Battlefield Drummer

     Noah fidgeted with the rope draped around his shoulder. No one had told him how heavy the drum would be after hours of marching in the afternoon sun. And to make matters worse, Andrew’s uniform chafed. This morning, he’d felt lucky to take his place when they’d learned his friend was ill, even though Ma wept like a baby, begging the Colonel to find someone else. 
      “There is no one else, Elizabeth, and well you know it. Noah’s the only one who knows the rhythms.” He handed him Andrew’s uniform. “Hurry up, boy. We head out within the hour.”
      The uniform was too large, of course; Andrew had five years on Noah’s seven. Still, Noah peacocked round the yard, waiting for Butler to give the signal to leave.
      Now that the sun had warmed, making the wool jacket stink like wet mutton, he wasn’t quite so keen. And, his shins ached from the drum’s rim beating against his leg as they passed mile after mile of charred and smoking cabins north of Forty Fort.
      At last Colonel Butler reined in his mount, and Noah signaled the troops to stop. Ahead, the walls of Wintermoot smoldered, smoke oozing between the logs of the protecting walls. “Come out, ye villainous Tories!” Butler shouted. “Come out and show your heads if ye dare.”
      When no answer came, the colonel turned to his troops. “Prime and load,” he ordered. Noah repeated the command on his drum and the clatter of four hundred muskets being loaded echoed in the smoke thickening around them. “Make Ready. Take Aim. Fire.”
      The troops fired three volleys in all, moving closer to the fort with each shot. Heat from the blaze beaded sweat on Noah’s forehead; at least he prayed it was just the heat and not the fear knotted in his belly causing the beads of moisture. He gripped the drumsticks tight, drawing his eyebrows together, trying hard not to think of Ma, or Andrew, or any of the folks he might never see again, when the colonel shouted, “Prime and load, boy; prime and load.”
      But Noah had no time to answer, for in that moment, the woods erupted, blood-thirsty savages screeching their war cries, materializing from the very leaves that covered the forest floor, while in front of him gunfire exploded from the smoking timber. Fighting broke out all around him, men yelling, musket balls whistling overhead. At first he stayed close to Butler, but soon the smoke of musket fire—or was it burning timber?—made it impossible to see past his arm.
      “Fall back,” he heard, Butler’s voice muffled by the grunts and flurry of fighting. Noah scrambled to join the company, but men began to break and run, Indians relentlessly at their heel; instead, he shrunk into the surrounding spinny, trying not to see, not to hear, the butchery around him.
      The stink of gunpowder and sweat, blood and soot, permeated the smoke, burning his eyes. Erratic musket fire cut through the fog and just beyond the bush that hid him, a great slurping sound, like a boot being pulled from muck, alerted him and he turned in time to see a bayonet being pulled from Jeb Johnson’s gut; he retched when the stench of open bowels reached him.
      What happened after, he couldn’t say for sure, a blur of sights and sounds he’d rather forget: the crack of bones splintered by musket balls, screams of men dying, screams of men killing, Billy Lothrop’s vacant stare as his hair was pulled taut, his scalp hacked away.
      A boot broke through his cover of branches, and he curled around himself like a doodle bug, waiting for the end.


Noah Taylor was seven years old when war broke out in the tiny hamlet he called home. His father, Ezra, was part of the Connecticut Continental Army captured at Fort Washington (see Dec-2013 post) and was jailed when the Battle of Wyoming broke out in what is now

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?