WHICH CONTAINS THE ADVENTURES OF SOLOMON IN THE TIMBER SACK AND ON THE
"HAND-MADE RIVER"
In the spring of 1779, there were scarcely sixteen thousand men in the
American army, of which three thousand were under Gates at Providence;
five thousand in the Highlands under McDougall, who was building new
defenses at West Point, and on the east shore of the Hudson under
Putnam; seven thousand were with Washington at Middlebrook where he had
spent a quiet winter; a few were in the south. The British,
discouraged in their efforts to conquer the northern and middle
colonies, sent a force of seven thousand men to take Georgia and South
Carolina. They hoped that Washington, who could not be induced to risk
his army in decisive action against superior numbers, would thus be
compelled to scatter and weaken it. But the Commander-in-Chief,
knowing how seriously Nature, his great ally, was gnawing at the vitals
of the British, bided his time and kept his tried regiments around him.
Now and then, a staggering blow filled his enemies with a wholesome
fear of him. His sallies were as swift and unexpected as the rush of a
panther with the way of retreat always open. Meanwhile a cry of
affliction and alarm had arisen in England. Its manufacturers were on
the verge of bankruptcy, its people out of patience.
As soon as the ice was out of the lakes and rivers, Jack and Solomon
joined an expedition under Sullivan against the Six Nations, who had
been wreaking bloody vengeance on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and New
York. The Senecas had been the worst offenders, having spilled the
blood of every white family in their reach. Sullivan's expedition
ascended the Chemung branch of the Susquehanna and routed a great force
of Indians under Brant and Johnson at Newtown and crossed to the Valley
of the Genessee, destroying orchards, crops and villages. The red men
were slain and scattered. The fertile valley was turned into a
flaming, smoking hell. Simultaneously a force went up the Alleghany
and swept its shores with the besom of destruction.
Remembrance of the bold and growing iniquities of the savage was like a
fire in the heart of the white man. His blood boiled with anger. He
was without mercy. Like every reaping of the whirlwind this one had
been far more plentiful than the seed from which it sprang. Those
April days the power of the Indian was forever broken and his cup
filled with bitterness. Solomon had spoken the truth when he left the
Council Fire in the land of Kiodote:
"Hereafter the Injun will be a brother to the snake."
Jack and Solomon put their lives in danger by entering the last village
ahead of the army and warning its people to flee. The killing had made
them heart-sick, although they had ample reason for hating the red men.
In the absence of these able helpers Washington had moved to the
Highlands. This led the British General, Sir Henry Clinton, to decide
to block his return. So he sent a large force up the river and
captured the fort at Stony Point and King's Ferry connecting the great
road from the east with the middle states. The fort and ferry had to
be retaken, and, early in July, Jack and Solomon were sent to look the
ground over.
In the second day of their reconnoitering above Stony Point they came
suddenly upon a British outpost. They were discovered and pursued but
succeeded in eluding the enemy. Soon a large party began beating the
bush with hounds. Jack escaped by hiding behind a waterfall. Solomon
had a most remarkable adventure in making his way northward. Hearing
the dogs behind him he ran to the shore of a bay, where a big drive of
logs had been boomed in, and ran over them a good distance and dropped
out of sight. He lay between two big sections of a great pine with his
nose above water for an hour or so. A band of British came down to the
shore and tried to run the logs but, being unaccustomed to that kind of
work, were soon rolled under and floundering to their necks.
"I hadn't na skeer o' their findin' me," Solomon said to Jack. "'Cause
they was a hundred acres o' floatin' timber in that 'ere bay. I heard
'em slippin' an' sloshin' eround nigh shore a few minutes an' then they
give up an' went back in the bush. They were a strip o' open water
'twixt the logs an' the shore an' I clumb on to the timber twenty rod
er more from whar I waded in so's to fool the dogs."
"What did you do with your rifle an' powder?" Jack inquired.
"Wal, ye see, they wuz some leetle logs beyond me that made a kind o' a
holler an' I jest put ol' Marier 'crost 'em an' wound the string o' my
powder-horn on her bar'l. I lay thar a while an' purty soon I heard a
feller comin' on the timber. He were clus up to me when he hit a log
wrong an' it rolled him under. I dim' up an' grabbed my rifle an' thar
were 'nother cuss out on the logs not more'n ten rod erway. He took a
shot at me, but the bullet didn't come nigh 'nough so's I could hear it
whisper he were bobbin' eround so. I lifted my gun an' says I:
"'Boy, you come here to me.'
"But he thought he'd ruther go somewhar else an' he did--poor, ignorant
devil! I went to t' other feller that was rasslin' with a log tryin'
to git it under him. He'd flop the log an' then it would flop him.
He'd throwed his rifle 'crost the timber. I goes over an' picks it up
an' says I:
"'Take it easy, my son. I'll help ye in a minute.'
