General Washington wanted to avoid an attack or provocation, but the sooner it was tamped out, the better, and he gave General Paterson full authority to handle the situation as he saw fit. By nightfall of the same day, all light infantrymen in the garrison had been assembled, a plan was in place, and we headed out.
We had just crossed the river and debarked at the Peekskill encampment when the sky rumbled and the winds kicked up. The general had intended to gather another 250 men from lower encampments, doubling our numbers, with the intention of intimidating the insurgents into immediate surrender. Instead, he instructed the men he’d already assembled to lighten their packs and button their capes, and be ready to move out immediately.
“We’re going now. No wagons. No horses. No drums. No warning. They won’t think we’re coming. Not on a night like this. And maybe we can end it without anyone getting hurt.”
He wanted me to follow behind with Agrippa and another slower detachment. They would bring wagons, horses, and supplies, and I could ride Common Sense.
“Your leg still troubles you. You cover it well, but it is not healed.”
I frowned at him, affronted. “Do you not know me at all?”
“I know you too well,” he muttered.
“I will keep up, sir. I am your aide. I must go.”
He shook his head and relented, though I knew he wanted to argue. Colonel Sproat had arrived at the encampment an hour before us, and within minutes, he’d culled from his regiment twenty-five men who were accustomed to such rigors and who wouldn’t balk at the unpleasant mission ahead. No one liked mutinies.
We moved fast and hard for twenty miles, rain in our faces and the earth sucking at our feet. My boots were so heavy at one point, I considered abandoning them, but feared falling behind when I stopped to pull them off. Plus, the general had warned me to keep my feet covered, and none of the other men were removing theirs.
I kept up, but not without considerable suffering. The general stayed at my side, but we did not converse—the storm made that impossible—and he did not offer me aid, though I wouldn’t have accepted it if he had.
Perhaps it was the cover of the torrential rains and the howling winds, or perhaps the mutineers didn’t expect for the general to move on them so quickly, but while they huddled in tents that didn’t keep them dry, nursing the flames of their discontent, we started to form a perimeter around the insurgent camp.
We were covered in mud and wet to our skins when we made our presence known, but by the time the sun rose and the storm had broken, the mutineers were completely surrounded.
Colonel Sproat and his twenty-five rousted the inhabitants of each tent with bayonets drawn while the rest of us maintained a tight circle around the encampment. No one tried to run or fight, but no one begged for mercy either.
General Paterson ordered them to line up in rows of ten and asked those responsible to step forward.
“Who leads this rebellion?” General Paterson asked, projecting his voice so all could hear.
No one moved or spoke, knowing that the ringleaders would most likely be executed before the day was done.
The general was grim, his face mud-spattered, and his hair in rivulets beneath his sodden hat. When I’d shaved his face the day before, he’d sent for Reverend Hitchcock, the chaplain attached to his brigade, and asked the reverend to pray with him.
“Will you include the mutineers?” Paterson had said. “Ask that their hearts will be softened and no blood spilled. And ask God to help me know what is just.”
Justice and mercy were a delicate balance, one he rode well, but he was troubled.
Reverend Hitchcock was not here now, and the mutineers were hard-eyed and unrepentant, and nearly as wet and miserable looking as the rest of us. No hearts had been softened. None of them wore shoes or hats. Most wore breeches and nothing else. It had stormed, but it was still July, and they’d likely shrugged them off before retiring.
It was then that I saw Phineas. He wore a shirt, unlike many of the others, and his dark hair lay about his shoulders and obscured his scarred face. If he’d noticed me, drenched and dirty as I was, I did not know. His eyes were on the general, his chin high, his eyes sullen.
“All of you have suffered for a cause that has lost its shine,” General Paterson said, raising his voice to be heard. He pointed at the armed soldiers encircling the mutineers’ camp. “All of them have suffered too. And they suffer now, as they are forced to contend with you, fellow soldiers, brothers, patriots. And that is what is hardest for me to forgive. They shouldn’t have to fight you too. This is not the way. We’ve come too far. And if I do not punish those responsible, this will happen again. And men like them—” He pointed at the soldiers, their muskets drawn and their eyes shadowed, who’d marched through the wet darkness to mete out a punishment they wanted no part of. “Men like them will suffer.”