CHAPTER V
If American boys and girls were asked to name the one great man in their country's history whom they would like to have seen and talked with, nine out of every ten would probably say, "Washington." Many an old man of our day has asked his grandfather or his great-grandfather how Washington looked. Indeed, so much has been said and written of the "Father of his Country" that we are apt to think of him as something more than human.
Washington was truly a remarkable man, from whatever point of view we choose to study his life. He left, as a priceless legacy to his fellow citizens, an example of what a man with a pure and noble character can do for himself and for his country. Duty performed with faithfulness was the keynote to every word and every act of his life.
Still, we must not overlook the fact that Washington was, after all, quite human. Like all the rest of us, he had his faults, his trials, and his failures. Knowing this, we are only drawn nearer to him, and find ourselves possessed of a more abiding admiration for the life he lived.
Washington was tall, and straight as an arrow. His favorite nephew, Lawrence Lewis, once asked him about his height. He replied, "In my best days, Lawrence, I stood six feet and two inches, in ordinary shoes."
| George Washington |
During his whole life, Washington was rather spare than fleshy. Most of his portraits, it is said, give to his person a fullness that it did not have. He once said that the best weight of his best days never exceeded two hundred and twenty pounds. His chest was broad but not well rounded. His arms and his legs were long, large, and sinewy. His feet and his hands were especially large. Lafayette, who aided us in the Revolution, once said to a friend, "I never saw so large a hand on any human being, as the general's."
Washington's eyes were of a light, grayish blue, and were so deep sunken that they gave him an unusually serious expression. On being asked why he painted these eyes of a deeper blue than life, the artist said, "In a hundred years they will have faded to the right color." This painting, by Stuart, of the bust of Washington, is said to be wonderfully true to life.
Many stories are told of the mighty power of Washington's right arm. It is said that he once threw a stone from the bed of the stream to the top of the Natural Bridge, in Virginia. Again, we are told that once upon a time he rounded a piece of slate to the size of a silver dollar, and threw it across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, the slate falling at least thirty feet on the other side. Many strong men have since tried the same feat, but have never cleared the water.
Peale, who was called the soldier artist, was once visiting Washington at Mount Vernon. One day, he tells us, some athletic young men were pitching the iron bar in the presence of their host. Suddenly, without taking off his coat, Washington grasped the bar and hurled it, with little effort, much farther than any of them had done. "We were indeed amazed," said one of the young men, "as we stood round, all stripped to the buff, and having thought ourselves very clever fellows, while the colonel, on retiring, pleasantly said, 'When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I'll try again.'"
At another time, Washington witnessed a wrestling match. The champion of the day challenged him, in sport, to wrestle. Washington did not stop to take off his coat, but grasped the "strong man of Virginia." It was all over in a moment, for, said the wrestler, "in Washington's lionlike grasp, I became powerless, and was hurled to the ground with a force that seemed to jar the very marrow in my bones."
In the days of the Revolution, some of the riflemen and the backwoodsmen were men of gigantic strength, but it was generally believed, by good judges, that their commander in chief was the strongest man in the army.
During all his life, Washington was fond of dancing. He learned in boyhood, and danced at "balls and routs" until he was sixty-four. To attend a dance, he often rode to Alexandria, ten miles distant from Mount Vernon. The year he died he was forced, on account of his failing health, to give up this recreation. "Alas!" he wrote, "my dancing days are no more."
Many and merry were the dances at the army headquarters during the long winter evenings. General Greene once wrote to a friend, "We had a little dance and His Excellency and Mrs. Greene danced upwards of three hours, without once sitting down." Another winter, although they had not a ton of hay for the horses, as Greene wrote, and the provisions had about given out, and for two weeks there was not cash enough in camp to forward the public dispatches, Washington subscribed to a series of dancing parties.
Amid all the hardships of campaign life, Washington was ever the same dignified and self-contained gentleman. At one time, the headquarters were in an old log house, in which there was only one bed. He alone occupied this, while the fourteen members of his staff slept on the floor in the same room. Food, except mush and milk, was scarce. At this homely but wholesome fare, the commander in chief presided with his usual dignity.
