Washington and Caesar

2

Long Island Ferry, New York, August 29, 1776

The rain fell in broad sheets that soaked a man through his coat before he could walk half a mile. Washington sat on his horse and watched his men plod down the last turn in the road and on to the ferry dock where boats were waiting for them. The movement of thousands of men, their weapons and supplies across the narrows to New York was the product of careful planning and meticulous staff work, and his army was already saved. Only the sentries were left.

He had held a council of war to discuss the abandonment of Long Island. Before this war, he had thought such councils to be the sign of a weak commander. He didn’t like to have to share momentous decisions with other men. And yet, in the new army, autocracy had no place except in direst need and immediate crisis, and the withdrawal from Long Island had been neither. The British had maneuvered them smartly from each strong position, enjoying all the advantages, from the superior training of their soldiers to the complete mobility of their enormous fleet. The council had helped to share the responsibility, and helped him master the rapid blows to his reputation.

Only the commander of the local militia had argued against the abandonment, fearful of retribution against his militia who had already pillaged their Tory neighbors and could expect the same in return. Leaving Long Island had all the power of sense behind it, and now that his generals had faced the British in the field, they had a much healthier respect for the foe. Sullivan and Stirling were gone, taken as prisoners in the loss of Brooklyn Heights. Reports that the Royal Navy had penetrated into the waters east of Governor’s Island served to reinforce his point that their flanks were open to British troops landed from the sea at any moment. The agreement of the council was, in the end, unanimous.

And now he sat in the rain and watched his men march on to their boats, pausing from time to time to note a company that had served well, or badly, and occasionally to praise one of his subordinates for the efforts he had made to find the boats and rescue the army. He was conscious that they would live to fight another day, and that it would be easier to hold New York from the other shore. But his mind kept slipping away to the inevitable fact of defeat. He had lost his first field action, and lost it decisively, beaten twice in battles and then ejected from his positions by the maneuvers of the enemy navy. He worried that he had lost the confidence of his army, and he worried about the future.

He had taken Boston. Now he looked likely to lose New York. And the army he had preserved by retreat had already begun to desert.

New York, September 6, 1776

Even inside the house, the sound of picks and shovels raising fortifications on the flats below competed with the movement of horses and carts. Most of the wealthy citizens of New York had already left, and now every citizen who had cause to distrust the return of royal government was moving off Manhattan Island. The pro-Congress faction of New York seemed to have little confidence that the city could be held. Their contempt for their own army was returned with interest.

“Burn the city!” The voice belonged to Nathan Greene, still in pain from the wounds he had received at the Battle of Brooklyn, but every face at the table reflected his sentiments. “Two thirds of the property here belongs to Tories anyway. This town is a nest of traitors. Burn it.”

“We have already spent so much in treasure and sweat to build these fortifications, General Washington. We must fight to hold them. If we abandon them so easily, the enemy will think we are beaten.” The speaker was General Heath, of the New York militia. He did not take kindly to his city being described as a nest of traitors, but he made allowances for Greene, who was in pain, and whose bravery was highly regarded all around the table. Already, some of the best young officers were called “Washington’s sons”. Nathan Greene was one of them.

Rufus Putnam, acting as the army’s chief engineer, shook his head and spread one of his hands meaningfully over the map on the table before them.

“There are simply too many routes on to the island. They control the river. They can reduce any one of our forts given time and inclination. They can land almost anywhere, and worst of all, they can bypass us and trap our men on this island.”

Washington pushed his chair back with his long legs and stood carefully to avoid entangling his sword with the table. He still smarted from defeat on Long Island, and he already sensed that New York was lost.

“We have lost the best part of three thousand men in the last week. We will lose more. Till of late I had no doubt in my mind of defending this place, nor should I have yet, if the men would do their duty.” He looked them over, and most of the brigadiers couldn’t meet his eye. The men were melting away, and the militia coming to fill their places were very poor soldiers, anxious already, made fearful by the rumor of a defeat they hadn’t suffered. Greene, the firebrand, met his eye but shook his head.

“This is not the place, General. And this is not the army.”

“I agree. I despair of these men doing their duty. If I were called upon to declare on oath whether the militia had been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter. The army we had at Boston was better. We had a winter to train it, and now it has gone home and we must start anew.” He walked up and down the room, pausing twice to look out of the window at Virginia troops, most newly arrived. They looked healthy and willing, and their drill was good, but the Long Island veterans were shy, and had shown it. He could barely hold his temper.

“Send a letter to the Congress and inform them that I must consider the destruction of this city to deny it as a base of operations and winter quarters to the enemy.”

His military secretary began writing immediately.

Within two days, he had his answer.

“Resolved, that General Washington be acquainted, that the Congress would have especial care taken, in case he should find it necessary to quit New York, that no damage be done to said city by his troops, on their leaving it: The Congress having no doubt of being able to recover the same, though the enemy should, for a time, obtain possession of it.”

“They have lost command of their senses.”

“Congress is driven by money, and that, the New Yorkers have in plenty.”

“Not ours to speculate, gentlemen.” Just two days later, and Washington was looking down the same table. His defenses were no better, and indeed might be thought worse. There were Royal Navy frigates on the rivers, and his desertions had just reached a new high. “I suspect that the gentlemen of Congress have made a serious error here, but it is they that command us.”

“If Charles Lee were here, I dare say he’d have something to say,” commented one of the aides. He meant to be heard, but kept his voice low. Lee was not known for his patience with their political masters.

Washington had accepted Lee’s jibes, even approved them. Congress knew nothing of the conduct of war and insisted on tying his hands and appointing generals of little use and withholding rank from the best men. Congress had lost Canada and was now making a fair bid for losing New York. He wondered at himself, because just a year ago he would have bridled at allowing any man authority over his own decisions, but with every day he thought that such authoritarian ways led to the abuses of Great Britain, and he tried to submit meekly to his Congress because they represented a greater will than his own, even when they were wrong. And now they were ordering him to hold miles of coastline with untrained militia and a handful of regulars, against the finest navy in the world and their equally fine army. He could only make his dispositions and bow his head.

“Send to Congress again,” he said. He began to describe the defenses of the city, and the limited troops he had to defend it.

“How the event will be, God only knows,” he closed. His secretary dipped his quill one more time and it began to scratch again. “Circumstanced as I am, be assured that nothing in my power will be wanting to effect a favorable and happy issue.”

No one at the table met his eye, not even General Greene.

New York City, September 13, 1776

The Virginia Continentals were drawn up under Captain Lawrence to greet Colonel Weedon and his men as they marched into the flying camp. Lawrence was still parchment white, and he moved very carefully, but it seemed he would survive his wound. George Lake was now a sergeant. He and Bludner were the only noncommissioned officers to survive the fight at the little redoubt. During the Battle of Brooklyn, they had been thrown in twice with the Marylanders and again on the darkened road back to the ferry they had tried to keep the British light infantry off the army’s heels, while their mocking horns sounded foxhunting calls all through the long retreat.

View Halloo.

His friend Isaac was dead, left behind in the mud at the little redoubt on Long Island. So many other men were gone, either dead, deserted or sick, that there were no longer any lines between the “true believers” and the “backwoodsmen”. The new line was between the men who had survived Long Island and the new drafts up from Philadelphia. They were still fired with enthusiasm. They also believed everything they had read in the papers there, and insisted that they knew more about Long Island than George did.

George Lake still held Bludner responsible for the wreck of the company in its first fight, but he kept a tight rein on his resentment. Bludner was an arrogant clod, but he was also a good sergeant with an eye for detail. He had led the survivors out of three traps and an ambush in that wet retreat.

