Chapter 3. The Siege of Fort Cumberland

Just in his “teens,” an unsuspecting Timothy Woodworth awoke from a tranquil adolescent slumber to a Seventeen Seventies world on fire. The Boston Tea Party had sparked a growing ember in the hearts of not only the American patriots in Massachusetts and the other thirteen colonies but also in the hearts of a large number of New England Planters, who had settled in Nova Scotia in the 1760s. In only three years, the ember blazed into so fiery a fury that attackers and defenders at Fort Cumberland, many of whom lived close to each other and belonged to the same Congregational Churches, divided in sympathies about the American Revolution and fought each other in a brief bitter civil war on the Tantramar Peninsula.

On September, 1774, the British Governor at Halifax, Francis Legge, observed “that suspicious political meetings, assemblies, and activities were starting to be held for various purposes contrary to the public good of Nova Scotia.” 1 The same type of committees of correspondence and safety that united the thirteen colonies were also starting to pop up throughout the Canadien peninsula. The American Revolution erupted at Lexington and Concord on April 19,1775. The following summer, Nova Scotian locals held their own tea party, burning hay on the Halifax docks before it could be loaded onto transport ships heading to support British troops In Boston. Local patriots such as Jonathan Eddy, John Allan, Samuel Rogers, and Josiah Throop organized a network of radicals in several districts of the province and were communicating with the American military, the Massachusetts Legislature, and the Continental Congress. Political dissent flourished against the British across Nova Scotia on several local issues. 2

Not all of the New England Planters in the province tried to stamp out the flames of opposition to British rule. From the pulpits, several influential clergymen preached against the rebellion. After Lexington and Concord, Nova Scotian merchants rushed supplies to the

British garrison in Boston and then prayed for the protection of the British Navy docked at Halifax, when in retaliation, the American colonies’ armed rebel privateers stormed, pillaged, and plundered their thriving Bay of Fundy trading posts. Farmers, who “went down dirt poor” to Nova Scotia in the 1760s, struggled to learn how to develop enough bread to support their country in the 1770s and after they mastered the technology, planned to grow a vast amount of wheat for export were upset when their plans for prosperity were dashed in 1776 with the.Siege of Fort Cumberland and a short uprising in the Cumberland Valley. 3 In November, 1775, when the Continental Army was mobilizing at the mouth of the Kennebec River before marching to Quebec, and Nova Scotia lay open to attack, over seven hundred notable inhabitants of Halifax, Kings and Annapolis Counties signed an oath of allegiance to the King George III, and many of the signers’ sons enlisted in the Royal Emigrants and Royal Fencible Americans and fought against the Continental Army in the siege of Boston and the defense of Quebec.

Back in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, the eighteen year old, Timothy Woodworth found himself caught between a rock and a hard place. His father urged him to join local patriots pushing for revolt. His seventy-six year old grandfather back in Connecticut, sent him letters, filling his head with sad tales about the woes of living under British rule. Stirring his patriotic feelings, the First Continental Congress declared the colonies’ independence in July, 1776, and beckoned Nova Scotia to join them in a new thirteen united colonies. Family members constantly raved about his young uncle, Jedediah Woodworth’s brave exploits at Breed’s Hill in the Battle of Bunker Hill and unbelievable bravery in the British slaughter of the First Connecticut Regiment at the Battle of Brooklyn. 4 Soon to be a major of the rebel troops at Ft. Cumberland, a friend of his father’s and destined to be his brother - in - law too, Josiah Throop, tried to coax him into going to clandestine rebel meetings. His minister at the Cornwallis Congregational Church, the Reverend Benaiah Phelps openly supported the sanctity of the American Revolution. 5

But Timothy’s own brother took the opposite side. Courting a young lady, whose family was thriving under British rule, William Jr. could hardly speak out against the British. Often accompanying his lady to the Reverend Henry Alline’s countryside revivals, he was brainwashed by the roving minister’s bellowing condemnation of the patriots ’idealism, “The American Revolution is an infallible sign of a coming catastrophe, and an inevitable result of human sin. The American Revolution, “ he continued, ”should not be Interpreted as a righteous cause on whose success a new society should rest.” 6 Anxious to please his future in - laws, William became an avowed Tory and stood tall against the American Revolution. He did not talk about his convictions, but day in and day out, as they worked together on the family farm, Timothy had to listen to his brother urging him to take up his way of thinking.

Better organized by the Autumn of 1775, Nova Scotia’s patriot leaders started making formal contact with New England. .During the blockade of Boston Harbor, Jonathan Eddy, Isaiah Boudreau, and Samuel Rogers met with George Washington to request his support for sending an army to liberate Nova Scotia, but the general, expressing a concern that the Continental Army invading a colony not already in rebellion would make the Americans the aggressors, ignored their request 7 The Nova Scotia patriot rebels would have to attack the British with their own army and local support.

In August, 1776 Eddy turned to the Massachusetts state government for help. He proposed to the state’s representatives that they send an army to liberate Nova Scotia. The powers to be rejected his proposal for the offensive, but promised to provide supplies and ammunition to any force Eddy was able to raise. With that promise of help in mind, and anxious to get a rebellion started, Col. Jonathan Eddy started recruiting his army in Maine and the St. John River Valley in October, 1776.

Hearing from his father that Eddy was signing up recruits at Machias (Maine) and now more than ever, enamored with a romanticism for a united colonies, which included an independent Nova Scotia, Timothy caught a ride on a fishing sloop across the ice cold waters of the Bay of Fundy to Machias and enlisted in the rebel army.. A month later, the youngster marched with a one hundred eighty man rag tag regiment to take on the British in a Siege of Ft. Cumberland.

According to one of his affidavits in his Revolutionary War military records,” Timothy “served eighteen days in Captain John Scott’s detachment, which was raised at Machias to reenforce troops under Colonel Jonathan Eddy, who were engaged in operations against the British garrison stationed at Ft. Cumberland.” 8. However, filing that affidavit forty years after his enlistment, he erroneously reported that the dates of his enlistment were from December 4, 1776 to December 22, 1776, instead of the actual dates of the siege of Ft. Cumberland, which were from November 10, 1776 to November 28, 1776.

In his excellent work, “The Siege of Fort Cumberland, 1776,” Ernest Clarke named thirty - nine of the fifty -six men that Jonathan Eddy recruited in Machias and the St. John River Valley from October 13 - 16, 1776. 9 While Timothy was not specifically named, based on his own testimony about his enlistment in Machias and his father’s residency later in the St. John River Valley, it is highly likely he was one of the seventeen unnamed recruits from Machias or the St. John River Valley that Clarke could not name.

There is also a record of Timothy’s discharge from the Continental Army on December 21, 1776. 10 The actual siege of Ft. Cumberland came to an end on November 28, 1776, when on

Jonathan Eddy with about sixty of his followers escaped from the British army and fled from irate Nova Scotia loyalists to the St. John River Valley, Maine, Massachusetts, and, in Timothy’s case, his grandfather Jedediah Woodworth’s home in Lebanon Crank, Connecticut.

The defeated rebel army was not the only remnant of Nova Scotia folks to suffer. The victorious British loyalists were out to avenge all of the American patriots who supported the plot to overthrow the British. They were burning farms, tar and feathering neighbors and intent on getting an eye for an eye. Any Nova Scotian involved with a local Committee of Safety, closely associated with a patriots’ ringleader and other Cornwallis partisans, or having

a son or father, who was an enemy soldier in the Ft. Cumberland conflict, had to run for their lives. 11

Timothy’s father William was one of the many rebels earmarked for Tories’ revenge. Sometime, before July, 1779, castigated by Nova Scotia loyalists after the siege of Ft. Cumberland, for his and his son’s support of the American cause, he fled his Cornwallis family farm of the past seventeen years for a lowly log house on six cleared acres in the St.John River Valley. In the Studholm Report of June, 1783, he was listed as living with a wife and three children in Township of Newtown the past four years. 12 While Timothy, Alexander, and his older brother William were living on their own by the time of this report, younger brothers, Leonard and Branch, who were twenty and eighteen years old respectively, were probably still living with their father, who had remarried and had a wife and younger child also reported in the household. 13

William chose to resettle in the St. John River Valley because he could get free land in an area that was considered a safe haven for the American rebels. In the 1770s, many New England Planters had flocked to the St. John River Valley where they could acquire land, where they could live far away from the British rule in Halifax, and also freely support the American Revolution. They established a Committee of Safety in 1775 and later took up arms against the British in attacks at Ft. Beauscour and Ft. Cumberland and retreated back there when defeat drove them into hiding. The area was widely considered by many a safe retreat for escaping patriots and Rebel soldiers. 14

Three other Cornwallis residents: Samuel Bill, Jehiel Rust, and Jonathan Rockwell

also gave up their farms to settle in small cabins on ten acres or less of cleared land in Newtown about the same time as William. Those same family heads were later listed as William’s neighbors in Sunbury New Brunswick Land Record Abstacts of 1785. Leaving Cornwallis about the same time to settle in the St. John Valley as William, they too were probably involved in supporting the American patriots, and consequently, fleeing from the British Army and Nova Scotian’s wrath after the siege of Fort Cumberland. They may also

have had family ties through marriage between them which also motivated the families moving to the same location. 15

William and his five maturing sons, William Jr., Timothy, Alexander, Leonard, and Branch would soon be heads of their own households and needing land. In 1784, the British started granting British loyalists land in the St. John River Valley and the newly established province of New Brunswick. One of the purposes of the Studholm Report was to identify squatters in the St. John River Valley who were American patriots, who supported or served in Eddy’s army. Persona non gratis in the new province, those settlers would have had to satisfy the census takers that they were truly British loyalists or face prosecution for their treasonous acts and eviction from the lands they were squatting on. 16

While William did not declare his British loyalty to the census takers, there was another William Woodworth who settled in Sunbury County in the 1780s who claimed “he was William Woodworth, born in Quebec and a British foot soldier in the French - Indian War.” 17 Although

a male descendant of this foot soldier’s Y-DNA did not match Timothy’s father’s, the identity used by this so called British soldier would have been a perfect cover for a rebel partisan as William, who could have use it to camouflage his enemy identity to acquire land in the St. John River Valley in the 1780s.

Two of his Cornwallis neighbors Samuel Bill and Jehiel Rust falsely claimed British military service to the census takers to prove they were British loyalists. Samuel Bill said “he had served his majesty in the last war and was a sergeant of the minute men under Col. Franklin,” but unbeknown to the census takers, the only British colonel named “Col. Franklin” was Benjamin Franklin’s son William who did not get released from American captivity. until May, 1778, at which time, Samuel Bill was already residing on the St. John River.. 18 Father of eleven children and hardly a good candidate for a soldier, Jehiel Rust told the census takers, “he was in the militia and took his chance in the draft as a minute man.” 19 Samuel Bill, Jehiel Rusk, and William knew that they needed to hide their own and sons’ patriots’ identity to get a grant of land for themselves and his sons in New Brunswick just like the British loyalists who had left the thirteen colonies at the end of the American Revolution. 20

Pulling all of the strings while outfoxing the British authorities, William Woodworth provided himself and his sons a new lease on life by fleeing to New Brunswick.. Unable to return to Cornwallis, he turned the family farm over to his oldest son, William, a Tory, who would have no problem continuing to live in Nova Scotia. By 1786. William and all four of his other sons had obtained sizable land grants in the St. John River Valley.. 21 He had correctly anticipated the availability of free land In New Brunswick, identified himself as a British loyalist, and used every measure he could to establish a new identity and acquire land for his family. Although Timothy and his brother Alexander left New Brunswick to live in Royalton , Vermont by 1790, the only price the rest of his family had to pay for their land was to forsake their American roots, and live as British loyalists the rest of their lives in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

********************************************************************************************************************** 1. Call to Arms

Whenever his father raved about his uncle’s brave deeds at Bunker Hill and the Battle of Brooklyn, Timothy would soon start day dreaming. One day, he was his Uncle Jed fighting with the First Connecticut Regiment, out of ammunition, swinging his rifle like a club at attacking British soldiers coming up Breed’s Hill. In other dreams he was at the Battle of Long Island, fighting hand to hand with the Hessians, while the soldiers in his regiment were falling down dead to the ground on both sides of him, sacrificing their regiment to save the rest of the Continental Army which was fleeing across the East River to the Harlem River. 22 While the news in the weekly mail packets from Connecticut highlighted his uncle’s brave exploits and made him proud, they also left Timothy longing for the day to come when he turned eighteen and old enough to join the Continental Army and fight his own battles in the American Revolution.

On a Fall night at the beginning of October, 1776, red faced and out of breath, his father rushed into the house after attending one of his many clandestine meetings, Before he even took his coat off, he was anxiously telling his sons, “Col. Eddy is recruiting a Continental Army regiment at Machias. I can’t join up, I’m too old and have you boys to fend for . I’ll support the cause from home, but Timothy, you’re young and fit, and I know you feel strongly about the American cause. Why don’t you think about joining his regiment. .You’re old enough and they’ll need a lot of help to drive the British out of Halifax.” Looking at his younger sons, Alexander, Leonard, and Branch, he continued, “And just think, you boys would then have a big brother, who is a hero too! “

After his father left the room, his brothers huddled around Timothy. Alex asked him if he was going to join. Hesitating, he answered, “This is a big decision. I don’t know yet.” Tears in his eyes, mouth pouting into a cry of despair, little Branch looked up at his older brother, asking him, “Who’s going to take care of us when you’re gone? William is never home. You have always been here when we needed you.” Alex spoke up, “Little brother, I will take care of you and Leonard. Tim has bigger concerns now.” Leonard just stood there quietly, looking down at his feet. Simultaneously then, his three brothers, arms out, squeezed him tight in a loving hug.

Recalling his father’s encouraging words and brothers’ legitimate concerns, Timothy considered the pros and cons of joining the rebel army over and over again the remainder of the evening, He would have to join up alone as his oldest brother William was a closet Tory and fifteen year old brother Alexander was too young for military duty and as the next oldest brother at home in his absence, would have assume Timothy’s big brother role and care for himself and his younger brothers. Since their mother passed away over nine years ago, his father had not been much of a father to the boys, especially the past couple years when he was too busy away from home attending patriot meetings and performing other clandestine activities to care very much for his children., Having to assume that responsibility would be hard on Alexander, he could not count on much help from either his father or oldest brother, William, who was spending most of his free time nowadays working the family farm and absent from the home, quite often courting Marcy Pineo and going to revival meetings every Sunday. Furthermore, It looked like William would be married soon, out of the house, and unable to spend much time with his brothers.

Timothy worried about the dangerous decision he was making, “Should he join Col. Eddy’s soldiers or let somebody else do the fighting?” He also fretted about other concerns, “What if he was killed or wounded? What would he do if the patriots lost?” His family, friends, and neighbors were divided in sentiment, some favored the British, others the patriots. With his decision, he would please some of them and alienate the others. Befuddled by these concerns, he climbed the steps up to the loft, where he was immediately greeted by his brothers, who, rolling over in their sides, looked up, and asked him almost simultaneously, ,“Are you going to join up? Are you going to be a soldier?” Timothy answered, “I don’t know yet,” and then laid down on his pillow, closed his eyes, and pretended he was falling asleep.

