“If you can’t get more for the horses than I paid, we will take ’em with us, because if we don’t get this expedition moving soon, we will have to eat them.”

We borrowed two saddle horses from the boat-builders, saddled up, and headed toward Gardinerston. A half-mile down the road we encountered the 1st and 2nd Infantry Battalions and the Rear Guard walking toward Mr. Colburn’s house at an easy pace. I told the leader of each unit, “A Rifleman just ahead will guide you to tonight’s encampment.”

Ten minutes later, we found Colonel Arnold, Mr. Colburn, Mr. Burr, and a host of “Patriot Admirers” enjoying beverages in a tavern near the quay. I could tell from his demeanor, Captain Morgan was struggling to control himself, so I waited outside.

I cannot record the conversation for I was not there. But when Captain Morgan emerged from the tavern twenty minutes later, he said, “Let’s get going to Fort Western.”

Fort Western, Maine

Saturday, September 23rd, 1775

Much to my amazement, the ten-mile long trip up to Fort Western was free of any unexpected danger or drama. Thanks to the leadership and ingenuity of 1st Lt. Humphrey and Pennsylvania Rifle Company Captains Hendricks and Smith, all thirty-five of the Colburn-built batteaux and both our former wagons—turned cargo barges—were water-worthy and ready to go at 3:30 p.m.

There were a few hilarious moments as the Riflemen in each craft experimented with rowing, “pole-pushing” and steering their “riverboats” in “slack water” without capsizing. But in short order they were all headed north up the Kennebec in a long line behind our former lead wagon, now re-christened as “Rifle Cargo #1.”

Local watermen advised Captain Morgan the tide would shift to ebb off Fort Western at 8:30 p.m. He wanted us to be ashore at Fort Western before that happened. We made it by 7:15.

In the deepening dusk it took an “all-hands” effort of ten men on each loaded batteaux—and at least twenty for our two large “Cargo-boats”—to drag the heavy craft out of the water and high enough up the riverbank not to be swept away if the river suddenly flooded.

We were in a perimeter under tents outside the crumbling remains of Fort Western with shallow sanitation ditches dug and watches set for each Advance Guard Company by 8:00 p.m. The challenge for this moonless night: “Sons of!” The password: “Liberty!”

I arose this morning in twilight, well before sunrise—and went to relieve myself in the nearest sanitary ditch, just outside the lines of Capt. Smith’s Pennsylvania Rifle Company. As I turned back toward the perimeter, I tripped and fell over a live creature hunkered low to the ground.

Thinking it was likely an enemy Indian who crept up behind me, I grabbed the figure, pinned him face-down beneath me, pulled out my knife, and said, “Sons of . . .”