TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

A L L E G R O - S T A V E IV

S T A V E IV

General William Howe, ‘Billy’, MP, PC, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Force, turned his dark full face to the heights outside his headquarters’ window. The ridge above was a sea of British canvas, fresh white tents like the caps on waves – beautiful, neat, in symmetry with the Age. A good camp, a clean camp, with scents of fresh-cut pine and cedar, very pleasant ground, a rarity in America where the inland is a tangle of woods and streams.  

The tentage had arrived from England, the Victualers too, so necessary to the men’s health. The men’s health – the trump card in battle. An army cannot march and fight and live off the land especially in a hostile country. England is the pumping heart, without her the army would perish. In America, nothing’s to be had: no food, no clothing, no preformed cartridges. Rebels depend on English goods. What they’d not stored up, they pinch –  British guns fire at the King’s troops, stolen British cannon forced the evacuation from Boston. If a King’s man is shot dead, the rebel throws down his old fowler and picks up Brown Bess. America yields nothing and takes what it can. No one knew this better than Billy Howe.

Fifty thousand troops in America. Staggering on paper, but not when spread across the colonies. Even with his share of twenty-two thousand on the ships and on Staten Island, they were too few. Kill one rebel and he can be replaced in a week by twenty from New Hampshire or Virginia. Kill a King’s man and his replacement is three thousand miles across the sea. Logistics – the true enemy. The army without supply lines would be in shambles after three days. If

Washington is smart, he’d never stand and fight . . .

But he’s not smart and that is my ally.

On the ridge the silhouettes of troops moving about the tents.

Rest them for the chase. Keep them happy in their rum – happy British soldiers come to show what they’re made of. He was proud of them. And why not? He was one of them, damn the fashion.

He turned to his desk and there the correspondence from Henry Clinton, his second in command. Evermore battle plans. And now with the arrival of one thousand Foot Guards and eight thousand German troops, the army was at strength.

He’s got the bit, Howe thought, a luxury Clinton could afford without the weight of senior command.

Howe could beat the Rebels every day, but one check to his force would spell disaster. Breeds Hill taught him that – green troops from the ships without exercise or training, straight into Action. How long since they live-fired? Or stormed a position? The June heat. That all were not killed . . .

“A fucking mess.” The Blood – painting the grass, painting Howe’s gaiters, turning brown – Recruits and Pensioners . . . “A disorganized, fucking mess.” 

He recalled the breastworks crowning Breed’s Hill. Bunker’s Hill beyond and out of sight. That was what he knew, what the intelligence had provided. A three-pronged attack: General Pigot on the left to flank the redoubt, the Light Infantry along the Mystic to get behind it, and Howe up the center with the grenadiers. Don’t stop and fire. Push on with the bayonet.

Glowing shot streaked across the harbour from batteries on Copp’s Hill as did cannonade from his Majesty’s frigates. Charlestown smelting ablaze, black smoke belching. Pound them. And on the Charlestown shore – Howe before the grenadiers with their canteens, haversacks and blanket rolls, two ranks deep, but in that old close order Howe disliked. At least these were veterans of Lexington and Concord. 

“Gentlemen,” he had addressed them. “I am happy in having the honour of commanding so fine a body of men. I do not doubt but that you will behave like Englishmen, and as becomes good soldiers. If the enemy will not come from their entrenchment, we must drive them out, otherwise Boston will be set afire by them. I shall not desire anyone of you to step farther than I would go at your head . . . Gentlemen, we have no resources if we lose Boston but to go on board our ships, which will be disagreeable to us all.” 

Up they came, slow and deliberate, the Glide with Colours and Musick. Martial Splendor. Lucky the civilians who saw it. Takes ‘way one’s Breath. Could almost be of Envy . . . A man down. Another. What? No shooting. What they couldn’t see were boulders and gullies beneath knee-high grass. Broken ankles. Cracked knees. Brick kilns and rail fences every fifty yards. What a waste with such Bravery. Ground the firelocks. Up and over. Reform. Stop and start. Twenty minutes. Then the last fence beneath the redoubt, the Pageantry a bust, lines in disarray.

The rebels volleyed. The first rank fell. Punched and dazed, the companies stopped in the open and engaged in ragged fire. The rebels behind their works cut them down. Then the withdrawal, the regroup, and back again. The soldiers did not question. This was their trade. What good workman shrinks from his trade? The second attack even worse; a rebel marksman stood on a firing step, being fed loaded muskets to keep a constant fire, targeting officers.

Withdrawal and back again.

That’s mettle, by God, thought Billy.