Tossing and turning all night, he awoke in a cold sweat, startled by a horrific dream. Soldiers in bright red and white uniforms, some with bayonets drawn, others firing their muskets, and Indians, hooting and howling, with vivid red war paint highlighting their ferocious faces, hatchets up ready to frail them, charged up a hill at him and his fellow soldiers. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain rip through his chest, fell to his knees, crying out for help. The carnage of his dream raged on as he laid dead on the ground, surrounded by the silent corpses of droves of other young soldiers who had also died in the battle. 23

He awoke suddenly when his dream then switched to a scene of his brothers doubled over, crying grievously as their father told them Timothy had been killed. A flash of light then lit up the room with a blinding vision, which slowly configured into the image of his deceased mother. Recognizing the vision immediately, he fell into a trance. His mother spoke to him very deliberately. “Timothy, don’t be frightened, you will not be killed. Your first fight in the Continental Army will be a defeat, but you’ll go on as a soldier to help make the colonies a new country.” Comforted by his mother’s sweet voice and premonition, Timothy forgot the bad omen, awoke for a few moments, and then dozed off again, but not until after he had concluded that if he awoke, still feeling strongly about joining Eddy’s army in the morning, he would catch a boat ride across the Bay of Fundy to Machias, and join the fight against the British.

At the crack of dawn, Timothy awoke feeling like he had not slept a wink. Just the same,

he bounced out of bed, excited and more resolute than ever to follow through on his decision to enlist in the patriots’ army. Tiptoeing past his brothers deep asleep in their beds, he packed a change of clothes in his satchel, and fetched his musket and some ammunition. Hesitating only a few moments downstairs at the dinner table, he wrote a brief note to his father and brothers, “I have gone to Machias to join up with Col. Eddy.” He thought to himself, “Maybe now, Dad will know I’m still alive.’’ Heart pounding, hands trembling, he then rushed out of the house, but feeling like he had forgotten something, he abruptly stopped, turned back toward the house, and looking upward toward the bedroom window, saw the curly haired, cherubic face of his little brother Branch up in the bedroom window, giant teardrops streaming down his face, and his little hand raised sadly waving goodbyes. Timothy turned away from the house broke into a jog, and ran the mile and a half down hill to Hall’s Harbor where he hitched a fifty two mile ride on a friend’s fishingboat across the Bay of Fundy to the Maine settlement where a small rebel force was already starting to congregate. 24

It took the sloop most of the day to cross the choppy Bay of Fundy waters. Once the sloop docked a short way downriver, Timothy grabbed his satchel, said his “ Goodbyes,” and was off in a flash along a path parallel to the river to a foot bridge. The scenery was beautiful. Brown colored rapids flowing furiously alongside the path forced the blue river waters downstream to the Bay. Crossing over on a foot bridge, he saw a two mast schooner moored near five different waterfalls roaring down into the river. On his right, he saw the majestic Bay of Fundy creeping back into the mouth of the Machias River.

His reverie was interrupted by a loud voice bellowing out words from the downstair windows of a stately two story wood building with a sloping two sided roof and a high chimney on top. As he walked closer to the building, he could read the lettering above the door which identified the building as the “Burnham Tavern,” the same place where his father had instructed him to find Col. Eddy. 25

Only a year and a half before, the tap room of that tavern had been the site of a heated debate. Residents of the city were faced with the dilemma of either complying with a British order to send lumber to Boston to build soldiers’ barracks or incurring the retaliatory wrath of a British frigate “Margaretta,” which was anchored n the harbor already leveling her cannons at their homes. 26

After a lengthy debate, residents decided to kidnap the ship’s commander from the Congregational Church on Sunday. .Right on schedule, Lt. Moore came to Church, but bored at listening to the Rev. Jones’ long, drawn out sermon, took to looking out a window towards the same foot bridge on which Timothy was then walking. The Lieutenant spotted men crossing with scythes, pitchforks and a few muskets. Recognizing the threat to his ship, he got up from his pew and high tailed it out of the church back to the ship. He ordered the ship hands to raise the sails and tried escaping from the one hundred patriots armed with farm implements following the frigate in the merchant vessels, Falmouth, Packet, and Unity. In the ensuing battle in the Bay of Fundy, Lt. Moore was wounded and the “Margaretta” captured by the rebels. The Burnham Tavern was converted into a hospital for both the wounded British and Machias residents. A chest there was stained with Lt. Moore’s blood, but the citizens of Machias, seeing the “whites of the British sailors’ eyes,” won the Americans first naval battle of the American Revolution. 27

The booming voice coming from the tavern tap room windows turned out to be Col. Eddy exhorting a small group of young men to join his army, “We’ll take out the fortress at Ft. Cumberland. Then we’ll march on Halifax before the British know what happened. We’ve been

promised troops and weapons by Massachusetts’ Gov. Adams, but we’ll still need you to support this patriotic effort. 28 Other citizens will join us if we are victorious and we’ll end this British tyrannical rule. We’ll join forces with our brothers and families back in the colonies and become a fourteenth colony in a new country.“ Colonel Eddy’s words impressed Timothy. He had no doubts about enlisting now and looked around for somebody to help him

do whatever was necessary to enlist.

Timothy’s new commanding officer, Col. Eddy, was not a novice to warfare in Nova Scotia. In 1755, he fought with a New England force under the command of John Winslow at Fort Beausejour and witnessed the French surrender of the fort to the British and its renaming to “Fort Cumberland.” In the Spring of 1759, he was commissioned a captain and charged with recruiting troops from the Norton region to garrison at Fort Cumberland from May 5, 1759 to September 30, 1760. Enticed by the offer of free land and opportunity after the French - Indian war, he left his childhood home in Norton, Massachusetts to settle with a multitude of other New England Planters in the Chignecto area a mile or two down the Baie Verte Road from Fort Cumberland. Soon after his arrival, he was appointed a deputy Provost Marshall of Cumberland County and a member of the House of Assembly. 29

In July, 1775, he and his fellow assemblyman and friend John Allen became increasingly emboldened by the patriot cause in New England, and the increasing anti - British feeling they perceived growing throughout Nova Scotia. While Allen was more reserved in his judgment, Eddy, obsessed with the idea of precipitating a major insurrection in the colony as soon as possible. While eager and impatient, he still saw little chance for an indigenous rebellion, without the stimulus of an American invasion. Toward that end, in February, 1776, he solicited George Washington, Continental Congress and the General Court of Massachusetts to send a Continental Army to liberate Nova Scotia. Except for the Massachusetts government, all of those parties rejected his impatient pleas for help. 30

Hearing about his intended conspiracy, the Governor of Nova Scotia, Mariot Arbuthnot, made Eddy a marked man and ordered Col. Joseph Goreham and the Royal Fencible Americans to secure Ft. Cumberland and keep a close watch out for any signs of an American invasion. Knowing he was being monitored by authorities loyal to the Crown, Eddy fled back to Massachusetts, where his pleas for help were finally answered when Samuel Adams and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts made him a full Colonel in the Continental army, gave him the authority to raise a regiment of his own for the sole purpose of the invasion of Nova Scotia.and promised to provide supplies and ammunition for any force Eddy was able to raise.31 Empowered by the Commonwealth, Eddy immediately set out on this trip for Machias where he knew there was some support for his scheme and he could recruit some of the soldiers for his patriot army.

As he stepped through the doorway, Timothy was immediately impressed with the majestic stairways ahead of him in the center of the entrance. Walking into the tap room, he saw the familiar face of Josiah Throop talking to a man at a podium. Mr. Throop had been his father’s overnight guest at the house a couple times after he and his father had been out during the day organizing patriot activities in Cornwallis. He always encouraged Timothy and his brothers to join them in their patriotic activities.

Finished with his conversation with the gentleman, and looking out at the twenty or so men congregating in the tap room, Throop, spotting Timothy, started waving his hands and excitedly beckoning the boy to come over to him, exclaiming loudly, “You’re William Woodworth’s son, I know you! Did your father come with you, or your brothers? Are you going

to join up with us?” Overwhelmed by the man’s sudden interest in him, Timothy meekly replied, “Only I came alone. My brothers are too young and I think my father wants to stay

home to help the patriots’ cause there.” Looking over his shoulder at the man on the podium, and probably not hearing a word he said, Throop said, “Let me take you over to meet Col. Eddy, he’d love to meet Will Woodworth’s son.”

Grasping his elbow, Throop led Timothy over to the podium. “Col. Eddy, I want you to meet Will Woodworth’s son, Timothy. He’s come from Cornwallis to join up with us.” Eddy Immediately started questioning him, “Son, do you know what you’re getting yourself into? We’re going to war with the British soldiers at Ft. Cumberland, then move onto Halifax and drive them out of the province. It won’t be easy, but we hope to get some help from Massachusetts. Do you have a musket and ammunition? You won’t get any pay, only food and the plunder you can salvage from the homes on the battlefield. Do you have any reservations about that?” Any other problems I can help you with? Looking down at the floor, Timothy meekly answered, “I’m ready to enlist, I want to help!” Acknowledging his words, Eddy ordered Throop, “Josiah, take this young man over to Captain Scott, ,he’ll be part of his detachment.“ 32

The groans of wooden pulleys raising the ship’s sails, and a sailor’s loud orders to crew members, woke Timothy out of a deep slumber at dawn the next morning. Raising his stiff body up from a hard bunk deep beneath the ship’s wooden deck, stretching his arms, and squinting his eyes open to the harsh brightness of a blinding sun coming through a port opening, he summoned enough energy to start his first day in the Continental Army. Still half awake and yawning, he climbed the rope ladder topside where he watched a couple sailors scampering up the ship’s riggings, in response to a little man who he found out yesterday, was Elijah Ayers, the ship’s owner and captain,. Waving his arms wildly, the skipper ordered the sails hoisted up the one hundred fifty two foot long schooner Nesquaawaite’s two masts, and directed his schooner to go out to sea. 33

Captain Ayers was the first person to greet Timothy when he walked on board the ship yesterday. There, standing at the end of the plank, big smile on his face and hand reaching out to greet him, the captain welcomed him onto his ship. Conversing a few minutes with him, Timothy soon found out the captain, like his father and mother, was a native of Connecticut who had answered the call for New England Planters to come on the same ship as his parents to settle in Nova Scotia in 1761. Coincidently, he was also from Norwich, Connecticut, which was only eighteen miles south of his parents’ hometown in Lebanon Crank. While the captain had settled in Sackville his parents settled in Cornwallis, where both were granted forty acres of free land. 34

The abundance of forests around the Bay of Fundy provided the Captain with the valuable lumber he needed for building his farm house, and barn and later simulated a shipbuilding industry in nearby Machias, which built Ayer’s new schooner in 1773. When the American Revolution broke out in 1775, Ayers joined a local patriots’ committee of correspondence but acting like a double agent, he remained on good terms with the British merchants, and continued to conduct a lucrative coastal trade business with both the British Tories and New England Planters. Knowing him through his patriot activities in the Cumberland Valley, Eddy contracted Ayers to transport his small army to Nova Scotia. Ayer’s medium sized schooner easily accommodated Eddy, his officers, Zebulon Roe, William How and twenty recruits comfortably above and below the deck day and night. 35

While he was very persuasive in his rash, direct manner, the only tangible benefit Eddy could offer new recruits to enlist was the right to keep plunder. Although his recruits

were considered soldiers of the Continental Army, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had not gone to the extent of promising the new recruits the same $29 dollars per month stipend they did for their own troopers. Without that pay, or promises of land, Eddy had to hope that passion for the American cause would supplement plunder in motivating the number of men he

needed to challenge the Royal Fencible garrison at Fort. Cumberland. Hearing rumors that the Micmac and Maliseet warriors in the Passamaquoddy Bay Area and St’ John River Valley may be willing to fight the British, he decided to have his ship’s captain set his sails for the St. John River Valley where he hoped to find some warriors wanting to join his army. 36

The day before, Timothy discovered there was a young soldier he knew from Cornwallis on board the ship. Just sixteen years old, but rather big for his age, Ben Rockwell had also enlisted at Machias, passing the recruitment officer’s’ scrutiny without any questions about his age. Ben lived on a farm a half mile down the road from Timothy’s family’s farm His father Jonathan Rockwell, with his wife and six of his eight living children had also come to Nova Scotia on the same boat of New England Planters as he and his parents and Captain

Ayers had come on in 1761. Benjamin was born in Central Somers, Connecticut which was only twenty five miles away from Lebanon Crank, where he was born. Benjamin had four older brothers fighting with the Continental Army back in the colonies and felt he should also fight for the American cause in Nova Scotia. He would become Timothy’ companion in the army. 37

Six hours out into the Bay of Fundy a sailor in the crow’s nest yelled out “Ship Ahoy!” to Indicate there was a small boat heading in their direction on the starboard side. As the boat neared them, Eddy recognized the familiar faces of patriot leaders, John Allan, and Samuel Rogers, who with a couple other men, were trying to escape the British authorities in Cumberland for a safe haven somewhere in the colonies. As the boat came along side the schooner, a sailor dropped a rope ladder and the men struggled to climb on board, Allen and other men then went below to Eddy’s quarters to discuss Eddy’s plan to assault the British at Fort. Cumberland. While Eddy was convinced they could mount a successful attack, Allan thought Eddy did not have a large enough army to make his plan work. Allen tried to convince the stubborn Colonel Eddy his plans would fail. He told Eddy he would not be able to talk the Maliseet Indians into going to war and doubted that he could persuade any Micmacs to join up either. While he could not give him an accurate count of British soldiers at the Fort. Cumberland garrison, he was sure they would outnumber the rebel army by at least, two soldiers to one. Countering Allen’s argument, Eddy said he had heard reports that some of the MicMac Indians living in the Passamquoddy Bay and St. John River Valley still harbored a grudge against the British for taking away their native lands in Nova Scotia in the French Indian War. Some of the Indians remained neutral, but others among them may still be amenable

to making the British pay for their sins.

Allen grew tired of trying to change the stubborn colonel’s mind. Anxious to get on his way to Boston to lobby among the colonists for the job of American Native Indian Agent, he would let Eddy get on with his dirty business alone. He had no intention of following Eddy back to the Cumberland, either to help him in an attack or even more unthinkably, to protect his wife and five children, who were living back on the peninsula. 38 Allen returned to his small boat and he and his companions set sail southward to Machias as Eddy’s small army went in the opposite direction, confident the army he recruited at Machias would grow larger with the. additional soldiers he thought he could recruit in the St. John River Valley. Sailors raised the anchors and the schooner was soon skipping across the high tides through the multitude of small islands blanketing the Passamaquoddy Bay.

The ship paused only a half day at Campobello, which was just enough time for

Col. Eddy to go onto the island, and recruit nine more soldiers. While the colonel was away, Timothy and his friend Benjamin went up on deck, stretched out on the deck against a stanchion, and watched the sea life frolic out in the bay. A huge black and white whale surfaced, then lunged up and down in the water, circling underneath and frightening a school of fish into its wide mouth. Over the island’s heavily spruced coastline, a lone eagle, fluttering its large brown wings up and down, swooped down to the water catching a struggling red fish

in its clutches. 39 At the sight of the new recruits coming back with the colonel, a buzz of enthusiasm rose from the men standing on the ship’s deck. Encouraged by their leader’s success on the island, the men grew more confident he would recruit more soldiers there and elsewhere that would give them a fighting chance in the forthcoming conflict with the British army.

