THE MEMOIRS OF HUGH HALL,

A MEMBER OF THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY, 1803-1806

A Novel By George Cathcart

CHAPTER I

“I WOULD LIKE AN ADVENTURE JUST ABOUT NOW”

Ol’ Lick brought me the letter today with the news of Will’s death. I felt something pass out of me, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I didn’t even know it had been in me, I guess. It never announced itself. It just left, and I felt its absence.

I didn’t wonder about it long, though. I sat down on a stump, dropping the string of squirrels behind me. The dog sniffed at them, but she seemed to feel the same way I did, whatever that was. Or maybe she was just tired after a morning of hunting the squirrels in the oaks where the creek leaves the field.

I sat there for a while and searched my mind for memories of Will Werner and those days. It’s not like Will is the first one. I had already heard about the others’ deaths, right from Captain Lewis, who killed himself back in ‘09, and then Potts and Drewyer killed by Indians in the very hills where we went exploring for Mr. Jefferson. I had to laugh when I heard the news about John Colter getting chased naked by the Blackfeet. He made it, and I wasn’t too surprised by that. Colter was maybe the smartest among us besides Captain Lewis, but Colter wanted to live, and I never was sure the Captain did.

I usually don’t have time to remember those days of ice and snow and rain and painted Indians and naked women wrapping around me like bearskins. My days are filled with tending my corn and splitting wood and shooting squirrels and rabbits for the stew pot. At this time of year, my favorite, I start trying to shoot a few big old bucks to put up some venison for the cold months ahead, but today I just shot a few squirrels and came up to the lodge about the time Lick got here.

After a while I stirred myself enough to butcher the squirrels for a stew, then went inside and got the fire going under the pot. I put the meat in with the old lard and some beans and corn from the cache and let it simmer away and fill the lodge with food smells. Then I sat on my bunk and bent down and pulled out the old wooden box. I had to blow some dust off it before I slowly untied the ribbon and took off the top. It was sealed pretty well. The blue kerchief and the sea shells were clean. There was the paper signed by Captain Lewis in 1806, yellow with age, but still legible. I carefully laid those aside, then took out the two leather-bound books that I had not touched in more than 20 years.

I was almost afraid to open them. I worried the paper might crumble to dust, but a glance told me they were sturdy enough. Still the fear persisted. I know what it was. I didn’t want to go back there. I didn’t want to meet the man who wrote those journals, the sad man who was in my body all those years ago, but it was only I. What could I fear from myself? Still, something moved my hand to open those pages, something that said the past could not hurt me now, and perhaps I could only truly know where I am today by knowing yesterday.

Carefully turning the pages, I found those moments with Will: narrowly escaping the whip together at St. Charles; stumbling over the rocky, rutted plain by the Great Falls and laughing about milk; leaning on his shoulder in the damp woods near the western ocean; then learning the right thing to do after all those years of blaming everyone else.

It was Will who got me to stop running away. It is because of Will that I am here now on this wooded farm, where I have been for more than 20 years. I have seen people come and go, men and women and children going up the river, just as I did, looking for something that they will never find. But I can’t tell them that, nor would I. I had to learn that you have to look for it before you know you can’t find it, and then you find something you weren’t looking for and realize that’s what you needed all along.

My eye caught on my words on the pages like the clouds used to catch on the high mountains. I could see him again as clearly as if it were right now, his eyes brimming with tears of shame and fear as we awated sentencing at St. Charles, his shoulders shaking with relief. Will was one of the few of us who never grew his beard out, but he never seemed to shave his face clean, either. His brown hair flopped over his ears and his neck, and he used a scissors to chop it off right at his eyebrows. His face was big and round and his brown eyes were deep but not hidden. He was exactly my height, about 5 foot 9, so he could look me right in the eye as if begging me to look deeper, and when I remember it now, I am sorry that I was afraid to do so. I never came to know Will as well as he knew me.

My memories spread beyond Will. Just as vividly I could picture Indian women and buffalo robes, horse meat and roast dog, my father and Meriwether Lewis. The thought struck me that maybe the last thing I had run from was this, my memories, my own record of the years I spent with the Corps of Discovery, a few words written each day. That’s all I found time to write in the wilderness, a few words, scattered thoughts, fears and dreams. But those words are all I need to awaken memories that I can record now in detail. I suppose I should have written down my own memories years ago, when I read the official account of that expedition as written by Lewis and Clark themselves. They are heroes now, beloved of the nation, as well they should be, both of them. But what of the rest of us? Some, alas, can not write, and their deeds will not be remembered much. I can write, and unless I do, I shall be forgotten as well. It is time for me to tell my story.

* * *

I guess we had to be a little crazy to sign up for a trip like that. At least I did. Some of the boys were in desperate straits, but that wasn’t true for me. For them, the five dollars a month we were promised seemed like good wages, not to mention the chance to get some good land to settle on when they got home, courtesy of Mr. Jefferson and the United States Congress.