Mettle – wounded officers refusing to leave the field, wounded several times over, but would not abandon their men. He saw their faces: Patrick Downs, James Abercrombie, Nicholas Addison, George Amos Smith, William Davison, Arthur Williams, Stephen Ellis, Thomas Avarne, John Pitcarin – ninety-two, he wrote all their names. One Thousand Forty-One, Officers and Men, those not dead expired later – double amputees, missing faces, dysentery, infection; it was said the rebels dipped their shot in poison . . .

I lived.

He comes, he comes, the Hero comes:
Sound, sound your trumpets, beat your drums.
From port to port let cannon roar
Howe's welcome to this western shore . . .

“For God’s sake electrify a little,” Whitehall had written to him.

Electrify. Electrify.

“He would not accept the letter,” informed his brother, Admiral Richard, Lord Howe, of Washington’s refusal of conciliatory terms and avoidance of coming battle. “It was addressed to Mr. George Washington, Esq. instead of Your Excellency. He will not meet. Even our friend, Franklin, cannot sway him.” 

No surprise in that, thought Billy. Washington must fight; he’s brought his army here.

He’ll entrench in the same old style thinking he’s impregnable – that we’ll come on in the same old style and let him chop us to bits. Think again, Your Excellency . . .

He opened Clinton’s letter.  . . . the weakening of the line by gaps between the files and that flimsy line only two ranks deep . . . The usual critique. . . . Oficers armed with fusils – a disastrous practice; they cease to be commanders and act like common men, loading and firing, and playing bo peep behind trees . . . 

“‘On the CON-ti-nent . . .’” Howe mimicked Clinton with a sneer. While Howe had seen action in the wilderness during the French and Indian War, Clinton had been on the ‘CON-ti-nent’ as aide-de-camp to old Lord Ligonier, a Field Marshal’s toady. “You didn’t do so well,” he said vicariously to the letter.

Clinton hadn’t. After Breeds Hill a force was dispatched from Ireland for Cape Fear to rally Loyalist support. Clinton, Howe’s second in command, was appointed to lead the expedition to subdue Charleston and keep the Carolinas under British rule.

“You’ve given me only fifteen hundred ‘boys’,” Clinton complained in a memorandum. “What am I to do? Has his Majesty authorized me to make war by declaring the southern colonies in rebellion? The most I can do is seize some little position to give opportunity to loyal government officials to join me there.” “Your force is large enough,” Howe replied. “What then are your orders?” “No orders, only advice.” “If it is advice, as I am being turned adrift, I shall follow it or not as I see fit. I think it only proper I be given the powers of an independent command. I request Rawdon and Harris (he has recovered sufficiently from his wounds) be assigned to me as aides-de-camp.” “No.” “To me being given independent command or to my staff requests?” “To both.” “With respect, I must say, that if our roles were reversed, if I was in your station and you in mine, you should have had all that you asked . . .” Would I?  That he never has to return, Howe thought.

But he did return, his campaign a fiasco. Neither general happy, but at least, for Howe,

Clinton brought the fleet from Cork with its two thousand soldiers and Lord Charles Cornwallis, a true fighting commander.

Up to strength, Howe thought, the tentage and equipment come along with the Guards and Hessians. Get the new men use to the weather and off we go . . . The summer nearly gone . . . Bag him by September . . . No, hound him into winter quarters . . .

For God’s sake, Electrify.   

There are not enough troops on earth to subdue this country. Silly, stupid war . . .

“Let them have it. America for the Americans. They make better allies than countrymen.” He’d said it in ’75, at the faro table, a luscious bosom ‘gainst his shoulder and the Beauty’s hot breath on his ear. Dark complexioned “Billy the Savage” risking his fortune like the lives of his men, the true warrior in love and battle; corpulent, sensual, an ‘Old’ boy’ of the high order. “No, your Majesty,” he told the King when offered the American command. “I must remind you where my sentiments lie on the question of America. I refuse any military service, unless absolutely ordered.” But who else if not him? All the pro-American command still declined even if ordered. And the commander’s commission would cover his enormous debts. “Send Billy Howe,” his friends told his Majesty. “Who better to fight in the wilds of America? Send Billy the Savage.”

And he’s here.

Exercise the Guards and Hessians, he ruminated. Get them up to snuff. And the Highlanders. He rolled his eyes and sighed. The Highlanders . . . The 71st, all green recruits drafted for America three weeks before they sailed; they could not parade in a straight line much less maneuver on a battlefield. They could barely handle their firelocks. Washington has one hundred cannon. This will be a tight one. I’ll hit him still.

He comes, he comes, the Hero comes:
Sound, sound your trumpets, beat your drums.
From port to port let cannon roar
Howe's welcome to this western shore . . .