Captain Ayers commanded the sails be raised and charted the schooner on a route east along the coastline through a multitude of small islands, slipping unnoticed past several armed British schooners which were patrolling the Nova Scotian waters near the entrance to the Bay of Fundy. The British frigates were watching and would give a warning if any American ships were spotted. Blessed with good fortune, Ayers’ little schooner with only thirty men on board, went merrily on its way undetected, made Partridge Island and glided easily into the safety of St. John Harbor. 40

As the “Margetheta” passed by the ominous ruins of Fort Frederick, a few soldiers stood up on the deck and hooted out a boisterous “Hurrah!” Timothy did not know the reason for the men’s surprising salutation, but a man sitting adjacent to him explained that only the year before, a couple of the men on board had been among the forty men on Captain Stephen Smith Jr’s four gun American privateer, who had burnt the fort down, and stopped a shipment of a hundred twenty tons of sheep and oxen for the British forces and loyalists in Boston. It was the patriots’ first hostile act against Nova Scotia and resulted in the British raising a militia across the province. Knowing that one little privateer with only forty men could do this damage to such a formidable fortress raised the men’s hope that their twenty-nine man army could do some damage to Ft. Cumberland too. .41

The schooner passed through a narrow gorge, wrestled with a series of choppy rapids flowing down successive shoals, and making the tempestuous water look like it was it was reversing its direction out of the Bay and back into the river. The first settlers of the area called this phenomenon, “the Reversing Falls.” Unfazed by its turbulence, Captain Ayers guided his ship steadily through its maize sixty miles up the St. John River to the town of Maugerville, which had become best known by most Nova Scotian as a town renowned for its fervent support of the American Revolution and its bitter anti - British sentiment. 42

Founded by Francis Peabody, Israel Perley and other New England planters from the town of Rowley and Essex County, Massachusetts, most of the town’s early settlers their family members, friends, and the ideals of American Revolution early on. 43. The only Congregational minister practicing in the area, Seth Noble, was an active partisan who fostered anti - British political views. Five months before Eddy’s arrival, a committee of twelve prominent citizens drew up some articulately phased resolutions, which rejected the British parliament’s right to legislate for the American colonists, asserted the justice of the American resistance, and called for the annexation of their settlement by Massachusetts. One hundred twenty - five.town residents signed off on the resolutions. Only twelve or thirteen, nine of whom lived at the mouth of the St. John River, dissented. Their residents had pledged to share in the

struggle for liberty with their lives and fortune. The town’s justices of the peace, Asa Perley and Asa Kimbel carried the resolutions to Boston and in return were given arms and ammunitions to support their militia.

The Sunbury patriots were still in control of the town when Eddy and his small contingent stepped off the ship on October 14, 1776. Their civil authority was backed up by a revolutionary militia, armed with an arsenal of American arms and ammunition. Over four hundred miles away from Halifax the town did not have to worry about British intervention. While waiting for a reply to their Massachusetts resolutions for more than five months,, citizens grew weary. They stored their American arms in a safe cache, drilled the militia. occasionally, and comfortably feigned an appearance of defense. It took a wild eyed charismatic Eddy to

shock them out of their lethargy. Impressed that John Hancock and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had commissioned him a Continental Army colonel in charge of an army chartered to fight the British in Nova Scotia, they listened to Eddy’s call to arms. In quick order, town folks appointed a committee “for forming the Cumberland party” and ordered Hugh Quinton and Daniel Jewett to muster their militia. Volunteers began to step forward and before they were finished visiting, twenty - seven men joined up. Eddy’s call to arms was an astounding success and he could move on to other fertile communities in the ethically diverse St. John River valley confident he could add more soldiers to his army’s rolls. 44

Standing next to Ben In the brow of the ship, squinting and shielding the sun with his hand from his eyes Timothy spotted Colonel Eddy leading some men out the woods towards the boat. “One, two, three.................. There are twenty- seven men with the Colonel!,” he excitedly yelled to Benjamin, and jumping up and down in joy, both boys and the rest of the men on board started cheering as the new recruits marched across the ramp onto the

sloop. 45 After all of the new men came on board, they formed a circle around Eddy and waited for him to give further directions. Eddy spoke to them majestically, “You have shown you are true patriots! We need brave men like you to join us in our fight for freedom in Nova Scotia just as much as they are needed in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the American colonies. We are not done looking for more soldiers and tomorrow, we will solicit the Maliseet nation and the Acadians for some more brave warriors to join us in battle. Yes, tomorrow, we’ll sail up river to Aukpaque to talk to their chiefs and then Meductic to sound out the Acadians.

Still brooding fifteen years after the British stole their lands in the St. John River Valley, Maliseet warriors seemed ripe for joining a battle to revenge the British dispossession of native lands that were theirs for several centuries. Since the colonial wars of the 1600s, they had taken the French side and fought off the flow of British loyalists into their native lands. In the 1760s without their consent, the British had surveyed their lands, and drew up maps, ignoring or renaming all of the Indians settlements with anglicized names, annotated the areas as vacant and invited speculators, and settlers to buy the land and settle down. The Maliseet

had to move up the St. John River Valley past St. Anne Pointe to get away from the British guns. 46

There were rumors spreading throughout the countryside that some Maliseet braves were also getting restless. They were said to have recently hung a brave for damning his Excellency General Washington. There were reports of a power struggle going on among their tribal council chiefs between those loyal to the British and those loyal to the Americans. Eddy was encouraged that he could sway some of the one hundred twenty warriors to the American side. Unlike the Penobscot, Micmacs, and other Nova Scotian Indians, it seemed like the Maliseet may now be ready for war.

At the crack of dawn the next day, the “Margaretha” crew raised her sails, then out into the river, the ship fought off currents charging at her brow, bounced seven miles up river into a quiet harbor and rested under the heavy shadows of a walled Indian camp. A party of Indians came out of the fortress’ gate to greet and lead Eddy, Captain Ayers, and a couple other patriot leaders back into the Indian fortress to a campfire where several chiefs were waiting to hear what they had to say. Eddy made his pitch, offering them plunder and suggesting British retribution for their stolen lands may be ample payment for their warriors’ service. Unfortunately, Eddy found out that remuneration was not enough. He was stunned when he found out, contrary to reports he heard, Chief Tomah, who favored the British, had won the tribal council power struggle and promoted a policy of neutrality toward the hated British. 47

However, another chief, St. Aubin, who favored the Americans, showed Eddy a way around the policy.. He said the policy allowed the Indians the authority to pursue violent tactics, if they were limited in scope and rewarding. If Eddy could match the pay provided by the French in

colonial wars, and only a few warriors from the pro American faction were involved, their participation in the patriots’ fight would not conflict with the Indians’ neutrality policy. While the Maliseet were eligible for Continental Army pay by treaty, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts did not grant Eddy the funds to pay them. The two parties went into a stalemate, if they were not compensated, the Maliseets would not join the patriot army. Eddy and Indians haggled back and forth before Eddy offered them plunder, which although attractive to the Indians, was not enough to sway their decision. One of the contingent, a member of the Maugerville Committee of Safety, and town minister, Seth Noble, saved the day for the patriots by offering to supply provisions to the natives’ wives while their husbands were absent. St. Aubin accepted the offer and a deal was struck. “Colonel Eddy was able to persuade Chief St. Aubin and fifteen of his warriors decided to go to war with him.” 48

Eddy had another source for recruits he wanted to check out before heading onto Cumberland. Confident he could increase the size of his army from another natural British enemy, he headed to Meductic where large clusters of Acadians lived in the Upper St. John River Valley. These French speaking people were descendants of the original French settlers, who had settled and developed thriving farms and communities in Nova Scotia in the 1600s, only to have them wrested away by the British victors of the French - Indian War. Fearing a hostile French population bordering the New England colonies, starting in 1755, the British started expelling over eleven thousand Acadians from their lands in Nova Scotia, shipping them in mass like servants in chains to Louisiana and North Carolina, then to France and England and other locations far away from their native lands. The settlers to whom Eddy would be talking were the two thousand six hundred brave souls who escaped from British resettlement and migrated back to the Upper St. John River Valley, where they were safely buffered between the Maliseet nation from the New England settlers in the Lower Valley. 49 Recognizing twelve years later those Acadians still had a good reason for revenge against British, Eddy hoped to recruit some of them for his army.

While they seemed ripe for the picking, the Acadians unfortunately turned out to have

been influenced by Chief Tomah to follow the Indians’ policy of neutrality and none of the Acadian men stepped forward to join the patriots’ army. The next day, Eddy returned downriver to Mauganville, disappointed but ready to combine his forty - three recruits from the Valley with the twenty - nine soldiers he had recruited at Machias and move his small army to a position from which they could better invade Nova Scotia. 50

2. Seizure of the Shepody Outpost

Without any advanced warning, Colonel Eddy’s invasion plan was severely disrupted when Captain Ayers informed him shortly after they docked at Mauganville that he would

have to find another way to transport his men to the Cumberland. As a reason for his action, Ayers told him he had just agreed to a more lucrative venture which required him to abandon the patriots and depart that night. Flabbergasted by the bad news, the Colonel started swearing loudly at the Captain, calling him a two faced buffoon who was aiding the British. Face reddening in rage, steam coming from both ears, he stepped forward at the captain, shaking his fist, threatening him with bodily harm, and swearing he would commandeer the “Margetheta” if the Captain did not change his mind immediately about transporting the army.

Suddenly, The Rev. Noble stepped forward in front of the angry Colonel to block and give the frightened Captain a chance to get away. “Colonel, I have another solution, Forget the captain.” the minister shouted. “We can commandeer some whale boats from local seamen to accommodate the army, and ask the Indians if they can continue to travel in their canoes. We can put some masts up and hang some small sails on the boats, and sail comfortably with the

canoes trailing behind us. Once we get in the bay, however, we might have to secure the canoes on a rope trailing behind us.”

The morning of October 26, 1776, the patriots’ army set sail down the St. John River in three whaleboats, and five canoes. 51 Their trip was a comfortable cruise as they passed down the river but entering into the Bay of Fundy, Neptune released his fury, high and low waves which hammered the boats. All hell broke loose and the men paid a fearful price. As his whale boat climb up a high tide, Timothy swore he was looking up at the brow of the boat above him, and then riding down the tide, he was looking down at the brow below. Up and down, back and forth, packed in the boat shoulder to shoulder like sardines in a tin can with fourteen other men, munitions, packs, and muskets, he and the other soldiers had to cope with nausea and trauma simultaneously challenging their minds and bodies.. Filled with strong convictions about the good they would achieve at the end of their travels, there was no other choice for the men but to go forward. The hope of the Nova Scotia patriots rode on their shoulders.

Coming from a seafaring family, Timothy’s new friend, Ben Rockwell, had sea legs and at this moment, was using them to crawl over other men to fetch him some water to rinse his mouth and clean off his clothing. Finally reaching him, he had to quickly grab, and hang onto Timothy’s waist as he leaned his head overboard and regurgitated. While comforting him, Ben held on and saved his friend from tumbling overboard and being swept away into the

frigid seas.

Eddy did not know what to expect in Cumberland. These boats and the canoes not only transported the men and munitions, but also any chance the patriots had to free Nova Scotia. The men faced a perilous future, they did not know what was in store for them. Would they survive this boat ride across the tumultuous frigid waters of Bay of Fundy to face a tough British fighting force at Ft. Cumberland or would the Cumberland populace rise up to help them fight a battle against a disorganized British force.. A couple more days of this test of their mettle and they would find out the answers to these questions. Their commander worried that they would not be ready for this test.

Fighting the winds of criss crossing squalls, the small flotilla crawled up the north side of the Bay In the distance, the two boys marveled at some large brownish rock formations, which looked to them like huge flowerpots, that seemed to recede further down in the water the closer they advanced toward them. 52 As the afternoon sun started to descend in the west, the boats passed by the picturesque Hopewell Rocks, steered around Grindstone Island and sailed north into Shepody Bay. The past two nights, the men had camped on the muddy beaches along the way and as the boats headed toward Hopewell Shore, not hearing differently, Timothy just assumed he and the other men could look forward to another nightly hiatus on a beach which would allow them to recover their bearings from the stormy waters.

But tonight turned out to be different. Seeing Colonel Eddy huddled in conversation with his officers was an omen that convinced the men something else was brewing. After a lengthy conversation with his officers, Eddy spoke to the men, “You should prepare to fight. We are going ashore to pick up a guide familiar with the area, then traveling on to seize a British post at Shepody. The Brits will shed blood to keep its post. 53 The whaleboat coxswains then navigated the boats around Grindstone Island to an isolated piece of land near the mouth of the Petticordiac River.

The candlelight of a single farmhouse flickered in the distance. The sounds of the men creeping up the banks towards the house was heard at the house. A man and his wife came out of the house to find who were congregating around their house. Abiel Peck was surprised by this sudden appearance of so many armed men on his doorstep. While his wife thought there were more than a hundred fifty men in the force, she was frightened the most by the few

armed Indians appearing in the group. 54 She remembered the savagery of the Maliseets warriors who had ravaged the English settlers in the Cumberland in the 1760s. However soon recognizing the familiar faces of Colonel Eddy, Rogers, and How in the crowd, her husband put his arm around her shoulder and comforted her, “Eddy does not have any issue with me. He is not a danger to us.” After a brief conversation with the Colonel, he found out he wanted him to guide the patriot soldiers to Shepody Outpost. Although reluctant to to leave his wife and eleven children alone the wilderness, and maybe in jeopardy with the British, Eddy gave him no choice but to leave immediately with the patriots. 54

The Pecks were typical folks of the area, Two-faced, they were ready to fight with the British to defend the province one moment and then if in their best interest, they were willing

to change their mind and assist the patriots. They and much of the Cumberland populace were fence straddlers, blowing in the wind waiting to choose whatever served their purpose the most. Their ambivalence to both sides best served the patriots’ purpose. They could move at will in the region and nobody would bother them. 55

The small army would soon be on their first battlefield in this God forsaken hinterland. The tiny British post was five miles upriver on a narrow neck of a desolate wilderness between the southwestern mouth of two rivers, the Petitcodiac on the west and the Memramcook on the east, on the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Both rivers served as major traffic arteries between the St, John Valley, Machias, and Ft. Cumberland. The soldiers stationed in this middle of a forest post so far had an easy tour of duty, cutting fire wood, and patrolling the footpaths that meandered in the wilderness toward the St. John River. Twenty miles northwest of Ft. Cumberland, the soldiers were primarily responsible for warning of any approach by rebel forces from New England, preventing patriots from Machias communicating with Cumberland rebels, and stopping deserters from fleeing Fort Cumberland. Whereas, they were capable of stopping an individual or two traipsing up and down the path, with only fourteen soldiers at the post, they would be hardly able to stop Eddy’s seventy - eight man army.

The boats crossed Shepody Bay, zigzagged across the Memmramcook River and headed toward Shepody Point. As their canoes passed by the British post, the men on the canoes saw the glow of the enemy’s campfires.The area was a totally desolate area, except for some shanties, there were no other signs of a populated area. They sailed another mile upriver, floated into a deserted cove, and beached the canoes. Beckoned by a couple Indians, the soldiers climbed out of the the canoes and silently crossed the beach into brush surrounding the camp. Not trained in military maneuvers, the men did not know how to encircle the British camp. After years and years of fighting the British in the French - Indian and other colonial wars, the Indian warriors with them did. Directing them by hand signals, the warriors guided the soldiers in and out, and posting them at strategic points behind trees encircling the campfires.

