Daddy's Cannon

1777 was a desperate year for the American cause just like the year before it, and George Washington, Commanding General of the Continental Army wanted to make a last-ditch effort to outsmart and outmaneuver the British who had just taken the American Capital at Philadelphia. Fall was in full color in Pennsylvania, and it would not be long before the enlistments expired of over half his army. It would have to be a Trenton victory all over again; just enough to keep his men motivated to sign-up for another year. It wasn’t about re-taking Philadelphia, which he had to do, it was about trapping half the British Army who had split from the capital to catch the Americans. Just twenty miles north of the capital, Washington planned an ambitious four-pronged assault to attack the British unawares, a double-envelopment - to the dismay of his generals, and if successful the Battle of Germantown would be a decisive blow that might force a treaty. It was to be the last battle of 1777.

The morning fog changed everything. It was a fog so thick that no one could see fifty yards ahead, and by the time the sky hinted at sunrise, a bloody contest was all but decided. Before the advancing rebels, a small British artillery detachment was asleep. An English guard was dosing until he heard the crack of a twig. Shadows - hundreds of shadows. He blinked hard. In a second there was no doubt. “To Arms! To Arms!!”

The whole morning exploded. American lead riddled the hopeless encampment. Soldiers jumped from a dead sleep, without shirts, pants, ammunition boxes, or even powdered wigs. The ghost army was upon them, tents knocked over and bayoneted, buttstocks crushing skulls of the slow to wake. The half-naked were in full rout. The British left the precious artillery and were running for their lives. Men fell in full retreat all the way to the door – to the only place they could go; the stone mansion a hundreOut of the darkness rose a great victorious shout. The whole valley heard it. Heads poked out of shutters, soldiers jumped in tents miles away, and horses bolted out of a deep sleep. The distant crack of crossfire awoke the rest of the British regiment scattered across the valley who retorted with bugles and the bellow of officers kicking men awake. The Americans had complete surprise, and with luck would continue to push on.

English blood paved the way to the Cliveden House. In moments the last British soldier dove in and bolted the door. The soldiers took cover and lay about the wood floors reloading. Many wounded crawled to the windows, and in seconds American rifles smashed in windows. The two-story stone house was surrounded, and if it had not been for British discipline, the Americans would have killed them all. The tedious ramming of powder and ball took only a minute, but it was long enough for the Americans to throw in torches, and between fire men stomped out the flames any way they could.

The two cannons left on the field were turned on the house. The British knew what awaited them. It was like being stabbed with one’s own sword or being shot with one’s own rifle. The cannons each had a full complement of steel and explosive cannonballs with plenty of expensive black powder. At least 400 deadly shots would harangue the defenders if no one came to the rescue. An awful silence came over the field. One side for joy loaded the captured cannons, the other hugging the inside of a stone mansion because their lives depended upon it. Just as the sun flirted on the horizon, the cannon burst upon the defenders. BOOM! “DOWN! DOWN!” Someone cried, and the stone wall exploded into a thousand deadly splinters. The Americans shouted for joy.

Astride his horse watching from a distance, Washington knew the gain was finite. The Cliveden House and its hundred desperate redcoats were nothing compared to the 9,000 lining up just out of sight. The whole valley had been roused, and it would not be long before the advantage was lost. The General ordered a few hundred to stay and pound the defenders and the rest of the 11,000 Americans marched on - thousands of shadows disappeared into the thick fog. Soon a crossfire was heard, then deep shouts from officers, then horses and screaming. The bugles and drums on both sides attempted order, but what could men do when they could scarce see each other much less kill the enemy? Rifles were wantonly fired for the sake of returning fire. Nearly 20,000 men marched by divisions of 1,000 back and forth when they thought they heard the enemy to only discover they were bearing down on friends. For hours, friendly fire was everywhere, and even when the sun came up, the fog remained like God had demanded lives be saved. All this George Washington heard and could not see, and every dispatch rider returned with news of confusion and chaos.

But the brave house before him stood. After a hundred steel cannonballs it kept the defenders safe, who retorted between the bombardment with accurate fire of their own. American losses were mounting fast. Every piece of furniture inside the place was jammed to the doors, to the windows and walls absorbing the awful shock of cannon-fire. For nearly five hours before dawn to 10 a.m., the stubborn British resistance held at the mansion, and everywhere Washington planned to rout the enemy was impossibly chaotic and the surprise was lost. Hearing the battle as it was, and not how he wished it to be, the Commander-in-Chief made the call. The retreat was sounded, and every division caught up in the fog was on its own. The bloody stalemate of October 4th ended with an American retreat; but not before something strange happened near the Cliveden House.