For a man so large and so strong, Washington ate sparingly and of the simplest food. We are told that he "breakfasted at seven o'clock on three small Indian hoecakes, and as many dishes of tea." Custis, his adopted son, once said that the general ate for breakfast "Indian cakes, honey, and tea," and that "he was excessively fond of fish." In fact, salt codfish was at Mount Vernon the regular Sunday dinner. Even at the state banquets, the President generally dined on a single dish, and that of a very simple kind. When asked to eat some rich food, his courteous refusal was, "That is too good for me." People at a distance, hearing of the great man's liking for honey, took pride in sending him great quantities of it. During fast days, he religiously went without food the entire day.
Washington was fond of rich and costly clothes. In truth, he was in early life a good deal of a dandy. His clothes were made in London; and from his long letters to his tailor we know that he was fussy about their quality and their fit. Even while away from home fighting Indians and making surveys, he did not neglect to write to London for "Silver Lace for a Hatt," "Ruffled Shirts;" "Waistcoat of superfine scarlet Cloth and gold Lace," "Marble colored Silk Hose," "a fashionable gold lace Hat," "a superfine blue Broadcloth Coat with silver Trimmings," and many other costly and highly colored articles of apparel worn by the rich young men of that period. As he grew older, he wore more subdued clothing, and in old age reminded his nephew that "fine Cloathes do not make fine Men more than fine Feathers make fine Birds."
You have noticed, of course, the wrong spelling of certain words quoted from Washington's letters and journals. These words are spelled as he wrote them. The truth is, the "Father of his Country" was all his life a poor speller. He was always sensitive over what he called his "defective education." His more formal letters and his state papers were in many instances put into shape by his aids or his secretaries, or by others associated with him in official life.
| Washington before Trenton |
If Washington had an amiable weakness, it was for horses. From early boyhood, he was a skillful and daring rider. He rode on horseback, year in and year out, until shortly before his death. Many were the stories told by the "ragged Continentals" of the superb appearance of their commander in chief at the head of the army or in battle. In speaking of the battle of Monmouth, Lafayette said, "Amid the roar and confusion of that conflict I took time to admire our beloved chief, mounted on a splendid charger, as he rode along the ranks amid the shouts of the soldiers. I thought then, as now," continued he, "that never had I beheld so superb a man." Jefferson summed it all up in one brief sentence: "Washington was the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback."
During all his life, Washington was thrifty, and very methodical in business. He grew so wealthy that when he died his estate was valued at half a million dollars. This large fortune for those days did not include his wife's estate, or the Mount Vernon property, which he inherited from his brother. He was the richest American of his time.
His management of the Mount Vernon estate would make of itself an interesting and instructive book. Of the eight thousand acres, nearly one half was under cultivation during the last part of its owner's life. We must not forget that at this time few tools and very little machinery were used in farming. At Mount Vernon, the negroes and the hired laborers numbered more than five hundred. The owner's orders were, "Buy nothing you can make within yourselves." The Mount Vernon gristmill not only ground all the flour and the meal for the help, but it also turned out a brand of flour which sold at a fancy price. The coopers of the place made the flour barrels, and Washington's own sloop carried the flour to market. A dozen kinds of cloth, from woolen and linen to bedticking and toweling, were woven on the premises.
| Mount Vernon, the Home of Washington |
In 1793, although he had one hundred and one cows on his farms, Washington writes that he was obliged to buy butter for the use of his family. Another time, he says that one hundred and fifteen hogsheads of "sweetly scented and neatly managed Tobacco" were raised, and that in a single year he sold eighty-five thousand herring, taken from the Potomac.
For his services in the French and Indian Wars, Washington received as a bounty fifteen thousand acres of Western lands. By buying the claims of his fellow officers who needed money, he secured nearly as much more. After the Revolution, Washington and General Clinton bought six thousand acres "amazingly cheap," in the Mohawk valley. No wonder Washington was spoken of as "perhaps the greatest landholder in America."
