Long Knife (36 page)

He found his voice at last. “When did this happen, Maisonville, for God’s sake?”

“It started on the night of July fourth, Excellency, when they attacked Kaskaskia. They surprised all the Illinois posts and secured them within three …”

“July fourth?”
screamed Hamilton, waving both fists over his head. “And I’m just now hearing of it? Good God, man, how can an army
surprise
a whole bloody territory, I’d like to know?” he began stamping about the room, gesturing with his arms, stopping now and then to throw questions at Maisonville’s head faster than the flinching Frenchman could answer them.

“Where did they
come
from? Who led them? Where under the sun was that bedamned, mangy French militia all this time? God damn your eyes, Maisonville! You know this couldn’t have happened if there’d been Englishmen there. But
Frenchmen!
God! The curse of my life is having to depend on
Frenchmen …”

He checked himself, seeing Maisonville drawing himself up with flashing eyes, remembering that this partisan was French himself. Hamilton glowered at him, having no intention of apologizing; he was sick of dealing with Frenchmen and Indians
and Canadians, all of whom he held in equal contempt. “What about casualties?” he said then.

“None, sir,” the man muttered. “On either side.”

“None? On … either … side?”

“None. As I said, Excellency, it was a surp …”

“Was there no resistance whatsoever?” Hamilton was turning red again.

“There was no opportunity …” Maisonville said lamely, rubbing his palms down over his stubbly jaw and blinking to keep tears of shame from coming.

“Do you mean to stand there and tell me that the entire French militia in all the Illinois are prisoners of the American army?” Hamilton said slowly, his voice rankling with sarcasm.

It was a while before Maisonville could answer that. “Actually, sir …”

“Well? Actually what?”

“They took allegiance to … to the American cause, Excel …”

“By the blood of Christ, I should have expected it from those traitorous cowards! Maisonville, don’t you sometimes want to hide in shame at the thought of being French?” He didn’t care now how much he offended the Frenchman. Dash the discomfiture of a mere Frenchman! Hamilton stalked about the room now almost sick with rage and disgust, stopped before a five-foot wall map of Canada, the Colonies, and the Northwest Territory, and stared at the wide fan-shaped network of Mississippi tributaries representing the lost territory, perhaps a half million square miles England had wrested away from French control some twenty years ago. His heart sank at the abysmal thought of it. For him it meant absolute disgrace unless …

… unless he could somehow regain it.

“As you know, Excellency,” Maisonville was saying glumly, “France has after all made a treaty with the Americans …”

“Of course I know about it. But I didn’t imagine the Illinois French would know about it already, or suspect that something so remote would make turncoats of them … They’re British subjects, the scum!”

“The American commander gave them news of it when he got there. It had a profound effect on them, I hear …”

Hamilton turned a sidelong glance on Maisonville. “As for you?”

“Excellency, I protest! You know I am steadfast in your service!”

“Of course. Very well. Details, then. Details. Who is this American invader, and how big is his army? Is it Willing, that blackguard river pirate who calls himself an American officer?”

“No, sir. It is a Virginian, named Clark. A colonel of militia, I understand …”

“Militia!”
Again Hamilton’s scornful incredulity frosted the air. “You’re telling me
militia
conquered the …”

“God knows what they are, sir. Rangers, criminals, murderers, who can say?”

“Some
murderers
, I’d say, with not one casualty! Jove, I believe a squad of
cutpurses
could have taken it from you!”

Maisonville compressed his lips and began wondering how this belligerent, pompous, evil-tongued Englishman could possibly be reputed as such a respected and effective leader. Through the wealth of the Crown, he thought. By using people like me and Jehu Hay and Rocheblave to buy the loyalty of savages. I guess that’s how. But Maisonville enjoyed a good and privileged life from his activities, and he knew when to swallow his pride and remain respectful. So he held his retort.

“Clark, is it?” Hamilton was saying. “I never heard of a Clark.” Blast, he thought; not even the honorable excuse of an illustrious opponent! “What size army has this Clark, then? Answer me that.”