Colonel Weedon made a joke to Captain Lawrence out on the parade and his horse fidgeted a little. George kept his hands clasped on his musket and stared straight ahead. Parades no longer interested him much. Colonel Weedon had missed Long Island. He was a tavernkeeper from Fredericksburg, a known social climber and an acquaintance of General Washington. That last stood in his favor with some.

The Third Virginia had also missed Long Island. They were the regiment to which Captain Lawrence’s company would now be attached. They would have a great deal to learn.

Down the Hudson River, the British battery on Montresor’s Island opened fire again.

Montresor’s Island, September 14, 1776

The artillerymen worked like no team Caesar had ever seen. There were dozens of them on each gun, yet every man had an exact place to stand, a path to follow as he performed his tasks. And every man’s task was different. Some fed the brass guns, taking paper cartridges of powder from stores well to the rear of the gun line and carrying them forward. Others loaded the powder charge down the barrel, or brought the iron balls from another store, or moved the gun to aim it. Each gun fired in its own time, and yet the impression Caesar received was rather like that of watching a perfectly tuned flintlock, or the innards of a watch at work.

He and most of the other Ethiopians were leaning on their tools well back from the guns. Caesar never tired of watching them fire, but the other men smoked or played cards. Their work had been finished when the gun platform had been dug, leveled and completed, but the engineers had expected the enemy to dig a counterbattery and return the fire, and had wanted them handy to repair any damage.

Instead, they had had three days of inaction due to what Mr. Murray described as ‘Mr. Washington’s incompetence’. Caesar kept them at their drill, and Mr. Murray, the engineer, had become their honorary officer. He had drilled them several times, marching in front and using his sword to indicate wheels and turns. He knew the drill much better than either Mr. Edgerton or Mr. Robinson had, although as an engineer he had never commanded troops. Caesar was learning about how the army worked. The red-coated officers were often well trained, but some were not. The engineers and artillerymen were all professionals, middle-class men who attended schools and knew the business. Caesar thought they were lucky to have Murray’s interest.

Virgil was back to scrounging wool and sewing jackets. No one had come to take their arms, and so, unlike all the other work parties digging around New York, Caesar’s men had good muskets and all the accoutrements that went with them.

Bang.

The sound of the gunfire no longer made any of them jump. Virgil was making a jacket for a new boy called Isaac Vernon, a very thin runaway from the Jerseys, just across the water. He had swum to them during the night, and said that there was a rumor among the blacks over the water that the British Army was offering freedom. Willy and Romeo and Paget were dealing cards. Tonny and Fowver were working on a captured musket with a lock that wouldn’t make a spark.

Murray came over to Caesar, who stood up and removed his hat smartly, and bowed his head.

“Carry on, Caesar.”

Caesar relaxed a little.

“We’ll be taking New York in a few days.”

“So I figure, sir.”

“Captain Stewart wants to put your company on the provincial rolls, Caesar. That will get you paid, and some money for equipment.”

Caesar just smiled, suffused with happiness. To be regular soldiers, with pay and standing, would be a fine thing.

“When the army takes a city, things happen. There is usually some looting. Some men get rich. Others get hanged. Do you take my meaning, Caesar?”

“No, sir. I can’t say that I do.”

“You’re going to want cloth for uniforms, and more muskets. You’ll want barracks space. There are a host of things you’ll want. I guarantee that whatever officer you get will be poor. I’m poor myself, so I know. So there’s a chance to pick up some cash, or maybe a few bolts of cloth.”

Caesar nodded along before Murray was finished.

“Now I understand you, sir.”

Bang.

“Church is being rigged in the rear of the battery, if any of you are of a mind to attend,” said Murray. “I don’t wish to be indelicate, Sergeant Caesar, but as the minister is both Anglican and a gentleman of color, I thought your men might feel comfortable in attending.”

Caesar was still lost in thought about brown wool and the possibility of better equipment. He knew that in the long run his company had to find a way to be mustered and placed on a regular status, but he hadn’t expected the path to be made smooth so suddenly. He walked back to the lounging work party and squatted down next to Virgil, who took a draw on his pipe and passed it to Caesar.

“He wan’ us to drill, Caesar?”

“Mr. Murray says we might get on the rolls as a company.”

“That’d be fi-ine.” Virgil nodded, a slow smile spreading. “And paid?”

“If they’re goin’ to make us soldiers, I guess they’d have to pay us.”

Caesar watched the battery moving a gun, always interested. They used levers to move the wheels on the biggest guns. It was an education just watching them, but that wasn’t where his thoughts were.

“Ever think where we come from, Virgil?”

Virgil laughed. “Every day. Every single day. Every time I swing that pick, I think ‘It’s still bettuh than bein a slave.’ Every time I drill, I watch them runaways from Jersey look at me like I’m some big man. I know I ain’t, but I won’t nevuh forget what I was.”

“Long way from the swamp.” Caesar was still watching the guns. He couldn’t quite meet Virgil’s eye, because he still felt the losses of the swamp. And Peters’s death at Long Island. “An’ we didn’t all make it.”

Virgil sat up, dusted his jacket. The new Virgil, the soldier, was a fastidious man. “I don’ wan’ to hear none of that talk from you, Caesar. You got us here. Some died. They died free. What I wan’ you to look on is whether we stay free.”

Caesar turned sharply to look at him.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that there’s plenty of Loyal folk that own slaves. I’m saying that if we win, there’ll be plenty looking to take our guns away, an’ if we lose…”

Caesar stood up. “I don’t want to hear any of that talk from you, Virgil. Come on. Mr. Murray wanted us for a church parade.”

“I could use some church,” said Virgil, and started calling for his section to fall in.

Caesar fell the men in and led them to the river, where they washed some of the sweat off. They had a number of recruits, men who had swum the river to freedom, wearing nothing but shirts and trousers, and he arranged them in the rear ranks so that, at least from a certain angle, the company looked like soldiers with muskets and brown jackets. Then he marched them to the base of the battery, Corporal Fowver berating the new men in his sing-song Yoruba accent to keep the step.

The minister was a tall man, his altar a table and a drum with a Union Jack spread over it, and he stood quietly as Caesar marched the men up and halted them in front of the table. He tried to remember what they had done in Williamsburg when they had church parades, and the only thing he could remember was to open the ranks, as if God was going to inspect them. When he was done, he thought of saluting the minister, but that seemed wrong, so he took his place on the right of the company and waited.

The minister was a tall man, thin and elegant in his black suit. Closer up, Caesar could see that he had dirt under his nails and some mud on his breeches and stockings, probably from assembling the little table and putting up the little tent, but he still carried an air of dignity. Caesar still felt he should say something, and so he stood straight and reported.

“Company of Loyal Ethiopians assembled for church parade, sir!”

He was aware of movement to his right and turned his head, expecting Mr. Murray, but what he saw was a girl, very young, just backing out of the little canvas tent and then rising with considerable grace from the straw-covered ground. She caught his glance and looked down in amiable confusion, and her pale darkness flushed. Caesar tried to snap his attention back to the minister, but there was something in her glance that kept him pinned a moment longer, and so he saw her look at him again from under lowered lids.

If the minister gave any sign, he did not show it, but walked along the ranks like a general, greeting every man and complimenting them on the turnout of the company.

“You are the first armed blacks I’ve seen. It is a pleasure to meet all of you, and a sign of great things. A pleasure, sir.” This to Jim, who was shy, as usual. On and on, through forty men, greeting each individually. He came to Caesar last, as if he had planned it so.

“An admirer of yours said that I should come here and meet you. I am Marcus White, a minister of the gospel.”

Remembering Sergeant Peters, Caesar gave a civil bow, his musket inclined away from his body.

