Damn Arnold, he seethed, could the man do nothing right? Quite obviously reinforcements were needed to plug the rebel entry point from the swamp.
“Fitzroy, get over there and tell Arnold to send more men to reinforce the swamp area. Damn it,” Burgoyne raged, “must I do everything myself? Why the devil didn’t I get generals who could think?”
Fitzroy was about to ask for a clarification of the orders, but the look of fury on Burgoyne’s face told him it was not a good idea. If the general wanted more men sent to their left, then more men would be sent.
Fitzroy mounted his bedraggled excuse for a horse and urged it where Arnold was supposed to be. If Arnold wasn’t there, he would issue orders on General Burgoyne’s behalf. He would do it and return as quickly as possible as the furious sounds to his right and front said that the battle was rapidly approaching its climax.
Chapter 22
At just under three hundred yards, American riflemen opened fire, carefully aiming at the officers. These were easily recognized by the metal gorgets, reminders of medieval armor, that hung from their necks. The shiny devices also made excellent aiming points, and, even at extreme range, the riflemen quickly made kills.
At two hundred and fifty yards, both Morgan and von Steuben realized that there was no reason to hold back the musket-firing regulars. Even though their weapons weren’t at all accurate at that range, the mass of enemy meant that shots didn’t have to be aimed or accurate to hit someone.
The American Hessians in von Steuben’s brigade grinned openly as they began to blaze away with their new weapons.
In the British mass, General Grant listened to the volume of fire to his front and realized something was wrong. “What the devil is happening?” he said to Danforth. “They can’t possibly reload a musket as quickly as they are. Could people be passing extras to them?”
Danforth thought it was a logical conclusion and one that didn’t bode well for the men in the British front ranks. It now looked like they would suffer even heavier casualties than expected. Worse, the absurd but potentially fatal steady rain of rocks continued.
Danforth hopped onto a fallen tree and got a view of the field in front of him. He watched as some of the Americans received loaded weapons passed on to them while others continued to load and fire at an astonishing rate. The truth dawned on him.
He jumped down and grabbed the general by the arm. “Some of them appear to have Ferguson rifles,” Danforth said breathlessly.
Grant paled. The breech-loading Ferguson rifle that could be loaded and fired many times faster than a musket was thought to have disappeared after the defeat and death of their inventor, Colonel Patrick Ferguson, at the Battle of King’s Mountain. The British army had earlier rejected them as too expensive and the totality of Ferguson’s defeat had put an end to any further debate on the value of the weapon.
But now, somehow, Ferguson rifles, or something very much like them, were being used against them. What in God’s name were the rebels up to, Grant wondered? First they threw rocks at them like uncivilized barbarians and then they followed up with a gun that might be superior to anything the British had.
This was indeed going to be a long and bloody day.
* * *
As the first British ranks neared the American lines, their dead and wounded were pushed aside, even trampled, some to a bloody pulp, but the mass of Redcoats continued on. At fifty yards, they were at the lip of the shallow dirt moat that protected the Americans.
Behind the earthworks, General Stark looked to where a number of Schuyler’s men were waiting to pull the lanyards that were connected to the jugs that were half buried in the ground. He took a deep breath, nodded, and turned away.
One of the men pulling a lanyard was Sarah’s uncle, Wilford. He looked at the approaching mass of screaming faces and pulled.
The entire front of the British line was shattered by the explosions that blew up clouds of dirt, flames, bodies, and parts of bodies. Behind them, others were shredded by the rocks and pieces of metal that had been buried in the jugs along with quantities of gunpowder, or burned by the oil that had been in the jugs. There was silence and then the screams began. The entire mass of British soldiers seemed to groan and then stop.
In the middle, but now much closer to the front as the result of heavy British casualties, General Grant quickly recovered from the shock of the explosions. He had to get the army moving again or everything was doomed. Beside him, Danforth was almost too stunned to speak.
Grant lay about him with the flat of his sword. He screamed and cajoled and, within moments, so too did his officers and sergeants and they began to reassert control. Slowly, painfully, the British mass began again to inch its way forward, covering the remaining few yards to the American earthworks. American bayonets protruded and rifles fired, but the British pressed on until, finally, the two forces collided with screams and primal howls.
* * *
Only half aware of what was happening to the bulk of the army, Fitzroy galloped up to the captain commanding the remainder of Arnold’s command. Arnold wasn’t there, which puzzled him, but no matter. He quickly gave the order as he understood it to a captain of regulars-reinforcements were to be sent to stop an attack from the swamp to their rear. The captain saluted and began to bark out orders. Satisfied that his orders would be obeyed, Fitzroy turned and rode back to Burgoyne.
The British captain was puzzled. How many men were needed to plug the exit from the swamp? The silly boy, Spencer, had gone and failed, and he had been followed by reinforcements led by Girty and Arnold, and yet, apparently, it wasn’t enough.
He had fewer than two hundred men with which to hold a flanking position that now seemed irrelevant. The two armies had made horrible contact and were locked in mortal combat.
He came to a conclusion. Nothing was going to be decided where he was and his latest orders were specific-reinforce the flank. At least he would be away from the horror of the two armies clawing each other to pieces and the possibility that he would be ordered into the charnel house. He ordered his remaining men to follow him and move rapidly towards the hill where they’d seen shooting.
* * *
From the top of Mount Washington, William Washington watched incredulously as the last of the British skirmishers trotted, almost ran, towards whatever fighting was going on in the swamp. What the devil was happening there, he wondered. It didn’t matter. He decided that what he saw was an opportunity.
At his command, men ran forward and cleared away enough of the thicket to permit horsemen to ride through them in a column of twos. He signaled and his men rode their horses forward at the trot. They could not gallop. In his opinion, half of the nags would collapse and die if they tried it. They were less than a hundred yards away from the side of the British phalanx; most of whom didn’t even see his men, so preoccupied were they with advancing forward over their dead and dying comrades. Those who did turn and see just looked on incredulously. Not a shot was fired in the direction of the small force of American cavalry, and it occurred to Washington that the British weapons were empty to prevent accidentally shooting their own side.
Will was with Washington’s force and soon found himself in the position of being behind both the main British army and out of sight of the British force that had just disappeared over the hill.
“Now what?” he asked of Washington.
Washington winked. “Damned if I know. Never thought we’d get this far and still be alive. See those cannon to our right front?” Will did. “Why don’t we ride over there and take them?”