Gilbert, King of the Americans

Prologue

Here’s an excerpt from one of my works in progress. The title, Gilbert, King of the Americans, is a working title and might change by the time the work is finished.

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Near Springfield, Massachusetts

January 26, 1787

What sleep Hezekiah Root had been able to get the night before had been light and restless. He welcomed the icy, gray dawn only so far as it meant a chance to get on the move and do what he was there to do. He pulled a tiny, tin cup from his pack and shuffled over to the nearby fire where several men were warming their hands and tending a kettle. Hezekiah grunted his salutations and was greeted with several grunts in return.

“Today’s the day?” he asked no one in particular. “What’s in the kettle there?” he added before receiving an answer to his first question.

“You know right well it ain’t proper coffee,” said the black-bearded man hunched over the kettle. “But I expect it’s hot enough now.”

Hezekiah held his cup out to the man and watched as the steamy beverage trickled out. The man had arrived only days before and during the march there had been no time to exchange such formalities as names.

“Today had better be the day,” said one of the other men in between sips.

Another man—Hezekiah knew him only as Gainesborough—chimed in: “For my part I’d like to know why we didn’t move yesterday. I heard from one of the sentries that Shays’ men were in place and ready to move.”

“Aye, that they were,” added the black-bearded man as he drained the last drops from the kettle into his own cup. “But as I was coming back from the watch this morning I overheard some talk at Colonel Parsons’ tent.”

Hezekiah leaned closer in spite of himself as the man looked around and lowered his voice.

“We were ‘sposed to march on the armory yesterday. And we would have too, but a letter came from Luke Day’s men saying he couldn’t be ready until today.”

“But why?” Hezekiah asked.

The man raised one of his dark, bushy eyebrows at the question. “They didn’t say and I wasn’t going to tarry long enough to ask.”

Discipline in the ranks of the Regulators, such as it was, could swing wildly from comparative laxity to excessive rigor. None of them would fault one of their fellows for carrying out his duties in haste.

Hezekiah finished the last of his drink which, even in that short time, had grown cold. Just as he shoved the cup back in its place, the call went out to form a line for march. A few minutes later he found himself formed up with his messmates and ready to break camp. They also had their instructions: they would march on the armory, drive off the militia, and requisition the materials. As a group they were, by and large, little more than an assembly of lowly farmers, made more lowly still by the debts that hung over their heads. Unlike Hezekiah, many had answered the summons of Daniel Shays, Eli Parsons, and Luke Day, without even having a musket to grab from the mantle as they left their beloved homes. Taking the armory would change all that.

The merchants and judges and Bostonian elites who would push Hezekiah Root and his companions to the brink of bankruptcy and starvation would still be abed, he thought, as he slung his weapon over his shoulder. He hardly noticed the knee-deep snow as they started to slog forward, so consumed were his thoughts by the prospect that, perhaps, after the day was over, his oppressors would sleep no more restfully than he had the night before.

Their column arrived at the armory by mid-morning and joined up with Shays’ men. Luke Day, it seemed, was still nowhere to be found. That, however, would not matter much, Hezekiah thought, since they outnumbered the gathered militiamen who guarded the armory by something like two to one, if his eyes did not deceive him.

Hezekiah found himself near the back of the line that stood on the road that led up a gentle rise to the armory. It seemed that some kind of words were being exchanged near the front, but the wind that had begun to whip across the square banished all hope of hearing them. Fortunately, because fighting men were prone to curiosity about such things, the words were passing down the line. A few rows in front of him, the black-bearded man recounted the exchange of words.

“It’s William Shepard and his Hampshire County men.”

Hezekiah knew the name well. Shepard had been involved with attempts to quell Shays and the Regulators almost from the first. Whether he could prevail against superior numbers remained to be seen.

The black-bearded man drew hearty laughter when he relayed that, “Shepard orders us to disperse.”

“No! We’ll shelter in that armory tonight or meet Shepard himself in eternity,” came a shout from somewhere behind Hezekiah.

“Aye, that’s what Shays and Parsons said too,” the black-bearded man said after the murmurs of assent died down. “Shepard threatens us with the cannons.”

He ought to have expected there would be cannons at the armory, Hezekiah thought. Nevertheless, he could not imagine that Shepard would fire upon them at all, let alone with artillery. Such also seemed to be the general consensus up and down the column: as soon as the Regulators marched on the armory then the militia, not wanting to redden the ground with the blood of their countrymen, would abandon their positions. No honest man could do otherwise, Hezekiah assured himself.

