She dismounted and walked a few steps back along the trail. She preferred to be an American and knew that she would be welcomed, although some of the women might know that her child was a bastard. She would not be physically harmed and could withstand the personal embarrassment. When the war was over she could find a place to stay, perhaps using her talents as an artist and writer who was familiar with the field of biology. She could always work as a housemaid. In any case, her child could have a good life.

She returned to Newota and said, “That is where I wish to go.”

He nodded and turned his pony northward at the next trail.

•  •  •

After having led some Pennsylvania troops at Yorktown, Brigadier General “Mad Anthony” Wayne had been appointed Continental commander in Georgia in January 1782, with all regular troops and half the militia under his command. This didn’t amount to much because the enlistments of all his South Carolina troops expired within two weeks, and Elijah Clarke and most of his Georgians were away on one of their continuing raids against the Indians. Clarke now had a strong force with him and had destroyed most of the Cherokee villages east of the Appalachian Mountains. Wayne concentrated on securing deserters, arming slaves, and marshaling any Tories who would convert to the Whigs. He made a special effort to induce the German mercenaries to desert from the British, and a few of them responded to his offered bounty of two guineas. Still, Wayne had only 130 troops under his command, and all his small force could do was intercept Indians and others trying to go to Savannah with supplies.

He wrote: “The duty we have done in Georgia is more difficult than that imposed upon the children of Israel. They had only to make bricks without straw, but we have had provisions, forage, and almost every other apparatus of war to procure without money: boats, bridges, etc. to build without materials except those taken from the stump: and, what was more difficult than all, to make Whigs out of Tories. But this we have effected, and have wrested the country out of the hands of the enemy, with the exception only of the town of Savannah. How to take it without some additional force is a matter worthy of consideration.”