“The commander has asked that you stay in Philadelphia, Paterson, and conduct the hearing and sentencing of those most responsible,” General Howe informed him at lunchtime. “You are a barrister, after all, and we all respect your prudence. This will not be as hard a task as the last. These soldiers have not earned the compassion others have. They are all new recruits, not one of whom had suffered the years of toil and lack. They should be heard, swiftly punished, and dispensed with.
“I will return to West Point with our men day after tomorrow. The sooner we leave, the better. The hospitals are full of yellow fever, the barracks in the city center have been converted to a temporary ward, and we don’t need to add fifteen hundred troops to an already overwhelmed system.”
Colonel Kosciuszko’s home was in Philadelphia, and he invited us to stay with him until the proceedings were concluded. He would not be going back to West Point. The great hall had been his final project, his enlistment had expired, and he was excited to return to the city he’d called home for twenty years. He had asked for Agrippa to stay in Philadelphia with him and continue on as his personal valet, but Grippy was undecided.
“Kosciuszko lives in Society Hill,” Agrippa told me. “Fancy place. Fancy people. The colonel comes from money back in Poland, though you’d never know it. When the British took the city in ’77, he thought they’d burn the whole neighborhood down, but the house is his again, minus a few treasures, and he has big plans. I guess those plans include me.”
He sighed and rubbed at his brown cheeks, ruminating on the decision. “General Paterson says it’s my choice. I’ve been there once, but I don’t really want to make it my home, no matter how well the colonel treats me or how much he wants me to be his valet. But it sure beats the barracks, and it sure beats a tent while we’re here. He’s invited the general to stay at his home too.”
But just as he planned, General Paterson politely refused the invitation.
“My eldest sister lives on Society Hill as well. She is expecting me and Private Shurtliff. We will remain there until matters in Philadelphia are resolved. But Dr. Thatcher will be assisting at the temporary hospital in the barracks until we return to the Point. I am sure he would appreciate an invitation, Colonel,” General Paterson added. He simply patted Grippy’s shoulder and reminded him that the decision was his.
“You will always have a place with me, Agrippa Hull. Your room in the Red House is yours for as long as you want it.”
“You have Bonny,” Agrippa grumbled, shooting a look at me. “I need to be useful.”
The general said nothing more, though he hesitated like he wanted to speak. Instead, we mounted our horses, and with a promise to return in the morning, he and I made our way through the streets toward the colorful rows of merchant houses and businesses lining the busy docks. We passed a wagon filled with sick people in differing states of distress. A woman, flushed and moaning, held a child who was already dead, and a man vomited over the side, the contents of his stomach splashing on the cobbles.
A shop owner grumbled as they passed, and he tossed a pail of water over the vomit, diluting it, and went on with his day. The city was unfazed, and business continued. Perhaps it helped that yellow fever was not contagious, but Philadelphia had experienced one upheaval after another, and no place in the country was more ready for it all to be over.
The general dismounted in front of a dressmaker’s shop on Elfreth’s Alley and tied his reins and mine to a hitching post as I slid off Common Sense.
“General?” I asked, my eyes wide. We had not discussed any of this.
“You cannot be married in your uniform,” he said beneath his breath. “I will say the purchases are for my wife.”
My breath caught. “I keep expecting you to pinch me like the brothers used to do and tell me it is all a grand prank,” I murmured, but his gaze was filled with challenge.
“You must get everything you need. Shoes, stockings, a dress—several dresses, I would think. A wardrobe.” He wrinkled his brow. “I don’t know exactly what that entails.”
I didn’t know either. I knew cloth, and I knew quality, but I had never purchased anything from a dressmaker’s shop. Mrs. Thomas and I had sewn our own frocks, but I followed the general inside.
“I will not take Continental dollars, sir,” the gentleman warned as we entered his establishment.
John nodded, as though he expected as much, but the statement tightened his mouth. It was not the shopkeeper’s fault that the paper had no value, but it reinforced the injustice of paying the troops in that currency.