A British captain sat on a tree stump surrounded by fourteen soldiers in the middle of the camp, relaxed, and talking to his soldiers, while he whittled a pipe out a tree branch with

his pen knife, and the others ate just cooked dinners, unaware they would soon be under attack. An experienced solder, Johnny Walker was a brave officer, who had shown his mettle at siege of Louisbourg, Quebec, and other battles in the colonial wars. He was living comfortably at his farm In Worcester the summer of 1775, when a former commanding officer Col. Joseph Goreham, convinced him to come out of retirement and join him at his command at Fort Cumberland. 56

Timothy kneeled down in the brush behind a big oak tree and waited for the other soldiers to encircle the camp and kneel behind other trees He was concerned - it was his first taste of combat. The eighteen year old boy did not know what to expect. All he had shot with his

musket before at home in his short life were squirrels, deer and other animals, and he did not enjoy doing that but his family needed the meat. Now he would be called upon to shoot at men and be shot at himself.

When the rebel force surrounded the enemy, each of the soldiers dropped down on a knee and waited for Colonel Eddy’s hand signal. Timothy looked out at the unsuspecting British soldiers, raised his musket and prepared to fire. While he thought there was no chance he would hit an enemy soldier, he would aim his musket and try. In fact, he hoped he did not kill anyone. At this moment, he wished he had listened more closely to his dear mother’s teachings about God - what came after death? If he had listened better, he would probably know the answer to that question and be more prepared for eternity if killed. He whispered a prayer for both himself and Ben, who was kneeling quietly behind a nearby big tree, While waiting what seemed like an endless few minutes before the battle started, he tried to calm his nerves by saying a short prayer to himself. His final thought before the muskets started firing was at least the other men could tell his dad and brothers he was a brave soldier if killed.

Then Eddy raised his hand and the patriots started firing their muskets. Completely surprised, the enemy soldiers grabbed their muskets and scurried behind the shanties, trees, and other cover. There were exchanges of fire. Several enemy soldiers were hit but only one of them, a lieutenant, fell down dead. Suddenly, the British captain was shot in the shoulder and needed care. Bullets were whizzing overhead, and other men wounded. The dense black smoke rising from the brush hung over the camp and made it hard for anything to be seen. Seeing Captain Walker on the ground writhing in pain and without a leader, the other soldiers panicked and soon raised a white flag in surrender. Lasting about fifteen minutes, the foray ended as quickly as it started. 57

When they saw the flag, the patriot soldiers shouted a cheer, and hugged each other in joy, while the defeated enemy hung their heads in defeat.. Tears flowing down his cheeks, Timothy took a deep breath, hugged Ben, and cried out a loud, “Thank you God.“ The patriots rounded up the captured prisoners and led them single file into the post’s huts. Col. Eddy hoped his win would herald the victorious arrival of the patriots to the Cumberland people. To the victors belong the laurels, and he hoped the victory would help him recruit more soldiers in this Cumberland hot bed of American patriots. He would feel more comfortable if he could add more fighting men to his small army before taking on the British at Fort Cumberland.

The morning of Wednesday, October 30, 1776, the patriot army awoke still exuberant and wanting to celebrate their victory but Eddy had more pressing concerns. Much like Ethan Allen at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, he wanted to execute a surprise attack on a strong two hundred soldier British garrison with his seventy - eight soldier army 58 To execute a surprise attack under the darkness of night, they would have to crawl across a wide open plain without the detection by the four seven pound cannons that would be firing shots at them high above from the garrison’s heights. I f they did not pull off a Trojan Horse attack on the fort, they would be mincemeat for the defending British Royal Fencibles. They had to take measures to keep their invasion secret from Ft. Cumberland and Halifax as long as possible. In the brief period they could maintain secrecy, Eddy had to scour every mile of the Tantramar Peninsula for more soldiers to add to his army. If successful in taking Ft. Cumberland, they could take the fort’s big guns and move on to make Halifax its Crown Point and Nova Scotia a fourteenth American state.

With this strategy in mind, Eddy divided his small force into four small detachments. 59 The first he deployed west to Maccan on the far side of the Tantramar to block communication to Windsor and to spy on Fort Cumberland. The second, which included several Maliseet emissaries and Abiel Peck, he sent north toward Cocagne to recruit Micmacs. The third and

main detachment which Eddy would lead, proceeded to Memramcook to hold another conference with the French Acadians, who he hoped had not forgotten the fate of over eleven thousand of their peoples who were expelled from lands in Nova Scotia they had farmed for a century. Those Acadians should be enthusiastic patriots from whom Eddy could have high hopes of getting more recruits. He left a small group of patriot soldiers, including Timothy and friend Ben, and a couple Manliest Indians back at the post to guard the Loyalist prisoners, and patrol the river trails for any passersby, who may report their presence to the British authorities at Fort Cumberland or Halifax.

The reality of war impressed itself on young Timothy the day after the battle as he and a couple other patriot soldiers dug a grave under a big Oak tree. He remembered seeing the corpse, which laid on the ground a few feet away, alive, sword up, charging bravely at the patriot line, suddenly collapsing to the ground when a musket ball shot into his forehead. He would never forget the sight of the bloody gore bursting out from his brain onto the ground as he fell dead.

In the past month, the just out of puberty Timothy had been experienced so many life and death lessons, that he was expelled from his youth into the adult world of doubt and question. About the the purpose of his life. As the minister and the group’s self appointed chaplain,

Seth Noble recited “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes...........”, the young man asked himself, “Why did this man die,” As the Reverend continued to read verse from his bible, Timothy’s eyes froze on the grimacing face of the dead soldier while his mind searched for the meaning of Noble’s words. As the young soldier’s body was lowered into a six foot deep grave, and the prisoners tossed handfuls of dirt onto the corpse, he could not believe this was the end for this brave soldier, He remembered his mother dying when he was only ten years old but knew today she was still keeping an eye on him from somewhere high in the heavens above. He felt her presence often and believed she was looking down on him. She was not dead and the same should be true of this soldier. There had to be more in store for this brave man than death alone. What was it? Although buried in a grave marked by a brown wooden cross, Timothy

did not believe this young man’s spiritual mortality had not just ended. The experiences of war had aged. a young boy into a man who would never again be the same easy going, amenable teenage boy again.

The prisoners at the post were not as hostile toward their captors as Timothy thought they would be. Recruited into the Royal Fencible American Regiment just a year ago in Boston, Newfoundland, and Halifax, and stationed at Fort Cumberland, they were hardly battle ready veterans. Some of them did not shave, and still enjoyed the food and the way of life in a British garrison. They were ambivalent about the British and American reasons for fighting awar and not sure one side was more right than the other in the American Revolution. They did not like taxes but at the same time, they liked the British army protecting them against the French and the Indians. With the right persuasion, they probably could be convinced to change uniforms and fight for the American cause. 60

It took the Maliseet Indians guarding the prisoners more time to get comfortable with

their fellow patriot guards. They were no nonsense warriors - every thing was by the book. At night, the prisoners had to be tied securely to one of the Indians or a patriot soldier. The prisoners had to be confined in the shacks with a couple guards at the doors outside the entire day. They were fed in their cells and not allowed to bathe in the river like the patriots. The two warriors guarding the prisoners, Joseph Tomah Jr and Pierre Tomah were brothers, the sons of a chief, who surprisingly was the same one who sided against Eddy in promoting a Maliseet British American neutrality policy. The Indians were more interested in the plunder they would obtain in coming battles and comfortable their squaws and children would be supported by the Maugerville Council of Safety in their absence. 61

The Indians had designs on more than just material goods as a reward for serving in this war. Siding with the French in the colonial wars, they had lost many warriors. There were many widow squaws in the St. John River Valley who needed a young warrior to warm their blankets and hunt for their food. Around the campfire in the evenings, the brothers Tomah sized up Timothy and Ben, “You’d make good warriors. You’re young, strong, and athletic. why don’t you come back with us to Indian land after the war and join our tribe.” They showed the boys how to bake flour they brought from home into a delicious bread, that was better than any the boys had ever tasted. While the bread softened the boys up about adoption, the young men just nervously smiled at the Indians and ate their food. The Indians did not know much English, but frequently used culinary and other incentives to entice the boys. The Indians also suggested to some of the younger prisoners that they too may have a similar opportunity to join them too.

Timothy, Ben and each of the guards were responsible for guarding a pair of prisoners. In the past two days, Timothy became friendly with `his two charges, Andrew Boardman and Thomas Goggin, who had grown up in Massachusetts. Nightly, like the Torah Brothers taught him, Timothy tied a rope around and bound his two prisoners to himself to prevent their escape. While the wolves, bears, and panthers howled ferociously at the edge of their camp, the three boys would thanked their lucky stars they were not outside in the forest threatened by those vicious animals. Under the light of a full moon, the prisoners and guard shared interests. Like Timothy, they liked to fish, hunt, and look at the pretty young girls. They did not understand why the colonists were fighting the British and did not avidly support either the British or the American cause. While the British had nicer uniforms, and paid recruits a better stipend, if worst came to worst, they would have joined either side and hoped that when they were sent back to Massachusetts, they would be given that choice again.

The Massachusetts born prisoners grew up in a New England environment where the settlers were schooled in Indian cruelties and atrocities,. Starting in 1678 with King Philips War, their ancestors had frequently fled their cabins for a nearby fortress, where they would be safe from a Red Man attack. Each of them had lost mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends to the Indian wrath. Faced with a choice of adoption by the Indians or military service with the patriots, it was a no brainer to Andrew and Thomas - they were not going to take a chance on survival with the Indians unless it was their only choice. 62

The Newfoundland and Nova Scotia born prisoners in camp had not experienced that same threat from the Indians. In the colonial wars, they had sided mostly with the French and were the Indians friends rather than foes. They could meld together with them and may accept their offer of adoption rather than continued service in the British Army.

Recruitment sources for Eddy patriot army were fast drying up. Although the Acadians met again in Memramcook on Thursday, their war fever had subsided. Eddy could recruit only twenty - one of them for his army, many of them tenants from patriot leader John Allen’s estate on the Baie Verte Road, While he was not delegated the authority by Massachusetts, only his promise to place them in an Acadian Contingent and pay them as a members of the Massachusetts Militia convinced them to join. 63

That same morning, a scouting party shook Eddy’s confidence in waging a successful invasion of Nova Scotia with the report that they had spotted a British frigate and schooner anchored in the Cumberland Basin near Fort Cumberland. While the frigate, “Juno” was there

to protect the schooner “Polly” and to supply the fort with winter provisions, he feared that Fort Cumberland would discover his presence and order the warship to stay on to drive the patriot army out of Nova Scotia. There was no chance the patriot army of seventy-eight men could

contend with a British frigate and fort’s combined artillery and garrison strength. Forty cannons and over four hundred soldiers on shore in Fort Cumberland and on board the frigate would wipe out his small army. The only hope they could possibly sustain was that the frigate left before their presence in Cumberland was found out by the enemy.

Concerned by the report of the frigate in the Cumberland Basin, Eddy sprung into action to keep his army presence unknown to the British. Less than a week after he had arrived in the Cumberland, Eddy moved his command post to Sackville, and immediately started installing measures which would hide their presence. Usurping local governmental authority, he implemented martial law throughout the Cumberland Peninsula. To prevent local citizens from telling the fort or Halifax about the army presence, , he organized his small army into squads of ten to twelve men, ordered them to intimidate the local citizens into staying in their houses and not communicating patriot activities onto the fort or Halifax. They patrolled the six miles of road to Fort Cumberland nightly, challenging anyone who dared traveling on the road. They also formed special vigilante squads to search and seize plunder from the homes of citizens, Times were tough for the local loyalist populace. As each day passed by, the patriot soldiers became restless with the same routine, and hungering for more action and plunder rode closer and closer to Fort Cumberland to fulfill their needs.

By the time daylight emerged through cloudy skies Thursday morning October 31st, 1776, Captain Dalrymple had already navigated the “Juno” into Cumberland Basin and cut the “Polly” loose to make its way to the fort. Anticipating another harsh winter in the Cumberland, the garrison was overjoyed to see the supply ships anchored in the harbor. While the frigate lay well down Cumberland Basin, the other vessel, no more than a small unarmed sloop hired to transport provisions, had made its way to Cumberland Creek, where with the morning tide down, it anchored in the muddy bottom of the waters.

The past week, Timothy had the added responsibilities of patrolling and apprehending any persons he found walking on the desolate area’s trails During these surveillance activities, the Maliseet brothers accompanied him and made sure they took every opportunity to teach him tracking skills. Later, when hunting, they shared their game and made sure they ate meals together. They strung him a fishing line and taught him how to bait and hook his own fish. They shared their precious flour and taught him how to bake a tasty bread in the camp fire that taunted his taste buds like an aphrodisiac. When he did not understand what they were saying, they patiently tried explaining their words using signs language and gestures, at the same time teaching him few Malecite words. They were obviously trying to mold this young man into a warrior - soldier they could count on in battle and maybe even later persuade to come back with them after the siege to join their tribe as a warrior.

Early one morning, the trio spotted a sloop docked in the muddy bottom of Hopewell Cape. They saw British soldiers carrying provisions onto shore where there were folks waiting for them to drop off the provisions. With hand signs, Joseph beckoned the Timothy and Pierre to follow him along a path around the cove to get nearer to the post. As they crept along the path, Timothy wondered if his MicMac comrades were going to try to apprehend the folks waiting on the shore or just scout out the scene and then hightail it back to camp before they were detected. Thinking their chances of escaping were better than fighting the large number of settlers congregating at the wharf, he was glad when the warriors decided it was time to rush back to the post. Although a good hundred yards from the wharf, Timothy thought he recognized a woman on the wharf who looked a lot like the wife of their guide the night of the Shepody Raid. If right, she would positively tell the crew members and they soon after the Commander at the Fort, that Eddy and his army had arrived into Nova Scotia a week ago. The trio’s next course of action was a no brainer, either way, they had to rush back to camp to give Colonel Eddy an early warning the patriot army may have been detected.

Hearing the report about the spotting of sloop at Shepody, Eddy redoubled his efforts to conceal his army’s presence. He issued instructions to all the peninsula’s inhabitants to stay in their homes. He deployed soldiers on the marsh between Sackville and Maccan to enforce his martial law. While there were many settlers scattered throughout the fifty mile area who were dissatisfied and no longer willing to support with British rule, the patriot soldiers were ordered to disarm all residents to secure the region Eddy threatened death on the spot to anyone leaving their homes. The folks could not congregate to rally or even think about sending a message to Fort Cumberland. The sudden appearance of the patriots’ army had cut the populace off from any communications. Disarmed, confined to their homes and isolated from their neighbors, loyal Cumberland's were unable to organize a resistance or let the cat out of the bag.

Until the supply sloop returned from Hopewell, Colonel Joseph Goreham had been unaware a patriot army had assaulted Shepody Post and stealthily crept within ten miles of the fortress Timothy was right - the woman on the wharf was Ruth Peck and she told the British sloop crew members that a party of one hundred fifty to two hundred men from the American colonies with a large number of Indians had shown up on her doorstep and coerced her husband to guide them to Shepody Post. 64

Had he known that strategic information, Goreham would have commanded the “Juno” to stay on to combat the patriot army. With its thirty - two guns and two hundred twenty marines, on board, the frigate could have blown the patriot army to smithereens. Eddy’s troops may have successfully blocked the road to Fort Cumberland but they would not have stopped the British Marines on this ship and in the fortress. .Eddy had bought about a week’s time with his blockade and likely made Goreham believe during that week he had been in the Cumberland, he had recruited a larger army, with which he would attack Fort Cumberland in a couple days. 65

3. Capture of the Polly

Timothy had mixed emotions about his new squad assignment. He. was happy he was assigned to a squad with eight tough looking men from the Cumberland area but sad he would not be on the same team as Ben, and his Maliseet friends, Joseph and Pierre Tomah. While he felt he could hold his own now as a soldier, it was still comforting to be with those older men, who he was told were familiar not only with the people in the area but were also rumored to be no nonsense patriots who could hold their own in a fight.