The two captured cannons pounding the stone house were a prize indeed. But when the retreat was sounded, and men emerged from the fog running for their lives, it was obvious the cannons could not stay. If they fell back into British hands, they would be used upon the retreating Americans. At the same time, moving a cannon is very slow especially when it has hundreds of heavy cannonballs, black powder barrels, ordinance carriages, special horses, tack for the special horses, rods to load and clean the barrel, and many other spare parts; AND there were two of them. It was simply too much to do in too little time. Normally on a hasty retreat, a huge load of powder and 2 cannonballs would be stuffed down the bore, and the touchhole lit. The pressure would be so much the barrel would explode, splitting the cannon so it could never be used again. However, the supply of gunpowder in the Continental Army was so low in 1777 that it was unthinkable to waste it where one barrel could supply thousand shots out of flintlock rifles. When one American began dumping powder down the barrel to destroy it, an officer stopped him, “what are you doing?!”

“We got to spike the cannon, sir!”

“Oh no you don’t! We need all the powder we can get!” Thinking fast, the officer spotted a large well not far away. “You there! Get a powder barrel in the hands of every man you can find! You men get over here and help me push! In seconds there were a dozen men pushing the cannon, hauling the ordinance carriage, and running off with powder kegs. The beautiful baby-blue wood and black-iron ordinance was quickly upon the well. The men did not need to be told what to do. Six strong men straddled, unlimbered, and lifted the cannon to the mouth of the well and tipped it in. Down sixty feet of stone it clanked like a cast-iron bell at dinnertime. The water exploded below, but it was not the end. Every single cannonball was also tossed in, the precious trunnion caps and pins, the iron water buckets, the spare axle, the ramrods, every piece of iron and even the special hobnails disappeared into the deep. There, next to the well was left an empty cannon carriage and little else. The Americans wasted no time disappearing into a fog that was just lifting on a smoky battlefield.

The battle of Germantown was over, and the fog abated proving the battle was a bloody stalemate. Out of the battered stone house the beleaguered redcoats stumbled, each collapsing heavily after five hours of hard fighting. There was only one cannon left that had just been used to kill them, and the remains of another near a well. A few British faces peered into the stone-walled darkness. There was no way it could be recovered, and no one cared to try.

Daddy never asked God for anything frivolous. He prayed and asked God to help his family, friends, and even strangers. He prayed for everything: Christians and non-Christians, elected representatives, people he liked, and even people he didn’t like. He prayed for mercy, grace, and understanding. He prayed for wisdom and even remembered his prayers on the battlefield. But of all this, he never prayed and asked God for anything “just because.” Daddy was convinced that God had much more important things to do than give him a fun present.

But that changed one day when he saw a real Civil War cannon for sale. It was thousands of dollars, and it was beautiful with a baby-blue, wooden carriage and a fully functional barrel from 1863 ready to fire. He contacted the owner and found he was the first person to inquire: it would be his if he could find enough money. Money was the real problem, and daddy had a family to take care of, so when he came up short, there was only one more thing to do. Daddy asked God for the first thing he every really wanted. He prayed:

“Sir, this is not like me. It isn’t something I need at all, it’s just something I’d like to have for no other reason than to just have. So, may I have this Civil War cannon? I very much want it if you don’t mind, and I need more money to get it. Amen.”

Daddy was confident God approved his request, it just felt right. But weeks passed, and the money wasn’t available. “If it’s going to happen, it will be God and not me, after all, ‘it’s just because,’” he said. Almost a month later the cannon from 1863 was sold to someone else, and he knew there would never be another like it. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that would not come again. Daddy was disappointed, “I was just so sure God would give it to me…after all it’s the only fun thing I have ever really asked for myself.” Yet, daddy understood it was a frivolous request. His family, money, and many other things were more important than a cannon, and though he was a little disappointed, he did not hate God for it, he did not resent God for it. But he did wonder what it would have been like to have a real old cannon; he did wonder why his only request was not granted.

When the boy was five, everything changed. 1987 was the year his family split in two, and his earliest memories were not happy ones. Yet, a few hundred miles away in Germantown, Pennsylvania, something was happening that was part of a big plan much larger than a boy and his family. Before the boy became a Christain, before the boy became a marine, even before the boy became a daddy; God was honoring a request that would not come for another thirty years, and the little boy had no idea.