“Your servant, sir. I am Julius Caesar, and temporarily in command of the Company of Ethiopians.” Caesar was still trying to trace the idea of an “admirer”. He must mean Lieutenant Murray.

“Several officers have spoken to me of this body of men, sir. Perhaps I should say that I was trained by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel?” Seeing Caesar’s confusion, he said, “It would not be correct of me to explain myself more fully this moment, except to say that we men of color do have friends in England, Christian men who abhor slavery, and they have some influence in this army. I hope we will soon speak more fully.” They both bowed.

“I look forward to it, sir,” he said. Marcus White beamed at him, and moved with imperial dignity to the head of the company, where he turned, and put a hand on the Bible that was the sole ornament of the table. Raising his right hand, he began the service of morning prayer.

“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive,” he said.

New York City, September 15, 1776

The cannonade was short, and by the time he was ahorse and riding to the sound of the fire, the battle was lost.

Washington began to pass running men well before he came to the flats, and nowhere could he find an officer or even a company making a stand. New York and Connecticut militia flew past him, some disoriented. One man even threatened him with his musket when Washington tried to slow his flight. General Parsons rode up and joined him as he and his staff tried to make them stand. Again and again the knot of officers found themselves alone against an onrushing tide of red and Hessian blue sweeping over the autumn fields, their bayonets gleaming like the white tops on the ocean on a clear day, and always moving closer. Again and again Washington rode to the rear, found a good stone wall or a copse of trees and tried to rally men there. They merely waited until he rode off for more men before they, too, melted away. Washington began to hate them.

Whole brigades broke as soon as they were formed. Washington watched with horror as Fellows’s brigade failed to fire even once, but simply dropped their packs and their muskets and ran from the Hessian troops in front of them. A few were foolish enough to run at the Hessians, who promptly shot them down. The British didn’t misunderstand so easily, and began to reap a rich harvest of prisoners.

Again he tried to rally them at the edge of a cemetery, where the walls would have held the Germans for an hour. And his men melted away. Again, in a churchyard, where men he sent into the little stone church simply broke a window, jumped free and ran. On and on, a nightmare of failure and cowardice that stunned him, sapped his resolve and made him question the worth of his cause, that so many young men would refuse their duty.

At King’s Bridge Road his staff ran into a column in full flight. A captain, his uniform torn and muddy, was beating men into ranks when Washington rode up. One of the men the captain had just prodded into line waited until the captain had passed him and then swung his musket into the officer’s side, knocking him down. The rest fled.

The captain climbed to his feet right in front of Washington.

“It’s like herding cats,” he said, more in wonder than in anger, and ran off down the road after his men.

Washington watched the wreck of his army huddling on the road, and saw muskets lying everywhere in the muddy fields, with packs and blankets spread among the stubble. The wealth of his new nation had been spent to provide these men with arms, and they were throwing it away.

Just then a company of British light infantry appeared to his front, moving quickly toward him. He and his staff were badly outnumbered, and virtually unarmed except for the pistols in their saddle holsters. To his right, another group of men appeared from the trees, and Washington saw that they were black. For a moment, he hoped that they were some of his own Rhode Island troops, but they had black cockades and white rags on their arms. They began to fire at the wreck of the Tenth Continental Regiment behind him on the road, which flinched and broke again, their colonel racing to the rear on his horse. The British had only two companies here, and a Continental brigade was fleeing from them. It sickened him.

Washington wheeled his horse and cantered back to the routed column. He was humiliated, his whole being suffused with rage at having to run in front of the British.

One of the blacks started to run with him. He was well away to the north, but he was moving quickly, and the other black men started to follow the man. He was fast. His gait was familiar, somehow.

He was going to try to cut Washington and his staff off from the column all by himself.

The man leapt a stone wall and Washington, fifty paces away, leapt it on horseback in the same moment. His staff was just behind him, riding hard and making their jumps as best they could.

The black man stopped, raised his musket, and fired, not at Washington but at someone behind him. There was a shout and they rode on, and the black man was not quite fast enough to catch the mounted party. Washington jumped another fence, his greatcoat flying off behind him, low on his horse’s neck as if he was hunting. He hadn’t buttoned his greatcoat, only wearing it loose on his shoulders. Now it was gone.

He galloped, his face red with anger, his back already cold in the bracing, damp air. To fly from the enemy like this, in the face of his own men, was not to be endured. He rode right through the column and turned his horse to look back. His staff was clear, but someone had been taken; a big horse was wandering and a group of the black men were surrounding a man in a blue coat on the ground. The tall black man waved his greatcoat and laughed.

It became the focus of all the day’s humiliations.

John Julius Stewart slumped a little in his saddle, the cool air biting through his clothes, now damp with sweat. He still wasn’t himself. He had lost a great deal of blood before the surgeon had closed the wound in his leg, and two weeks hadn’t healed everything. He saw spots when he rode too hard.

Jeremy reined in behind him.

“There he is!” he called, pointing at Caesar, the black sergeant. Stewart walked his horse over, too tired to trot.

Caesar was wiping the lock of his musket. His men had a prisoner, a wounded officer. None of Washington’s army had regular uniforms, and rank was often difficult to ascertain, but this one looked senior.

“Was that your Mr. Washington, Caesar?”

“Yes, it was, Captain Stewart.”

“We almost had him.”

Caesar finished wiping his lock, stuffed the linen rag into a leather hunting pouch and stood up. He turned his back and pointed at something rolled tight across his pack.

“That’s his cloak.”

“Who’s your prisoner?”

“Some officer from his staff. He’s not hurt bad, if you want to take him.” Caesar looked up at Stewart and saluted, raising his musket across his body and then up by his face, erect in the air in the correct position for an enlisted man to greet an officer. Stewart wondered wryly why he bothered at all. Caesar met his eye. He was clearly happy, his whole face suffused with warmth. Stewart could see that he had a hunting sword on his hip, a lovely sword not much bigger than a knife with silver fittings and a greendyed ivory grip.

He pointed at the sword. “Was that his?”

Caesar laughed. “Well, sir, he didn’t seem to need it.”

“Rest easy, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Stewart thought that Caesar was like some of the great craftsmen he had known. Men whose brilliance was wholly in the art of what they made, except that Caesar’s art was war. He was slow to salute because cleaning the lock of his musket was so much more important.

Stewart’s company came up quickly, their bayonets gleaming. The shattered rebel column was near, well within musket shot. Stewart raised his hand and closed his fist, and in response his bugler sounded a call.

Skirmish! Skirmish! Skirmish!

Caesar looked down the road and then back up at Stewart, still smiling like a man who has found paradise.

“We’re gon’ to be in a whole lot of trouble when they fin’ we only have a few men.”

Stewart nodded. “The harder we press them, the less likely that will be, Sergeant. If you will be kind enough to keep your lads nipping at their flank, and we stay on the rear of the column, we should move them along briskly enough.”

Beside him, Sergeant McDonald blew his whistle, and the first shots began to be fired by his company. They were tired, but happy. All day they had driven the rebels like cattle, without the loss of a man. File leaders aimed and took their shots, and across the field, a man in a brown woolen shirt fell, coughing out his life as his lungs filled with blood, the shock of the big bullet already taking him away. His mates broke again, pushing to the rear, crying out that there were cavalrymen behind them.

Caesar took his men and ran off to the left. He didn’t have a whistle or a bugle, and he wanted both. He wanted the quick communication with his men that Stewart had. Stewart was better than Mr. Robinson, better even than Captain Honey. Caesar wanted to know everything that Stewart knew.