Like many other Southern proprietors, Washington had no end of bother with his slaves. He bought and sold negroes as he did his cattle and his horses, but, as he said, "except on the richest of Soils they only add to the Expense." In 1791, the slaves on the Mount Vernon estate alone numbered three hundred. In this same year, the owner wrote one day in his diary that he would never buy another slave; but the next night his cook ran away, and not being able to hire one, "white or black," he had to buy one. "Something must be done," he said, "or I shall be ruined. It would be for my Interest to set them free, rather than give them Victuals and Clooths."
Washington was too kind-hearted ever to flog his slaves, and yet his kindness was often abused. Fat and lazy, they made believe to be sick, or they ran away, and they played all kinds of pranks. In his diary, we read the tale of woe. We are told that his slaves would steal his sheep and his potatoes; would burn their tools; and wasted six thousand twelvepenny nails in building a corn-house.
Like other rich Virginians of his time, Washington kept open house. He once said that his home had become "a well resorted tavern." Indeed it was, for guests of all sorts and conditions were dined and wined to their hearts' content. According to the diary, it seemed to matter little whether it was a real nobleman, or a tramp "who called himself a French Nobleman," a sick or a wounded soldier, or "a Farmer who came to see the new drill Plow," all "were desired to tarry," to help eat the hot roasts and drink the choice wines.
There seems to have been almost no end to the sums of money, both large and small, which Washington gave away. Through the pages of his ledgers, we find hundreds of items of cash paid in charity. Here are a few entries which are typical of the whole: "10 Shillings for a wounded Soldier"; "gave a poor Man $2.00"; "two deserving French Women, $25"; "a poor blind Man, $1.50"; "a Lady in Distress, $50"; "the poor in Alexandria, $100"; "Sufferers by Fire, $300"; "School in Kentucky, $100." His lavish hospitality and his unceasing charity were a constant drain on his income. Had he not been so thorough in business, he surely would have been brought to financial ruin.
| General Washington and Staff riding through a Country Village |
After the war of the Revolution was over, Congress having failed to pay certain prominent officers of the army, an outbreak was threatened. A meeting was held at Newburgh, New York. Washington was there. Everybody present knew that he had served without pay and had advanced large sums from his private fortune, to pay the army expenses. There was a deathlike stillness when the commander in chief rose to read his address. His eyesight had become so poor that he was now using glasses. He had never worn these in public, but, finding his sight dim, he stopped reading, took his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on, saying quietly, "You will permit me to put on my spectacles. I have grown gray in the service of my country, and now find myself growing blind." It was not merely what the beloved general said, but the way he spoke the few, simple words. The pathos of this act, and the solemn address of this majestic man touched every heart. No wonder that some of the veterans were moved to tears.
One day a schoolboy stood on the stone steps before the old State House, in Philadelphia, as the first President of the United States was driven up to make his formal visit to Congress. This small boy glided into the hall, under the cover of the long coats of the finely dressed escort. Boylike he climbed to a hiding place, from which he watched the proceedings with the deepest awe. The boy lived to write fifty years afterwards a pleasing description of the affair. He tells us that while Washington entered, and walked up the broad aisle, and ascended the steps leading to the speaker's chair, the large and crowded chamber "was as profoundly still as a house of worship in the most solemn pauses of devotion."
On this occasion, Washington was dressed in a full suit of the richest black velvet, with diamond knee buckles, and square silver buckles set upon shoes japanned with the greatest neatness, black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled at the breast and the wrists, a light sword, his hair fully dressed, so as to project at the sides, and gathered behind in a silk bag, ornamented with a large rose of black ribbon. As he advanced toward the chair, he held in his hand his cocked hat, which had a large black cockade. When seated, he laid his hat upon the table. Amid the most profound silence, Washington, taking a roll of paper from his inside coat pocket, arose and read with a deep, rich voice his opening address.
Those who knew Washington have said that his presence inspired a feeling of awe and veneration rarely experienced in the presence of any other American. His countenance rarely softened or changed its habitual gravity, and his manner in public life was always grave and self-contained. In vain did the merry young women at Lady Washington's receptions do their best to make the stately President laugh. Some declared that he could not laugh. Beautiful Nellie Custis, his ward and foster child, used to boast of her occasional success in making the sedate President laugh aloud.
