Weapons, Battle Tactics, and War Medicine

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; September 23, 1777

My Dear Mary,
     I am in receipt of your letter which I Prize and am Encouraged that I am kindly remembered.  At our last meeting, you asked that I Share Honestly news of the War, so it is in that Spirit that I tell you of our recent encounter with the Enemy at Brandywine Creek.  Were it not war time, I could imagine us taking a Picnic to this pretty creek that winds lazily through the trees, but that is not how I shall picture it when recalling the details of our Battle.
     We were deployed in mid-September to Chadd’s Ford and began construction of a lunette from logs and earth on which to place our cannons, the ford being the likely place in which to engage the Tories.  I was much Grateful for the cool shade of the trees as the work was most arduous and the weather was unseasonably warm.  Quakers live all around this area, and although these Friends claim to be against warfare of all kind, their stance outside the Meetinghouse made it clear they were not Sympathetic with our Cause. Still, their womenfolk offered us fresh bread and butter at Noonday, and we were glad for it as we’d worked up quite a hunger in our labour.
     We met General Howe’s forces on the morning of 11-September. Having been recently moved into Proctor’s Light Brigade, my own fighting began whilst the morning’s heavy fog made it impossible to see even those in our own Party.  It had the opposite effect, however, on sound, and we spent our first hours surrounded by the eerie sound of Hessian movement around us accompanied by gunfire echoing in the mist. Near noon, we learned that another Enemy Division approached our right flank and by mid-afternoon our position was completely compromised; we had no choice but to Retreat, and under cover of Darkness made our way Safely into Chester.
     Many of our Regiment was injured, but I am Happy to state that our morale remains High, despite our loss. I must also report, in the Spirit of True Honesty, that I have suffered two injuries in the battle, and now am recovering in the Goode care of the Moravians here at the Brethren’s House.  I’m told that the Marquis of Layfayette is ensconced here as well; although I have not seen him, I am pleased to have such Distinguished Company in my restoration.  I Beg you not to worry on my account as the injuries are not severe in their Nature: a musket ball grazed my left knee, after which it found its way to my right ankle.  Surely, it was a thrifty soldier that fired on me, as even his ammunition made the most of its purchase.  I expect to be Fully improved with little more than a limp to show for my injury, and soon will rejoin Captain Armstrong’s troops. 
     In Due time I hope to Return home in Peace & Enjoy the pleasure of your company.  Until then, I Subscribe my Self your Most Devoted,

George McDowel

Part of what drives my family search

is the need to make these ancestors of mine real, not just a name book-ended with dates, and followed by a list of progeny.  For me, that means trying to put myself into their shoes, and relive what they must have gone through.

George McDowell, my 4th Great Grandfather, fought in the Battle of Brandywine—a part of the Revolutionary War that I don’t recall having learned about in school.  And while the above letter

One Trunk

    

Elijah opened his eyes to a sea of bodies, crammed shoulder to jowl at the foot of his berth: Papa, Hans and Elizabeth, the children, behind them others he didn’t recognize.  His lovely Mary held his hand, ever the vigilant nurse, her great belly nudged against his arm.
     The fetid smell of urine and vomit mixed with the aroma of onions and old tallow permeated the bowels of the ship.  He opened his mouth to ask once more if they would take him on deck, then clamped his hand tight against his lips, choking down another wave of nausea.  He locked eyes with Mary, willing her to hear his silent plea: Please, just let me feel the night, breathe in the salty breeze; I only need air—see, even the candle gutters in this fusty underworld.
     “Look, darling.  Broth.  Come, you can manage a sip, can you not?”  Her voice, like a snowflake floating in the sunshine, coaxed him back from the brink, charged him to answer.
     “No. I—” His elbow jabbed her stomach as he lurched toward the bucket and the baby within kicked, reminding him of everything he would miss.  I must tell Mary what she’s to do after I die, he thought. 
     “The baby…” His words were choked, a hoarse whisper.  “Hans will take—” He’d begged his brother, before they’d left Germany, to take the child as his own if he should not make it.  “Find Mary a good man; someone to give her a dozen babies,” he’d said.
     Mary bent her face to his, straining to hear his words, her green eyes filled with sadness.  She knew.  He could taste her grief, her fear, and he reached for her hand, held it tight as if she alone could guide him to the other world.  Can you smell it, Mary? Like a cold winter’s morning: sweet, sharp. The ship around him faded, replaced by the hills and brooks of his precious Schwarzwald.  Home.
     A tear touched his skin, hot with pain, and for a moment he thought of returning to the stale cabin where his family stood, hunched over him.  But America was not his dream; it was Papa’s, and Hans Martin’s.  Even his Mary fancied the promise of fortune.   Their dream…
     The air, Mary, feel it? I can breathe.  