He ran, his nostrils flared, breathing easy, his shot pouch riding high on his hip, his boots comfortable and easy. He looked back over his shoulder and slowed his pace to stay with his men, none of whom was as fast or as easy in their gait as he. Virgil was laboring, and Jim looked done in, and there were other faces already gone. Not lost, or shot, just fallen by the wayside because the pace was too fast. But the best were still with him, about a platoon, all armed, and he circled a little woodlot with a stone wall, coming back to the wall when it ran out parallel to the road, and throwing his band behind it. Most of them lay down, panting, even though there was a whole army of rebel stragglers just a pistol shot away.

For all the training the Ethiopians had done, it wasn’t for this kind of fight, and he had to run along, crouched behind the wall, and tell every man what he wanted. It took time, and energy, and he couldn’t just raise his fist and start them firing. In a few minutes, though, the first shots rapped out, and the column began to flinch away from the wall.

Virgil was breathing like a bellows, and he took so long aiming his shot that Caesar thought he was hurt. Finally he fired, and Caesar pushed his own musket across the wall. He took careful aim and pulled the trigger. In the press of enemies, he couldn’t tell if his shot hit or not.

“I’m dry, Caesar,” said Virgil. “You have any mo’ powduh?”

Caesar nodded and reached into his pouch. He ran his hand across the bottom and realized that he was out as well, although he continued to feel around for a moment. He didn’t carry a proper cartridge box, with the paper cartridges lined up in a wooden block. There was always the possibility of one more, but not this time.

Further along the wall, Jim stared down his musket with feral concentration and it barked. Once, Jim would have flinched his head just a moment before the snap of the lock, but that habit had gone. Caesar saw his hand go back to the box on his hip and come back empty.

Men who had missed fire, or simply loaded more slowly, fired a few more rounds, but then they were out, and the column was moving by them, either unaware of their presence or uncaring. Many of the fleeing men were unarmed.

Caesar saw Jeremy riding up behind the little woodlot and waved both arms. Jeremy rode up to him directly.

“Can you ride back and tell Mr. Stewart we’re out of cartridges?”

Jeremy stood in his stirrups to look at the road and then back down at Caesar.

“I’ll tell him, Julius, but I think you’d be as well to gather your boys up and bring them back. I think we’re about dry on powder ourselves.”

Caesar wasn’t clear on Jeremy’s role. Sometimes he seemed more like an officer, at others like Stewart’s slave. It was too complicated to discuss right there, but the advice sounded good.

“Where is Mr. Stewart, then?”

“Just the other side of this wood, pressing their rearguard. But as I say, they won’t be pressing very hard.” Jeremy smiled. “I must say, Julius Caesar, I am jealous of that exploit with Mr. Washington. Please do send me a card the next time you plan something like that.” He tipped his hat.

Jeremy always called Caesar “Julius” and he liked it. He slapped the rump of Jeremy’s horse.

“I’ll be most pleased to invite you, suh. Sir.”

Jeremy leaned down and spoke quietly. “Get back with us soon. I think we’re going into the city. We might be the first.”

Caesar nodded, ran back from the wall, and yelled.

“Fall in!”

The army ran to McGowan’s Pass. Harlem Heights was barely held, the best position on the island. They didn’t stand on the road and they wouldn’t hold the line of trenches north of the road. He would have cried, if he dared.

New York was lost. His army had run without firing a shot. For a moment, when the black tried to run him down, he had thought the same dark thoughts that he had had all those years ago in the Pennsylvania country, when Braddock had lost an army, and he had lost his first military career. He was beaten. His army would not stand again for months after a panic like this, and he could not find anyone to blame except himself.

But this was a different war. He was no longer a young colonel with a life before him. In a way, he was now Braddock, and he owed it to his men, and to his nation, such as it was, to try and keep the army together. He would not cry, or shout, or vent his rage on the fools who had run. He would have to wait, retreat, and rebuild, and he watched the faces of the men around him on his staff to see if they still trusted him. As for himself, he no longer trusted his army. He rode back to the rear, sullen, angry, and outwardly his usual icy calm.

Despite his worst fears from midday, the camp had not been lost, nor the magazines. There were solid battalions in front of the camp, formed and ready to meet an enemy. He rode along their ranks, the wind cutting through his coat. He missed his greatcoat.

No one cheered, but no one jeered him, either. He ordered his staff to rally any troops who came near the camp and went to his marquee, set on a rise with a view of the parade and the fields over which the enemy would come if this was the end. He didn’t think so. He didn’t think that the British were ready for the magnitude of today’s victory, and would settle for the occupation of New York. He had several thoughts for limited counterattacks, more to hold the army together and raise its prestige than for any strategic reason. Manhattan Island, and with it, New York, was lost.

“You want something warm, sir?” asked Billy.

Washington realized that he was standing in front of the map on his camp desk, unmoving, his limbs chilled to the bone.

Billy held out a mug, steam whirling up from the top. “I have some hot flip, sir.”

The mug was porcelain, from his traveling service, hot to the touch, and Washington cradled it like the touch of life, warming his hands for the first time since before dawn. He thought, I am not a young man.

“We lost today. Badly.” Washington sat, still pressing the mug to his breast, inhaling the steam. Billy nodded, more like an accepting parent than a slave. Washington sighed and went on. “I have lost New York. I could blame others, but what use? I am in command, and I have failed. Should I resign?”

Billy busied himself at the back of the tent, putting wood on the fire in the small earthen fireplace that had replaced the tent’s back door.

“They wouldn’t stand, Billy. These men are fighting for their homes and property, their own liberty-and they ran. No one stood his ground. Are we a nation of cowards? Billy, men ran without a shot fired at them. It is one thing when a company breaks because they have seen too many of their comrades shot away. It’s another when they run before they see the enemy.”

He took a deep drink. “Perhaps they don’t trust me. Don’t trust the army. Or the Congress, God save us.” He gazed into the distance, while Billy loooked for another chore to keep him close to his master. He missed a comment about the loss of the city while he seized on Washington’s hat and began to brush it. Then he stopped.

“Where’s your greatcoat, sir?”

“I lost it in the field.” Washington reflected for a moment, and thought, I ran too. He smiled grimly. “One more defeat like this and we might lose the ability to fight. Men will simply walk home and there will be no army.” He shook his head. “I wonder if this job is beyond me. I think I expected it to be more like farming: a set of tasks to perform, men to obey me and a drive to complete the work. A steady pull in harness. Now I wonder if Charles Lee could do better.”

Billy looked up from brushing the hat. “I doubt it, sir,” he said firmly, and Washington looked at him, startled. Billy flushed and put his head down, but Washington laughed, a laugh of pure mirth, his first in twelve hours. “You, too? I thought everyone loved him but me.”

“Not for me to say,” said Billy, trying to hide his own laugh.

Washington slapped him on the shoulder. “Lend me your greatcoat, Billy. I’m going to check the posts.”

Harlem Heights, September 17, 1776

Once New York fell, Caesar realized that he had expected the war to end in the aftermath. The truth was harsher. His men had been among the first into the city, and as Murray had predicted, there had been benefits. But within hours the city was under British martial law, and within days his men were marching north again, following the wreckage of Washington’s army. The generals seemed hesitant to finish Mr. Washington, or so it seemed to Caesar from his very recent knowledge of war. So where the Continentals ran, they marched slowly behind, feeling their way cautiously as if they feared a sudden reversal of fortune. And Caesar knew that the war was not over.

The blacks were not yet an official military organization. They had remained with Mr. Murray through the taking of New York, and then, as the army began to move up Manhattan Island, they attached themselves to Captain Stewart’s company, because they were familiar and welcoming.

