Free The First American Army by Bruce Chadwick Page B

By now, the men just wanted to leave and almost all signed a promise to remain at home, including Greenman. They left Canada nine weeks later on British ships that eventually took them to New York for their release. The night before they were to be freed, the British on board hosted them to a “night of carousing and dancing,” as Greenman gleefully noted in his journal.
    The private, by then eighteen, was set free the next morning, September 25, 1776, after nine months as a prisoner of war. He and several other soldiers walked from New York toward New England and home, more than two hundred miles, reaching Rhode Island on November 9. He luxuriated in “clean clothes” and “new shoes” and was happy to be home.
    Jeremiah Greenman’s war appeared to be over. After all, the teenager had promised Governor Carleton that he would remain at home and never take up arms against the British again.
    He lied.

Chapter Nine

A HARROWING RETREAT
    J ohn Greenwood traveled to New York with the bulk of George Washington’s army following the British evacuation of Boston, certain that he would defend that city. He would not. Greenwood’s regiment was among several designated to provide reinforcements for the ill-fated invasion of Canada. Greenwood’s Twelfth Massachusetts was dispatched to Canada after the men had spent just three weeks in New York. It was a happy layover for Greenwood, who had been promoted to senior fifer, because he was able to have new fifes made for the regiment by a skilled New York instrument maker. His fifes in his bags, he boarded a ship headed up the Hudson for Albany with his regiment. There, they would go overland and sail up Lake Champlain to Montreal. In the Canadian city, Greenwood assumed, they would march east and stage another attack on Quebec.
    The Twelfth Massachusetts reached Montreal, still held by the Americans, a few weeks later. The teenager was apprehensive about any battles the regiment might find itself in, complaining in his diary that the five hundred men of the Twelfth Massachusetts were badly equipped. They carried muskets and blunderbusses of different sizes, possessed little ammunition, and had no bayonets. The men did not have swords either, although some had procured tomahawks. They had heard reports that hundreds of Indians were fighting with the British.
    Exactly what they all feared—a battle involving Indians—took place only days after their arrival. A combined force of five hundred Indians and one hundred fifty British had surrounded an American outpost west of Montreal called the Cedars on May 19, 1776, forcing its interim commander to surrender. Some of the American soldiers there were executed by the Indians when they seized the garrison. The commander of the Cedars had left before the attack to plead for reinforcements from Arnold at Montreal. On May 17, Arnold sent one hundred forty men under Major Henry Sherburne of Massachusetts to assist the troops at Cedars, not knowing it was now held by the Indians. Sherburne brought the leader of the Twelfth Massachusetts, Captain Bliss, and some of his men with him.
    Bliss asked Greenwood if he wanted to accompany the men or appoint other fifers to travel with them. Greenwood decided to remain in Montreal and sent two other fifers. “Off they all marched,” he wrote, “[I] little thinking what a time they would have of it.”
    Greenwood, who had made the most fortunate decision of his life, could not know that Sherburne and his men would march right into a well-orchestrated ambush when they were within four miles of the Cedars on May 20. Six men were executed that night and the next day; the rest were held prisoner.
    News of a second debacle reached Montreal quickly and on Saturday, May 25, Arnold left that city with the remainder of the Twelfth Massachusetts and five hundred additional men from other regiments to rescue those taken prisoner. To accomplish that task, the small army would have to do battle with the British