PART I
You must know your road well to travel among these shoals on such a night as this.
—James Fenimore Cooper, The Pilot
1
April 7, 1814
Darkness descended as the British sailors leaned their backs into the rowing. Weathered faces grimaced as they pulled in unison. Four heavy rowing barges weighted down with men, and weapons, and two lighter rowing pinnaces pulled away from the dimly lit Royal Navy warships anchored in Long Island Sound. It was ten o’clock in the evening. They headed toward the mouth of the Connecticut River, passing the sandy bar that protected the town of Saybrook. Loaded aboard were lightweight cannons, bayoneted rifles, gunpowder, boarding lines, and grappling hooks.
The young British officer in charge kept his eyes peeled on the shadowy banks looming ahead, looking for any signs of movement. He had 136 men on this expedition. His informants ashore had assured him they would face no resistance, but he was taking no chances. Some five miles of hard rowing lay ahead until they reached their target, the town of Potapoug, home to one of the biggest shipbuilding yards on the Connecticut River. The British had spied on the shipyard for weeks and seen how many armed vessels were being built there. Five of those American gunships would soon head to sea to attack British supply ships unless this raid was successful. The captain knew there was a lot at stake, particularly as British forces had already suffered too many losses in the nearly two years of war.
Fortified against the nighttime chill by an additional tot of rum, the sailors were keen on rowing. The men were eager for action after months of frustrating duty where nimble Yankee schooners continued to dodge and weave their way through the British blockade. Ever since the war began in 1812, American privately owned armed ships, or privateers, had wreaked havoc on British supply vessels.
As the British forces slowly rowed up the river, passing the open fields and pastures of outer Lyme, they were unaware that they were being watched. It was about three o’clock, and the night was so black that hardly anything could be seen more than twenty feet away. Two boys crouched in the muddy reeds alongside the river, too frightened to move. One of them was only eight years old, a wiry, skinny boy who was small for his age. His older brother was almost thirteen and was already stocky and muscular. They both had covered their curly hair with small, dark caps. Their linen shirts and coarse overalls were now covered with river mud. They were farm boys from Lyme who had escaped from home on a nighttime dare. They had just poled and rowed their way over to the northern tip of Nott Island in a small, flat-bottom skiff, when they heard noises coming from the middle of the river.
“What’s that, Abraham?” whispered Ely to his older brother, his voice cracking nervously. “Sounds like a boat.” The young boy’s biggest fear was that he’d be caught by his father, who, he well knew, had little tolerance for misbehavior. Ely Morgan had felt the wrath of his father’s whipping belt too many times for what seemed like the smallest of infractions.
Abraham listened intently but said nothing. The creaking of oars and the muffled voices of men were now easily heard floating across the water, making them sound much closer than they were.
“That ain’t Pa coming to get us, is it, Abraham?”
“Ely, if it is, I reckon he’s bringing the whole Lyme militia with him,” murmured Abraham with a nervous half chuckle. “There’s a pack of boats under weigh out there, and from all that grunting and whispering and them rowing without a light, I’ll warrant they don’t want to be found out.”
With that, the boys quietly hid their shallow-draft rowing boat behind some shoreline bushes and a stand of willows in the soggy marsh. They climbed an old solitary maple tree, scrambling to hide behind some of the larger branches. For weeks now these two boys had gone over the details of this nighttime adventure. Their plan had been to cross the river and board the newly built brig, which would soon be equipped with eighteen guns and was at anchor off the town of Potapoug, just across the river from their farm. It was no secret that Captain Hayden’s newest ship was ready to go to sea with plans to seize British ships, but there was still no crew so the ship was empty. They thought a nighttime visit would surely go unnoticed. They waited until their whole family was asleep before they crawled out their window and slipped away into the night. The two boys wanted bragging rights that they had trod the decks of the newest American privateer built at the famous Hayden yard.
They could now hear the gruff voices of dozens of men and more splashes of oars breaking the surface of the water. The boys clutched the coarse bark of the tree as they tried to melt into the branches. That’s when they heard a man’s voice call out.