January 18th, 1776
This morning, grim work. We have fallen upon a plantation downriver with infinitely less gentility and infinitely unhappier issue.
We landed with our full force and, knowing from the pilot that this was the house of a rebel, offered no terms for conveyance, but rather made straight for the stores and livestock to pillage. Five of our number labored to remove the fowls and swine to the tender while another five of us stood guard — and soon espied a party of Negroes approaching to repulse us.
They burst forth from the orchard, most armed with scythes and grubbing hoes, one with a fowling-piece. We presented our muskets, and the men, struck with fear, held back.
Serjeant Clippinger urged them to join us; but they did not respond. Clippinger then requested us to urge them to throw off the bonds of slavery. “Tell them, boys.”
There was a mighty silence, in which both sides awaited attack from the other, the protests of the cattle heard down by the river. We regarded their array: men with blades, men with guns.
Said Isaac the Carpenter, “Join our number, brothers.”
But they did not move. They blinked; and one lifted and dropped his elbows; but they stood firm.
And gently, Slant said to them, “The bodies, the bodies facing that way is free. The bodies facing this way is slaves.”
We were all, slave and free, struck with the oddity of his statement; it was unclear what this pronouncement signalized; but Pomp, seizing upon our friend’s meaning, said, “He right. You step over and face that way, you is free. Look at your persons.” Our enemies eyed their weapons and rocked upon their feet. Impassioned now, Pomp urged them, “You just turn your foot a little bit — a few inches — you free. Turn your hip, and you free. Move your leg so three toes face that, that apple tree, and you going to feel the wind in your face.”
They did not stir. At last, he pled, whispering, “Just turn on the grass. Like a child in the morning.”
They looked at us uneasily, and Clippinger addressed them: “Step lively away, boys, or we must needs fire.” They did not move; and so Clippinger ordered us to ready our arms — unneedful, as we already presented; and still they stood strong for their master; and Clippinger shook his head in a show of distaste, and our hands shook upon the triggers, and we all knew that we would fire, and they would die.
And then, the man with the fowling-piece discharged it at us, and several of the others rushed forward. Clippinger instanter ordered us fire, which we did, having no choice — we fired right upon them — and one fell — three reaching our line, the others, following the blast, retreating.
Bayonets made short work of two who reached us, Clippinger dancing about with his hanger. The other, wounded, fled.
We watched them scramble through the orchard. There was no utility in firing again; Clippinger accounted it little worth the loss of powder and shot. Our spoils were below, and to the riverside we repaired, there to embark. We could not speak.
No more resistance was offered us. Some fifteen minutes later, our launch set forth on its final leg, leaving dock and bloody ground behind.
The boat gained the ketch and we climbed aboard.
We were unharmed; we left the bodies of three of our brethren upon the brown grass.
As we left the scene of this massacre behind us, my thoughts were engrossed with visions of Bono, known to me since before my breeching, and our desperate feud, our tussle in the dark. First, a sorrow at our division; a confusion that we should come to blows; and then anger: I am no longer a child in pudding-cap and skirts to be pinched and teased; and if he demand the awed obeisance of the babe I was . . .
At noon, there was a wind upon the river, and we shivered upon our deck.