While he kept his thoughts to himself, Timothy felt sorry for some of the folks his squad harassed on daily patrols. If the victims were old or had children. he could not help but think about his father, brothers and grandfather back home and be concerned for the victim’s continued well being when his fellow soldiers walked out of their houses with vital food stuff and other juicy plunder. Each day, his squad was sent out to terrorize loyalists, search their farms and seize provisions for the army and whatever other property they wished for themselves. The patrols ranged closer and closer to the fort each successive day making their presence felt by mostly loyalists, but sometimes straying off the beaten path to folks whose loyalties they did not know. Regardless of allegiance the soldiers were ordered to make sure the local folks did not pass on any information about them onto the British. To maintain this cordon of silence around the fort, the soldiers warned the populace they would be shot if

they were caught too near the fort. 66

As they walked up to the front door of an impressive stone cottage this freezing Wednesday morning, one of soldiers spoke out loudly, “Watch out for lightning bolts, we are

about to enter a sacred place. A man of God lives in this house. If you don’t watch out, he may turn you into a pillar of stone.” As the men pounded on the door, Timothy’s brown eyes widened in an expression of fear when he saw the face of the man looking out at him from a window. “I can’t believe it, he is the same minister I saw at a revival my parents took me to back in Cornwallis,” he remembered out loud, “I’ve seen this man before, It has been a few years, but I’ll never forget that man’s face aglow, fiery words flaming out of his mouth, as he preached his “gloom and doom” message, If you don’t repent, you’ll be damned to the fires of hell. If you don’t follow God’ laws, you’ll be doommmmed to fires of Hell. It’s God’s will that King George is the ruler of Nova Scotia and England’s colonies. They’re his by divine right, You must obey his laws and pay your taxes. Remember what Jesus said, You must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God, what is God’s.” Timothy was so shaken by the Reverend’s anger, and he did not feel any empathy for that man on that day. 67

The Reverend John Eagleson had dug his own hole. He came to Cumberland Township in 1765 as a Presbyterian missionary to promote the Great Awakening Movement in Nova Scotia. Traveling around the Nova Scotia countryside to Cornwallis, Halifax, Amherst, and elsewhere, he preached the message of the Society for Propagation of the Gospel. Recognizing his good works, the Church of England beckoned him to London to be ordained an Anglican priest. In a court battle with the rival Congregational Church members in 1773, he was awarded the community’s glebe farm, parsonage and another abode on grounds inside Fort Cumberland. Then he changed his loyalties. For the right price, he became a loyalist who sold his soul to the British King after he was ordained a priest in the rites of the English Church. 68

While the local Scotch - Irish and the Yorkshire populace thought he walked on water, Cumberland Township had large pockets of New England Planters, whose ancestors had fled England in the 1760s to escape the religious persecution of the Anglican Church. They brought Calvinism and the Congregational Church with them and were also sympathetic to the colonies in the American Revolution. Eagleson’s verbal assaults on them from the pulpit and court victory three years before were grim reminders to them that the reformation was not over in Cumberland.. Eddy’s army presented them a grand opportunity to get back a pound of flesh. After they usurped local authority, they made him a marked man. Now that the patriots were the law, Eagleson could forget his privileged position. This visit to his home that day was the rebel’s payback for the minister’s damning Anglophilia against their religious dogma and support of the patriots’ cause. 69

As he walked through the door, Timothy felt the pleasant warmth emanating from the

logs burning In a large fireplace. He was impressed by a large clock with large Roman numerals marking the time, and portraits and landscape paintings hanging above the oak paneling decorating the walls of the room, the high shelves holding volumes of books, and a tea pot hanging from a crane in the fireplace. He thought about his humble abode back home, which he admitted silently to himself, did not come close to the grandeur of this minister’s house. Over on the big wooden table, he noticed the half filled wine glass next to an open book and observed, “We caught that nasty minister reading, and sipping a little wine.”

As the men inspected the house, they saw that the minister lived the good life. His dresser was loaded with fine shirts with stock collars, handkerchiefs, and stockings, his vegetable bins were overloaded with potatoes, oats, barley, and his cupboard stocked with thirty pounds of candles, butter, cheese and leaf sugar. In the barnyard, three sheep, a sow with a litter of three piglets, a fat cow, and a riding horse grazed in the tall grass. This sudden attack on his peaceful home seemed like poetic justice for this man of God. He trembled the entire time the soldiers were stomping through his house and taking his worldly goods away. When they started taking his furniture, goods, books, clock and other items out to load them onto the wagons, the minister went berserk, unlike a minister crying out expletives, and clawing at the patriot soldiers when they tried to walk past him out of the door. A couple soldiers had

to bind him down on the floor with rope before he settled down. After they loaded a couple wagons with his worldly goods, the soldiers merrily went onto their next stop. Timothy sat back on the wagon seat, thinking that the minister’s loss was fair pay back for frightening him at the revival so many years before.

The raiders’ insults and threats so frightened the minister he decided to leave immediately after the raiders left for the safety of his dwelling in the fort. He was deeply troubled all his imagined efforts to prevent rebellion had fallen on deaf ears and now with the raid on his house, “he had the mortification to see the laws arrested from the legal magistrates and placed in the hands of the supers.” 70 Two years later, Eagleson sued seven of the ten rebels raiding his house for seven hundred pounds, retribution he said for the “heavy losses he sustained in the this raid.” In the court case, the minister said the seven defendants had broken into his house, damaged and stole food, furniture, farm implements, household goods, livestock, timber, clothing, books and miscellaneous other goods.” Three of the defendants were singled out for treason charges and had fled to New England after the siege. The other four, were patriots still in Nova Scotia and present at the trial.. Timothy, and two defendants, who were not residents of Cumberland or known to the minister, had fled any charges in far away Connecticut. 71

There was a complacency developing in the British garrison. Although they knew a rebel force was nearby ready to attack, on Wednesday night, the British officers and soldiers still planned to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. They were going to hang an effigy of Fawkes from a makeshift gallows in front of a big bonfire and party all night long. Eddy received scouting reports about the celebration and decided it would be a good time for an action to boost his army’s recruitment and raise morale. The supply sloop still lay on the flats below the fort with provisions and other necessities still not unloaded, The ship was being unloaded at a leisurely pace, the work could only be carried out at low tide when the ship was high and dry on the mud. It laid vulnerable to a surprise attack and Eddy made plans to claim the sloop by surprise.

On Wednesday afternoon, Timothy’s squad was told to join up with two others and captained by Zebulon Roe, go out on a raid that night. He knew it was an important raid when he was told Roe, who was Eddy’s right hand man, was its leader. Later that afternoon, Roe spoke to his raiding party about the raid’s mission. The party of thirty men “would set out at dusk, cross the Cumberland Basin in sloops and march to Fort Cumberland to capture the “Polly,” which had returned from its trip to Hopewell Cape and was now anchored in the muddy flats of Cumberland Basin. There would be only a few men guarding the sloop and the fort’s officers and the garrison’s other soldiers would be busy making merry at a “Guy Fawkes” celebration within the garrison. The timing for the raid looked good. Good fortune should be theirs tonight.”

At dusk, the men marched onto the boats and set sail toward the fort. They crossed the eerie black waters under the darkness of night. They reached the opposite shores in a few hours and embarked on a march along the shore across the tidal basin flats to the Cumberland Creek. Marching along the shore under only a quarter moon. the men were almost invisible. At the mouth of the Cumberland Creek, they turned inland and arrived

on the shore opposite of the sloop. The tide was out and the sloop was resting in the mud.

The silence of the night was horrific. Sails down, tall masts pointing the sky, made the sloop looked like a haunted ghost ship.. From afar, Timothy could see only one sentry walking around on the deck. There were no signs of a sergeant or any other men. “Where are all of the other guards?” he thought, “one man is hardly enough to stop us from taking the sloop tonight. The others must be celebrating at the fort.”

Waving his hand forward, Captain Roe beckoned the men forward onto the muddy flats. The silence of the night was squelched by the squishy sound the men’s boots made marching over the muddy flats. Squish, squishhhh, the noise got louder and louder as they neared closer to the ship, and it was only an instance before the sentry came across the ship’s brow, looked out and spotted the men standing in the mud. He fired a warning shot which bought more soldiers up from below the deck. While the officers partied on shore in the officers’ quarters, the sloop’s guards were asleep below the deck. While Timothy stood motionless in the mud he aimed his musket at a guard, waiting for the order to shoot. As the drama heightened, the young man’s hands trembled as he gripped his weapon. Neither side fired. Before the sergeant on the sloop could his men to fire, Captain Roe shouted up to the sloop, “Fire one shot, and every man on that ship will be put to death.” The sloop’s guards were so petrified by his words, they surrendered without firing a shot. 72

Timothy and the other patriot soldiers could not believe their good fortune, they had just beat the British again, this time without firing a shot. The patriots had surprised the British coming out of the darkness of the night and bluffing them into surrendering. And then to add insult to injury, they put down the ropes to let the patriots climb aboard their prize. Without the assistance of the guards letting down ropes, the patriot soldiers would not have been able to get out of the mud and on board the ship. The sun was rising and the light of dawn would break soon before a high tide could float the ship. Roe would have to decide his next course of action quickly or increase the risk to his soldiers.

The patriots’ raiding party climbed up the rope ladder on board the captured sloop, helped round up and secure the British prisoners, and then waited for what seemed like an endless period of time in the dark before their commander made a decision about the next coarse of action. Roe had three alternatives. .He and his men could retreat from the sloop, and return across the basin, taking the prisoners back with them to show they had been victorious.

Or he could keep a few men with him back with the sloop, hope they were not detected by the garrison’s soldiers, and try to escape on his prize when the tide had risen enough to sail her away, Or he could take the highest road by climbing up the ramparts, attacking the hungover officers and men in fort before sunrise, taking Fort Cumberland, and winning a major battle for Nova Scotia’s freedom. Brave but not overestimating the prowess of his thirty man force, he gambled on lady luck. He stood tall at the helm of his prize, still stuck in the mud, and ordered the bulk of his men out of the sloop and with the Polly’s prisoners back down the creek to the boats with orders to sail east to Fort Lawrence with news of their victory.” 73

Hidden from the fort’s sentries looking out from the parapets by a dense fog and the high walls of nearby buildings, Roe and his rebel crew stayed undetected. While the garrison’s officers and soldiers, some still intoxicated and others not very energetic after celebrating Guy Fawkes Day far into the night, were sleeping in their quarters deep within the fort, the captain readied the sloop for escape. As the tide rose slowly, the drama increased. It seemed like forever before the tide and the sloop rose out of the mud. Slowly, without a verbal command, the men pulled up the anchors, and very slowly crept down the Cumberland Creek past the muskets and guns of the fort, which did not discover the escaping sloop until it was halfway across the basin out of the range of British cannons and on their way across the Cumberland Basin to a joyful Colonel .waving his arms jubilantly on the dock as the “Polly” cruised into a new mooring at Fort Frederick.

Although not chosen to stay back with the “Polly”, Timothy’s heart did not stop thumping until stepping on shore at Fort Edward, it dawned on him that he had survived the hair - raising experience. All of a sudden, he could not contain his youthful exuberance, and started ranting and raving to the other soldiers. “Two battles and two wins. It’s our destiny to take Nova Scotia and join it together in a United Colonies. My father will be so happy with me. I can’t wait to write him a letter. I can’t believe our good fortune. I’ll get some plunder I can send home

too.” Patting him on the back, trying to settle him down, his friend Ben, who was not on the raid with him, kept saying, “Good job, but relax, you’ll have a conniption if you don’t.” Standing behind him, the Tomah brothers smiled proudly at their young friend. Engaging in that daring raid, they believed he earned his feathers and became worthy enough to be a true warrior.

Soon after Captain Roe returned to Fort Edward with the captured sloop the next

morning, ,Colonel Eddy convened his army for a victory celebration. Before the festivities started, he took a moment to speak to his soldiers, “There were a great quantity of stores on the sloop all intended for the garrison. Six hundred barrels of pork and beef, a ton of candles, fifty firkins of butter, seven hundred blankets and two hogshead of rum.” The celebration following grew in numbers and spread through the Eastern Tantramar Peninsula, lasting hours into the unseasonably warm November afternoon into the night To the victors belonged the spoils, and Initiated into the victory circle, Timothy tasted British rum for the first time, and later fell quickly asleep comfortably under a thick Indian made blanket he had received as plunder for his part in the capture of the British sloop.

The next morning, Eddy marched his army across the Missiquash River at low tide,

through a central marsh to a Fort Cumberland ridge, where at a small community only a mile away from the fort, called Camphill, he set up a new headquarters. An avowed patriot, Eliphalet Read, had volunteered his home to Eddy for his headquarters. Patriot soldiers confiscated farmhouses and barns scattered on both sides of the Baie Verte Road for barracks. In a wooded area near Read’s home, the Maliseets and Micmacs erected their wigwams. Enthused on hearing the news about the rebels taking the “Polly,” droves of inhabitants from the nearby towns of Westcock, Amherst, and Jolicure flocked to the camp to join the rebels, from the Northumberton coast came the Pictonians, and over the Boar Back came a contingent of men from Cohequid led by Thomas Faulkner, who had recently been released from a Halifax gaol when a charge of treason was dropped against him. 74 The new recruits showing up in Eddy’s camp swelled its ranks to over two hundred soldiers .

Timothy was assigned to a different squad with nine other men, who, were from Cumberland, and knew their way around the local area. It would be strange not having the Tomah brothers around to cover his back, but they had settled in with the rest of the MicMacs in the wooded area apart from the soldiers, While Ben was not in his squad either, he would be camping in a nearby barn and they could chum around in their free time.

Things were certainly different now, he would have to fend on his own, but the Tomah brothers had taught him how to be ready for different situations and the routine nowadays for the soldiers was fairly routine. They were just keeping the local folks from getting in or out of Fort Cumberland, and providing the British information about what the patriot army was

doing. The local populace in the Cumberland countryside lived in fear of both their loyalist and patriot neighbors. On the appearance of the patriots and Captain Eddy. they faced the additional choice of either being plundered and butchered by their friends or incurring the displeasure of the British government in Halifax. Doing what the patriots wanted by staying at home was by no means an act of indifference or indication of neutrality. They were under house arrest.

Aware and trying to curb some of the havoc the patriot army was causing in the nearby Cumberland peninsula, Colonel Goreham issued an ultimatum warning the local populace, “Those who have lately entered this province, taken .prisoners, seized a vessel belonging to the garrison, Induced the inhabitants to rebel, and who are in rebellion and caught will subject

themselves to an immediate military execution.” While the patriot soldiers heard about his death.threat, they did not know the British colonel had decided upon “a stay in the fort until a

relief force arrives from Halifax, then attack:” fort defense, and they could venture out in the area near the fort without fear the British soldiers would come outside the fort to combat them. 75

Every day, patriot detachments fanned out across the isthmus on plundering raids.

