The Young Continentals at Trenton

When George Prentiss told Major Hyde and Captain Henderson that he would remain in New York until Washington arrived with the army from Boston, he had not reckoned with the uncertainties of the service.

That very evening he was called upon to board a swift-sailing ship to New London, there to deliver certain important writings to the officer in command of that division of the army which was expected to have already reached that point. This duty the young New Englander performed with the promptness native to him; and, under orders of the authorities at New London, he rode with other dispatches to Washington at Norwich.

As he dismounted from his horse before the commander-in-chief’s headquarters, he was greeted with a hearty:

“What! do we see you again, old chap? We thought we’d lost you for a week or more.”

The speaker was a stalwart young man in a continental uniform; and beside him stood another, sleek and pippin-faced and with a friendly smile.

“The leaders of this army,” laughed the latter, “seem to know an accomplished dispatch bearer when they see one. It speaks well for their discernment.”

George shook them both heartily by the hand.

“I had not expected to see you, either. I had heard,” to the stalwart one, “that you’d been sent off on a recruiting expedition through the Massachusetts towns.”

Nat Brewster nodded gravely.

“I returned only yesterday. And we had but little success. Now that their own homes are not threatened, the people seem to be losing interest in the struggle.”

The round-faced youth smiled widely at this.

“If they don’t come forward,” said he, “they’ll find themselves worse off than before. The British are swarming over seas, I’ve heard. The stories of the mess-rooms have the Atlantic black with frigates and three-deckers of the line.”

“It’s very likely not as bad as Ben paints it,” said young Brewster, “but at the same time there is good cause for alarm. Nothing is known of the expedition that sailed from Boston under Sir Henry Clinton before the evacuation. It’s a formidable force, capable of striking a crippling blow; and then the army under Howe must be hovering somewhere within easy sailing distance. To meet this and the forces which the ministers at London must now be fitting out against us, General Washington must greatly increase his force.”

“Night and day he’s at it,” said Ben Cooper, in high admiration; “you never saw such a man to work. But the recruits come in like snails. They somehow seem to dread to leave their own states. Just as though,” in disgust, “there were any more danger upon one side of a boundary line than there is on another.”

After George had delivered his dispatches and dined, his brother Ezra, more astonishingly his counterpart than ever before, broke in upon him tumultuously. And after they had exchanged experiences, George related his queer encounters with Herbert Camp and his sister in New York.

“A traitor,” said Ezra, aghast.

“There can be no doubt about it,” said George. “A traitor, bought by the prospects of the old man’s fortune.”

They sat for a long time in silence; then Ezra laid his hand upon his brother’s arm.

“I am glad,” said he, “that you asked General Putnam’s permission to withdraw. Herbert Camp will be taken in the end, but neither you nor I must have a hand in it.”

George was next day assigned, together with his brother and two friends, to service under General Knox in transporting the artillery, and in this work he labored for some days until the heavy guns of Washington’s force were safely stowed in the vessels that were to carry them to New York.

It was on April 13th that Washington finally reached New York City. The populace were thick in the streets and received him with thunderous cheers. Guns were fired, though the ammunition could be ill spared, and a medley of colonial flags fluttered in the breeze.

As it happened, Tryon, the British governor, had just arrived in the “Asia,” a huge ship of the line, to replace Colden once more. Mounting the ramparts of the fort he noted the tumult of color and the seething sea of citizens.

“What,” cried he, to those of his staff who bore him company, “I did not know that I had grown so popular with the townsfolk.”

“The rebel leader, Mr. Washington, has just reached the city, Your Excellency,” said some one; “and I fear that it is he whom they are welcoming.”

Tryon’s face darkened. “Ah,” sneered he, “is it so? Well, we will shortly see how they will welcome the cannon shots that I’ll send about their ears. I doubt if they will then be so overjoyed.”

George Prentiss heard this from the lips of the young ensign who had shown him the way to General Putnam’s headquarters a few weeks before. This young man’s name was Noel, and George, in his few meetings with him, had found him to be a student of the times and of the conspicuous figures therein.