We may be sure that President Washington's receptions, every other Tuesday afternoon, were formal. On such occasions, he was in the full dress of a gentleman of that day,—black velvet, powdered hair gathered in a large silk bag, and yellow gloves. At his side was a long, finely wrought sword, with a scabbard of white polished leather. He always stood in front of the fireplace, with his face toward the door. He received each visitor with a dignified bow, but never shook hands, even with his nearest friends. He considered himself visited, not as a friend, but as President of the United States.
| Washington at Mount Vernon |
While President, Washington used to give a public dinner, every Thursday at four o'clock, "to as many as my table will hold." He allowed five minutes for difference in watches, and, at exactly five minutes past four by his hall clock, went to the table. His only apology to the laggard guest was, "I have a cook who never asks whether the company has come, but whether the hour has come."
If we may judge from the very full accounts of these grand dinners, as described in the diaries of the guests, they must have been stiff affairs. These people probably wrote the truth when they said, "glad it is over," "great formality," "my duty to submit to it," "scarcely a word was said," "there was a dead silence." No doubt there was much good food to eat and choice wine to drink, but the formal manners of the times were emphasized by awe of their grave host. Very few of the guests, both at Mount Vernon and at Philadelphia, failed to allude to the habit that Washington had of playing with his fork and striking on the table with it.
It would take a book many times larger than this to tell you all that has been written about Washington's everyday life. Some day you will delight to read more about him, and learn why he was, in every sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man,—the man who "without a beacon, without a chart, but with an unswerving eye and steady hand, guided his country safe through darkness and through storm."
Every young American should remember of Washington that "there is no word spoken, no line written, no deed done by him, which justice would reverse or wisdom deplore." His greatness did not consist so much in his intellect, his skill, and his genius, though he possessed all these, as in his honor, his integrity, his truthfulness, his high and controlling sense of duty—in a word, his character, honest, pure, noble, great.
CHAPTER VI
We have certainly read enough about General Washington to know that he often planned to steal a march on the British. Don't you remember how surprised General Howe was one morning to find that Washington had gone to Dorchester Heights, with a big force of men, horses, and carts, and how he threw up breastworks, mounted cannon, and forced the British general after a few days to quit the good city of Boston? Haven't we also read how the "ragged Continentals" left their bloody footprints in the snow, as they marched to Trenton all that bitter cold night in December, 1777, and gave the Hessians a Christmas greeting they little expected?
In January, 1779, England sent orders to General Clinton "to bring Mr. Washington to a general and decisive action at the opening of the campaign," and also "to harry the frontiers and coasts north and south."
General Clinton wrote back that he had found "Mr. Washington" a hard nut to crack, but he would do his level best, he said, "to strike at Washington while he was in motion."
The main American force was still in winter quarters in northern New Jersey, near New York. Various brigades were stationed up and down the Hudson as far as West Point. As at the beginning of the war, so now in 1779, the line of the Hudson from Albany to New York was the key to the general situation. Its protection, as Washington had written, was of "infinite consequence to our cause."
The first real move in the game was made in May, when a large British force marched up, captured, and strongly fortified the two forts at Stony Point and Verplanck's Point, only thirteen miles below West Point. The enemy thus secured the control of King's Ferry, where troops and supplies for the patriot army were ferried across the Hudson.
Our spies now sent word to Washington that the British were ready to move on some secret service. The patriot army was at once marched up, and went into camp within easy reach of West Point, to wait for the next move in the game. Once more these far-famed Hudson Highlands were to become the storm center of the struggle.
For some reason, Clinton did not push farther up the Hudson. On the contrary, he began to make raids into various parts of the country, from Martha's Vineyard to the James River. These raids were marked by cruelties unknown in the earlier years of the war. The hated Tryon, once the royal governor of New York, led twenty-six hundred men into Connecticut. His brutal soldiers killed unarmed and helpless men and women, and sacked and burned houses and churches.
One of Clinton's objects in sending out the raiders was to coax Washington to weaken his army by sending out forces to offset them, or to tease him into making what he called a "false move." Washington was, of course, keenly alive to the misery brought upon the people of the country by these brutalities, but he was too wise a general to run any risk of losing his hold upon the line of the Hudson. The Continental army could not muster ten thousand men. Although not strong enough to begin a vigorous campaign, yet it was sufficiently powerful to hold the key to the Highlands.