Slowly, but surely, the Regulators started forward. At first Hezekiah could do no more than mark time. There was no room for them to form up into a line of battle, forcing them to proceed in a column that was a mere eight men abreast. It was slow going, but the men’s spirits were high.

Just as the wave of forward movement reached Hezekiah’s line he heard cannon shots ring out. How many it had been he was not sure, but he heard the shots fly over his head. Too many shots, it seemed. Though he had never been under cannon fire before he was sure it must have been grapeshot—the dreaded means of turning field artillery into a giant fowling piece that could tear holes right through a line of infantry. A second volley moments later screamed past him, yet its only effect appeared to be to strengthen the resolve of his compatriots. They quickened their pace, closing the distance between themselves and the armory. The militia would run; they had to.

Rather than run, however, the militiamen manning the cannons lowered their sights. The next volley tore through the Regulators’ lines with murderous effect. Hezekiah looked to one side and then the other, finding uncertain looks on the men’s faces. They stepped over one man who had fallen to the ground, but pressed forward in spite of the carnage.

A second round from the cannons proved to be more than many Regulators could take. Hezekiah found himself blocked by the men in front of him, seemingly paralyzed while their bodies decided whether to stop or flee. He pushed through the line and saw the man from the fire earlier that morning, whose thick, black beard had been displaced by a bloody, pulpy mess.

“Murder! Murder!” the cry rose up from the Regulators. Then the tide began to shift as men threw down whatever weapons they had been carrying and started to run.

Hezekiah balked. To run away at that decisive moment might mean the end of everything these men had been fighting for, let alone a shameful moment of his own that he was not sure he could live down. He looked around for Colonel Parsons, but could not find him either urging his men onward or calling a retreat.

Before Hezekiah had a chance to cry out, however, shouts reverberated from across the field. He swung his head around in the direction of the sound, expecting to see the militiamen jeering at their opponents’ cowardly retreat. What he saw instead was no less than the body of Luke Day’s forces, arriving at last to the fight.

They formed a line of battle to the west of the armory, men armed with muskets forming the center of the front rank. Hezekiah saw them take aim and watched as the cannoneers scramble to turn their guns about. But it was to no avail. A cloud of smoke went up from the line and several of the militiamen fell. Over the echoes of that volley, Hezekiah thought he heard Shepard trying to give commands to his militiamen. A man brushed past him on the left and he turned to see that it was Daniel Shays himself.

“Forward, men! Courage! Capture the armory and your brothers will not have died in vain!”

“Form a line!” came a cry from Parson and Hezekiah fell in next to several other men armed with muskets.

They plodded toward the armory as the militiamen scrambled in confusion. Whether Luke Day had intended a surprise attack or had merely been tardy Hezekiah would never know, but it mattered not. A hastily-formed line of Hampshire County militiamen got off one volley, but the Regulators held their fire, filled gaps in their own line, and kept going. They halted close enough to see the hot, frantic breath of the militiamen condense in the air, the red cheeks and noses that had been cracked by the brutal cold.

“Take aim!” came the command. A moment later, all but a bellowing “F—” was drowned out by a perfectly-timed volley. The cannon crew nearest Hezekiah took several hits. Those men that did not fall, emptied their hands and fled in great haste.

Though he never remembered anyone giving such a command, the Regulators roared and charged forward. Their blood was at a boil and random shots rang out as the men engaged in hand-to-hand fighting, their lack of drilling offset by the fuel of fiery rage. The fighting went on for what felt to Hezekiah like hours, though he knew it could not have been more than a few minutes.

He leaned against the barrel of the cannon that he had helped to capture and realized that it was over. William Shepard and the Hampshire County men had fled, leaving all the stores of the armory to be plundered. The Regulators had won the day.

***

General Orders

Headquarters, Braintree

July 12, 1787

At a Division General Court martial, whereof Colonel Shepard was President the 26th of June last, held by order of Major General Lincoln: Hezekiah Root, Benjamin Wrenn, Nicholas Adams, and Anthony Thompson, lately of the Eli Parsons band of the said Regulators, were duly tried and found guilty of sedition, insurrection, and high treason against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Commander in Chief confirms the opinion of the Court that the guilt of the accused was proven beyond reasonable doubt and likewise confirms the sentence of execution which is ordered to be carried out forthwith.

General George Washington

Commander in Chief of the combined militias of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the several states