"His answer wa'n't none too p'lite. He were a leetle runt of a
sergeant. I jest laughed at him an' went to t' other feller an' took
the papers out o' his pockets. I see then a number o' British boys was
makin' fer me on the wobbly top o' the river. They'd see me goin' as
easy as a hoss on a turnpike an' they was tryin' fer to git the knack
o' it. In a minute they begun poppin' at me. But shootin' on logs is
like tryin' to walk a line on a wet deck in a hurricane. Ye got to
know how to offset the wobble. They didn't skeer me. I went an'
hauled that runt out o' the water an' with him under my right arm an'
the two rifles under the left un I started treadin' logs headin' fer
the north shore. They quit shootin' but come on a'ter me pell-mell.
They got to comin' too fast an' I heard 'em goin' down through the roof
o' the bay behind me an' rasslin' with the logs. That put meat on my
bones! I could 'a' gone back an' made a mess o' the hull party with
the toe o' my boot but I ain't overly fond o' killin'. Never have
been. I took my time an' slopped erlong toward shore with the runt
under my arm cussin' like a wildcat. We got ashore an' I made the
leetle sergeant empty his pockets an' give me all the papers he had. I
took the strip o' rawhide from round my belt an' put a noose above his
knees an' 'nother on my wrist an' sot down to wait fer dark which the
sun were then below the tree-tops. I looked with my spy-glass 'crost
the bay an' could see the heads bobbin' up an' down an' a dozen men
comin' out with poles to help the log rasslers. Fer some time they had
'nough to do an' I wouldn't be supprised. If we had the hull British
army on floatin' timber the logs would lick 'em in a few minutes."
Solomon came in with his prisoner and accurate information as to the
force of British in the Highlands.
On the night of the fifteenth of July, a detachment of Washington's
troops under Wayne, preceded by the two scouts, descended upon Stony
Point and King's Ferry and routed the enemy, capturing five hundred and
fifty men and killing sixty. Within a few days the British came up the
river in great force and Washington, unwilling to risk a battle,
quietly withdrew and let them have the fort and ferry and their labor
for their pains. It was a bitter disappointment to Sir Henry Clinton.
The whole British empire clamored for decisive action and their great
Commander was unable to bring it about and meanwhile the French were
preparing to send a heavy force against them.
2
Solomon, being the ablest bush scout in the American army, was needed
for every great enterprise in the wilderness. So when a small force
was sent up the Penobscot River to dislodge a regiment of British from
Nova Scotia, in the late summer of 1779, he went with it. The fleet
which conveyed the Americans was in command of a rugged old sea captain
from Connecticut of the name of Saltonstall who had little knowledge of
the arts of war. He neglected the precautions which a careful
commander would have taken.
A force larger than his own should have guarded the mouth of the river.
Of this Solomon gave him warning, but Captain Saltonstall did not share
the apprehension of the great scout. In consequence they were pursued
and overhauled far up the river by a British fleet. Saltonstall in a
panic ran his boats ashore and blew them up with powder. Again a force
of Americans was compelled to suffer the bitter penalty of ignorance.
The soldiers and crews ran wild in the bush a hundred miles from any
settlement. It was not possible to organize them. They fled in all
directions. Solomon had taken with him a bark canoe. This he carried,
heading eastward and followed by a large company, poorly provisioned.
A number of the ships' boats which had been lowered--and moved, before
the destruction began, were carried on the advice of Solomon.
Fortunately this party was not pursued. Nearly every man in it had his
gun and ammunition. The scout had picked up a goodly outfit of axes
and shovels and put them in the boats. He organized his retreat with
sentries, rear guard, signals and a plan of defense. The carriers were
shifted every hour. After two days of hard travel through the deep
woods they came to a lake more than two miles long and about half as
wide. Their provisions were gone save a few biscuit and a sack of
salt. There were sixty-four men in the party.
Solomon organized a drive. A great loop of weary men was flung around
the end of the lake more than a mile from its shore. Then they began
approaching the camp, barking like dogs as they advanced. In this
manner three deer and a moose were driven to the water and slain.
These relieved the pangs of hunger and insured the party, for some
little time, against starvation. They were, however, a long way from
help in an unknown wilderness with a prospect of deadly hardships.
Solomon knew that the streams in this territory ran toward the sea and
for that reason he had burdened the party with boats and tools.
The able scout explored a long stretch of the lake's outlet which
flowed toward the south. It had a considerable channel but not enough
water for boats or canoes even. That night he began cutting timber for
a dam at the end of the lake above its outlet. Near sundown, next day,
the dam was finished and the water began rising. A rain hurried the
process. Two days later the big water plane had begun to spill into
its outlet and flood the near meadow flats. The party got the boats in
place some twenty rods below and ready to be launched. Solomon drove
the plug out of his dam and the pent-up water began to pour through.
The stream was soon flooded and the boats floating. Thus with a
spirited water horse to carry them they began their journey to the sea.
Men stood in the bow and stern of each boat with poles to push it along
and keep it off the banks. Some ten miles below they swung into a
large river and went on, more swiftly, with the aid of oars and paddles.