For me it was different. I didn’t need five dollars a month. I didn’t need to earn a living that way. I grew up in a big house in Philadelphia with four free Negro servants. I learned not only to read and write -- unlike five or six of the boys with us on the Missouri -- I even had a passing knowledge of Greek and Latin. I spent two years studying at the University of Pennsylvania in 1791 and 1792. I loved reading poetry and debating philosophy. I could listen to music for hours. But what my father wanted me to learn in university was not poetry. Even as I felt the horizons of my mind growing, I felt my spirit being crushed by the dreariness and greed of commerce and economics and politics. In poetry I found worlds of romance and adventure, but my destiny was to become a dour, stiff humorless merchant. I dreaded that.

I was born in 1772, so I grew up hearing about the brave and adventurous men who fought the Revolution to free us from England. Those stories stirred something in my belly; they still do. My father spoke of courage and what courage meant as if it were a spool of thread you could buy at his store. It was a necessary commodity, and for that reason he assumed he had it, but as far as I could tell, he had never had to use it. He tried to join General Washington’s men in ‘78, but by then he had three small boys and was a widower to boot, so the Army thanked him for his offer and told him to stay home and mind the store and his boys. He didn’t like to talk about that time, just enough so I know that much about it. I know it disappointed him, though. I think he really did feel like he had some courage he never got to use. I don’t know, in some queer way, it seemed as though as my brothers and I got older, he didn’t want us to get to use our courage either. My oldest brother Georgie never did, unless you think opening another dry goods store in Philadelphia to compete with my father was courageous. My younger brother Richard never got straight what was courage and what was foolishness, but he was always trying to indulge one or the other. He died at the Battle of New Orleans 15 years ago.

As for me, I’m not sure I know what courage is either. I thought I was being courageous to sign on with a merchant ship out of Philadelphia in 1793. I spent three years sailing, mostly to Charleston and Savannah, once to Southhampton, when we had a close shave with some pirates on the high seas but through some fancy maneuvering we eluded the villains and never drew nor lost any blood.

My father thought I was mad, of course. Richard told me later he would read my letters aloud after dinner and laugh derisively and comment on my foolishness. I never considered that I would make a life of sailing. I was tired of my sea legs when I stepped back on the dock at Philadelphia for the last time. I was a strong man in those days, short and lean, but broad-shouldered. I had a head covered with long sandy hair and a scraggly beard hanging from my chin and cheeks like the spanish moss on the oaks near Savannah. I smelled of tar and salt when I arrived at my father’s door that June morning, my bag slung over my shoulder. I grinned at our servant Virgil as he opened the door. He smiled back and made a motion with his eyes that told me not to disturb my father with my presence at this time. I did not see my father that day until dinner, by which time I had bathed and put on the fine clothes that had hung in my closet for the years I had been gone.

“Good of you to join us,” was all my father said to me that night. I was ready to leave again, somewhere, by the time we had finished the soup.

I remained in Philadelphia, though, for nearly two more years. I trimmed my beard so I could work in my father’s shop by day. I spent my evenings in taverns. My experience at sea had made me equally comfortable debating the thoughts of Locke in the oak-paneled taverns of High Street or making up stories about sea wenches with the rougher crowd of sailors in the dank, piss-smelling rooms by the docks. Either sort of place was more comfortable than the drawing room of my father’s house, especially if I could put enough ale and whiskey in my belly to feel nothing when I stumbled home.

My behavior disturbed my father, but he never said so in words. Indeed, the less he said, the angrier I knew he had become. He began to favor Georgie with gifts and attention, and he argued often with young Richard, trying to steer him to a proper life. Sometimes he referred to me as an example of what can happen to a young man who dreams. I was not aware what my dreams were in those days of menial work and meaningless drinking.

Somewhere within me, my spirit stayed alive, however, smoldering quietly, its light hidden beneath the layers of ashes I had heaped upon it. It continued to give me warmth, even though I paid it no attention. I continued to burn my conscious energies quickly in dark rooms, giving off random bursts but leaving neither heat nor light. Over the months, the quality of my companions declined. The bright students of High Street soon wearied of my empty pronouncements, and I tried to amuse and shock them with sea stories. In the rooms by the docks, I failed to top the colorful stories of the older salts, and I spouted philosophy to try to overwhelm men who could barely read. I became a boor in both places. On High Street they merely ignored me. At the docks, they had less subtle ways of conveying their disgust. One Sunday dawn I awoke in a dirty heap on the side of a street I had never seen. My upper lip was caked with blood that seemed to have flowed from my throbbing nose. A tooth was loose, my ribs ached, my arms were swollen with bruises. My hands, however, were immaculate. I had not even gotten in one good punch.

I did not go home right away. I found a wench I had known who took pity on me and let me bathe in her room and ministered to my wounds and would accept no money. She said that was not what she got paid for. I made my way home before my father and brothers returned from church. My father, as usual, said nothing to me, but his face was dark with anger throughout the noon feast that was our Sunday ritual. Georgie tried to engage him in talk about the quality of cloth coming from South Carolina, but our father merely muttered in acknowledgement. When the table was cleared, my father and Georgie retired to the drawing room, pointedly ignoring me. As they left the room, Richard turned to me and said, “Let’s go for a walk, Hugh.”

