The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [122]
Fisher Returns to Civilian Life
On January 7, his enlistment up, snow covering the roadways and fields of much of the northeast, Elijah Fisher left the army. Needing employment, he rode south to the community of Somerville to visit John Wallace. The Philadelphia merchant’s Somerville home had been used by George Washington as his headquarters the previous winter and Fisher had become friendly with the businessman and his wife, whom he referred to as “very clever folks.” The Wallaces were looking for a handyman and were happy to employ the ex-soldier. Fisher worked hard for the couple and at night worked on his journal; the Wallaces apparently saw him do so. They cringed at his sloppy handwriting and improper use of punctuation. They offered to tutor him in reading and writing.
Fisher was always eager to learn new things, hopeful that improved reading and writing skills might help him find a good job when he returned home to Massachusetts. He took them up on their offer. For three hours every evening, for the entire month, the couple taught him to read and to improve his writing and penmanship. One of his exercises was to make longhand copies of books that were in the Wallaces’ small library and to copy letters and other written documents to perfect his penmanship. The copying in longhand significantly improved his handwriting. He was appreciative of the assistance from educated people and they were happy to help an army veteran on his way home who had helped them with household chores.
Fisher was correct in his assumption that the tutoring in writing would help him land a good job later, but he could not have imagined then, in snow-covered and freezing Somerville, what that job would be and the amazing turn of events that would take him to it.
The former private left the Wallaces in the middle of February and headed home to Attleboro, sometimes walking and sometimes riding. He made it about one-third of the way, to Newburgh, New York, and stopped off at the army barracks there to collect eight days worth of provisions, standard issue for a returning soldier’s trip home. Fisher indulged in a little bit of knavery when he arrived at the army encampment at Fishkill, a few miles away, and asked for his eight days of provisions for his trip home, the food he had already drawn at Newburgh hidden in his saddle bags. Unfortunately for him, an officer who saw him draw the original provisions at Newburgh had arrived just before him and watched him from a corner of the warehouse as he made his request.
“Didn’t I see you draw your eight days of provisions in Newburgh just two days ago?” he asked the ex-private. An embarrassed Fisher, caught in his trick, tried to talk his way out of his predicament, going into a long explanation of how he had used up some of the provisions and needed more to reach Boston.
“You could get more at Hartford and Litchfield,” the officer told him. “But I did not want to do that. With the provisions I am picking up here I won’t have to trouble the supply depots at those towns,” Fisher said.
It is unknown if his little ruse worked, but he reached home in Attleboro on March 29. He planned to live and work there and found a job with Stephen Pond, a local farmer, agreeing to work six months in exchange for sixty bushels of corn. However, within four weeks he developed a bad sore on his right hand that prevented him from working any longer.
And so, again, he reenlisted in the Continental Army—for the fourth time. Soldiering had become a source of steady income for him, as it was for many other young, unskilled laborers. As soon as Private Fisher reenlisted, he became involved in a heated argument over his pay, a dispute that was common among the soldiers.
He joined a new regiment in Attleboro, pocketing a bounty for his latest service, a six-month tour of duty, and went directly to a military