On Sunday, 18th July 1779, Peleg Wadsworth worshipped at Christ Church on Salem Street where the rector was the Reverend Stephen Lewis who, until two years before, had been a British army chaplain. The rector had been captured with the rest of the defeated British army at Saratoga, yet in captivity he had changed his allegiance and sworn an oath of loyalty to the United States of America which meant his congregation this summer Sunday was swollen by townsfolk curious about how he would preach when his adopted country was about to launch an expedition against his former comrades. The Reverend Lewis chose his text from the Book of Daniel. He related the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three men who had been hurled into King Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace and who, by God’s saving grace, had survived the flames. For an hour or more Wadsworth wondered how the scripture was relevant to the military preparations that obsessed Boston, and even whether some ancient lingering loyalty was making the rector ambivalent, but then the Reverend Lewis moved to his final peroration. He told how all the king’s men had assembled to watch the execution and instead they saw that “the fire had no power.” “The king’s men,” the rector repeated fiercely, “saw that ‘the fire had no power!’ There is God’s promise, in the twenty-seventh verse of the third chapter of Daniel! The fire set by the king’s men had no power!” The Reverend Lewis stared directly at Wadsworth as he repeated the last two words, “no power!,” and Wadsworth thought of the redcoats waiting at Majabigwaduce and prayed that their fire would indeed have no power. He thought of the ships lying at anchor in Boston’s harbor, he thought of the militia who were assembling at Townsend where the ships would rendezvous with the troops, and he prayed again that the enemy’s fire would prove impotent.
After the service Wadsworth shook a multitude of hands and received the good wishes of many in the congregation, but he did not leave the church. Instead he waited beneath the organ loft until he was alone, then he went back up the aisle, opened a box pew at random, and knelt on a hassock newly embroidered with the flag of the United States. Around the flag were stitched the words “God Watcheth Over Us” and Wadsworth prayed that was true, and prayed that God would watch over his family whom he named one by one: Elizabeth, his dear wife, then Alexander, Charles, and Zilpha. He prayed that the campaign against the British in Majabigwaduce would be brief and successful. Brief because Elizabeth’s next child was due within five or six weeks and he was afraid for her and wanted to be with her when the baby was born. He prayed for the men whom he would lead into battle. He mouthed the prayer, the words a half-formed murmur, but each one distinct and fervent in his spirit. The cause is just, he told God, and men must die for it, and he begged God to receive those men into their new heavenly home, and he prayed for the widows who must be made and the orphans who would be left. “And if it please you, God,” he said in a slightly louder voice, “let not Elizabeth be widowed, and permit my children to grow with a father in their house.” He wondered how many other such prayers were being offered this Sunday morning.
“General Wadsworth, sir?” a tentative voice spoke behind him.
Wadsworth turned to see a tall, slim young man in a dark green uniform coat crossed by a white belt. The young man looked anxious, worried perhaps that he had disturbed Wadsworth’s devotions. He had dark hair that was bound into a short, thick pigtail. For a moment Wadsworth supposed the man had been sent to him with orders, then the memory of a much younger boy flooded his mind and the memory allowed him to recognize the man. “William Dennis!” Wadsworth said with real pleasure. He did some quick addition in his head and realized Dennis must now be nineteen years old. “It was eight years ago we last met!”
“I hoped you’d recollect me, sir,” Dennis said, pleased.
“Of course I remember you!” Wadsworth reached across the box pew to shake the young man’s hand, “and remember you well!”
“I heard you were here, sir,” Dennis said, “so took the liberty of seeking you out.”
“I’m glad!”
“And you’re a general now, sir.”
“A leap from school-mastering, is it not?” Wadsworth said wryly, “and you?”
“A lieutenant in the Continental Marines, sir.”
“I congratulate you.”
“And bound for Penobscot, sir, as are you.”
“You’re on the
“I am, sir, but posted to the
“Then we shall share a victory,” Wadsworth said. He opened the pew door and gestured towards the street. “Will you walk with me to the harbor?”
“Of course, sir.”
“You attended service, I hope?”
“The Reverend Frobisher preached at West Church,” Dennis said, “and I wanted to hear him.”
“You don’t sound impressed,” Wadsworth said, amused.
“He chose a text from the Sermon on the Mount,” Dennis said, “‘he maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’”
“Ah!” Wadsworth said with a grimace. “Was he saying that God is not on our side? If so, it sounds dispiriting.”
“He was assuring us, sir, that the revealed truths of our faith cannot depend on the outcome of a battle, a campaign, or even a war. He said we cannot know God’s will, sir, except for that part which illuminates our conscience.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Wadsworth allowed.
“And he said war is the devil’s business, sir.”
“That’s certainly true,” Wadsworth said as they left the church, “but hardly an apt sermon for a town about to send its men to war?” He closed the church door and saw that the wind-driven drizzle that had blown him uphill from the harbor had lifted and the sky was clearing itself of high, scudding clouds. He walked with Dennis towards the water, wondering when the fleet would leave. Commodore Saltonstall had given the order to set sail on the previous Thursday, but had postponed the departure because the wind had risen to a gale strong enough to part ships’ cables. But the great fleet must sail soon. It would go eastwards, towards the enemy, towards the devil’s business.
He glanced at Dennis. He had grown into a handsome young man. His dark green coat was faced with white and his white breeches piped with green. He wore a straight sword in a leather scabbard trimmed with silver oak leaves. “I have never understood,” Wadsworth said, “why the marines wear green. Wouldn’t blue be more, well, marine?”
“I’m told that the only cloth that was available in Philadelphia, sir, was green.”
“Ah! That thought never occurred to me. How are your parents?”
“Very well, sir, thank you,” Dennis said enthusiastically. “They’ll be pleased to know I met you.”
“Send them my respects,” Wadsworth said. He had taught William Dennis to read and to write, he had taught him grammar in both Latin and English, but then the family had moved to Connecticut and Wadsworth had lost touch. He remembered Dennis well, though. He had been a bright boy, alert and mischievous, but never malevolent. “I beat you once, didn’t I?” he asked.
“Twice, sir,” Dennis said with a grin, “and I deserved both punishments.”
“That was never a duty I enjoyed,” Wadsworth said.
“But necessary?”
“Oh, indeed.”
“Their conversation was constantly interrupted by men who wished to shake their hands and wish them success against the British. Give them hell, General,” one man said, a sentiment echoed by everyone who accosted the pair. Wadsworth smiled, shook offered hands and finally escaped the well-wishers by entering the Bunch of Grapes, a tavern close to Long Wharf. “I think God will forgive us for crossing a tavern threshold on the Sabbath day,” he said.
“It’s more like the army’s headquarters these days,” Dennis said, amused. The tavern was crowded with men in uniforms, many of whom were gathered by a wall where notices had been tacked, so many notices that they overlapped each other. Some offered bounties to men willing to serve on privateers, others had been put there by Solomon Lovell’s staff.
“We’re to sleep aboard the ships tonight!” a man shouted, then saw Wadsworth. “Is that because we’re sailing tomorrow, General?”