I stood, with some pain, and let Richard take my elbow. We walked to the front door, I stiffly, but once beyond it, I said to Richard, “Here. Let’s sit here on the porch. I am feeling a little queasy today.”

“Father is very angry with you right now, Hugh,” Richard said.

“Father hates me right now,” I replied. Richard took me by the shoulders and forced me to look into his eyes, sharp and grey like my own. “Father does not hate you. He has never hated you. I don’t think he has ever hated anyone. Hatred is not his way. He disapproves of some people and displays it by ignoring them. Others he pities. He does not pity you, Hugh. But he strongly disapproves of what you’ve been doing.”

My gaze dropped. Anger and remorse battled for my soul. Anger demanded revenge. Remorse demanded an apology. My soul fought back with memories. I pulled away from Richard and sat heavily on the porch steps, my face buried in my hands, elbows digging sharply into my knees.

“Hugh?”

“Leave me alone now, Richard.”

“But, Hugh....”

“No.”

I could not even bring myself to tell my brother I knew he was right, much less thank him. How could I thank him for assaulting me with the truth? This hurt. I sat staring into the backs of my eyelids, my knees hurting, my nose still throbbing. Thoughts of confronting my father raced through my head, visions of telling him how cruel he was, how he denied me the freedom to live a free man in a free country. In those thoughts, I could see my father turn purple with rage, then collapse in a soft, defeated mass. But I knew it would not happen that way. I had felt my father’s derision before. I had frozen before his icy stare. I knew that he would feel no remorse, but would set his rage aside long enough to invite me to go my own way, and never trouble him again. And I could not bear that, either.

And yet, the other alternative repulsed me equally. I could not apologize. For what should I apologize? My broken nose? That was my pain to bear, not his, not anyone else’s. If I owed anyone an apology, it was the sailor who hit me, for I must have said something to anger him. I could not remember what I said, but he had not robbed me, he had merely pummeled me, so I was sure he acted strictly out of anger. But I owed my father nothing, at least not an apology. How could I, who had gone bravely to sea and faced pirates and hurricanes, beg forgiveness of a man who sold fancy shirts to old men while his neighbors fell in battle to win their freedom from the English tyrants? I could not.

My thoughts drifted down the Delaware River, past the dark tree-lined banks, into the widening bay where the sandy beach was a narrow line dividing sea from sky, and then out onto the boundless ocean itself. I sat back and actually smiled as I remembered the calm days, with the smell of pine tar and salt, and the creaking of the hull as we rose and fell on the waves. The wind slapped the lines against the mast, and a sudden gathering of screaming gulls announced that the cook had thrown the waste of the last meal overboard.

I loved the ocean. I could not then have told you in words just why that was so, but it was. I understand now that I loved being in a place I was not meant to be, for the ocean is not for man, just as mountain tops are not for fish. To sail on the sea, to brave her fury in storms, to contend with other men who also did not belong there, that was what made me real. I knew who I was when I was out there, beyond the reach of my father’s rules, where men do what they must do, not because of rules, but because they know what they must do.

Richard had gone back inside. I wanted to find him and tell him how the ocean had liberated me, but I feared I would see my father as I walked through the house. I stood and walked down the steps, turned right and headed east toward the river. I had no immediate plan but to see the river and watch the water flow through the city, carrying its refuse away, adding it to the tree limbs and silt from the north and washing it all out to my beloved ocean. I just wanted to see it flow, to restore my faith that it does flow to that place where all boundaries end.

* * *

Well, as you know, I did find the ocean, and it was all those things, but I ended up going quite the wrong way, and I saw some wondrous things along the way. Some of those things were more boundless than the ocean, but drier. Others seemed as confining as a prison but had a way out for the choosing.

Within earshot of the docks, where the sounds of rigging snapping mingled with the sounds of longshoreman shouting and cursing, I spotted a handbill in a window inviting “Adventurers, and other men of courage” to inquire within. I stepped through the door and found a bearded old Army sergeant behind a desk. He looked at me with a bemused expression.

“May I help you?” he asked, his eyes taking in my still-swollen nose and the way I stood as though holding my aching ribs in place. I gestured with a half-turn back toward the window of the little office. “The handbill, sir. ‘Adventurers, men of courage....’”

“Yeah? Are you one?”

I drew myself up, sensing his skepticism. “I dare say so, sir. I have spent three years at sea and faced pirates and hurricanes. Yes, sir, I am a man of adventure and courage.” I wanted to tell him that the three years at sea had taken less courage than either facing my father or running away from my father, but I had a feeling that would not impress him much.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Hall. Hugh Hall. I would like an adventure just about now.”

“I’m Sergeant Driggs. Looks to me like you’ve had some adventures just recently,” he said, nodding toward my nose and grinning.

“Oh, yes,” I said, a little sheepishly. “A disagreement among friends.” I was finding it easy to lie to this man for some reason. The exaggeration about the pirates and hurricanes, and the nature of my combat the night before were not large lies, but I still felt a twinge of conscience. I convinced myself this man was not important enough for me to be completely truthful. I smiled.