See, God exists outside space and time. He may move through it, with it, and be apart from it anytime He wishes. He is everywhere all at once, even in one’s innermost thoughts – which ought to be sobering to anyone. But for human beings who are stuck in space and time, we are not given to understand the full measure of Divine Providence – Gods great plan for all of us. The fact is that He can create the most unlikely event and use it however He wants: He can take a whole prayer and grant it any way he wants, which means though it may seem that God does not grant a wish, or that He may not be listening; He is listening, and he does desire to give good gifts to those who believe in Him. He can take a single prayer and turn it into a whole story, which is exactly what was going to happen even before the boy knew any of it; God knew daddy before daddy knew himself. Outside space and time, God is no doubt smiling as daddy writes it all down.

Miracle one: The Reading Railroad was laying tracks through Germantown in 1987 when the engineers hit a concrete mass. Ten feet to the left or right and it would not have been discovered. According to the map, the mass wasn’t supposed to be there, but then again it was common to dig up things in Pennsylvania that had been buried for centuries. Not only was Germantown a Revolutionary War battlefield, it was also home to Native Americans well before 1777. So, when something historical is found, a whole team from the state comes in and evaluates the find.

Miracle two: Strangely, this is not what happened. It was railroad policy to dig up anomalies, and when the dozer pushed over the concrete, it was discovered that it was the cap of an old, stone-lined well. It was full of trash - full to the brim. The railroad engineers decided not to call state authorities and proceeded to dig it out anyway. Now, for a track to be safe, the ground below must be properly filled with packed earth – not trash. After a few feet, the workers found that the well just kept going and a decision had to be made.

Miracle three: They decided to do the job right. Instead of filling in the top few feet with earth and calling it good, they brought in a big crane with a claw big enough to fit in the well. Claw-fulls of trash were pulled up and put aside, and even when the trash got obviously older, the state authorities were still not notified.

Miracle four: The crane was at least sixty feet in the well, and still pulling up garbage. The engineers, instead of calling it quits and filling it all in with earth, decided to keep going. Where most would have stopped because the rail above would be perfectly safe with a sixty-foot filled in well – these men did not. They were going all the way to the bottom.

Miracle five: Something came up that was never supposed to see the light of day again. Eighty feet down the crane pulled up a clay mass (the bottom) and when they put it in the trailer to be hauled away, a worker stopped it. There was something jutting out the wet clay. In short order, a large cannon was discovered with 90 cannonballs, two trunnion caps, and a rusted mass of metal that disintegrated when touched. When it was all laid out in front of them, the workers each took a cannonball, and still the state was not notified. The cannon, and everything with it was carried off. The well was then filled with solid earth, and the whole event in 1987 was forgotten like none of it ever happened.

Miracle six, and perhaps the most significant, the cannon was dumped in the well in the first place.

Thirty-five years later, daddy all but forgot about the cannon he did not get, but sometimes still wondered about it. He was determined not to nag his Creator, so he didn’t. He went about life NOT asking God for frivolous things, and it did not bother him. After all, he had so much to be thankful for; and that was enough for him. Now he was forty years old. A long trip had been made since the boy in 1987, and after a war and a few other scrapes daddy was honored just to be alive and happy.

Yet God did not forget the prayer many years earlier.

Miracle seven: Daddy just happened to be part of a group of cannon enthusiasts, and while he was with them, he happened to spot a picture of a special cannon. It was just a picture, and he nearly looked past it when he had another look. He saw the raised seal of King George II and asked about it. He discovered the owner was about to send it to an auction but was willing to hold off if daddy wanted to see it. Of course he did. He didn’t know the man was about to sell his whole collection of Revolutionary War stuff, and this special cannon caught daddy’s eye at exactly the right time.

You see, if God had given the Civil War cannon to daddy, he never would have been able to save for this one. And this one is very special. One of a kind and fully functional. It is the last one like it on earth, and God planned that way far before the Americans dumped it down a well in 1777, far before it was cast in Scotland in 1710 - to beginnings that will forever be obscure to those stuck in space and time. And when daddy heard the story about how it was found, the full picture came into view that even though God may say no to one thing, it doesn’t mean he is not preparing another. God may close one door, but it does not mean he is not opening another.

All things happen in God’s time, not ours. And though it may only seem a rusty cannon where one may glance at and move on, it is a story of miracles, battle, a wish, faith and Providence that make up perfect timing, and His greatest gifts.

“To have faith is to believe in what you do not see, the reward of this faith, is to see what you believe.”

-Saint Augustine