The Fort Read Free

party’s father insisted, then repeated all he had said. Alexander was holding a long stick which, in the circumstances, substituted for the American flag. He now aimed this at the church and pretended to shoot redcoats and so had to be chivvied back into the column which singly and generally agreed that they understood what their erstwhile schoolmaster wanted them to do. “Now remember,” Peleg Wadsworth encouraged them, “that when I order counterwheel you march in the direction you’re facing, but you swing around like the arm of a clock! I want to see you turn smoothly. Are we all ready?”
    A small crowd had gathered to watch and advise. One man, a visiting minister, had been appalled to see children so young being taught the rudiments of soldiery and had chided General Wadsworth on the matter, but the brigadier had assured the man of God that it was not the children who were being trained, but himself. He wished to understand precisely how a column of companies deployed into a regimental line that could blast an enemy with musket-fire. It was hard to advance troops in line because a long row of men inevitably straggled and lost its cohesion, to avoid which men must advance in companies, one behind the other, but such a column was fatally vulnerable to cannon-fire and quite unable to use most of its muskets, and so the art of the maneuver was to advance in column and then deploy swiftly into line. Wadsworth wanted to master the drill, but because he was a general of the Massachusetts Militia, and because the militia were mostly on their farms or in their workshops, Wadsworth was using children. The leading company, which would normally hold three ranks of thirty or more men each, was today comprised of Rebecca Fowler, aged twelve, and her nine year old cousin, Jared, both of whom were bright children and, Wadsworth hoped, capable of setting an example that the remaining children would copy. The maneuver he was attempting was difficult. The battalion would march in column toward the enemy and then halt. The leading companies would turn to face one way, the rearward companies turn to face the opposite direction, and then the whole line would counterwheel about the colors in a smooth pivot until commanded to halt. That would leave the first four companies facing away from the enemy and Wadsworth would need to order those eight children to about turn, at which point the whole formidable battalion would be ready to open fire against the enemy. Wadsworth had watched British regiments perform a similar maneuver on Long Island and he had reluctantly admired their precision and seen for himself the swiftness with which they had been transformed from a column into a long line that had unleashed a torrent of musketry on the American forces.
    “Are we ready?” Wadsworth asked again. If he could explain the system to children, he had decided, then teaching the state militia should be easy enough. “Forward march!”
    The children marched creditably well, though Alexander kept skipping to try and match steps with his companions. “Battalion!” Wadsworth called. “Halt!”
    They halted. So far so good. “Battalion! Prepare to form line! Don’t move yet!” He paused a moment. “The left wing will face left! The right wing will face right, on my word of command. Battalion! Face front!”
    Rebecca turned right instead of left and the battalion milled about in a moment of confusion before someone’s hair was pulled and Alexander began shouting bang as he shot imaginary redcoats coming from the Common Burying Ground. “Counterwheel, march!” Wadsworth shouted, and the children swiveled in different directions, and by now, the general thought despairingly, the British troops would have hammered two slaughterous volleys into his regiment. Perhaps, Wadsworth thought, using the children from the school where he had taught before becoming a soldier was not the best way to develop his mastery of infantry tactics. “Form