His look turned serious for a moment. “Is that why you need an adventure just now, Mr. Hall? Or do you just need to leave town?”

I thought for a moment. “It’s not why I need to leave town. I miss the sea, Mr. Driggs. I miss adventuring. The city bores me.”

Driggs narrowed his lips and appraised me thoughtfully, then turned and sat back down behind his desk. He took a sheet of paper with some printing on it and began writing in some blank spaces as he talked. He was missing two fingers on his left hand.

“You won’t be going to the sea from this office, my friend, but you can get some adventure.”

\“Well? Tell me about it.”

“The Army is looking for men on the frontier,” he said. “Are you interested?”

Driggs looked up at me. I looked back and shrugged my shoulders. “Go on,” I said. “Where on the frontier?”

“Tennessee, on the outer edges of this American nation. The frontier needs courageous men, true men. Do you suppose you are such a man?”

I swallowed. “I dare say so, sir.”

Driggs looked me over again. “Very well,” he said, turning the paper he had been writing on toward me and gesturing to a blank spot on the bottom with a small “x.”

“Sign here.”

I looked at him questioningly.

“Go ahead,” he urged. I tried to read the paper, but the words were small. A few jumped out at me: soldier, service, country.

I touched the quill point to the paper and saw the ink spread as I hesitated briefly. And then I scrawled my name. The scratch of the pen on the parchment sounded as loud at that moment as the roar of a river through a cataract, although I didn’t know that yet.

Driggs smiled and took the paper back, then reached in his desk and pulled out an envelope. “Here is all you need for now,” he said. “Be here at dawn tomorrow. There is a stage going to Carlisle. In the envelope are your instructions for joining the detachment there that will go on to South West Point.”

“What?”

Driggs stood. “That’s where the army post is, Hall. In Tennessee.” He laughed and shook my hand. “You’d best be getting on, then. It will be a cold passage this time of year. Be here when the sun rises in the morning.”

I walked home slowly, contemplating what I had done, though I had no idea what it was. All I knew was I was leaving again. I needed to pack a small duffel and be back at the docks at dawn, and I was going to the edge of civilization. I was gripped at once by fear and excitement.

Neither my father nor my brothers were home when I got there. I gathered a few clothes and a Bible into the duffel. Then I sat down and wrote this letter:

I took that coward’s way out, leaving a note, rather than confronting him directly. I feared his derision and scorn. It did not occur to me then that he felt fear and rejection, but he never showed those feelings to me or anyone else. Nor, of course, could he ever display the envy he must have felt, the regret that he had never embarked on such an adventure himself. Whatever demons my father wrestled, he wrestled deep within. I went into this next adventure of mine safe from his feelings, and not entirely sure of mine.

I wanted to write a longer letter to Richard, but I did not want to be in the house when any of my family returned. So I left the letter to my father unsealed on the desk in his study. I took a few small, handsome volumes of poetry from the shelf and left the house. My stride was brisk. I held my head up, in spite of the ache still in my nose. Near Drigg’s little office I found a small sailor’s hotel, the kind seamen frequent when they are too soused to dare return to their ships. I got a room for the night for three cents. Another three cents bought me a pint of ale and meat pie in the smoky tavern adjacent the hotel.

For another three cents, I could have had the company of the finest woman in all of the eastern seaports, or so she said. The one pint of ale was not sufficient for me to see past the paint on her eyes and cheeks, nor enough for me to want to see past her dress to her abundant body.

I retired to my room after leaving instructions to be roused at 6 o’clock in the morning. I undressed and blew out the lone candle in my room and lay in the darkness on the dank mattress. Around me I heard the sounds of the night, heavy, unsteady footsteps in the hallway, women laughing, squealing in feigned delight, men grunting with drunken effort. It went on until after midnight, then gradually quieted down to the sounds of snoring, and occasional groaning.

I tried to focus my thoughts on what lay ahead, but I could not do it. Not because of the distractions of the moment, but because I could not even begin to imagine what lay ahead for me. I could not envision the lands I would be visiting, the long days and nights of boredom in that frontier fort, much less the hardships of cold and mosquitoes and soakings and hostile Indians that would haunt the succeeding years for me. Nor could I see the wonders of buffalo herds carpeting the earth, mountains shining in the morning sun, Indian women sharing their moist warmth under buffalo robes on the frozen plain. None of that existed yet even as an idea. I looked into the future and saw only a vast emptiness, a void. I had cast my fate with my signature on a piece of paper. The thought of reneging on that never once crossed my mind. In the absence of an alternative, I felt neither fear nor hope as I stared wide-eyed at the darkness. I felt only that I must go forward. My true destiny lay in that void, and I had to discover what my destiny was. I did not sleep all that night. I was wide awake when the knock came on the door.

“Six o’clock, Mr. Hall,” said the scratchy voice.

“Thank you, sir,” I replied. “I’ll be on my way now."