Caesar was tired all the time. He felt grimy, and his eyes felt like they were full of sand. His mouth was so dry he might have spent the night drinking. He had been in the field too long.

He moved cautiously through the low brush at the base of a tall ridge. Captain Stewart and all the men in the Second Battalion of light infantry were extending their lines to the right, hoping to move their posts forward as inconspicuously as possible and “render Mr. Washington’s posts even more untenable,” as Mr. Stewart had said. Jim had already been around the hill, alone, making a map on the back of an old tax record. He couldn’t read, and his markings on paper were like no map any white officer had ever seen, but Jim had gained a little fame in the last three days for the accuracy of his scouting. Mr. Washington’s army was here, in the flat ground on the other side of the ridge. Mr. Washington’s army had post on the ridge, and they were finally going to contest them.

He looked back at Jim, just behind him. The rest of his company was moving in two long files, one to each flank. The brush was too dense to move in line. He raised his foot to place it on an old stone wall, long abandoned in this tangle of undergrowth, and he wondered who would go to the trouble of clearing a field and moving the stones only to abandon it. Something caught his attention and he froze.

There was a man right in front of him, just a long throw away through the brush. He was wearing a smock or a shirt. There was another one, next to him.

Caesar raised his musket to his shoulder in one smooth motion and fired. All along the brush line to his front, smoke blossomed in return. He threw himself down behind the jumble of rocks that had been a wall and started to load, already looking for possibilities. There were a great many men out there. He could hear them shouting orders.

Caesar thought that if he wasn’t lucky, he might die right here. It didn’t bother him much.

“Get to the wall!” Caesar yelled. “Get behind the wall and skirmish!”

He grabbed Jim by the rough material of his trousers and pulled him down.

“Go tell Captain Stewart it’s a whole parcel of men. More’n I can count. Maybe a hundred.”

Jim nodded.

“I’ll jus’ leave you ma’ piece,” he said, and handed Caesar his musket. Then he pushed himself up and ran. There were shots, and he stumbled, but he didn’t fall, and then Caesar had other concerns.

Washington watched the messenger run the last fifty yards. He could hear the firing, and he ached with the effort not to knee his horse down the hill to meet the panting man halfway.

“Knowlton’s…” he panted as he closed. “Colonel Knowlton’s rangers. In that wood, right there, fighting redcoats. Their light infantry, I think.” Washington thought the man might fall at his feet like the runner from Marathon, but instead, the man bent over and then straightened, color flooding his face.

“Colonel asks for support, and says there is three hundred all told, an’ with help he can take the lot. Nothin’ on their right.”

Suddenly they heard bugles from the woods, the contemptuous call of the kill, as if the redcoats were hunters who had taken their fox. Joseph Reed, the adjutant general, rode up, furious.

“Damn it, we had them.” He seemed to feel personally disgraced by the calls. “Damn it!”

Knowlton’s men could be seen running from the wood now, a few redcoats at their heels. Washington looked around, suddenly decisive.

“We may yet. Get me…” He looked back to the troops who had formed in front of their tents at the first shots, and saw Weedon’s Virginians. “Colonel Reed, if you will have the kindness to take Colonel Weedon’s companies that are already formed? Right up Vanderwater Heights, and into their flank. Take this man as a guide.” Washington rode over to the Virginians, who cheered him. There was a different feeling in the air, even if the redcoats were still sounding their calls. He rode directly to Colonel Weedon.

“I need your best, sir. Your very best effort.”

George Lake was less than a musket’s length away. Washington was right in front of him, his face severe but unworried, his seat on the horse a picture of control. Washington whipped his hat off and pointed it down the hill toward another ridge and said something further as Major Lietch and Captain Lawrence came up to join the little knot. Lake cheered. Washington turned his horse away and it curveted a little and he rose, his hat still off, and looked back along their line. His eyes seemed to rest directly on George Lake for an instant. That frozen image of the general with his hat off, his horse’s front hooves raised like an equestrian statue in Williamsburg, would stay with George Lake forever.

George cheered-they all did, it was everywhere, a wall of sound-and Major Lietch was shouting for them to go forward, and the general was gone.

Caesar fired again, ran his hand along the bottom of his pouch and realized that he was again out of cartridges. His mouth burned from all the powder he had eaten biting the bottom off his cartridges, and no water for hours. Jim was back, long since, lying in a little hollow to his right and firing slowly. The brush and the smoke made choosing a target almost impossible, but every time he reached back for his canteen, the rebels tried another rush.

Suddenly, there was a horse above him, and Jeremy looking down, and legs with wool breeches and sharp black gaiters like little boots moving past him in the brush. The rebels fired, and a man went down right in front of him, and then there was a roar from the redcoats all around him like a savage beast let loose, and the bugles called a “view”, as if a fox was in sight. He was fluent in this hunting language, and though the soldiers weren’t from Stewart’s company, Jeremy’s presence told him they weren’t far, and he rose to his feet.

“Ethiopians! Forward!” and then he was pressing into the smoke, tripping over the heavy brush, and a twig of thorns tore at his leg, another lashing his hand, and then he was through the smoke and a musket fired just over his head as he fell over another wall. He rolled, his equipment tangling for a moment on his back, and rose as smoothly as he could, the butt of his musket catching a man cleanly in the side of the head and knocking him down and out, his body falling with the boneless limpness that Caesar now knew to indicate total unconsciousness, or instant death. Fowver fired at something further on and then stopped to fit his bayonet. He was yipping like a mad dog, a sound that some of the other Yoruba men made when at war.

All the redcoats were intermingled now, and then there was firing again, coming from their left. Caesar couldn’t see anything, and he looked around for Jeremy, who was gone.

“Ethiopians!” he called. “On me! Fall in!”

Men began to appear out of the smoke. He continued to shout, his dry mouth forgotten. Men would be spread all over the wood by now, and his shouting seemed to rally only a dozen or so. Other voices shouted for the light companies of the Forty-second and the Sixty-fourth, and bugles sounded, confusingly, all through the undergrowth, and then the firing was almost in front of them, and a Virginian voice was ordering his men to “get in any covuh an’ shoot!”

One of them showed himself clear, an officer or a sergeant, and Caesar raised his musket and pulled the trigger before realizing that the gun was empty and he had no more ammunition.

Ten yards away in the smoke, George Lake never knew how close his death had been, and shouted for his men to keep in line and look for targets when they fired. He shouted again. An arm’s length away, Bludner was pushing some new recruits with his musket, shoving them to the exact position where he wanted them. He never turned his head to look at the enemy. He heard the enemy trying to rally and knew they had the redcoats at a disadvantage. His glance caught George Lake’s and they both smiled in the same instant, as if sharing the secret. They were winning.

“Crawl!” Caesar suited actions to words and began to burrow back toward the stone wall where he had started the action. A volley crashed out behind them, and he hoped all his men had been down on the ground, although a few low balls flung wood splinters and gravel around them. He moved as quickly as he could, and there it was, the little wall, and he was over it and on the trail. He wasn’t lost; his head cleared, and he felt as if he could see the whole action in his mind like the chase of a fox or a deer at Mount Vernon. The rebels were all along their left, but not strong on their front.

He looked down the ruined wall and saw that some of the men had never gotten up to join the first rush. He had seen enough action to know that not every man was brave every day, and he waved to them.

“Time to go, Ethiopians!” he yelled, and started down the trail at a crouching run. He stopped twice to look back and see that they were with him, and they were. Another volley crashed out behind him, too far to hurt them. He had “gone away” like a smart fox on a spring day, whipping the prize out from under the nose of the hunter. He couldn’t see Stewart or Jeremy at the wood edge, and he knew that their horses would make them prime targets in the woods, but they weren’t his concern. He waited as men he knew tumbled out of the wood on his heels, the stream becoming a trickle after about twenty-five. There were several men from the Fortieth and two from the Sixty-fourth. They looked a little bemused to find themselves with a body of black men, but they stayed silent.

