The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [44]
There, Greenwood wrote, they received a warm welcome. “The landing place was covered with woods, and behind every tree were three or four Indians who poured or showered their bullets upon us as thick as hailstones. General Arnold thought proper to give the signal of retreat to the other side of the river, so back we went.”
They did so as fast as possible. From out of the woods appeared two field pieces operated by British soldiers that began to fire at the fleeing Americans in their canoes, the cannonballs hitting close to the boats and sending splashes of water high into the air. The Indians fighting with Arnold were terrified. Greenwood observed that the cannon “made our Indians fly with their birch canoes like so many devils; they do not like to see large balls skipping over the water in and out until their force is lost, for a single one would knock their paper boats to pieces in a moment.”
To Greenwood’s surprise, there was no battle that night or on the following morning. The Indians and the British under Captain George Forster had decided that Arnold’s forces were too large and well equipped for them and made the general an intriguing offer: they would give him almost all of their American prisoners, several hundred, if he would let them leave without firing a shot, and agree to free some British prisoners. After both sides scouted each other for six days, Arnold, as worried as anyone about leaving hundreds of his soldiers in the hands of the Indians, agreed.
The prisoners the Indians turned over to Arnold the next day were pathetic looking. “Poor fellows, they looked as if they had been dragged by the heels for a hundred miles over the ground,” Greenwood noted.
On May 6, reinforcements from England sailed up the St. Lawrence and had arrived at Quebec; nine hundred British troops on the ships attacked the Americans there as soon as the ships dropped anchor, driving them west toward Montreal. Then they marched west toward an even rosier target—Arnold and his army at Montreal.
Arnold felt that the city could not be held. Upon his return he raced through Montreal to organize a massive and hasty American evacuation of the city on reports that the newly arrived British troops were within two days march of his army. With authorization from Congress, he bought up supplies from local merchants and farmers with practically worthless Continental currency. Arnold told his men to order residents to accept it, and then, in a maneuver that was to become a trademark, Arnold seized vast supplies of booty—rum, molasses, clothing—“for the army” that some later charged were for himself.
When the Americans fled Montreal on June 15, they barely managed to escape. The evacuation itself was a scene of complete disorder, graphically described by Greenwood: “Down we scampered to the boats, those of the sick who were not led from the hospital crawling after us. Camp equippage, kettles, and everything were abandoned in the utmost confusion—even the bread that was baking in the ovens—for we were glad to get away with whole skins. When halfway across the river, it began to grow very dark and down came the rain in drops the size of large peas, wetting our smallpox fellows, huddled together like cordwood in the boats, and causing the deaths of many.”
They crossed the St. Lawrence as speedily as possible. “It was a very cold rain and as the boat struck the shore I, being but a boy, and wet through and through, tried to take care of myself, at which I had a tolerable good knack, and so left the rest, dead and alive, to do the same. An old barn being near, I went in and soon found that others had discovered the retreat as well as myself and were lying on the floor close together like hogs, so I contentedly pigged it down with the rest.”
A fatigued Greenwood and the men did not get much rest because officers came looking for them. “Turn out or we’ll fire upon you!” shouted one at the groaning soldiers