CHAPTER II

“A SCRAPE WITH INDIANS”

I dressed and made my way to Driggs’s office, where I joined three cocky boys for a two-day ride to Carlisle. I balled up in the wagon, trying to stay warm, paying little attention to the country we rode through. I was on my way to adventure on the frontier, but I couldn’t drag my thoughts along. I could see father and brothers sipping port in the dining room after a full meal of roast beef and potatoes, served by silent attentive black servants. What would they talk about now? I imagined the first night they would argue, father damning me from the family, Richard defending me, but carefully, Georgie sitting silently but smugly, smiling at my father’s sharp bites. Over time, I expected, they would become more reflective, realizing they had no idea where I was, perhaps worrying a little, even my father. I considered posting a letter from Carlisle, telling them more, but I did not know much more myself. I knew only that I was trying to make my way to an army post on the frontier. What could I tell my father? Besides, I rather enjoyed imagining my father’s face dark with worry. I thought I would leave it that way for a time. I could write when I knew more about my own destination. I laughed softly.

“And just what is my destination?” I wondered. There was no answer.

I learned soon enough. As soon as I stepped from the stage in Carlisle, I handed the papers Driggs had given me to a scar-faced sergeant who spat in the dust and said, “Back there.”

I followed the gesture of his head and found myself in a dusty room filled with shelves. A corporal handed me a blanket and some clothes and directed me to the mess hall. That night, I ate Army food for the first time, a stew of some indeterminate game, with lots of greasy gravy and biscuits that shattered like glass when you broke them. Another private saw me do that and laughed. I looked at his plate and discovered how to soften the biscuits by pouring the gravy over them and letting them soak.

“Problem is,”said the private, “by the time the biscuits are soft enough, the gravy’s too cold to eat.” Then he laughed again and put a forkful of the mess into his mouth.

“Where you headed?” the private asked.

“Tennessee, I believe,” I said. “How did you know I was headed somewhere?”

“Cause we’re full here. The only recruits who come here nowadays are headed for the frontier. We just outfit ‘em and send ‘em on.” He shrugged. “I envy ‘em, those ones going west.”

“Couldn’t you go, if you wanted?”

“I reckon I could,” said the private, “But as much as I envy ‘em, I kinda like Carlisle here, too.”

I was trying to imagine why when he leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, “There’s money to be made here if you know how. Some folks passin’ through to Pittsburgh and beyond have nice little bags of coin with ‘em, and they see the ladies in the taverns and it’s easy to convince ‘em they’re the last white ladies they’ll see for a while. I act as a sort of agent, if you know what I mean.”

He winked. “What about you, soldier? You fancy a little affection before you start down the river?”

I smiled and shook my head. “First day in the Army,” I said. “I think I should stay at my post.”

“As you wish,” he said. “But after you’ve been out among them Injun women for a while, you’ll be glad to get back here to these lovely, pink-fleshed gals.” He laughed loud, then suddenly rose and carried away his tin plate to wash in the barrel provided for the purpose.

I ate what I could of the horrid food in front of me, then washed my plate and fork and went to the barracks to turn in early. But that was not so easily done, either. The barracks was filled with men playing cards, rolling dice, cleaning gear and smoking pipes and spitting tobacco. I never acquired the tobacco habit. We had not even had a spittoon in the house in Philadelphia. Most of the sailors I knew did not use the stuff, maybe because it was just too hard to come by at sea. But soldiers, I now discovered, and found throughout the next 8 years, either smoked or chewed tobacco like beavers chew trees. One soldier told me he took it up to kill the taste of Army food. Not even that could drive me to it. To this day, I have not put a plug in my mouth.

The lanterns burned brightly, and the laughter and shouting were too loud to allow me to sleep, so I lay on a hard bunk and tried to let the indistiguishable buzz of conversations drive thoughts from my head. I did not want to think. I did not know what to think. I knew I did not want to think of my father and my home. Later I would see boys who were so homesick they would curl up in sad little balls like a possum and cry, and you couldn’t move them. Those were mostly the younger fellows, barely taken from their mother’s bosom, it seemed. I was 26, an old man for a recruit. I felt odd among those youngsters, so I didn’t say much, and they must have been a little scared of me, because they didn’t say much to me either. That’s how it went for the next eight years, in fact. I had a few friends, like Will, on the great voyage to the western ocean, but mostly I just kept to myself and watched. It was a little like squirrel hunting. The less people notice you, the better you can observe them.

Finally, a bugle blew, and the boys in the barracks started putting away the cards and the dice. The laughter and shouting grew louder for a few minutes, and then the bugle blew again, a long mournful tune, and the voices hushed as lanterns were blown out and young bodies rustled their way under blankets. I heard a few light whispers and some muffled laughter, but next thing I knew a bugle was sounding again and the sergeant who had welcomed me the day before was stomping through the barracks kicking the beds of the boys who were still in them, such as me.

“Git yer arses out o’ those beds, ye bunch o’ women,” he shouted. “If we’d had soldiers like you back in ‘76, we’d still be drinkin’ British rum. Move it, damn ye! Out! Now!” I was too scared to do otherwise. Even at sea I’d never had a rousting like that. I stumbled to my feet and pulled on my britches.