On a trip to Fort Lawrence, Timothy learned first - hand that the soldiers did not always distinguish if it was a patriot or loyalist they were attacking when his squad stopped at a home a couple of his fellow Cumberland squad members told him was owned by the father - in- law and uncle of two patriot army members. When a woman answered the door, Captain Roe asked her curtly where her husband was. Hemming and hawing, the older woman tried to answer his question carefully, “My husband’s not at home and I’m so exasperated that he is still being kept at the fort.” Looking for any excuse to help himself to the man’s valuables, the squad leader reacted angrily, “If your husband doesn’t leave the fort immediately, we’ll come back, burn your house down and deliver your family to the Indians. In the meanwhile, we’ll inspect your house and take anything we need. Stand aside, Mrs. Delesdernier.” He then proceeded to order the soldiers into the house and and told them to take everything valuable. Timothy lagged behind the other soldiers as they walked through the house, watching them take the furniture, household provisions and other items they could carry to the carts waiting outside. As the soldiers left, they promised to return to make good on their threats if her husband did not come quickly to his senses and join up with the patriots.

Lagging behind the rest of the soldiers, Timothy, came upon two little boys huddled in a corner crying softly.. They reminded him of his own young brothers back at home, “What if the British raided our house someday and took all of our provisions,” he thought. Looking round the house a second time to make sure he was the only soldier in the house, he wandered over to the boys, kneeled down by them, and gently patted the head of the youngest boy, whose long brownish - blonde locks falling down his forehead made him look him like the spitting image of his own brother Branch, The little boy looked up at him and between sad cries, asked, “Are the men going to hurt my Grandma? “ Timothy answered gently, “No I won’t let them hurt her.” Worried the poor woman and the small children would have nothing to eat that winter, he casually looked around again for s final time, dropped the loaves of bread and canned goods he was carrying on the kitchen table and turning his head back winked at the boys as he left.

After the Cumberland Creek raid, the siege settled into a pattern. By day, patriot soldiers continued to plunder Cumberland farms and by night, they would take shots at the British

soldiers on the fort’s ramparts, and the British soldiers in turn would return their fire in the darkness, both sides rarely scoring a hit. While it seemed to a fruitless effort, Eddy told the men that the gunfire on the fort at night was part of a grandiose plan to terrorize the garrison, provoke a British response, and maybe even bring on a surrender. The minimum effect of the nightly attacks would be to make the British soldiers nervous and the patriots’ blockade of the fort more effective. 76

Expecting a relaxing Saturday night, Timothy and several members of his squad decided to drink the suds of a locally brewed ale. Raising their mugs in a toast to Eddy’s army, relaxed and enjoying a festive night, the men were suddenly startled by the loud sound of a smoking seven pound ball of hot cast Iron, whizzing over their heads and hitting the owner standing over by the bar stand smack in his buttocks before smashing into the foundation of the building. Scared to death, the soldiers in the tavern dove to the floor, grasping their heads, and feeling for any blood dripping down from a wound. Not hurt, Timothy with his mates immediately scrambled out of the damaged building, and looked up at the ramparts to see if there were any more cannons still being fired at them. While the tavern was severely hit, it was blind fate that drew the cannon fire to them that night. A maid had lit a candle in a tavern window just a few moments before the blast and in the pitch dark night, a Fort Cumberland

cannoneer saw that flicker of light, and took aim on the only target which lit up the blinding darkness enough to aim at with their seven pound cannons. It was a bad omen for the patriots that blind fate had directed the destruction of the only target that could be seen that night

4. The Attack on Fort Cumberland, Sunday, November 10 - Thursday, November 14 - November 21 1776

By the second week of November, the news about Eddy’s brazen invasion of Nova Scotia, his victory at Shepody Post, seizure of the supply sloop, and daring movement to a base only a mile away from the fort spread across Tantamar Peninsula. Emboldened by the patriot army’s daring feats, men from near and far flocked to Eddy’s headquarters to join and swell the size of his army to well over two hundred soldiers. 77

If his stay drifted into Winter, Timothy felt he would be ready. The barn he stayed in was filled with provisions. The stock in the barnyard was fat and nearby forests were filled with deer, squirrels, rabbits and other game. Whenever the soldiers ran short on any provisions, farmers owning the Arcadian barns scattered along the Baie Verte Road overflowing with produce grown locally, would haul them more than enough provisions to keep the patriots’ army well fed. Beyond that, the thick blankets, boots, pots, rum, pans and other plunder he had acquired in the Shepody Post skirmish, the seizure of the “Polly” and other raids would keep him comfortably warm at night and well clothed during the day.

While he tightened the blockage around the fort, trying to prevent loyalists from passing on accurate information about the patriots’ activities back to the garrison, Eddy made sure Col. Goreham received regular exaggerated reports about the size of his army and the extent of the local populace’s rebellion against Halifax. No dummy, the fort commander did the same thing in reverse, leaking exaggerated reports to Eddy that. the garrison was experiencing large numbers of deserters, a growing food shortage and the patriots’ plunder raids were terrorizing the loyalist population in Cumberland. Eddy played all his cards, trying to bluff the garrison’s commander Into surrendering. Losing patience with the waiting game, he finally broke down and sent an ultimatum demanding Goreham’s surrender. 78

The British Colonel was no novice to the nuances of siege warfare, The strategy Eddy was employing in the Cumberland, was the same as he had employed in Quebec City in 1759 when his company of soldiers helped to establish a blockage and conducted raids to terrorize French settlements along the St. Lawrence River. 79 He also knew from experience the odds favored him if he kept his soldiers in the fort. Contrary to intelligence reports he was getting, he suspected the patriot army was much smaller than the six hundred soldiers that standard military good sense stipulated as necessary for a successful assault on his two hundred soldiers in a secure garrison like Fort Cumberland. 80

While he did not know for sure, he gambled his requests for relief got through to Halifax. Had he received word about the patriots’ invasion and success at Shepdy Post sooner, he would have detained the HMS Juno’s two hundred marines and sixteen guns to finish the patriots off. Although much of the fort’s winter provisions were lost with the patriots’ capture of the sloop, the Colonel could ration what he had and they would hold him into the winter. Contrary to reports, his men were not deserting in mass exoduses and seemed to be holding their own in the skirmishes at night. Holding all of the aces in his hand, he bet he could keep his regiment safe inside the ramparts and wait for some relief from Halifax. It would be bad judgment for him to order the soldiers outside the ramparts to engage the enemy. Why

reduce the odds in their favor when staying in the fort increased the odds that his soldiers and guns would defeat a patriot attack on Fort Cumberland. Confident his decision to stay back in

the garrison was the best alternative, Goreham decided to let Eddy’s ultimatum to surrender expire without an answer.

The patriot army was getting restless. The soldiers had exhausted their sources for plunder In the nearby Cumberland and coveted the riches they imagined waited for them in Fort Cumberland. Greed supplanted the revolutionary enthusiasm the men showed at Shepody Post and Cumberland Creek. Their post in Camphill was near chaos while the nearby countryside was tired of martial law restrictions and starting to turn against Eddy. Patriot sentries tired of the constant harassment they had to exercise over the populace. Pressured by their men, his officers called for Eddy decision to attack Fort Cumberland. 81

Although his deadline for the garrison surrender expired the day before, Eddy hesitated ordering an attack. While he was convinced the dilapidated fort, and the poorly equipped soldiers would not stand up to his army, he did not consider the impact the fort’s mighty cannons would have on his soldiers. Once the cannon started unloading their seven pounders on them would they retreat or have the courage to charge the fort’s fortified defenses. Seemingly unconcerned about his soldiers’ prowess, he just hoped for some help from Massachusetts, even a privateer in the Cumberland Basin, to come to their assistance.Time was running out and Ignoring his ultimatum to surrender, the fort’s commander in effect challenged him to attack now or “forever hold his peace.” Eddy knew he had no other alternative then to give the order to his small army to prepare to attack the garrison

Mustering his troops was a difficult task. Camping in barns near headquarters, Timothy, Ben and the twenty men of the Machias Contingent reported right away, but many of the irregular soldiers had living quarters in homes, or distant farms scattered across the Tantramar Peninsula. The officers had trouble finding them or were turned down when requested to report because they were obligated to perform other duties or simply could not be found. 82 All day Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, , the officers searched for their army before a strike force of only eighty men could be mustered. Charging the fortified defenses of Fort Cumberland frontally required unquestioned courage, which was apparently in short supply among the Johnny Come lately irregulars recruited after the patriot glorious army victories at Shepody Post and Cumberland Creek

Eddy was kidding himself if he believed his eighty man army could attack the garrison successfully. His ability to motivate a force of only eighty men to report for duty prevented him from being able to concentrate a large enough army for an assault on Fort Cumberland. Military convention dictated his attacking force strength should outnumber the defenders of that fortification by a ratio of at least three to one. The Colonel was short five hundred twenty soldiers necessary to successfully defeat the more than two hundred British soldiers defending the fort. 83

The moon was still high in the sky Wednesday morning, November 13th, when the fife and drum signals awoke Timothy after a sleepless night. In an hour or so, he would be charging

up a hill at Fort Cumberland’s seven pounders. Terrified by that thought, he sat hunched

over on a bench, looking down at his boots, watching his knees bouncing against each other. All last night laying in his bunk, he visualized the fearful prospect of cannon balls roaring overhead, bullets whizzing past his head, soldiers pointing their bayonets and charging at him and the brave men he had signed up with at Machias, dropping down dead or wounded

to the ground on both sides of him. He was too young to die - he had just started his life. He worried again about what his young brothers back in Cornwallis would do without him and whether his father would be father enough to care and comfort them if he came back to Cornwallis upon a wooden pallet. What would they think when they heard about the forthcoming battle back home. While he did not think his comrades would lose the fight, he worried that Ben and his other friends in the Machias and Maliseet contingents would not

survive to fight another day.

Suddenly, his mother came into his mind. He swore that she occasionally talked to him, but then that could be his imagination or conscience speaking to him. She was so religious when he was little, teaching him and his brothers morning and evening prayers, taking them to church services. Her father was a Congregational minister and so was his father, her grandfather and his great grandfather. 84 If there was any time he needed her advice, now was the time. She would be able to tell him if there was a heaven or a hereafter to this life as she used to teach him. Tears in his eyes, he thought, I may find that out today.”

In preparation for the battle, Eddy divided his army into three groups. The Acadians would lead a diversionary attack on the garrison, a second group would carry ladders and tools to scale the outer palisade, and the third group, which Timothy was in, would make an assault on the fort. His friend, Pierre Tomah volunteered to sneak into the fort during the confusion expected during the diversionary attack and unlock the gate for a patriot charge. 85

Before the sun rose above the horizon, newly appointed to his first command, Lieutenant Lewis DeLesdernier, led the twenty - one Acadians into position in the “Brick Kiln” in the drains at the foot of the glacis. Hoping to draw British reinforcements away from the point of main attack, they opened up a heavy fire on the British fort. The garrison was not surprised by this attack, having been on alert since the expiration of Eddy’s ultimatum to attack on Sunday. Every soldier in the garrison knew an attack was forthcoming.

The initial burst of the Acadian corp at four o’clock in the morning sprung the Royal Fencibles quickly into action. Sitting in the command post on the opposite side of the garrison, Col. Goreham’s instinctively knew the musket fire from the patriots’ twenty -one guns did not sound heavy enough for the main attack. Familiar with the same British military manual of 1764 as Eddy, he knew the first assault of a battle was usually not the main attack and decided not to divert reinforcements, sure his Royal Fencible could hold off the enemy in that sector. Confident the enemy’s main attack would be geared toward the fort’s vulnerable curtain, he kept his main body of troops and more importantly, his cannons mounted where they were and waited patiently for the gunfire in this quarter to start. The British soldiers in the flagstaff bastion began laying down a heavy fire of their own and for the first time in his life, the first time patriot commander on the other side of the fort heard “whistlers’” flying over his head. 86

Kneeling in an old trench dug by the British in 1756 opposite the “Bakehouse” between Prince’s and Howe’s Bastion, Timothy gripped his musket tightly, froze his eyes on the foreboding ramparts one hundred yards in front of him, and waited nervously for what seemed like forever for the Acadians to start firing to signal the start of the battle. Although a cloudy sky, shielding most of the light from the setting moon, made it more difficult for British lookouts to spot them, he was afraid and trembling. He wanted to hear musket fire letting them know that the diversionary attack had started and they could begin their main attack on the fortress. While the fort was fighting on two fronts, Timothy and the twenty - seven men led by Captain West planned to storm their way into the fort and demand its surrender.

The “bang, bang, bang” of the Acadian muskets finally rang out on the far side of the fort. Captain West stood up and gave his men the order to start firing at the soldiers on the curtain wall. In response to the gunfire, the garrison’s artillery started pounding the patriots with its booming seven pound missiles. Never facing cannon fire before, Timothy, Ben and most of the other soldiers frightened out of their wits, laid down on the incline with their heads down, blocking their ears with their hands, whimpering like babies. Suddenly recalling the prayers of contrition their mothers taught them as children. those soldiers prayed to be ready

for an immediate death.

While the bombardment was deafening, it turned out to be more bark than bite. About halfway through the bombardment, it dawned on Captain West, that the cannons were shooting the missiles well over their heads. Although their nerves were considerably frayed, none of the soldiers seemed otherwise injured. After crawling over to and checking out each of them, he tried to rally his men to their feet and lead them into a position in a drain close enough to aim and shoot at the soldiers on the palisades.

