, the men with whom you served, was another. The experience with the talk of desertion in my scouting party had shaken me for several reasons. First, I had no wish to leave. Second, I had no desire to create conflict among my mates, and third, and most importantly, any punishment would likely result in my exposure, and I would rather die.

General Paterson had avoided a mutiny on the Point with a heavy hand but a merciful heart. His efforts to provide and advocate for the troops had not gone unnoticed, but the successful uprisings were still cited by the discontented.

In the winter of ’80–81, some of the troops had marched out of their camps in an orderly and organized fashion and descended on Philadelphia with a clear list of terms. They were not spies or turncoats, and they did not consider themselves deserters. They simply wanted to be heard. Most of them were enlistees who signed up after the Battle of Saratoga, and they had committed to “three years or the war,” but the war seemed no closer to an end, and they wanted to be released, stating three years was more than enough. Their terms were quietly met and most of the men were discharged and dispersed. It was only after the negotiations that the enlistment rolls were checked and the vast majority of the men granted release had not even served their three years.

Suddenly, mutinies were happening everywhere, but with more disastrous consequences. The same spirit that encouraged heroism and emboldened the men could make a mob when allowed to ferment. An officer, trying to subdue his men, was killed by a soldier who had been pardoned for leading a similar uprising only months before.

That mutiny was not treated the same way as the first. The mutineers were surrounded and disarmed, and the ringleaders shot. After that, the rebellions slowed.

But there were always murmurings. Word had spread up and down the highlands that new recruits had been promised land and bounties double those that previous enlistees had received, and discontent among the men was high.

Perhaps it was spring fever, perhaps it was the sense that it would all shortly come to an end anyway, but General Paterson was convinced the announcement of a grand celebration on the Point, in honor of the birth of the dauphin of France, would not help.

We had spent the previous day at Robinson’s house, on the east side of the river about two miles south of the Point, where General Robert Howe had his headquarters. Dr. Thatcher and several other medical officers had established a hospital in the opposite wing, and the estate was a frequent meeting place to plot larger-scale military operations.

The house was formerly owned by a wealthy loyalist named Beverley Robinson who became a colonel in the British Army. When he’d fled to New York in ’77 after refusing to swear fealty to the colonial cause, his home and lands were confiscated by the Americans. The rumor was he and Washington had once been friends and both were deeply hurt by the schism created by their opposing loyalties. Each thought the other terribly misguided.

Robinson’s house was a sprawling home in a clearing at the base of Sugarloaf Hill. Despite being surrounded by craggy rises and inhospitable terrain, an orchard had thrived, and the estate was a village unto itself with several outbuildings that included a blacksmith and a summer kitchen and acres of land for hunting and farming set back from the rocky bluff.