“Anyone has more than one cartridge, give it to your mate. Load! Now!”

They were shuffling around, unformed and worried. They thought the enemy was right behind them. Caesar could see it all so clearly in his mind and he forgot that others could not.

“Ain’t no one behind you right now. Them Virginny boys is shootin’ at trees. You stay with me, lads. I’ll see you right.” Excitement robbed him of his hard-won accent, but he could feel the fight shaping in the wood as the British swung more men to their flank and steadied their line in the center of the wood. It was all in the balance, and he could see it, he could save it if only these men would load their muskets and follow him.

Muskets were coming up as men got their bullets rammed down on to the powder and replaced their rammers. The regulars looked like they were on parade, already making a line, while many of the blacks who had never served in the Ethiopians in Virginia loaded casually, their musket butts on the ground. Virgil slapped a cartridge into his hand and he primed his pan and cast about, careful of the eighteen-inch bayonet. He was the last man to load, and by the time he returned his ramrod he had his plan.

“We’re going left ‘round this wood. As soon as we see rebels, we form a front and give fire. If we have the number, we’re goin’ right at them.”

Some of the men looked uneasy at that. By no means did all the blacks have bayonets.

“You men follow me. We’ll have ’em,” Caesar said, looking hard at one of the regulars who seemed like he might protest. The man just shook his head. Caesar began to jog off to the left. He could see a column coming up from the south, grenadiers with two artillery pieces, but they would be too late for the wood whatever happened. He looked back and saw that his men were coming well, a long single file with the redcoats in the middle. He turned the corner of the wood and could see all the way down the ridge and up the other side, where a column of rebels was shaping up, and he spotted an officer in blue and buff sitting just at the base of the wood, less than a quarter mile away, and he knew he was right. The whole rebel line was just in those woods and he was now on their flank. The fox had turned and bitten the hunter, and now the hunter was ready to bite back.

“Form front!” he called, and they did, but his voice alerted someone in the wood, and there was a scramble in among the trees as someone flinched away. In a moment the edge of the wood was full of men, right in their front.

Caesar watched it as if in slow motion. He had time. He was calm, even happy, his plan proven correct.

“Make ready!” he called. The regulars didn’t really know where to stand in the Ethiopian line, but the order stiffened them and they obeyed automatically. The rebels were close, emerging from the trees and scrambling in the thick brush at the wood’s edge.

“Present!” he bellowed and the rebels began to flinch away, the race lost. They weren’t the Virginians, as he had hoped, but other troops in neat blue coats. He owned them. They were caught in the brush, clear of the cover afforded by the wood’s edge. Behind them, other units were suddenly at the edge of the woods too, and halfway down the hill he could see the Virginians and that same tall ugly man he had wanted to kill at Brooklyn when they fought in the little redoubt, but there had been no time.

“Fire!” he said, with finality. For just a moment he saw the rebels to his front frozen, their faces slack, as if life had already left them, and then the volley slammed into them like the collapse of a burning barn.

Off to his right, a horse burst from the woods and Captain Stewart, hatless and bleeding, rode up beside him.

“Bloody marvelous!” he shouted, and thumped Caesar on the back, before starting to call for his men to form their front.

George Lake pulled himself free of the raspberry tangle at the edge of the wood and held his musket in the air yelling for his men to rally. They were different today. They ran back, yes, but they leapt into the ranks. No one ran past. They had licked the redcoats in the woods, got on their flanks and clawed them hard, and the woods were full of redcoat bodies. George Lake knew they were fighting light infantry, the very best the redcoats had to offer.

Certainly, they had taken a whack in their turn, but they had seen the backs of the regulars for the first time. They were learning.

He got his men formed and found that his company was the foremost in the field. The Marylanders who had been on his right in the wood had vanished and suddenly he saw why, with two companies formed on his flank. He and Bludner didn’t try to form to meet the new threat. They were veterans now.

“Back!” they yelled, and the men ran again. And again, when they yelled for the company to rally, it did, facing the right way, a good space of a musket shot between them and the redcoats. George thought that he might have seen the blacks again before he had to pull back, but he wasn’t sure. He waited with his company, and other companies from the Third Virginia came and formed on them. The British formed too, but no one came on. Their ranks looked thin. George looked at his own and knew he had lost men, too. Men around him called taunts at the British, and he let them.

They were learning.

Morris House, New York, October 1776

General Charles Lee had not changed. He had won a famous victory, repulsing Clinton’s ships at Charleston, South Carolina, and he had dazzled Congress on his road north, stopping in Philadelphia to proclaim his own success and to convince the doubting that there was no other path for General Washington than the one on which he had embarked.

He was still well groomed, wore his coat with most of the facings unbuttoned, like the younger British officers, and his little Nirvenois tricorn was worn rakishly aslant on his head. He tossed his reins to an aide and embraced Washington, to everyone’s surprise. It smacked of theater, but then so did a great deal about Charles Lee.

Washington, a man whose bad teeth dictated that he should smile as little as possible, smiled for Charles Lee. Lee smiled back, and gave a bow.

“Welcome back, General. We ought to have a bower decorated in laurel for you.”

“Nonsense, sir. A small matter of logistics. A few wellsited forts and many brave young men.”

“Perhaps the laurels should be for your dealings with our masters in Congress.”

The assembled staffs laughed together. Lee raised his hand for quiet, another theatrical gesture. Washington could tolerate his posturing, indeed, would tolerate almost anything to have Lee back.

“General Washington,” he said, making sure he would be heard by the whole assembly, “I have nothing but contempt for the Congress. I do not mean one or two of the cattle,” he paused for emphasis, “but the whole stable.”

There was a shocked silence. Washington hid his darkest feelings about the Congress from his staff, and they in turn rarely shared their frustrations with the line officers and soldiers who made up the army. Here was Charles Lee, the hero of the hour, speaking to their private, outraged thoughts. Congress, who refused to burn New York City, refused to raise the regular regiments to prosecute the war, tied their hands, held back money, appointed incompetent commanders, pandered to privilege and money. The whole stable.

But Washington smiled and gave Lee his hand again, leading him toward Morris House, in which he lodged.

“Charles, I had forgotten what it was like to have you about.”

And in that moment, the shocked silence turned again to laughter.

They rode along the new lines while Washington described the campaign to date, its many reverses and his plans for the next action. Lee listened in silence, his concentration bent on Washington’s report.

“Are we losing the war, General?” he asked, turning to Washington suddenly. They had pulled ahead of their staffs, and had what counted as privacy among the great.

Washington shook his head. “I couldn’t say. This isn’t the war I expected. It is less about battles than about desire. The war of words is as vital as the war in the field. Losses shake men’s faith in the cause, and gains strengthen that faith. It is there that the war is being fought.”

Lee nodded. “It is a new kind of war. But our enemies adapt as quickly as we do. In the south, they have offered to free slaves who come to the army. They deride our notions of liberty.”

“That will lose them any friends they had among men of property.”

“Perhaps, General. But what of Parliament? What will our supporters there say when someone of the stature of Burke or Wilberforce denounces slavery instead of praising our resolution for Liberty?”

Washington looked over his horse’s head for a few strides, and nodded. “Slavery is an issue of property not liberty. But I see how it could be used in other ways.” He pointed at a set of ridges in the distance. “That’s where I intend my magazines and winter quarters, beyond those hills. May I take it you wish a command?”