Washington could, if need be, strike a quick, hard blow, either in New England or farther south. It might be, to be sure, a sort of side play, and yet it was to have the effect of a great battle. Indeed, it was high time to give the enemy another surprise.
At length it was decided to attack Stony Point. Any open assault, however, would be hopeless. This stronghold, if taken at all, must be taken by night.
What kind of place was this Stony Point?
It was a huge rocky bluff, shooting out into the river more than half a mile from the shore, and rising, at its highest point, nearly two hundred feet. It was joined to the shore by a marshy neck of land, crossed by a rude bridge, or causeway.
The British had fortified the top of this rocky point with half a dozen separate batteries. The cannon were so mounted as to defend all sides. Between the fort and the mainland, two rows of logs were set into the ground, with their ends sharpened to a point and directed outwards, forming what is known in military language as an abatis. This stronghold was defended by six hundred men.
Washington Irving well describes Stony Point as "a natural sentinel guarding the gateway of the far-famed Highlands of the Hudson." The British called it their "little Gibraltar," and defied the rebels to come and take it.
And now for a leader! Who was the best man to perform this desperate exploit?
| General Anthony Wayne |
There was really no choice, for there was only one officer in the whole army who was fitted for the undertaking,—General Anthony Wayne.
Wayne was a little over thirty years old. He was a fine-looking man with a high forehead and fiery hazel eyes. He had a youthful face, full of beauty. He liked handsome uniforms and fine military equipments. Some of his officers used to speak of him in fun as "Dandy Wayne." But the men who followed their dashing, almost reckless leader called him "Mad Anthony," and this name has clung to him ever since.
Wayne was, without doubt, the hardest fighter produced on either side during the American Revolution. He had an eager love of battle; and he was cautions, vigilant, and firm as a rock. This gallant officer eagerly caught at the idea when the commander in chief told him what he wanted. And so it came to pass that Washington did the planning, and Wayne did the fighting.
Washington's plans were made with the greatest care. The dogs for three miles about the fort were killed the day before the intended attack, lest some indiscreet bark might alarm the garrison. The commander in chief himself rode down and spent the whole day looking over the situation. Trusty men, who knew every inch of the region, guarded every road and every trail by which spies and deserters could pass.
"Ten minutes' notice to the enemy blasts all your hopes," wrote Washington to Wayne.
The orders were "to take and keep all stragglers."
"Took the widow Calhoun and another widow going to the enemy with chickens and greens," reported Captain McLane. "Drove off twenty head of horned cattle from their pasture."
The hour of attack was to be midnight. Washington hoped for a dark night and even a rainy one. Not a gun was to be loaded except by two companies who were to make the false attack. The bayonet alone was to be used, Wayne's favorite weapon. At Germantown, it was Wayne's men who drove the Hessians at the point of the bayonet. And at Monmouth, these men had met, with cold steel, the fierce bayonet charge of the far-famed British grenadiers.
About thirteen hundred men of the famous light infantry were chosen to make the attack. Both officers and men were veterans and the flower of the Continental army.
On the forenoon of July 15, the companies were called in from the various camps, and drawn up for inspection as a battalion, "fresh-shaved and well-powdered," as Wayne had commanded.
At twelve o'clock the inspection was over, but the men, instead of being sent to their quarters, were wheeled into the road, with the head of the column facing southward. The march to Stony Point had begun.
"If any soldier loads his musket, or fires from the ranks, or tries to skulk in the face of danger, he is at once to be put to death by the officer nearest him." One soldier did begin to load his gun, saying that he did not know how to fight without firing. His captain warned him once. The soldier would not stop. The officer then ran his sword through him in an instant. The next day, however, the captain came to Colonel Hull and said he was sorry that he had killed the poor fellow. "You performed a painful service," said Hull, "by which, perhaps, victory has been secured, and the life of many a brave man saved. Be satisfied."
All that hot July afternoon, the men picked their way along rough and narrow roads, up steep hillsides, and through swamps and dense ravines, often in single file. No soldier was allowed to leave the ranks, on any excuse whatever, except at a general halt, and then only in company with an officer.