Still recovering from the fearful thunder of the cannons, Timothy followed West’s lead to the drain and started shooting at the enemy soldiers. As he looked up at the parapets to his right he saw the huge log rollers poised ominously at the edge of the parapet ready to cut loose logs on anyone daring to climb up the incline. Fifty years later, and now an old man, he still dreamt about the image of those rollers silhouetted against the faint moonlight shining through the cloud cover. 87

While the havoc of the battle erupted in the fort, Pierre Tomah in the darkness managed to get within the palisades Unchallenged amidst the loud sounds of musket fire, cannons, and officers shouting orders, and unnoticed in the crowd of people and terrorized cattle, he stole along the inside of the palisade toward the main gate.. Just as he reached the gate and attempted to remove the bar and permit the patriots an easy entry, he was spotted by a soldier, who drew his sword, dashed forward, and slashed at the Indian’s hands, upraised arm, maiming him but securing the fort at a critical moment. The wounded warrior tried his best but failing, fell and laid on the ground bleeding profusely. 88

Eddy tried to press his men forward, but the fate of his frontal attack was decided when the Goreham issued the order to fire the cannons. By staying inside the fort, the fort’s commander added to his numerical superiority of two hundred plus soldiers, the advantage of a walled fortress, either of which could have decided the battle in favor of the British loyalists. The patriot army’s musketry was not enough to breech the walls, and they had not brought

scaling ladders and did not have enough soldiers to cover their ascent up the hill toward the glacis. With the addition of the fort’s artillery directed against the main body of inexperienced attackers, they would have to retreat and regroup their forces. Eddy’s did not stand a chance of waging a successful attack. 89

Decrepit as it was, Fort Cumberland was too formidable a prize for the plunder hungry patriot army to seize. Two hundred British soldiers stood strong behind the fort’s walls firing seven pounders and bullets at them without stopping for two hours. Not one of the garrison’s soldiers dared to desert as Eddy had hoped. Experienced in siege warfare, Goreham anticipated every move the patriots made. He did not bite on the diversionary attack and kept his troops in place protecting the point that the patriots launched their biggest attack. While the only casualty in the assault was poor Pierre Tomah who somehow found his bearing after being stabbed and floundered back outside the fort, the patriot army lost their pride. They had lost the fight and would not recover. Their leaders had let them down and lost favor with the Camphill Committee of Safety, who took over management of the siege from Eddy

thereafter. 90

While Eddy still reported to his superiors that the army behaved gallantly, the patriot soldiers, heads hung low, crawled back to Camphill, tongue in cheek, many without their muskets, scaling ladders, saws, and ammunition, which blanketed the ground where they dropped them in the heat of battle. Outnumbered and fired upon by cannons in front of a walled fort, they were lucky they were not wounded or killed. The wisdom of a seasoned British commander did right in staying in a fortified garrison armed with six seven pound cannons waiting for relief to be sent from Halifax. The opposing patriot colonel did not challenge him much. 91

5. The Aftermath of Defeat

In the wake of defeat, the Camphill Revolutionary Council. took away and delegated much of Eddy’s military and civil authority to a reorganized Committee of Safety. Rather than continuing to focus on seizing the fort, patriot patrols were deployed to maintain only the blockade still hoping they may still be able to starve the fortress into submission. Fearing counter attacks, the army reorganized into companies and fell into a defensive posture. To help them to this end, they appealed to Boston for canons and mortar. and asked that American privateers sail to their aid with some troops and military stores. In the absence of much plunder, they petitioned the Commonwealth to make the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland part of the Continental Army and pay them for their service. . While the patriot army was floundering in defeat, down the road at Fort Cumberland, the British loyalists were rejoicing there was no risk of a counter attack, and content to deny Eddy entry to the fort and wait for reinforcements from Halifax. 92

Timothy was in the midst of another dilemma. A day after the battle, the Machias contingent decided they would quit the fight and go back home. .With the defeat, they had lost the opportunity to seize the riches of Fort Cumberland and did not see any future in this warfare. The men spoke up about their concerns. “We didn’t come to the Cumberland to fight for nothing.” They knew the rebellion would fail without them. “ We are the toughest unit and will be the first ones in any fight. If we left, the rebellion would fold.” Angered by their revolt, Eddy threatened them with a military execution if they continued their revolt. The soldiers replied back, “They had nothing to lose. but would rather die like men than be hung like dogs.” Greed did not drive young Timothy, he just wanted to fight the British and free Nova Scotia to join the colonies in their quest for freedom. 93

The Committee of Safety had to find a way to induce the Maine men to stay while eliminating a threat they posed in the community. Getting out of hand, their plunder raids of both loyalists and patriots’ farms alike, alarmed the entire community. While the presence

of Maine soldiers in the patriot army lent credibility to the American presence in the effort and served as the integral force of any military action, their ruthlessness on these raids terrorized the citizens to a point of no return. Just the same, if the patriots wanted a chance to win the siege of Fort Cumberland, they had no other alternative than to appease the Machias contingent somehow. The Machias men going back home was a no win alternative. 94

Timothy sat in the meeting feeling like he was between the devil and the deep blue sea. If he sided with his fellow soldiers, he would be hung and if he didn’t, he would be shunned by his comrades. He did not know what to do. Still inspired by the American quest for freedom, he wanted to fight for that cause. He felt he did not want to desert his friends either. Undecided what to do, he left the meeting and laid down his bunk. He just wanted to be left alone to think this matter through. Laying back on the straw, he thought about what he should do.

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by the voices of men talking outside the barn. Ben burst in, shouting, “Timothy, Can you believe it, they’re going to pay us to stay with the army!” The Camphill Committee of Safety had resolved the stalemate by offering each Maine man eight dollars a month for three months to stay with the army. “Thank goodness,” Timothy sighed with relief, “I won’t be hung and plus, I’ll be paid eight dollars a month for my

service.” 95

The entire twenty-eight man contingent unanimously agreed to stay to enforce the

patriots’ blockade. Eddy and the officers believed a tight blockade may still starve the garrison into submission. With significant reinforcements, they may even have a chance of mounting another on the fort. However, they knew realistically any attack on the fort without more men and some cannons of their own was impracticable. If Boston did not send privateers with the men and cannons they needed, they would have to give up the fight.

While the patriots manned their blockade of the fort, Halifax, who thought the rebels had taken Fort Cumberland and were rampaging through the countryside, was organizing a task force in the village of Windsor to rid the fort and the province of the patriot army. The South Fundy coast from Windsor to Annapolis Royal had been on alert since Michael Francklin’s return from Cobequid November 12th with the news that Fort Cumberland was besieged.

On receiving the news of the rebel invasion, Windsor officials immediately called up their militia and organized a local defense while Halifax ordered the sloops “Albany,” “Dilgent” and “Vulture” to the Cumberland. The British vessel “Vulture,” with two companies of Royal Marines, and four garrison companies of Highland Grenadiers was already en route and expected to be in Cumberland Bay, at best in a day and a half and if the weather was stormy

in two days.

While the British were rallying for battle in Windsor, Camphill groped for a new strategy

to capture the fort. The siege was lasting longer than they had expected and both camps were starting to bite the bullet. The blockade of the countryside had become an excuse for patriot patrols, organized by Eddy’s officers, to ravage the Cumberland countryside for prizes from loyalist and patriots farms alike. Both friend and foe had every reason to fear a knock on the door.

6. The Battle of Blazing Barns

After the patriot army’s humiliating defeat at the gates of Fort Cumberland, the local Committee of Safety took over the rule in the Cumberland Considerably more committee members than just Eddy were now making day to day decisions and some of them used their newly gained power to settle personal vendettas, disputes or dislike of friend or foe. With so many hands in the pie, the patriots soldiers had many masters, often they did not know who to obey, and were very often confused by conflicting orders. No one seemed to be in charge and the patriot army often appeared to be waging guerrilla warfare on the loyalist community.

Timothy and his fellow patriot soldiers were upset. The defeat in the fort attack and subsequent confusing civilian control of the army had plunged the Camphill camp into the doldrums. While Eddy reassured them the blockade was working, Timothy thought the military tactics of starving out the fort and terrorizing the community were cruel. All of the soldiers were tense and were often bickering with each other. The Cumberland men

resented paying a local tax to pay the Machias men to stay in the patriot army. The other day he witnessed five of his drunken fellow soldiers chase a Micmac warrior from their camp into a marsh and then watched him drown. While the fort was running out of provisions, the patriot army had plenty of supplies, the countryside laid open to plunder and the Acadian barns were stuffed with all of the provisions they needed for the winter. The truth of the matter was the dream of taking over Fort Cumberland and then marching onto Halifax seemed further and further away and the patriots soldiers were losing their sense of purpose. 96

Concerned about the diminishing morale of the patriot army, the Committee of Safety tried to develop a new attempt to take the fort. They had each of the contingents elect a representative to brain storm different approaches, but the army’s small numbers made most of the suggestions impractical until the idea of burning out the garrison was proposed. The

dozen or so soldiers’ huts, garrison buildings, hospital and other properties belonging to villagers clustered north of the fort could be set on fire, and the buildings would be upwind this night and if only a few of them were set aflame, the men argued, the wind would sweep the fire into the fort. The north wind howling outside the meeting place convinced the committee that the proposal should be approved. 97

Spirits raised by the news of another attack on the fort, Timothy and his young friend Ben enthusiastically volunteered for a detachment assigned to attack the fort. They were two of only eighty men who volunteered for the venture, a number that would prove to be less than what was needed to mount a successful attack. Just the same, the young men were assigned to one of several units which would light the buildings on fire. At midnight, encouraged by the rally words of Colonel Eddy sending them off and the strong gusts of wind blowing against their backs, the volunteers marched down the Baie Verte Road toward the fort. Between three and four o’clock, Timothy was huddled in the doorway of the barn assigned to them for torching with the unit’s other soldiers nervously waiting for the order to set the building on fire. Finally a soldier came running into the barn, giving them the order to proceed.

Heart beating a mile a minute, Timothy walked out of the barn to a blazing bonfire in

the middle of the complex of barns, hospital, and farm houses, stuck his lightening rod into the flames, and following behind the other soldiers in his unit, headed back to the barn. Enemy soldiers on the ramparts spotted and started firing their muskets at them. A surprise attack, they had not readied their cannons and the British guns were too distant to do them any harm. Except for the light of the fires, it was dark that night and he had to follow the flame in front of him to find his target. The soldiers spread apart from each other, and set their flaming poles into the hay and wooden timbers that lay on the ground. Before long, strong winds turned the burning hay and the barn timbers into blazing ambers which swept the flaming sparks out over the spur, toward the fort, and onto the dry shingles of the old wooden buildings crowding the area. The fires ignited by the soldiers spread far before the garrison could organize their firefighters.

After igniting the assigned building on fire, Timothy and Ben crept away on their hands and knees to a hill which overlooked a burning garrison building. Looking at the burning building across from them, the boys spotted a multitude of soldiers scurrying up to the rooftop to help put out the flames. Ben whispered to his side kick, “Look at those Brits, they are duck soup for my musket.” High above the walls, illuminated by the fires, the fire fighters were indeed easy targets and well within of the range of the boy’s muskets Out there suffocating the flames, they were helpless targets. Spotting a group of women and their children huddling together, and crying pathetically in unison. Timothy answered his friendly, “Ben, I can’t shoot those men, they are putting out the fires in that building is, those women and kids will be

burnt up if those men can’t put out the fires. I’ll just point my musket toward them and pretend like I’m shooting. I am not going to kill any of those brave men. They are trying to save the women, and children from being burned to a crisp. I don’t think they are our enemies for doing that.

The patriots had the best of all worlds. Everything could have gone as their way that day if Eddy had only assigned more soldiers to assault the exposed soldiers. Only ten or so patriots were firing at the Royal Fencibles. The other patriot soldiers on the hill either elected not to shoot or were stationed in positions where they did not have a clear shot. Like Timothy many of the soldiers did not want to distract the soldiers from putting out the fires for the same humanitarian reasons. In the garrison directing a company of British soldiers firing on the patriots, Goreham wondered why the enemy did not increase their fire. He knew that If the flames had raced out of control or if Eddy had compounded the attack with a heavier musket volley, the patriots would have taken the fort. 98

In his excellent history, “The Siege of Fort Cumberland, 1776, Ernest Clarke described the final scene, “Col. Eddy had not anticipated such a determined response from the soldiers and civilians in putting out the fires. Nowhere to run, they fought the fires vigorously and tenaciously beat away all of the little flames and organized a bucket brigade to attack the larger ones. If the flames raced ahead and got into the dry roof timbers of just one of the buildings packed in the spur, the whole fort would go up in flames and the garrison would have been forced to evacuate and surrender to Eddy. But the readiness and activity of the garrison’s men on this difficult occasion was surprising to Goreham, who watched the fires brought slowly under control, then extinguished one by one, and each flaming missile stamped out as it landed. Gradually the buildings torched by the patriots burned down, the wind subsided, and Eddy stopped the attack. Many buildings still remained standing near the fort after the fires abated, its roar receded, and the red sky darkened again. The patriots retreated in disgruntled groups to Camphill, the sentries returned to their lonely duty on the parapets snd the Tantramar night returned to impenetrable darkness.” Another attack failed and Eddy had not

planned for the best scenario again. 99

Friday evening, the patriots came back and fired up the remaining five buildings so the British could not use the wood for fuel. The garrison was roused for a second night in a row to fend off what they thought might be another attack. “The fires raced quickly through the vacant houses and barns, and the large hospital causing an enormous blaze. Terrified families huddled on the parade square beneath a night sky turned to red daylight by the fire, the high shadows cast by the flames raced wildly across the bastions and curtain walls that surrounded them. The lack of wind and no patriot musket fire that night made the fires less threatening to the fort. The purpose of this attack was to reenforce the blockade and not a direct attack on the fort. 100

Stunned by another failed fort attack, the local rebellion subsided and the patriot army turned into bands of out of control vigilantes pillaging loyalists’ property. Under the blurred command of the Committee of Safety, detachments of soldiers under the pretense of being on a military mission rampaged throughout the Cumberland countryside. The Royal Marines relief force in transit to Ft. Cumberland, was only miles south fighting off a storm, anchored out in the Cumberland Basin, The night before, soldiers on the Vulture’s deck could see the rising smoke and eery brightness cast on the horizon by the distant fires at Fort Cumberland. They speculated among themselves if they were going on a relief or rescue mission at the garrison. Anxious to make contact and find out, Captain James Featus decided to send some Royal Marines ashore in a boat and march ahead to make contact with the fort. The unknowing patriots at Cumberland were about to face their Waterloo. 101

7. The Camphill Rout Wednesday November 27 - Friday, November 28, 1776

Colonel Eddy had tried all the tactics he had seen work firsthand as a young company commander in General Robert Monckton’s successful capture of Fort Beausejour, renamed Fort Cumberland by the British after capture in 1755. Four years later when his company was garrisoned at Fort Cumberland, he became familiar with every nook and cranny at the garrison. While effective as company commander leading a small force, he made fatal mistakes when challenged to lead a small army at Fort Cumberland. .102

At Fort Cumberland, he tried bluffing his adversary, assaulting the fort, burning the fort down, blockading and starving the British Into submission but a two hundred soldier army was too small to make any of these tactics work. In the first attack on the garrison, he deployed a tactic which every officer in the British army learned in boot camp - make a diversionary attack to draw reinforcements from the main point of attack. On the day of battle, he could

rally only eighty of his over two hundred recruits to join the fight. In the fire attack, he had failed to rally or assign enough fire power to attack the British soldiers fighting the fire on the roof of the buildings. Whatever tactic he employed, a British archer fired a fatal arrow

Into his Achilles Tendon to defeat it.

Like his adversary, he decided to wait for reinforcements while he continued his blockade. He would try to stop the flow of supplies from reaching the fort and maybe even capture more of their existing stores, thinking he could starve out the overcrowded fort before winter. The capture of the sloop, “Polly,” had fit in with this strategy because it deprived the fort of vital supplies they would have had on hand to get the fort through the cold winter months. Going into the fifth week of the siege, this option and hoping for cannons and troops from Massachusetts was their only chance for capturing the garrison, but he did not have as

much time left to succeed as he thought.103

Goreham stayed in the fort and also hoped for reinforcements. He knew victory would go to the side that welcomed a frigate with some soldiers and cannons first, but if neither side was reenforced quickly, winter would decide the issue. While the patriots had plentiful food on hand, they were otherwise ill equipped to weather Cumberland’s freezing temperatures. At the same time, while the soldiers in the garrison had a lot of timber for fire fuel, they were already on reduced rations which would not sustain them through the winter.

Although a very thick fog blanketed Cumberland Ridge, Wednesday, November 27th, Timothy, his friend Ben and ten other men crept on their hands and knees toward a pasture just outside Fort Cumberland’s ramparts. Earlier that morning, they had spotted the garrison’s cattle grazing unattended, and decided to rustle them from the garrison’s diminishing provisions. Using hand signs to communicate with each other, they slowly made their way to the pasture undetected by the fort’s sentries. As they neared the cows, they started waving their hands and “mooing” in an attempt to drive the cows toward the far side of the pasture nearest the woods. They were just starting to get the cows moving when their animated gestures and cow sounds drew the attention of a sentry on the ramparts, who fired an alarm shot. In short order, the alarm stirred several British soldiers who came charging out of the garrison gate, caught up and started shooting at them in close range. Overwhelmed by

their fire power, the small patriot band soon determined they were too badly outnumbered to continue their raid. The men reversed their direction and started running across the open field, crisscrossing between and stopping momentarily behind a hay stack to take a shot. Far ahead of the other men, Timothy ran towards the woods, stopped behind a tree, and shot his musket repeatedly at the enemy until the patriots reached the woods, ran down to the marsh and rested in a safe haven. .

