The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [33]
Greenman fought his way through clusters of bushes and trees. The clearings were littered with stones and the paths that did exist were covered with fallen trees and brush. One clearing they traversed at the bottom of a ridge was very swampy and strewn with lengthy rotted-out logs that they had to step over. When they approached the Chaudière River, they had to push their way through jungles of spruce, cedar, and hemlock trees and cross deep and winding ravines that nature had slashed into the slopes of the hills near the water.
Their grittiness and determination, hallmarks of the entire American army throughout the Revolution and in the years to come, was evident to Arnold, who marveled at the way the enlisted men plunged through the forests. “Our men,” he noted, “are very much fatigued in carrying over their bateaux, provisions. The roads being extremely bad . . . They appear very cheerful . . . Their spirit and industry seem to overcome every obstacle.”9
The divisions of troops became easy victims of the terrain. Dozens of bateaux had been so badly damaged that they had to be left behind. Supplies had to be put in all of the boats and about half the men on the expedition were forced to walk, not ride, as the army moved ever northwards toward Canada. Their coats were ripped by branches and soon could not protect the men from the wind and cold. Their shoes were cut up, too, by the jagged rocks in the streams they traversed, and by the time they approached the headwaters of the Dead River many had become barefoot.
Exhausted upon their arrival at the Dead River, an extension of the Kennebec, on October 20, the men were drenched by a heavy rain that grew in intensity all day and by nightfall, aided by south by southwest winds, became a full-blown storm. Meandering nearby creeks began to overflow and swiftly running water surged over the banks of the river and shores of the ponds and tore through the woods. The strong winds knocked over dozens of large trees. The men scrambled into clearings to avoid falling trees but were afraid to put up tents for fear that the winds would knock them over and injure the inhabitants. Many simply laid on the open ground in clearings, huddled against each other, hats pulled down over their heads, coats wrapped tightly around them, and sat out the storm. Despite gallant effort to save them, the soldiers lost dozens of barrels of flour, pork, and other supplies that were carried away by the badly flooding ponds.
The men found themselves in the center of a calamitous natural disaster when the sun rose over the rain-soaked countryside in the morning. The ponds, now lakes, and the overflowing Dead River flooded out many of the landmark trails and creeks on Arnold’s previous maps and the men did not know what direction to take. Several divisions, including Greenman’s, became lost, some for as long as a day, before backtracking to the main army.10 Others ignored Arnold’s orders to walk on high ground, above the new shorelines created by the overflowing water. To save time they waded through the three feet deep waters of the “ocean swamp,” as Greenman called it. The freezing waters soon made their legs and lower bodies numb and they had to leave the water, find high ground, and then dry off. They all rested to regain circulation in their legs, which caused further delays.11
Dissension over the weather, lack of food, bad maps, and general mismanagement of the army had grown throughout the trip, especially among the last two divisions in the expedition, led by Lt. Col. Christopher Greene and Colonel Roger Enos, whose divisions had suffered the most from lack of food, sickness, and lost bateaux. A few days after the Dead River flooded, on October 25, following a storm that dumped several inches of snow on the ground, the officers of both divisions called a council of war to determine whether they should go on or turn back,