At eight o'clock the little army came to a final halt at a farmhouse, thirteen miles from their camp, and a little more than a mile back of Stony Point. Nobody was permitted to speak. The tired men dropped upon the ground, and ate in silence their supper of bread and cold meat.
A little later, Wayne's order of battle was read. For the first time the men knew what was before them. No doubt many a brave fellow's knees shook and his cheek grew pale, when he thought of what might happen before another sunrise.
Until half past eleven o'clock they rested.
Each man now pinned a piece of white paper "to the most conspicuous part of his hat or his cap," so that, in the thick of the midnight fight, he might not run his bayonet through some comrade. No man was to speak until the parapet of the main fort was reached. Then all were to shout the watchword of the night, "The fort's our own!"
One of the last things that Wayne did was to write a letter to a friend at his home in Philadelphia, dated "Eleven o'clock and near the hour and scene of carnage." He wrote that he hoped his friend would look after the education of his children.
"I am called to sup," he wrote, "but where to breakfast? Either within the enemy's lines in triumph, or in another world."
| Pompey guiding General Wayne |
Half past eleven! It was time to start.
A negro, named Pompey, who sold cherries and strawberries to the garrison, was used as a guide. This shrewd darkey had got the British password for the night, by claiming that his master would not let him come in during the daytime, because he was needed to hoe corn. You will be glad to know that Pompey, as a reward for this eventful night's service, never had to hoe corn again, and that his master not only gave him a horse to ride, but also set him free.
Wayne divided his little army into two main columns, to attack right and left, having detached two companies, with loaded guns, to move in between the two columns and make a false attack.
Each column was divided into three parts. A "forlorn hope" of twenty men was to be the first to rush headlong into the hand to hand fight. Then followed an advance guard of one hundred and fifty men, who, with axes in hand and muskets slung, were to cut away the timbers. Last of all came the main body.
The silent band reaches the edge of the marsh at midnight, the hour set by Washington for the assault. Wayne himself leads the right column, to attack by the south approach. The tide has not ebbed, and the water is in places waist deep. The marsh is fully six hundred feet across. No matter for that! Straight ahead the column moves as if on parade. Now they have crossed, and are close to the outer defense. The British pickets hear the noise, open fire, and give the general alarm. The drums on the hill beat the "long roll." Quick and sharp come the orders. The redcoats leap from the barracks, and in a few moments every man is at his post.
Up rush the pioneers with their axes, and cut away the sharpened timbers the best they can in the darkness, while the bullets whiz over their heads. Then follow the main columns, who climb over, and form on the other side. Now they reach the second defense. They cut and tear away the sharp stakes. The bullets fall like hail. On, on, the two columns rush. They push up the steep hill, and dash for the main fort on the top. On the left, the "forlorn hope" has lost seventeen out of twenty men, either killed or wounded.
Meanwhile, Colonel Murfree and his two companies take their stand directly in front of the fort, and open a brisk and rapid fire, to make the garrison believe that they are the real attacking party. The redcoats are surely fooled, for they hurry down with a strong force to meet them, only to find their fort captured before they can get back.
| Wayne leads the Assault |
Wayne is struck in the head by a musket ball, and falls. The blood flows over his face. He fears in the confusion that he has received his death wound.
He cries to his aids, "Carry me into the fort and let me die at the head of the column."
Two of his officers pick up their gallant leader, and hurry forward; but it is only a scalp wound, and Wayne returns to the fight.
Wayne's column scales the ramparts.
The first man over shouts, "The fort's our own," and pulls down the British flag.
The second main column follows.
"The fort's our own!" "The fort's our own!" echoes and reëchoes over the hills.
The bayonet is now doing its grim work. The darkness is lighted only by the flashes from the guns of the redcoats. The bewildered British are driven at the point of the bayonet into the corners of the fort, and cry, "Mercy, mercy, dear Americans!" "Quarter! quarter!" "Don't kill us! we surrender!"