Elijah Weddle, like many who voyaged to America, died at sea.  

In an ironic twist of fate, though, he died within miles of his journey’s end, near the inlet that would take him to the Port of Philadelphia. 

Or so the legend goes.

As is common of travelers in the mid-1700s, records are scarce.  Sea Captains were not required to keep passenger manifests; rather, they recorded the cargo being transported for their wealthier patrons.  So while Elijah’s father, Johann Michael Weddle, can be found on the passenger list of the Francis & Mary, arriving in Philadelphia from Germany in September of 1742, no mention is made of his sons, Elijah and Hans Martin, or any other members of his party.  Nor is there an official record of Elijah’s death.  All we have is a story…

And yet, Elijah’s life must be more than this sad, undocumented whisper of his death.

So I find myself wondering about Elijah.  What kind of man was he?  Was his laugh contagious or controlled?  Was he tall, like me, or more like my grandfather, his great-great-great-grandson?

My imagined version of his last moments are likely close to true.  Sea voyages could be brutal.  But, everyone knew that, so what would make him, and his family, leave their home and brave the dangers of months at sea—trapped below decks, crammed together like so many cattle, sometimes with as many as 400 passengers stuffed in the hold?  Subjected to sickness, poor food, tainted water, primitive living conditions?   Spending a year’s wage, or more, securing passage for just one? They knew the trials that awaited them, and if they didn’t, country men like Gottlieb Mittelberger were there to share their personal accounts of the perils that faced them.

So what happened?

A Sugar House Christmas

     Ezra Taylor stared through the narrow slot at the decorated tree.  Hessian soldiers had spent the afternoon festooning the limbs of the fir with apples, candied fruits, and ribbons.  He’d thought it an odd custom at the time but now that candles flickered in the boughs, its beauty mesmerized him.
    “Taylor, you gonna stare at them soldiers all night? Come eat.  Sgt. Walley will be back any moment, and then you’ll get nothing,” Small William said.  William’s perpetual stoop in the low ceilinged prison had earned him the incongruous moniker "small", despite his six foot plus stature; hell, even Ezra, at five feet seven, had developed a bowed posture after only six weeks in the storehouse the British used for a jail.
     Ezra sighed.  The rich aroma of mince pie and roast mutton abounded, making it almost possible to forget he was held captive were it not for the icy night air swirling about and the squalid mass of humanity huddled in the corner with him.  They had scrambled forward when Walley appeared, bucket in hand.  “It’s a Christmas feast, lads” he’d said, as if the bits of rancid pork and worm-riddled biscuits were the newest trend in Christmas fare for 1776.  Still, even bad food was appreciated; their last meal had been two days ago.
     “You can have my portion, Will.  I haven’t the stomach for it.  Besides, I’d like to sit a bit longer and listen to the carols.”
     Truth was the carols made him think of home.  And Elizabeth.  If he closed his eyes, he could see her standing in front of their hearth, singing quietly while she stirred the kettle, an errant curl escaping on her forehead, a refugee from her cap.  The cabin would smell sweet, of mountain laurel and yew; the fire beckoning him into its warm glow.
     Snow fluttered in, and with it a frosty chill, splintering the image in his head.  He tried to hold onto the vision of Elizabeth singing but it distorted into the Hessians’ drunken rendition of Joy to the World, leaving him once more prisoner to Christmas in the sugar house.

 

Having never been a soldier...

or a prisoner, I find it difficult to imagine how Ezra might have felt that Christmas in 1776, captive in the Liberty Street Sugar House.  First hands accounts of the place paint a picture of a tall, narrow building “without light, attendance, fire in winter or air in summer.”   More than 2800 soldiers were captured along with Ezra just over a month earlier when Fort Washington fell to the British, but by summer, fewer than 800 remained alive.  Without glass in the narrow windows, when it snowed, they were drifted over while they slept, and when it rained they could not escape the damp.  Filthy straw bedding was never changed, and men were packed in so closely that