“Fall out!” someone yelled. I had no idea what that meant, but I was busy pulling on my boots. Everyone else was running for the door, so I leaped up and followed them, still buttoning my jacket. Outside, men were lining up in an orderly fashion, so I joined their ranks and stood still and stiff like them.

Soon, a handsome young man in a brightly trimmed uniform stepped in front of us and began talking. He seemed younger than I, but he was obviously an officer, a lieutenant, as it turned out. He spoke in more genteel terms than our sergeant, who stood by his side glowering at us.

“Today’s detail will be firewood,” the lieutenant announced. “First squad will take wagons and axes to the north here in Mr. Penn’s woods and fell eight good oaks and haul them back here. Second squad will cut and split the wood that has already been gathered.”

I heard a low groan on my left. The soldier who had befriended me was grimacing. Wood duty must be onerous business, I thought, and I was just starting to wonder which squad I belonged to, when the lieutenant said, “Private Hall, Private Hargrove, Private McClintock and Private Cobb report to me immediately after this formation. Fall out!”

Everyone started walking in the general direction of the mess hall. I went to the lieutenant, who handed me some papers to sign. Everything seemed in order except they said my home was Carlisle. I started to ask him to change it to Philadelphia, but that seemed silly. What did it matter where I was from? It didn’t occur to me that if I were to die, nobody would know where to look for my family to tell them. I don’t think I cared. I wanted to go to the frontier and not look back. I wished I could so easily escape my haunting thoughts.

We departed the next day for Pittsburgh, where we boarded an army keel boat going down the Ohio River. My companions were a morose lot, none of them above age 19. I tried to tell them sea stories for amusement at night, but they were uninterested. This was their first real adventure, and they weren’t sure what to make of it. My tales of hurricanes and pirates meant nothing to them. They were concerned with bears and Indians, after all. So I just didn’t say much after the first few days. I hoped for better companions at our destination.

After three weeks, we reached the mouth of the Cumberland River and disembarked. A hard- edged corporal took us from there, marching us south, up the river. We walked for a week before we reached our final destination, the Army post called South West Point, which was my home for the next five years.

Our job at South West Point was to protect American settlers. Even though the U.S. claimed all the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi, and even though we were located in the state of Tennessee, we were in the wilderness, surrounded by Cherokees whose friendliness to us depended on how hungry they were. Part of our job was to keep the peace with them and to protect the white settlers who were coming west and planting their farms in those woods.

Being a soldier there was more like being a farmer. We didn’t do much fighting, which was what soldiering was supposed to be.The sergeants who had been at the fort for a few years remembers some bloody Indian battles a few years earilier. Our commander, Major Macrae, said soldiering isn’t only for fighting, but for being prepared to fight, and that way we would avoid fighting. I hadn’t signed on for that. For the first year or so in Tennessee, I was pretty unhappy, I carried an axe more than I carried a musket, and when I did carry a musket, it was for shooting rabbits, not Indians.

Then, one November day in 1799, almost a year after I had stepped off that boat on the Ohio River, I got to be a soldier. One of the settlers we were trying to protect, named Murphy, was making our job pretty difficult. He had carved himself out a nice little farm, cutting the timber and pulling stumps with mules and gradually getting corn and oats in his fields. Murphy wasn’t satisfied with that. A lot of the settlers who came through that country had farmed further east for a few years until the land gave out, then moved west. But beyond us, there was just Indian land, then the Mississippi River, and then it was France or Spain. So settlers like Murphy had reached the end of the world, and even though he might have wanted to keep on going, he didn’t want to have to fight against French or Spanish soldiers. Indians were another matter. As far as Murphy was concerned, the Indians were on land he had a right to. In fact, by treaty with the U.S., their hunting grounds were right adjacent to Murphy’s farm. He thought we army boys were there to help him get the Indians off that land.

As Major Macrae saw it, that wasn’t the case. We were supposed to keep peace among the Indians and the settlers, not run the Indians off their land so the settlers could have it. More and more settlers were coming all the time, though, so eventually, it seemed, the Indians would have to go. Murphy was determined to make it happen sooner. He wanted the land next to his before any more white settlers claimed it. Murphy knew that Macrae wouldn’t just go out with soldiers and make the Indians leave. But he did know that if the Indians ever bothered him, we soldiers would be there with our muskets to defend his land and his life.

We were splitting wood to store up for the winter when we heard hollering outside the fort. Jacob Murphy, a boy of about 8 years, came running up yelling that Indians were attacking the farm and we had to come quick. Major Macrae ran out to meet him. The boy was wearing just a linen shirt and breeches, no coat at all, even though it was a shivery cold, grey-sky day. Breathlessly, he told the major he had escaped to the woods when the first arrow crashed through the cabin window.He showed the major a broken arrow he had brought with him.