At one o'clock the work was done,—thirty minutes from the time the marsh was crossed! As soon as they were sure of victory, Wayne's men gave three rousing cheers. The British on the war vessels in the river, and at the fort on the opposite side of the river, answered; for they thought that the attacking party had been defeated. The only British soldier to escape from Stony Point was a captain. Leaping into the Hudson, he swam a mile to the Vulture and told its captain what had happened. In this way the news of the disaster reached Sir Henry Clinton at breakfast.
After the surrender, Wayne wrote the following letter to Washington:
Stony Point, 16th July, 1779, 2 o'clock.
Dear General,
The fort and garrison with Colonel Johnson are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free.
Yours most sincerely,
Ant'y Wayne.
General Washington.
The news spread like wildfire. Wayne and his light infantry were the heroes of the hour.
Two days afterwards, Washington, with his chief officers, rode down to Stony Point and heard the whole story. The commander in chief shook hands with the men, and "with joy that glowed in his countenance, here offered his thanks to Almighty God, that He had been our shield and protector amidst the dangers we had been called to encounter."
Washington did not, of course, intend to hold Stony Point, for the enemy could besiege it by land and by water. The prisoners, the cannon, and the supplies were carried away, and very little was left to the foe but the bare rock of their "little Gibraltar."
This exploit gave the Continental soldier greater confidence in himself. It proved to the British that the "rebel" could use the bayonet with as much boldness and effect as the proudest grenadier. The fight was not a great affair in itself. Only fifteen Americans were killed and eighty-three wounded; of the British, sixty-three were killed and some seventy wounded.
As for Clinton, although he put on a bold face in the matter, and spoke of the event as an accident, he owned that he felt the blow keenly.
"Mr. Washington" was still master of the situation.
CHAPTER VII
If what the proverb tells us is true, that it is always darkest before dawn, the patriots of the South in 1780 must indeed have prayed for the light. Affairs had gone rapidly from bad to worse. Sir Henry Clinton had come again from New York, and in May of that year had captured Charleston with all of Lincoln's army.
Sir Henry went back to New York, leaving Lord Cornwallis in command. Washington desired to send his right-hand man, General Greene, to stem the tide of British success, but the Continental Congress chose to send General Gates.
In August, this weak general was utterly defeated in the battle of Camden, in South Carolina. How the bitter words of General Charles Lee, "Beware lest your Northern laurels change to Southern willows," must have rung in his ears! Gates fled from Camden like the commonest coward in the army. Mounted on a fast horse, he did not stop until he reached Charlotte, seventy miles away.
No organized American force now held the field in the South, and the red dragoons easily overran Georgia and South Carolina. There seemed to be little left for Cornwallis to do; for the three Southern colonies were for the time ground under the iron heel of the enemy.
Crushing blows, however, only nerved the leaders, Sumter, Pickens, Marion, Davie, and others, to greater efforts. The insolence, the cruelty, and the tyranny of the British soldiers, and the bitter hatred of the Tories, had brought to the front a new class of patriots. These men cared little about the original cause of the war, but the burning of their houses, the stealing of their cattle and their horses, and the brutal insulting of their wives and their daughters, aroused them to avenge their wrongs to the bitter end. And many were the skirmishes they brought about with the British.
Thirty days had now passed since the battle of Camden, and Cornwallis on his return march had not yet reached the Old North State. It was still a long way to Virginia, and the road thither was beset with many dangers.
Meanwhile, the British commander had intrusted to two of his officers, Tarleton and Ferguson, the task of pillaging plantations, raising and drilling troops among the Tories, and breaking up the bands of armed patriots.
The brutal manner in which Tarleton and his men plundered, burned, and hanged does not concern this story.
Ferguson was the colonel of a regular regiment that had been recruited in this country, instead of in England. With his kind heart and his winning manner, he was bold and brave, and always ready to take desperate chances in battle. He was noted for hard riding, night attacks, and swift movements with his troopers; and as a marksman he was unsurpassed. In short, Ferguson was just the leader to win the respect and the admiration of the Tories; and they eagerly enlisted in his service.
With a few regulars and a large force of loyalists, he pushed his victories to the foot of the mountains, in the western borders of the Carolinas. For the first time, he learned that over the high ranges in front of him were the homes of the men who had been causing him annoyance, and who were harboring those that had fled before his advance.