While the cattle skirmish was not a win for the patriots, it was a personal victory for Timothy. Several British soldiers were wounded on the edge the woods, one of whom he remembered shooting in the chest. The wounded soldier did not get up to his feet like the other wounded men. He was resting in the marsh later when Ben came over, stopped abruptly, and raising his right hand to his head, saluted him. ,“Thank you for covering us back there in the woods, You could have run and saved yourself. I saw all the British soldiers fall and I think you got your first kill. You can carve a notch in the grip of musket because now you have made the grade. Congratulations! You’re now a full fledged soldier.“ Timothy responded apologetically, “I had to shoot at them, they were trying to kill you.”

The patriots made their escape through the tree lined ridge on a path leading them high above the Cumberland Basin. A little way down the path, Timothy stopped and gazed out onto waters waiting for all his fellow soldiers to catch up with him. Spotting the frigate out on the Cumberland Basin, he shouted out, “There is a boat out there in the waters. I can’t see if the flag is American or British. Can you see it Ben?” His friend answered, “I can’t see the flag

either, but I see a couple boats heading toward the shore too. There are men in red and white uniforms in those boats and an American ship would not be sending men into Fort Cumberland that way. The ship must be British!”

A half hour later, the men heard a three gun signal bursting from the fort’s cannons, signaling to the ship in the harbor that the soldiers on the boats had found the British still held the fort, and the ship in the harbor could finish unloading its men and munitions. Unbeknownst to the patriots, the ship was the British frigate “Vulture,” and it had just unloaded a company of British marines to a welcoming garrison. The next day it would deliver another company of marines, adding one hundred forty-seven more seasoned soldiers to the already two hundred British Royal Fencibles and loyalist volunteers stationed at the garrison. The marines and warship had answered Colonel Goreham’s plea to Halifax for help. 104

The patriot soldiers sensed immediately the British frigate in the basin could be the beginning of the end of their siege on Fort Cumberland. Colonel Eddy had to be quickly informed about their sighting. Still a half mile away from headquarters, they had to send the word ahead as quickly as practical. Reacting to the need for urgency, Lieutenant Mitchell stood in the middle of his squadron and asked, “Who among you can run the distance to headquarters the fastest to deliver this message?” Timothy stepped forward, and volunteered, “I can Sir!,” As the other soldiers nodded their heads in agreement, the sergeant ordered Timothy, “Run back to camp to tell Colonel Eddy and Captain West what we have seen!” Timothy immediately handed his musket and ammunition bag over to Ben, and sprinted off in the direction of Camphill.

Timothy brought Colonel Eddy news he already knew. When the fog rolled off the Cumberland Basin, Eddy easily spotted the masts of the three hundred foot frigate, “Vulture,” rocking back and forth in the water. While the patriots soldiers were panicking about the ship’s appearance, Eddy took the sighting more nonchalantly, observing in his report to the Committee of Safety only that, “On the 27th November, a Man of War from Halifax brought a reinforcement for the garrison consisting of near one hundred men.” The colonel believed Goreham would not change his strategy - he would use the British reinforcement only to strengthen the garrison and would not dispatch the additional soldiers to attack the patriots outside the fort. Disregarding any counsel to the contrary, Eddy made another fatal mistake not putting his troops on alert or adding any extra guards around the camp that night. 105

Informed by loyalist partisans that the patriot army was not anticipating an attack, Goreham organized his arm\y for a surprise attack for the next morning. His battle plan called for half the garrison troops to stay back to defend the fort and the other available one hundred fifty Royal Marines and Fencibles and Officers under the command of Major Thomas Batts to go outside the fort to assault the patriots at Camphill. The eighty-nine Royal Marines would form flanking parties on both sides, and the Royal Fencibles would carry the center of the attack directly into the patriot camp with the marines on both flanks. 106

Patriot intelligence warned Eddy the night before the assault that the British were planning to attack them the next morning. The pig headed colonel dismissed the report as frivolous, and missed an opportunity to seize an advantage by either abandoning Camphill or strengthening his defenses with more troops on his camp’s perimeter. Also, he did not order the troops remaining at home or camps further away to return to nearby barracks to protect the Camphill base. With or without those Cumberland troops, the patriot army’s numbers protecting headquarters were still far less than the number needed to defend against an attack

of the one hundred sixty - three royal marines and fencibles who would be charging furiously at them most of the next day.

The night was pitch dark when the British soldiers marched eastward out of Fort Cumberland the next morning Although the heavy fog hovering near the top of Camphill hill hindered their visibility, the single file of British soldiers could hear the Indians jabbering loudly with each other as they ascended the hill. Undetected by the patriot army they reached the Baie Verte Road, where half the Royal Marines company broke to the left, and the other half broke to the right flank of the road. Heading north toward the patriots’ encampment as the sun poked its head above the horizon, they could see the tops of several wigwams peaking up above the trees. All of a sudden, the silence was interrupted by a scream announcing the British army’s presence, followed by other voices and the sound of the Indians running away in panicky commotion. Moments later, a drum roll from the patriot’s camp beat out an urgent call for the soldiers to come to arms.

The furious beating of a drummer, trying to rally the patriot troops into action startled Timothy out of his restless reverie. He looked over at Ben, who was already awake, rushing around the barn, stirring the other men to get ready for a fight. Grabbing his musket, and ammo bag he followed behind his friend and several other men. Half dressed patriots from the tents and barns and other out buildings scattered quickly around to find cover behind hay stacks, barn doors and other barriers from which they would be protected as they loaded, aimed their muskets and shot desperately at the charging enemy soldiers. As they charged down the road at the patriot positions, the enemy soldiers howled liked crazed wolves. smelling the scent of bleeding flesh they would soon devour.

The loyalist army “had come upon them by surprise by a round about march and got past their few lookouts.” Not heeding an intelligence report warning him of a surprise attack or not otherwise anticipating the attack, Eddy had not ordered the farm fortified with sufficient barricades and trenches behind which the panicking patriot soldiers in this moment could congregate and hold back the assaulting British, until they could make an organized retreat. Without a plan, the patriot army fled haphazardly for their lives to escape far away from the angry British army. 107

Hidden behind a hay stack, Timothy saw the bright red coats of the British marines coming out of the woods, chasing Micmac Indians across the open fields in the direction of Baie Verte Road. He saw an Indian stopped in his tracks by a British bullet fall dead to the ground. Pulse beating ferociously, worried more about his Indian friends than his escape, Timothy thought about unloading his gun toward the red coats, but knew he would only be wasting his ammunition as he was too far out of range to stop any pursuing British soldiers. Saddened he could not do something to help his Indian friends out in their peril, he sighed and looked momentarily down to the ground.. On the open road, there suddenly appeared the main

body of the Royal Fencibles on the way to Read’s farm. The Fencibles and Marines then combined forces and attacked the cluster of buildings. Seeing what was happening, Timothy yelled out to Ben, “Let’s get out of here!”

The charging British approached now within range of their muskets. Timothy, Ben and a few other patriots grouped together and fired a hail of bullets from a barn opening at the attacking British. They had only fired a few rounds before they were overwhelmed by the British numbers, and had to retreat out the back door in the nick of time before the British set their shelter on fire. Together with the other patriot soldiers fleeing from huts and sheds, they ran to the woods, stopping and firing on the run, hoping they could make a stand in the woods to slow down the British following them.

The patriot soldiers ran up the road, sometimes veering into the woods, other times stopping and clustering by a barn or outbuilding to make a brief stand, only to be repeatedly overpowered by the British soldiers and chased further down the road. The sight of the patriot army fleeing was even sadder to the many mothers watching the road anxiously, listening for

the sound of musketry, and awaiting the slaughter of soldiers. Those with husbands in Eddy’s army feared the wrath of the loyalists and did not linger in their homes. They bundled up their children and fled into the woods hoping for the best. Their worst fears came true, the British kept on coming, knocking down fences, destroying cattle, and sheep, and anything else which satisfied their urge for revengeful payback.

The battle at Read’s farm house had slowed the British troops down. Timothy and Ben were able to catch up to a group of the patriots fleeing through the woods north toward Sackville, a place where they thought they could find a safe haven. On high ground now, the patriot troopers rested for a moment. Looking westward, they could see smoke rising far and wide from successive spots along the road toward Bloody Bridge. Pointing in different directions, individual soldiers shouted out, “That is our headquarters burning, they are burning How’s farm....... The British are scorching the earth!” The clouds threatened rainfall, which would ultimately slow down the British fury. While the Fencibles kept to the road, the Royal Marines would weave in and out of the bush on both sides of the road looking for any patriot stragglers. The retreat was strenuous and dangerous, requiring caution and strong nerves. Not knowing the area, Timothy and Ben had to stay close to the Cumberland patriots, taking cover from one tree to another, worried that the Marines would catch up to them.

The patriot soldiers came out the woods when they reached John Allen’s farmhouse in Bloody Ridge. They wanted to warn Allan’s wife that the British were not far away and help her flee with her children. While she had to fend for the safety of her household and five young children, her husband was away selfishly politicking to be appointed the Superintendent of Indians for the American colonies. 108

Ahead of the other soldiers, Timothy and Ben went up to the door of the house shouting, “Mrs. Allan, grab your children and flee immediately. The British are coming. You don’t have a lot of time. “ Mrs. Allen came to the door, her children hiding behind her legs, saying, “I hear you, I’ll leave immediately!” Heeding their warning, she went back inside the house, packed her children and some valuables and hurried to the woods. Accompanying her, Timothy and Ben each grabbed an end of her chest and carried the family valuables to speed up her escape. The British knew her husband well and did not spare the house from fire. Although many of the Acadians who lived on the estate did not fight the British off as they unleashed the fire on Allen’s house, barn, and outbuildings, the British soldiers ironically did not spare the Acadian tenants’ homes from the flames.. 109

Making sure, Mrs. Allan was safely hidden deep in the woods, the patriot band moved quickly through the woods getting a safe distance ahead of the marauding British soldiers, Young and somewhat reckless, far ahead of the others, Ben and Timothy came out of the woods and crossed the marsh heading toward Joliscure, escaping unscathed by the British army They could have attacked the Royal Marines lurking along the way in the woods, but realizing they lacked enough soldiers to mount an effective attack. they chose to make their getaway to Sackville. Very. few of Eddy’s men were captured in the rout and the British had to keep their soldiers back to prevent acts of rebellion by the patriots still at large on

the isthmus.

At the top of a high hill, the young soldiers stopped to look behind them for British soldiers coming down the six mile stretch of the Baie Verte Road, Timothy pointed his finger at the different farm locations from which he saw smoke rising, and counted, “One, two, three,.....ten, eleven, ........ Ben, there are twelve farms on fire. Not all of them are on ourside.” His young friend replied, “The British don’t care if the owner is patriot or loyalist, they will still burn the house!” On a “no mercy” rampage, the enemy did not spare the stores the people collected for the winter and drove the men, women, and children almost naked into the woods as a cold rain came down on them. Some other patriot soldiers caught up to them and they all headed

to the Memramcook and the Petitcodiac Rivers where they had canoes and boats, hidden on the banks of the river and Shepody Bay. Rain turned the ground into mud and slowed them down. When he heard the gurgling sound of the green water flowing as they approached.a river the next day, Timothy took a deep. breath, reached over to pat his friend Ben on his back and quietly whispered to him, “Ben, We made it!!”

Running as fast as he could, Timothy made his way through the woods down to the river. He remembered where the rebels had hidden the boats after Shepody and decided to head in that direction. It was a time to get his bearings and decide what direction they should

head. They thought they were not far from from the boats and hoped to meet up with any other rebels congregating there, and get away before the British caught up to them.

To his joy, when they came upon the river, Timothy saw that some of the Micmac Indians had already reached the canoes and were ready to shove off into the waters. He ran ahead as fast as he could to greet his old friends, Pierre Tomas, Chief Ambrose St. Aubin, and the Coleau brothers. The brave warrior, Joseph Tomah, who was bayoneted by a British soldier while trying to unlock the gate of the fort during the big battle was still imprisoned at Fort Cumberland, weak from his wounds and brooding. The siege ended too early for him, and too late for the rest of them.

The Maliseets and some of the Acadians patriots were talking about going back and burning the houses of Yorkshire families and other government friends at Ft.Lawrence but Timothy and Ben were not swayed by their threats. While British and militia soldiers started on their way Friday afternoon in a downpour of rain, they would be too late to catch Timothy, Ben, and the contingent of Indians and patriots who were already on their way to the Maliseet village of Aukpaque. There they rested two days there before heading out to the St. John River, where they rested one more day before going across the border to Machias and reaching the American colonies two months later. After Machias the river had frozen solid so they had to go “by paths over glare ice, snow knee deep, cross over rivers on floating ice in the night, suffering in body and mind all the time.” 110

Timothy and Ben could have stayed back in the Cumberland. Not long after the fort survived the attack, Goreham offered leniency, not only to those who stayed behind, but also to the families of those who fled and those who switched sides and joined garrison patrols. Many of Eddy’s associates chose not to join him in the exodus. They stayed back and made peace with the loyalists and British government in Halifax. . In response to a conditional pardon “onwards of one hundred surrendered at the fort,” Goreham was harsh with the ringleaders, and offered a reward for their capture. Acadians and native people with a reputation of being “very mischievous and revengeful in the rebellion” laid down their arms only to take them up again at Gore-ham’s persuasion to join in the hunt for the patriots’ leaders. 111

With the exception of Eddy and the leaders of the rebellion, he made amnesty available to those who surrendered at the fort. Timothy knew he was just a young soldier and would probably be treated leniently by Goreham, but he did not want to return to Cornwallis, and his young brothers. defeated, with his tail dragging behind him A leader in clandestine Committee of Safety activities, his father would probably be a marked man, who would probably have to flee their home for a safe haven, maybe even in the St. John River Valley where nobody would know him and the folks were more pro American. Winter was advancing, the rivers would freeze over shortly, and he needed to hasten his trip north, where he could sort out an alternative course of action to relieve the bitter taste in his mouth from thedefeat at Fort Cumberland. The American patriots were still fighting a revolution against the British back in Connecticut. Maybe he would think about fleeing there.

The British victory at Fort Cumberland preserved a key military post, reinforced loyalty across the province, and improved security on the frontier. The Micmacs’ neutrality was erased and the St. Aubin’s appearance on the losing side was a set back for the revolutionary faction of that nation. Initiatives would need to be taken to make the settlers more secure from the Indians and enforce loyalty of the patriots at Maugerville and Cobequid. Victory in Cumberland did not result in peace in all of Nova Scotia. The conflict continued in the courts contesting damages from the war to both sides. 112

Fleeing along the St. John River, Timothy recalled his last images of the Tantramar, children half naked and crying in the woods, women begging for food, homes and barns on fire, cold and frightened. This was no way to live and he vowed to never return to this God forsaken place. He had enough of Nova Scotia, and could not wait to find another home, where he could set down roots, maybe back with his Grandfather Woodworth in Lebanon, Connecticut.

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