Macrae was skeptical of anything having to do with Murphy. He knew Murphy had lied to get army help in the past. The Indians knew what was at stake for them. They wanted no trouble. But a broken arrow and a half-dressed frightened boy seemed like evidence of trouble, and the Captain knew he had to look into it. He ordered Sergeant Fitch to gather a few men and head for the Murphy place. Well, the first five Fitch laid eyes on were me and four others splitting hickory logs. We all grabbed our muskets and balls and powder horns before he could even ask us. At last, a chance to be soldiers!

Murphy’s cabin was a half-mile from the fort, so it didn’t take us long to get there on the run, and we could see right away that there was indeed some trouble. Three Indians were running through Murphy’s field with torches, setting fire to his cocked hay. Murphy and one of his boys were on the porch of the cabin with muskets, barricaded behind their woodpile, shooting at the Indians without much success. Fitch halted us so we could take stock of the situation. We could see a few arrows stuck in the walls of the cabin, and as we watched, we saw a small barrage of arrows fly from the woods opposite us and stick in the logs.

Sergeant Fitch watched for a minute or two, then said to us, “Okay, boys, let’s see if we can put a stop to this.” With that he stood up and fired his musket into the air to let everyone know he was there. I guess his intent was to make everyone quiet down and settle it all peacefully. He raised his arms and seemed about to make a speech, but he never uttered a word. An arrow pierced his chest and went clear through. He gurgled slightly and fell like a statue flat on his face.

For a brief moment, the whole scene was frozen still as soldiers and settlers and Indians came to understand what had just happened. And then all hell broke loose. The arrow that killed Fitch had come from our left, where we hadn’t seen any Indians. Evidently, Murphy and his boys didn’t know they were there, either, because they found themselves perfectly exposed to the Indians there, who immediately rained arrows on them. Murphy got off one shot, but his boy caught an arrow in the leg and fell to the porch floor, crying out in pain. Murphy knelt beside him, then crawled back into the cabin, dragging the screaming boy with him. We could hear Murphy’s wife wailing inside.

Then we heard another yell, and a series of yells, as Indians burst from the woods on both sides and ran for the cabin, waving tomahawks. The Indians in the fields with torches took up the battle cry and also dashed for the house, and we soldiers suddenly realized we were about to witness a massacre unless we did something. Luck was with us. Apparently, when the Indians shot Fitch, they didn’t stop to wonder if he was alone. Nobody came looking for us. Our muskets were already loaded, so we just knelt beside trees, aimed and fired, almost at once. Two Indians fell in their tracks, and the others stopped and turned, spotting us by the cloud of blue smoke. We reloaded quickly behind the trees. One of the Indians had turned around and was running toward us, swinging his hatchet and screaming like a cat in heat. John Griswald managed to bring him down with one shot, and the rest of us saved our ammunition. A couple of arrows whizzed in and stuck in the trees above us. The smoke had kept the Indians from seeing us clearly.

We were just starting to take aim again when two shots erupted from within the cabin, and one of the Indians with a torch fell, writhing. The torch lit the dry grass stubble around him, which burst into flames. We heard him scream from within the fire for what seemed like hours, and then he was silent as the fire spread. The Indians who were still standing ran for the woods and vanished before anyone could get off another shot. Murphy’s field burned rapidly and filled the air with smoke. Nobody moved. My body was numb, but I was shaking with fear and anger and disbelief. I had just watched one man burn to death and another die with an arrow through his chest. I didn’t know the fate of the three Indians who had fallen to our volley.

“So this is soldiering,” I thought. I stepped out of the woods and knelt by Fitch’s body. His skin was already gray and cold, and he was still as a rock. There was not much blood. The arrow must have silenced his heart instantly. The other boys joined me, and and we walked slowly toward the cabin. The Indians we had shot were lying between us and Murphy’s family. We came up slowly behind them. All were alive, two shot through the leg, the other in the shoulder. They looked at us with fear, blood oozing from their wounds. We disarmed them, and Griswald stayed and bandaged them as the rest of us went to the cabin. Murphy greeted us at the door, his face purple with rage.

“About time, you bunch of lily-livered cowards!” he roared. I wanted to shoot him down. A good soldier had just died defending Murphy and his family, and he was calling us cowards! Private Samuel Randolph looked at the arrow wound on the boy’s leg but found that Murphy’s wife already had done what could be done. The point had pierced the large part of the boy’s thigh on the outside and gone through. The woman had bravely broken the arrow and pulled it through, then bandaged and poulticed the wound.

“Is anyone else in here hurt?” I asked. The woman shook her head. Streaks of dried tears ran down her face, but she was past crying. Two more small children peered out from behind an overturned table. She beckoned them out, two girls, and wrapped them in her apron. Her eyes met mine and said “Thank you,” but her voice stayed silent.

I don't know what made me think I should give orders, but I sent one of the boys back to the fort to fetch the captain, then walked out into the still smouldering field. The fire had died when it reached the woods. Smoke rose in wisps. I could see the Indian’s body, charred black and still smoking. I came close enough to see that he was lying on his back, his flesh red and black and oozing. The stench was awful. But it was the face that got me. The burned lips curled back from his teeth, the eyes were hollow shells. He was no more than a blackened skull, grinning at me as though those who died, not the living, had won this battle. I fell to my knees and retched violently, tears streaming down my face.