The proud young Briton now made the mistake of his life. He sent a prisoner, Samuel Phillips, over to the frontier settlements, to Colonel Isaac Shelby, with the insolent message that, if the "backwater" men did not quit resisting the royal arms, he would march his army over the mountains, and would straightway lay waste their homes with fire and sword, and hang their leaders.
He little knew what kind of men he had stirred to wrath. The frontier settlers of Franklin and Holston, which grew into the great commonwealth of Tennessee, were, for the most part, Scotch-Irish people. They had grappled with the wilderness, and had hewn out homes for themselves. Along with their log cabins they had built meetinghouses and schoolhouses. Their life was full of ever-present peril and hardship; for they were engaged in a ceaseless struggle with the Indians. The minister preached with his gun at his side, and the men listened with their rifles within their grasp.
As we should expect, these hardy settlers were generally stanch patriots. They believed in Washington and in the Continental Congress. They knew that British gold bribed the Indians, and furnished them with weapons to butcher their women and children. It was British gold, too, that hired the wild and lawless among them to enlist in the invading army; and it was British officers that drilled them to become expert in killing their brethren of the lowlands.
At the time of the Revolution, these backwoodsmen were still fighting with the savages, and so had not taken an active part in the war on the seaboard. Like a rear guard of well-seasoned veterans, they stood between the Indians and their people on the coast.
Now these hardy mountaineers took Ferguson's threat seriously. Their Scotch-Irish blood was up.
Colonel Shelby, one of the county lieutenants of Washington County, rode posthaste to John Sevier's home, sixty miles away, to carry Ferguson's threat.
Sevier lived on the Nolichucky River, and from his deeds of daring and his hospitality was nicknamed "Chucky Jack." When Shelby arrived, it was a day of merrymaking. They were having a barbecue; that is, they were roasting oxen whole on great spits; and a horse race was to be run. The colonel told his story, and the merrymakers agreed to turn out.
Shelby now rode home at full speed to muster his own men, and sent urgent word to Colonel William Campbell, a famous Indian fighter, who lived forty miles away, to call out the Holston Virginians.
The place appointed for meeting was at Sycamore Shoals, a central point on the Watauga River. The day set was September 25.
Hither came Shelby and Sevier with about five hundred men, William Campbell with four hundred Virginians, and McDowell with about one hundred and sixty refugees from North Carolina.
Word was sent to Colonel Cleveland, a hunter and Indian fighter of Wilkes County in North Carolina, to come with all the men he could raise east of the mountains.
Colonel Sevier tried in vain to borrow money to furnish the men with horses and supplies. The people were willing to give their last dollar, but they had paid out all their money for land, and the cash was in the hands of the county entry taker, John Adair.
Sevier appealed to him.
This patriot's reply is historic: "I have no authority by law, Colonel Sevier, to make that disposition of this money. It belongs to the treasury of North Carolina, and I dare not appropriate a penny of it to any purpose. But if the country is overrun by the British, liberty is gone. Let the money go, too. Take it. If the enemy, by its use, is driven from the country, I can trust that country to justify and vindicate my conduct. Take it."
This money, thirteen thousand dollars in silver and gold, was taken, and the supplies bought. Shelby and Sevier pledged themselves to refund the money, or to have the act legalized by the legislature.
September 25 was a day of intense excitement in those frontier settlements. The entire military force of what is now Tennessee met at Sycamore Shoals. The younger and more vigorous men were to march, while the older men with poorer guns were to remain behind, to help the women defend their homes against the savages. But all came, to bid good-by to husbands, to brothers, and to lovers. Food, horses, guns, blankets,—everything except money was brought without stint.
The backwoodsmen were mounted on swift, wiry horses. Their long hunting shirts were girded with bead-worked belts. Some wore caps made of mink or of coonskins, with the tails hanging down behind; others had soft hats, in each of which was fastened either a sprig of evergreen or a buck's tail.
Nearly all were armed with what was called the Deckhard rifle, remarkable for the precision and the distance of its shot. Every man carried a tomahawk and a scalping knife. There was not a bayonet in the whole force. Here and there an officer wore a sword.