“Difficult to say, Excellency. They seem to be everywhere, but they never parade, so it has been impossible to make a count. They seem, though, to be an arm of sizable force stationed at the Falls of the Ohio. At times this Colonel Clark has proposed withdrawing to join his main army there and leave the French in control of their own towns. But, ahem, out of fear of your wrath, I suspect, sir, they implore him each time to stay on and protect them.”

“Now,
that
I can believe,” snarled Hamilton.

“You ought to know,” said Maisonville, “that the Jesuit there, Gibault, has turned his whole considerable influence to the side of Clark. He’s the worst of all Clark’s champions, I’d say. You’ll scarcely believe this, I expect, but …”

“I’ll believe anything by now.”

“… it was the priest, one might say, who captured Vincennes.” By now Maisonville was so inured to Hamilton’s meanness that he was beginning to enjoy thus turning the knife in him. He smiled crookedly.

“What bloody nonsense is
that?”
Hamilton roared. “Explain yourself!”

Maisonville told Hamilton about the mission Father Gibault and Doctor Laffont had made to Vincennes with Clark’s written proclamation, and the citizens’ gleeful rush to sign the American oath of allegiance.

“That flea-bitten papist,” Hamilton muttered blackly. “He’ll suffer for that.”

“There’s much more to tell,” Maisonville went on, now with grim satisfaction. “If you’d be so kind as to offer me a drop of something to wash the dust out of my gullet, I’ll relate some helpful particulars …”

“There’s brandy there. Go to it.”

“As one might expect, the Spaniards across the river have extended open arms to the rebels …”

“God damn,” muttered Hamilton. “Go on, man, I’m listening. Regale me with all the pretty details. I’d like to know everything there is to know about this ridiculous abomination before I take steps to rectify it.”

H
AMILTON’S RAGE HAD SETTLED TO COLD, PRACTICAL REASONING
by the time Maisonville completed his report, and as the Frenchman went to guest quarters to clean himself up from his journey, Hamilton perused the map on the wall and began planning his counteroffensive. With his finger he traced the water route from Detroit across the west end of Lake Erie, up the Maumee River to its source, then a portage of a few miles to the headwaters of the Wabash and down its great southwesterly arc directly to Vincennes. Six hundred miles, almost all by boat, which would allow the transport of sufficient munitions, cannon, provisions, and enough gifts to recruit several hundred Indians along the way. And after Vincennes, which Maisonville had said was officered by just one of Clark’s captains, it would be a quick march across Illinois, or perhaps a voyage on down the Wabash to the Ohio and thence up the Mississippi, to retake the Illinois outposts.

By God above, he thought, a fierce excitement beginning to build in him, it would be such a pleasant change of duty, to get away from this endless dreary administration, this constant, demeaning, compromising, spirit-sapping attention to the needs of spoiled Indians, venal Canadians, and drunken half-breeds, to embark on a mission worthy of an English officer for once!

Surely with a few British regulars, some well-drilled militia, and a few hundred handsomely paid savages, he could sweep this upstart Virginian and his backwoods bandits off the face of
the earth, strike the fear of God into those treacherous gutless Frenchmen, and turn this entire farce to his own credit.

As he looked at the map the scope of his plan grew. Several of the objectives he had long been planning might grow swiftly and naturally out of the expedition. He could, after reducing the Wabash and Illinois posts, stop forever the rebel traffic on the Ohio and Mississippi; then march eastward to a general war council with all the tribes at the mouth of the Tennessee, and set out thence to open a total devastation of Kentucky and Pittsburgh and drive the Americans back over the Alleghenies. He had been planning this exact offensive for nearly a year; perhaps it had needed only this provocation by the upstart Clark and his mongrel gang of adventurers to set it in motion. Hamilton began writing in his mind a letter to Governor Carleton at Quebec, soliciting permission to begin the offensive. He was also looking at a mental calendar. Men and provisions and boats could be ready in two months or less, he thought. The journey might take a month or forty days.

