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with pieces of iron, broken bottles, old axe heads—anything
they could jam into a cannon. On May 12, they surrendered.
I remember walking around the burnt houses. People cameout from cellars where they’d been hiding. Most hadn’t
eaten for days. Packs of wild dogs were roaming the streets.
We had orders to destroy them. Charlotte, I didn’t join the
army so I could burn cities and kill dogs.”
    She kept her head down while she listened. She had the
feeling that he had barely begun, that worse was yet to come.
    â€œWe’d stored the rebels’ captured arms in a magazine right
in town. A few days later, someone accidentally discharged a
rifle. The magazine blew up. Two hundred people died in the
explosion—more than were killed during the whole siege.
    â€œI can tell you that when my regiment was assigned to the
left flank of Cornwallis’s army, I was mighty glad to leave
Charleston and go off to fight the Over Mountain men.”
    They reached Mrs. Perkins’ house. Elijah waited in the
street while Charlotte took the baby inside. When she rejoined him, he looked glummer than ever.
    â€œMrs. Perkins says she’ll keep the baby for an hour. That
will give us time to talk. Where shall we go?” She looked
around. The street was full of wagons, horses and pedestrians. “There must be someplace quiet.”
    â€œSt. Michael’s Church.”
    â€œWe’d disturb people who go there to pray.”
    â€œI meant the burial ground. It’s quiet, and we wouldn’t
disturb the folks resting there.”
    â€œI reckon not. They’re beyond caring.”
    A few minutes’ walk brought them to the corner of Meeting Street and Broad Street. Elijah unlatched the iron gate to
St. Michael’s burial ground. Within the brick walls, stoneand wooden markers were ranged in rows. Charlotte and
Elijah stopped beside a gravestone whose incised letters told
them that Eleazor Thomas, his wife Matilda and their eight
children were now released from the cares of this world.
    Elijah stood with one hand on the gravestone, regarding
her from under the brim of his forage cap. The whites of his
eyes were veined with red. He didn’t sleep last night, she
thought. There was a nick on his chin, showing that he had
recently shaved, and it reminded her that he was no longer
a boy, but a young man sixteen years old.
    On their families’ long trek north from the Mohawk Valley
to Carleton Island, Elijah had been a partial replacement for
the brothers she had lost. Like them, he became a soldier; at
thirteen he put on the uniform of the Royal Greens.
    She spoke softly. “What is the problem, Elijah?”
    He kept his eyes on hers. “It began with our defeat at the
Battle of Kings Mountain.” He spoke firmly, as if he had rehearsed what he planned to say. “That’s when I realized that
we were bound to lose the war. The more I thought about it,
the more I questioned why more men should throw away
their lives. I went north to Carleton Island, hoping the army
would keep me there as a member of the Fort Haldimand
garrison. I thought that if I could just wait out the rest of the
war, everything would be fine.
    â€œBut they sent me back down south. I’ve been in Charleston a month, and in three days my regiment is off to the
backcountry to defend Fort Ninety-Six. But I can’t do it. I’ve
had enough.”
    â€œYou’re a soldier. You’ve been in battle before.”
    He did not seem to hear her.
    â€œThere was one other man in barracks, Sergeant Malcolm,
who felt the same way I did. We didn’t talk much, he being
higher in rank. Even if we’d been equal, there are things soldiers don’t talk about. He was a sharpshooter, too. One day
he said to me, ‘At the beginning of the war, I saw a target
whenever I took aim. Now I see a man.’ The day after he told
me that, he deserted. They captured him heading west