The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [58]
“What will become of our distressed army?” he wrote in his journal that night. “Death reigns triumphant. God seems to be greatly angry with us. He appears to be incensed against us, for our abominable wickedness and in all probability will sweep away a great part of our army to destruction. ’Tis enough to make human nature shudder only to hear the army in general blaspheme the holy name of God. This sin alone is sufficient to draw down the vengeance of an angry God upon a guilty and wicked army . . . ripening fast for utter destruction.”
Much of this he blamed on Benedict Arnold, and in a scathing note in his journal hoped for his death: “I heartily wish some person would try an experiment on him, to make the sun shine through his head with an ounce ball; and then see whether the rays come in a direct or oblique direction.”
Beebe was so upset at conditions that he did not even think the chaplains he saw at Crown Point could do any more for the souls of the dying soldiers than he could for their bodies. And he saw few. He remembered fondly the lengthy morning and evening prayers in Albany; now he was lucky to find a chaplain offering one single prayer a day. He noticed very few walking through the smallpox wards.
Chapter Twelve
THE COMPASSIONATE MINISTER AND THE ENRAGED DOCTOR
The chaplain that he missed the most was the engaging man he had met when he first arrived at Sorel, Rev. Ammi Robbins. The chaplain had become very ill just when Beebe moved to Chambly with General Thomas. Robbins was so sick that the commander who replaced Montgomery upon his death, General David Wooster, had approved his request to leave the army and return home to Connecticut. Robbins joined a regiment of men from Massachusetts on their way back to that state. After a perilous journey down Lake Champlain and Lake George by boat and across approximately one hundred forty miles of land, by wagon, he arrived home on June 5, obviously happy that his service in the war was at an end and that he had lived to talk about it. Like the other chaplains, he often wondered if diseases or the British would kill him. His buoyant journal entry for Wednesday, June 5, summed up his feelings: “Rode home and found my dear family well, after having experienced and seen the most abundant displays of Divine goodness and mercy. O for true gratitude.”
The compassionate minister apparently remained obsessed with the woes of the army and the need of the soldiers for God’s help. Just one month later, on July 2, 1776, the day that most of the delegates signed the Declaration of Independence—with no explanation in his journal— Ammi Robbins not only reenlisted in the Continental Army, but requested that he be sent back to his regiment at smallpox-infested Crown Point. On Tuesday, July 9, Rev. Robbins arrived back at Crown Point to rejoin his regiment. He wrote in his journal that the men, officers, and enlisted soldiers were surprised and quite pleased at his return. They were “exceedingly rejoiced to see me,” he wrote. None was happier to welcome him back than Dr. Lewis Beebe, who ended the misery of his daily journal with the very happy tidings that “last evening Rev. Robbins returned to his regiment in a comfortable state of health.” Robbins, recovered from all of his ailments, was full of energy and once again eager to do the Lord’s work.
Dr. Beebe attended Robbins’s sermon that Sunday afternoon. It began at 4 p.m., right on time, as did all of Robbins’s sermons. The minister had his largest audience yet. He spoke inside the garrison, near the barracks, before General Wooster, dozens of officers, and more than a thousand troops gathered from several regiments. Well-rested from his month-long stay at home, he was in the best of health; his voice was strong and passionate. He turned to Isaiah 8, 9, and 10 in his Bible, held in front of him, for his sermon.
Dr. Beebe was thrilled by his friend’s preaching