The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [83]
Her truest love without the least annoy
The furlough did come through, but Susanna’s ardent young husband was forced to cool his heels for two long days in Philadelphia before the next ferry sailed to Trenton. He crossed the Delaware with a group of officers he knew who persuaded him to join them for some “refreshments” at a tavern in Trenton that afternoon, further delaying his arrival at Susanna’s house. Finally, just after sundown, he wrote in his journal, he was in the arms of his amorous wife, “which filled my mind with all the delights possibly able to flow from the transitory enjoyments.”
In addition to his romantic desire for Susanna, McMichael had other reasons to ride to her home. It was a chance to live in a warm house, and not a cold tent, for a week or more. His wife surely cooked better meals than the army. Susanna, like all wives in the war, probably sewed his torn clothing. She might have sewn him new leggings or purchased new clothing for him. The diary indicates that they spent time with friends and her family, too, surely a comfort.
Again, duty called, and after a few days the lieutenant had to return to the military. There, he learned that his regiment was going into battle. McMichael then surprised his fellow officers and the enlisted men when he seemed overjoyed at the news. He was not thrilled about facing the British; he was ecstatic because the battle, he was told, would take place somewhere near Somerset Court House, in New Jersey. The highway to that town from Pennsylvania went through Ringoes, a New Jersey town just thirteen miles northwest of Stony Brook.
The regiment traveled to Fort Mercer, a fort on the Delaware, and then dawdled at Philadelphia. Time passed and McMichael’s frustrations grew. Would this be just one more of the hundreds of false alarms the regiment had been through? Would they again sleep on their arms all night and then do nothing in the morning? Would they be marched back to their island? Finally, on June 24, they crossed the Delaware at Coryell’s Ferry (today New Hope, Pennsylvania) and headed east, first for Ringoes and then toward Somerset Court House, a sleepy little village in the center of the state. The Americans there were nervous because General Howe’s main army of some eighteen thousand troops had left New Brunswick. Several of Howe’s regiments started to engage American units in northern New Jersey. They expected him to attack them.
What happened next is not clear. McMichael either decided to go AWOL so that he could see his wife or he talked his commanding officer into letting him sneak away from the regiment for a romantic tryst. He jumped on a horse shortly after noon on June 25 and left the column of troops as they marched down the dirt highway through Ringoes. He rode as quickly as he could, taking every shortcut he knew, crossing meadows and streams at full gallop, and reached Stony Brook, and his young wife, who was very happy to see him, at 2 p.m.
McMichael did not have much time with his spouse and presumably after a day and night of heated lovemaking he left her home at 2 a.m., climbing back on his horse in total darkness. McMichael rode through the night to Somerset Court House where, sleepless and physically drained, he trotted into camp astride his horse as the men rose at 6 a.m. He had nothing to fear if he had worried about being ready for battle after an evening with his wife, though. There was no encounter with the British that morning. The Redcoats were nowhere to be found.
Then, in what was a familiar pattern to the soldiers by then, the army marched about, looking for the British, but not finding them. The men finally arrived two weeks later at Morristown. The one night stand with his wife fresh in his mind, and sleepless once more thinking about her, he went to headquarters and asked for yet another furlough to return to Stony Brook, but was denied. With time on his hands, McMichael wrote another poem to Susanna, lamenting his inability to receive a pass to visit her:
This has my patience almost tired, and filled with regret