“You know me, General. I do.”

“Welcome back, Charles.”

Jackson House near New York City, October 18, 1776

Captain Stewart had met Sir William Howe on several occasions, but the Howes represented the very top of the Whig aristocracy and John Julius Stewart was the son of a Scots merchant. He did have the advantage that both he and his wealthy father were Whigs, that is, men who felt the good of the realm lay in liberal government and the House of Hanover, not conservative government and the House of Stewart. In Scotland, this last was often the more important argument, as blood had been shed there in living memory. But in the south, in England, the issue between Whig and Tory was about liberty, the protection of property, and the rights of men.

Sir William and his brother Richard were joint commanders of the entire war effort. Sir William had the army, and Richard had the fleet. They were famous men from a famous family and many Americans remembered the family name with fondness. Their brother, George Augustus Howe, had died at Ticonderoga in 1758 fighting alongside many Americans. The Howes had not been sent to win a war this time, but to find an end to it as quickly as possible, and they were both capable men who understood politics and war and the dangerous middle ground between the two.

Sir William was dressed for the cold, in a dark blue velveteen hunting coat trimmed in red. He wore heavy riding boots and was leaning back in a deep settle in front of the house’s main fireplace when one of his aides stepped in and said softly, “Captain Stewart of the Second Battalion light infantry, Sir William.”

Sir William rose, and bowed slightly.

“The hero of the hour.”

“You are too kind, Sir William.”

“Nonsense, Captain. By all accounts, your quick action and that of this company of black men prevented a very ugly situation.”

“Thank you, Sir William. The men did the fighting. The black men…”

“Yes, I’ve read your report and that of your brigade major. I needn’t tell you, Captain, that a less impetuous advance might have prevented the whole situation. The damned rebels say they’ve seen our backs, now. And where’d I have been left if I had lost both of my light infantry battalions?”

Stewart thought that he had come to be praised, but Sir William’s tone was now very uncomfortable for him, and he stood straight, as if ready for a blow, but Sir William changed tack suddenly, his voice changing, his chest relaxing. In the next room, a woman was humming and then singing a tune.

“I’m of a mind to grant your request to have this group of Africans embodied formally. I note that your petition to that effect is signed by General Clinton, by your own major, your regiment’s colonel, as well as John Simcoe from the regulars and Beverly Robinson from our Loyalist volunteers.” Whigs to a man, thought Stewart, and with votes in Parliament.

The woman’s singing, clear and light, floated out from the closed door.

They both listened until she finished, a lovely clear young voice. Sir William smiled wryly.

“I assure you she is not referring to me,” he said.

Stewart merely bowed, hiding his smile.

Sir William waved at a pile of documents on his fireside table.

“I cannot simply embody your blacks without consultation, much as I would like. I am aware that there is a body of opinion in this army that we should make ourselves the army of Zion, rescuing this lost tribe from the slavery of the rebels. I also have a clan of Tory officers who believe that blacks are savages, and their employment will bring down on us the condemnation of all Europe.”

Again, Stewart bowed. When in the presence of the great, a modest man should only marshal his arguments when asked.

There was movement outside the door. It opened, and a cornet of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons leaned in, the silver buttons gleaming richly on his dark blue facings, followed by a severe-looking man in a red coat, with a recent wound, and a pleasant-faced Loyalist in green. A little after came a self-important looking fellow in a civilian coat of pale blue.

“Captain Simcoe. Major Robinson. Mr. Loring.”

Stewart had never met John Graves Simcoe, although his reputation as a soldier was already formidable and he was known to have political connections at home. Major Beverly Robinson was an American who led Loyalist soldiers and was known, despite his Virginian antecedents, to have misgivings about slavery. Mr. Loring was someone important in the emerging British commissary. John Stewart shook hands with Simcoe and Robinson. Both complimented him on the action the day before, compliments from men who had led such actions themselves. Loring merely touched his hand absently with two fingers, a habit so contemptuous that Stewart stiffened.

“Gentlemen, I have asked you here for your views on arming and embodying black soldiers.” Sir William smiled at all of them. He had risen politely to greet them as if they were guests, but having done so he was slumped down in his chair with his feet up. Stewart had heard that he suffered from gout.

“My brother and I have to move carefully in these colonies. It is no secret in the army that crushing the rebels in the field will not settle the issue, nor will it heal any wounds. Government at home requires a negotiated settlement, and at the moment, the rebels will not negotiate. Thus the issue about black soldiers is not one of humanity or military expediency, gentlemen. It is one of politics and, oddly, of avoiding conflict with our own adversaries. Anything that prolongs this war or provides our rebels with political ammunition to continue the struggle must be examined very carefully. Am I clear?”

Mr. Loring stepped forward a little. “That is quite a relief to me, Sir William. I had understood from the tone of your note that you were leaning the other way, toward employing these savages.”

Sir William smiled at him and nodded a little, as if urging him to continue, and the small man bowed his head as if in agreement.

“Employing blacks as anything but labor will harm our cause in several ways. First, it undermines that knowledge of inferiority which is essential to the maintenance of the bonds of slavery. Many of our Loyalists here in New York and across the river in New Jersey own slaves, Sir William, and it is essential that they rest easy knowing that their property is not threatened by the very authority that has been sent by the Government to protect it.”

Sir William nodded, as if accepting his point.

“Second, blacks are savages. If released upon the rebels, they will commit atrocities that will reflect badly on the honor of His Majesty. Ignorant of the uses of civilization, and totally unable to understand the courtesies of our forms of warfare, they will reduce us to the level of Africans. We will be lampooned in the press.”

Again, Sir William nodded. One of the doors flanking the fireplace opened and a very handsome young black woman with an abundant bosom only partially concealed by her gown came in softly, carrying a tray. Stewart suspected that she had heard the whole of Mr. Loring’s infamous speech, as her face was showing a deep red under the dark skin. Loring paid her no heed. Stewart wondered if she had been the singer.

“Finally, Sir William, despite the arguments these men might urge on you, please remember that England requires the slave trade for her commerce. It is our cloth, our mills, our gunsmiths and our ships that drive the trade, and without it, what would we have? Any step you take here will be questioned in Parliament, where they will wonder what notions you have learned in America that you seek to smash the trade.”

This last was so clearly above the level of converse that was acceptable to Sir William that he turned and stared at Mr. Loring, but Loring had now noticed the girl and seemed immune to his patron’s anger.

Sir William waved at the girl. “Polly, pour for the gentlemen. Captain Simcoe, I know you disagree, sir. Please state your views.”

Simcoe was a wealthy man from an old naval family. Although vastly junior to Sir William in rank, every man in the room knew that the Simcoes grew up to be the Sir Williams. Stewart would never be a general, and Robinson and Loring were Americans. But John Graves Simcoe would rise far, everyone said. He had the connections and the looks, the charisma.

“Sir William, it would be foolish of me to hide from you that I support the universal abolition of slavery. It will happen. The ownership of one man by another is pernicious not just to our morals but to our trade, which is why such ownership is already illegal in England.”

Sir William didn’t move his head.

“Sir William, I know that you have to concern yourself with the whole of the theater of war and all the politics, so I will refute Mr. Loring’s points in reverse, on that basis. First, as to Parliament, Mr. Loring knows nothing of your support there, as he is himself a Tory, and we are Whigs. The Whig interest is inclined to the end of slavery, Sir William. More important than that, though, is in the refutation of the very liberal principles on which our adversaries base their pamphlets and their struggle. Every Yankee Doodle wears a cap with the word Liberty embroidered by his sweetheart, and he wears that cap while he beats his slave. When we protect the blacks, we refute the most fundamental of their assertions; that their cause represents that of liberty. It is our army that fights for liberty.”