I heard shouting behind me and turned to see Murphy dashing out into the field where Griswald was tending the wounded Indians. Murphy had a big knife and was running fast, and Harper and Stiles were chasing him, doing the shouting. Griswald heard the commotion and stood up, grabbing his musket. The Indians began crawling away, looking terrified. I didn’t know what Griswald thought he could do. He had not had time to re-load, and Murphy was not going to be deterred from taking those Indians’ scalps. Harper and Stiles were not gaining any ground on him, either. Griswald knew he didn’t have a chance, and he probably didn’t feel too good about having to protect a couple of red men from a white settler.

Just then, we heard the sound of hooves and Major Macrae burst from the woods on horseback, brandishing his sword.

“Halt!” he cried. Murphy halted, but stood clutching his knife. Harper and Stiles were immediately at his side, looking at the captain for their orders. The captain swung down from the horse and strode over to Murphy.

“It’s over, Mr. Murphy. Let us take care of things now,” he said quietly.

“Take care of things, Major?” Murphy spat back. “Is this what you mean by take care of things?” he asked, sweeping his hand to take in the burned field and the arrows stuck in his cabin walls. “I thought the Army was supposed to take care of things by protecting me from murderous savages like these. I got a boy in the house with an arrow in his leg, my family is scared half to death, my field is burned. I don’t need your god damned army taking care of things!”

The major told Stiles and Harper to take the wounded Indians back to the fort for questioning.

“Let’s take a look at your boy, Mr. Murphy,” he said, striding directly to the house, waving Griswald and me to come with him. Inside, Mrs. Murphy offered us tea while the captain looked at the wounded leg and admired the woman’s good work. “I’ll send our surgeon out to have a look at this, but I think you’ve done well here, Ma’am,” he said. He stood and walked outside, looking at the arrows that had stuck in the walls.

“What happened here, Murphy?”

Murphy sputtered, saying the Indians had just attacked him, appeared at the edge of the woods raining arrows on him, then setting fire to his field.

The major stared at Murphy. Indian attacks for no reason were pretty rare in those parts. The Cherokee had lost too much land already, and they didn’t want to give the whites any reason to take more.

“We’ll talk with the chief and see what happened, Murphy. I lost a good sergeant out there in your field. I want to know why. It’s not like these Indians to go attacking settlers for no reason.”

“Talk with the chief? That lying bastard? Look, Major, if you won’t do what’s right here, I will. I will go myself and burn those Indians out and hang ‘em with my own hands...”

Macrae suddenly took a step toward Murphy, snapping his riding whip against his own hand.

“You’ll stay right here on your farm and tend to your family, Murphy. A soldier is dead. That makes this an Army matter, and the Army will take care of it. We are the Army, you are a farmer. We’ll soldier. You farm.”

The major wheeled and began walking back to the fort, his horse having transported the Indian with the leg wound. He turned to Griswald and me and ordered us to remove the burned Indian’s body from the field and guard it until the Indians could come claim it. Then he was gone. We did as he said, pausing to retch several times until we reached the woods with the charred corpse. Then we sat facing the farm house, our muskets loaded, watching Murphy, the body behind us. After about an hour two Indian braves appeared silently and claimed the body. Murphy stood in his doorway, glaring, but he respected our guns enough to make no trouble. Once the Indians were safely away, we slipped into the woods ourselves, found the trail back to the fort and hurried there.

It seemed like Judgment Day was at hand. All sorts of Indians were outside the fort, looking angry and buzzing like bees. The full guard was on the fort walls, muskets ready, watching the Indians. We felt the hot glare of anger as we passed through the Indians and entered the fort.

Inside, the major was already meeting with the chief. They knew each other well, and had met often in peace. Never had they had to discuss the shedding of blood, white or Indian. When it was over, the Cherokees agreed to honor a buffer around Murphy’s farm. They agreed that each side had lost an equal number of men, and the Captain agreed to seek no retribution for the death of Sergeant Fitch.

We heard later, unofficially, that Murphy had killed a deer on Indian land the day before. He hadn’t done it by accident, nor had he done it for meat. He just shot the deer and left it there. Shooting Indian deer violated the agreements we had with the Cherokees, and Murphy knew it. Problem was, nobody ever could prove it. Murphy, of course, denied it. No white soldiers ever saw the carcass, but it was probably eaten and scattered by coyotes and bobcats. Knowing Murphy, though, I believe the Indians’ story, even now. I believe he shot that deer so the Indians would try to get revenge. He was willing to risk his own childrens’ lives so he could claim they had attacked him.

The major believed he had done the right thing by making a sort of no-man’s-land around the farm. For the time being, it probably was the right thing. But Murphy had gotten what he wanted out of it. The Indians would never get to claim that land again. Sure enough, before the next summer was out, Murphy started to clear the trees from the buffer. By the time I left South West Point to join Captain Lewis, Murphy’s farm had doubled in size.

The night of the battle of Murphy’s field, I sat by candlelight and wrote in a wavering hand to my brother Richard.

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