We could be back in possession of the whole territory by November, he thought. We could winter there, in control of the rivers, await reinforcements, then overrun the entire Allegheny frontier early in the spring of ’79.

He strolled around his office now in a growing state of excitement. After these years of moidering at Detroit, hiring Indians to do his fighting for him, and hating himself for it, here was the chance to effect his own rebirth as a soldier. There was no shortage of matériel or money for the campaign; there never had been. The want of good British soldiers here in Canada had always been a problem, but sufficient militia and Indians could make up for that. No, all that had kept him stagnating here had been a want of incentive. And now the incentive had presented itself, in the guise of a humiliating setback which urgently needed to be redressed. Now he
had
to move against the American frontiers, and that necessity lay before him like a great and unexpected serendipity.

Colonel Clark, whoever you are, Governor Henry Hamilton thought, you may be my salvation. I am delighted that you have appeared on my horizon! He pressed his palms together, twisted them, and strutted. You may end by being sorry for this provocation, Mister Clark, but I couldn’t be happier.

S
AGUINA
, T
HE
C
HIPPEWA CHIEF KNOWN AS
M
ISTER
B
LACK
B
IRD,
was so confident of his own power that he had made the long journey to Cahokia accompanied by a guard of only eight warriors. The fact made a deep impression on George Rogers Clark, and the impression was enhanced by his first sight of the chief.

Mister Black Bird, tall and broad, came wearing a fine lightweight red cloak which he held draped over one shoulder like the toga of a Roman senator. His headdress was a crest of eagle feathers bound into his scalplock and hanging down his spine. He had a slanting forehead, deep creases above the bridge of his nose which gave him an air of severity, and very prominent jaw muscles. His eyes were scarcely visible under their hooded lids.

He specified that he did not wish to spend time in ceremony. He had come to the Americans’ headquarters alone like an important white man on a business mission. He looked at George forthrightly and shook hands with him, and the two of them took seats at opposite ends of a long table, with the interpreters sitting at both sides. Several American officers and French gentlemen sat on chairs around the walls of the room. George was reminded of the days when he had sat among the members of the Privy Council of the Virginia Assembly in Williamsburg, negotiating for aid in the defense of Kentucky.

Mister Black Bird opened the conversation. “I have much to say and many questions to ask,” he announced through the interpreter.

“My time is yours, and I will be honored to satisfy your curiosity as well as I can,” George replied.

“I have no confidence in what prisoners tell me,” said the chief, sitting erect with his hands on his knees, “as they are generally afraid to speak. I have long wished to speak with a
real chief of the Big Knives, and you give me my first opportunity. I have engaged in the war on the side of the Englishmen, but sometimes I have doubted the correctness of doing so. I have heard only their side. There are some things which are mysterious to me, and I wish to have them explained fully. Will you please tell me how the war between the English and the Big Knives came to be? Begin with the time when your people came to this land as Englishmen.”

George realized that this chief was not interested in hearing the story told in the similes and figures of speech he had used to convince the other chiefs; this man had that matter-of-factness about him that Chief Logan of the Mingoes had exhibited.

And so George found himself having to recount the whole history of the Colonies, from the first settlement on the Atlantic seaboard. He told of the taxes and the restrictions the British had tried to place on American trade and settlement, and recited in detail the grievances which had caused the colonies to unite despite their differences to declare their independence from King George. Black Bird asked pointed and pertinent questions which required comprehensive answers.

It was almost dark when Black Bird leaned back in his chair and said that he now understood the story fully.

“I am convinced that the English have been deceiving us,” he said, “And that, as I long suspected, they wished to keep us in the dark. Now I am certain that you are perfectly right.”

“Thank you for hearing me with an open mind,” said George. “We have no doubt that we are right.”

Black Bird nodded. “I am glad to find that my old friends the French have joined the Americans, and I think the Indians should do likewise. I would not blame you if you drove from, the face of this land all those who do not join you, for it is plain to me that the British are afraid and know they are wrong. Otherwise they would not give us as many goods as they do to fight for them.