His face was flushed. The serving maid clapped her hands and beamed at him for a moment before she saw what she had done and put her head down again to pour more tea.

Loring didn’t even glance at him. “A pretty speech.”

“Pray, Mr. Loring, be silent. I was silent for you,” said Simcoe. He didn’t turn his head, and his tone suggested the absent reprimand of a man to his servant.

Loring flushed and ran a finger around the inside of his neckcloth as if it was too tight.

“Second, blacks are not savages, however much Mr. Loring’s inflamed imagination may carry him to such thoughts. Here in our lines we already have a black congregation of Anglicans with its own ordained minister, as well as a black man of law. And your brother has, I believe, a black officer on board HMS Rose, does he not? Blacks are men, like us, both good and bad. And they will be soldiers like us, if we train them.”

Sir William looked at him absently, now searching the table in front of him for something. “Captain Simcoe, you offered to raise a company of blacks in Boston, did you not?” The serving maid reached up above the mantle, rising on her toes so gracefully that Stewart had to look away. She came back to Sir William with a long-stemmed pipe, which he seized eagerly.

“I did, Sir William.”

He nodded.

“Finally, Sir William, Mr. Loring says that to provide freedom for the slaves would undermine our role as the authority of government in protecting property. Much as I should like to argue with Mr. Loring that a man should never be considered property, I will rest my case more exactly on the reality of the situation here. That is to say, we control a very small part of the slave-owning population and our enemies control the greater. Any effort on our side to provide safe haven for escaped slaves will harm the economy of those provinces most loyal to Congress far more than such a move would harm our own Loyalists, who might even be indemnified, as Governor Dunmore did in Virginia.”

Sir William had his pipe packed, and the serving maid, as if completing some household ballet, now leant over the fire, her back perfectly straight and her legs bent as if in a curtsy, her elbows well out and her head leaned to one side like one of Monsieur Boucher’s paintings of a nymph. She lit the taper and turned back to Sir William, offering it to him for his pipe. Stewart, whose thoughts on women were almost entirely confined to his sweetheart in Edinburgh, was moved in a way he had seldom experienced. He smiled at himself, as he was often quick to advise others that the Scots did not feel the effects of Cupid.

“Major Robinson?” asked Sir William, as he puffed the pipe to life.

“Sir William, I can scarce add to the eloquence of my friend except to agree on all his points and bring my own small experience to bear. The loss of their slaves would cripple the southern landowners like Mr. Washington, at least until they understood that hired labor is always more willing than slaves. I might also say, with a certain reservation, that the use of blacks will create a horror among those who own them, and a fear that might well work to our advantage. I do not mean to imply that they will behave badly, but only that those who own them fear their rising to such a degree that it might paralyze their councils.”

Sir William turned back to Stewart, who was now looking openly at Polly. She curtsied slightly to him, which confused him for a moment. Sir William caught the direction of his glance and laughed aloud, one short bark like a dog.

“Polly, get you gone. You’ll have the whole of my army sniffing after you in a moment.”

She inclined her head and moved away, stopping in the doorway to curtsy to all of them before retreating through it, all the motions of a lady, not a serving girl. A suspicion flared in Stewart’s mind that this was stage-managed, that Sir William was trying to send a message. That young black woman didn’t work in this house. If she did, he’d have heard from his friends on the staff.

“Sir William, the body of soldiers who have placed themselves under my protection were raised in Virginia by the royal governor there. They desire to serve as soldiers and not be reduced to the status of laborers, and they have already served you and His Majesty well. I cannot add to the eloquence of the arguments here. I am only a plain soldier. But I can say that these men are fine soldiers, fast and able, and that I would be honored to continue to command them.”

“If I place them on the rolls of the provincial corps, they will eventually require an officer of their own. Indeed, I have so many Loyalists clamoring for commands every day that I doubt I could hide them for long. But having heard you, gentlemen,” and he glanced briefly at the closed door through which Polly had passed, “I think I will allow this body of men into the service. Perhaps there will be others, and perhaps not. In the meantime, though, I will permit any runaway to pass our lines.”

Mr. Loring shrugged. Stewart had expected him to remonstrate, and was surprised at his easy acceptance of defeat.

The rest was mere formality. Sir William signed several documents that gave the Ethiopians status as a provincial corps called the “Company of Black Guides,” as that was how Stewart intended to use them. Ethiopians was thought to be too colorful a term. Having signed, Sir William proceeded to compliment Stewart again on his action.

“And what do you plan after the war, Captain Stewart?”

“I’ll continue in the army, Sir William.”

“I shall keep my eye on you, then, Captain.”

“I thank you, Sir William, and I’ll take my leave with my grateful thanks for the compliments and for your services.”

“That’s fine, Captain.”

And with that, Stewart was out in the main room of the house, with men like himself, free of the presence of the great and near-great. Simcoe was waiting for him by the smaller fireplace, smoking a small cigar of the type the Havana traders carried. Major Robinson, the Loyalist officer, was lighting his pipe.

“Better than I had expected,” he said as he came up. Jeremy was somewhere about, because his cloak was hanging on a peg, neatly, not the way he had left it. The whole room was smoky. The front door was always open as men came in and out, and it ruined the draw of the fireplace. There was Jeremy, away through the smoke, at the entrance to a corridor. He was talking to the girl, Polly, who had on a charming mantle and a very proper black silk bonnet. She was clearly going out.

“I knew he was with us the moment I saw the girl,” said Simcoe, turning an appreciative eye over Polly.

Robinson laughed.”She can never work here.”

“No, it would be chaos. I know her. Her father is the black Anglican minister I mentioned. He brought her to show us which way the tide was running, and to give Loring and the Tories a place to hang their hats.”

Stewart looked at him blankly.

“Sorry, Stewart, but you are such a Scot. Loring will assume that Polly is Sir William’s latest fascination, shall we say? And so, rather than labeling him a hopeless liberal to the other Tories, they’ll just assume he’s been led by his cock.”

Stewart wondered if the smoke was getting to his head.

Simcoe held out a little leather case.

“Cigar? If you have to breathe smoke, you might as well enjoy it.”

Stewart took one and lit it. The draw was much easier than a pipe. He coughed a little, rolled a little more smoke around in his mouth. Jeremy came up next to him.

“This young lady requires an escort back to her father in the camp, sir. Might we provide it?”

Stewart looked at her gravely. His immediate impulse was over, but she was still bewitching.

“I suspect she is in more danger from some of us than she knows,” he said. Had he said that? He rarely assayed at gallantry. She smiled, without flirtation but with considerable calm.

Major Robinson choked on his smoke. “You Scots are like the rest of us. You simply hide it better.”

“I’m sure I would be in no danger with you, sir,” said Polly, in a modest way that acted as a reproach to Major Robinson and a compliment to Captain Stewart at the same time.

Simcoe tossed his cigar in the fireplace with a laugh.

“My best compliments to your father, Polly.” He straightened his coat and a soldier came and hung his greatcoat on him as Jeremy did the same for Stewart. “Stewart, come and dine with me. I have hopes of getting a good provincial command, and I understand you to be the master of getting cooperation from regimental agents.”

“I know the trade, yes,” said Stewart carefully. Admitting to knowledge of a trade was often the fastest way to end a relationship with the well-born.

Simcoe just nodded. “You’re the man for me, then. Have your man and mine set a day, eh? Major? If I can ever be of service?”

“Your servant, gentlemen. Miss Polly,” said Robinson with a bow.

Stewart followed him to the door as Jeremy went for the horses.

“Just so, Captain Simcoe.”