Thus Solomon became the hero of this ill-fated expedition. After that
he was often referred to in the army as the River Maker, although the
ingenious man was better known as the Lightning Hurler, that phrase
having been coined in Jack's account of his adventures with Solomon in
the great north bush. In the ranks he had been regarded with a kind of
awe as a most redoubtable man of mysterious and uncanny gifts since he
and Jack had arrived in the Highlands fresh from their adventure of
"shifting the skeer"--as Solomon was wont to put it--whereupon, with no
great delay, the rash Colonel Burley had his Binkussing. The scout was
often urged to make a display of his terrible weapon but he held his
tongue about it, nor would he play with the lightning or be induced to
hurl it upon white men.
"That's only fer to save a man from bein' burnt alive an' et up," he
used to say.
At the White Pine Mills near the sea they were taken aboard a lumber
ship bound for Boston. Solomon returned with a great and growing
influence among the common soldiers. He had spent a week in Newport
and many of his comrades had reached the camp of Washington in advance
of the scout's arrival.
When Solomon--a worn and ragged veteran--gained the foot of the
Highlands, late in October, he learned to his joy that Stony Point and
King's Ferry had been abandoned by the British. He found Jack at Stony
Point and told him the story of his wasted months. Then Jack gave his
friend the news of the war.
D'Estaing with a French fleet had arrived early in the month. This had
led to the evacuation of Newport and Stony Point to strengthen the
British position in New York. But South Carolina had been conquered by
the British. It took seven hundred dollars to buy a pair of shoes with
the money of that state, so that great difficulties had fallen in the
way of arming and equipping a capable fighting force.
"I do not talk of it to others, but the troubles of our beloved
Washington are appalling," Jack went on. "The devil loves to work with
the righteous, waiting his time. He had his envoy even among the
disciples of Jesus. He is among us in the person of Benedict
Arnold--lover of gold. The new recruits are mostly of his stripe. He
is their Captain. They demand big bounties. The faithful old guard,
who have fought for the love of liberty and are still waiting for their
pay, see their new comrades taking high rewards. It isn't fair.
Naturally the old boys hate the newcomers. They feel like putting a
coat of tar and feathers on every one of them. You and I have got to
go to work and put the gold seekers out of the temple. They need to
hear some of your plain talk. Our greatest peril is Arnoldism."
"You jest wait an' hear to me," said Solomon. "I got suthin' to say
that'll make their ears bleed passin' through 'em."
The evening of his arrival in camp Solomon talked at the general
assembly of the troops. He was introduced with most felicitous good
humor by Washington's able secretary, Mr. Alexander Hamilton. The
ingenious and rare accomplishments of the scout and his heroic loyalty
were rubbed with the rhetoric of an able talker until they shone.
"Boys, ye kint make no hero out o' an old scrag o' a man like me,"
Solomon began. "You may b'lieve what Mr. Hamilton says but I know
better. I been chased by Death an' grabbed by the coat-tails frequent,
but I been lucky enough to pull away. That's all. You new recruits
'a' been told how great ye be. I'm a-goin' fer to tell ye the truth.
I don't like the way ye look at this job. It ain't no job o' workin'
out. We're all workin' fer ourselves. It's my fight an' it's yer
fight. I won't let no king put a halter on my head an', with the stale
in one hand an' a whip in t' other, lead me up to the tax collector to
pay fer his fun. I'd ruther fight him. Some o' you has fam'lies.
Don't worry 'bout 'em. They'll be took care of. I got some confidence
in the Lord myself. Couldn't 'a' lived without it. Look a' me. I'm
so ragged that I got patches o' sunburn on my back an' belly. I'm what
ye might call a speckled man. My feet 'a' been bled. My body looks
like an ol' tree that has been clawed by a bear an' bit by woodpeckers.
I've stuck my poker into the fire o' hell. I've been singed an' frost
bit an' half starved an' ripped by bullets, an' all the pay I want is
liberty an' it ain't due yit. I've done so little I'm 'shamed o'
myself. Money! Lord God o' Israel! If any man has come here fer to
make money let him stan' up while we all pray fer his soul. These 'ere
United States is your hum an' my hum an' erway down the trail afore us
they's millions 'pon millions o' folks comin' an' we want 'em to be
free. We're a-fightin' fer 'em an' fer ourselves. If ye don't fight
ye'll git nothin' but taxes to pay the cost o' lickin' ye. It'll cost
a hundred times more to be licked than it'll cost to win. Ye won't
find any o' the ol' boys o' Washington squealin' erbout pay. We're
lookin' fer brothers an' not pigs. Git down on yer knees with me,
every one o' ye, while the Chaplain asks God A'mighty to take us all
into His army."
The words of Solomon put the new men in better spirit and there was
little complaining after that. They called that speech "The Binkussing
of the Recruits." Solomon was the soul of the old guard.