At 9:30, Capt. Morgan signaled with a look and a tilt of his head that it was time to go. With all the gracious civility of a well-polished gentleman, he took Mrs. Tracy’s hand gently in his great big paw, bent, kissed it, stood erect, looked her in the eye, and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Tracy, for a wonderful evening. We shall forever recall your gracious hospitality. We would very much like to stay longer but duty calls my officers and me back to our encampment.”

She was still blushing when, as my mother taught me, I took her hand, bowed slightly, and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Tracy, ever so much, for inviting me to this wonderful evening.”

William must have said something similar because she continued to smile and even curtsied. We followed Captain Morgan out the front door, found Sgt. Cady, mounted our horses, and were in the encampment in fewer than thirty minutes.

As I drifted off to sleep, the side panels and roof of the headquarters tent were flapping in the steady wind. But it had not changed direction.

Endnote

1. Benedict Arnold’s wife, Margaret, mother of their three sons, died on 19 June 1775 of what was described at the time as a “deadly tumor.” It is today believed to have been cancer.

Chapter Eleven: 1775: River-Ready Batteaux?

Chapter Eleven

1775: RIVER-READY BATTEAUX?

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Tuesday, September 19th, 1775

Monday was yet another lost day to the nor’easter. I spent much of it reconciling our Advance Force rosters and manifests with those maintained by Captain Febiger and information on troop and cargo capacities of each vessel. By the time I retired, at 10:00 p.m. the wind was beginning to shift to the left. At 5:00 this morning when Sgt. Cady awakened me carrying a windproof lantern, it was strong and steady right out of the west.

He said, “One of my dragoons just came up from the wharf. Captain O’Brien wants us to start moving immediately to embark.”

While still somewhat protected from the wind inside the tent, I pulled a waxed taper out of my pocket, lit it from Sgt. Cady’s lantern, and then lit mine.

“Thank you, Sgt. Cady. Now, please go to the farmhouse and awaken Captain Febiger. We need to get everyone in this encampment up and moving.”

Amazingly, shortly after sunrise, the entire Expeditionary Force—all 1,207 of us—was up, packed, and ready to march to the wharf in the sequence they would board their assigned vessels.

By 8:00 a.m. Capt. Morgan’s Advance Force was boarding. I arranged with our two Pennsylvania Rifle Company Commanders, Captains Hendricks and Smith, to mark the manifest for the names of each person boarding. The same process was used for every ship.

Advance Force: Machias Liberty and Polly

1st Battalion & Expedition Force HQ: Broad Bay, Eagle, and Betsy

2nd Battalion & Artillery: Britannia, Juno, and Conway

Reserve & Rear Guard: Houghton, Abigail, and Swallow

Spare/Rescue: Dublin