“Quite a setback for old Tryon,” laughed young Noel. “Must have jarred him quite a bit, I’ll warrant you. But the conceit of the wretch, to think that any community would take a step out of its way to cheer him. What else but an uprising could Lord North and the rest of the king’s ministers expect, when they appoint such as he to rule the province?”

“I have heard very little of him,” said George, “except that he is a tyrant.”

“Some ten years ago,” said the ensign Noel, “he was made governor of North Carolina, vice Dobbs deceased. He built a palace at Newberne and gave entertainments that were the talk of the province. And to pay for all this the taxes went up by leaps and bounds; his administration was one black history of crime and extortion; and at last the ‘Regulator’ movement began that ended in his being withdrawn.”

“And not being good enough for North Carolina, they saddled him upon New York,” smiled young Prentiss.

“Precisely. But he’s not for long.”

A number of young militiamen were gathered upon the Parade at the time, and one in the group remarked to George:

“I met your friends Brewster and Cooper to-day. And afterward, some of the Massachusetts men fell to talking of them. Very remarkable young men, I should say.”

“They have seen their share of service,” replied George. “Brewster is from the Wyoming region, and Cooper is his cousin, a Philadelphian. They both got into Boston before the Lexington fight, and there has been little of consequence since that time that they have not had a hand in.”

“I hope,” said Ensign Noel, “that we have as much chance in New York as you fellows about Boston have had. So far there has been little or no opportunity for anything but hard work. Of course the fortifications and the planting of batteries are necessary things; but there is little credit in the work save for engineer officers.”

“You’ll get your fill of fighting, Noel, before you are many months older, or I’m greatly mistaken,” spoke another of the party. “And you’ll not be sorry, either, that some effort was made in the way of fortifications. We may need every scrap of strength that we can muster.”

The defenses planned by Lee had been for the most part completed, some by himself, others by Lord Sterling and General Putnam; and the remainder began to rise like magic under the hand of Washington.

These were the days of great perplexities for the commander-in-chief. New York had now become the grand magazine of the colonies. He had few men to defend it against the weighty force that England was expected to send. Terms of enlistment were about expiring for a great part of the troops that had been brought from Boston; day by day the army was growing less, and yet call after call came to him for reinforcements for the desperately circumstanced force in Canada.

Some weeks after his assuming command of New York, Washington set out for Philadelphia to consult with Congress with regard to the passage of an act that would increase the army in a more permanent way; for he now realized that the transient enlistment of militia would never supply sufficient power to effect real progress against a disciplined enemy.

Meanwhile George Prentiss, who was attached to headquarters, had rather an idle time of it so far as regular service went. He did not waste his days, however; each afternoon he rode out and inspected the roads and outlying defenses; also he made pencil sketches of points which he fancied would be of value, and topographical maps of both Manhattan and Long Island for miles around. This sort of work came naturally to him; more than once his officers had complimented him upon his facility, and found its product of considerable value.

One evening toward the end of May he rode into the city with a bundle of sketches in his saddle-bag; he had been in the district about Kingsbridge, but had made his way back by the roads along the East River. Riding along Queen Street he had all but reached the junction of Crown when he espied a little party that crossed just ahead of him. There was something familiar about them, so touching his horse with the spur he turned into Crown Street after them.

There was a corpulent old gentleman upon a broad-backed Flemish mare; there was a spare old gentleman upon a rangy looking cob; and there was a girl upon a chestnut which champed its bit and seemed to disdain the ground. He had not gone more than a dozen yards into Crown Street before he recognized those ahead of him. They were Merchant Camp, his partner, Mr. Dana—and Peggy.

Before a wide fronted brick house, not more than a dozen yards east of William Street, the party halted. It was undoubtedly old Camp’s city residence, for at his call, a couple of stout serving men hastened out and assisted the three to dismount. The stout old merchant gallantly led Peggy up the steps, while Dana halted along behind them.

Somehow, after this, George found much to interest him in that part of the city. The flower gardens, just beginning to bloom, were full of attraction; the quaint old Dutch houses were rich in lore of times past; he found odd, loitering fellows who could and would talk of their neighbors; also craftsmen who were not in the least averse to an honest gossip while they plied their trades.

An old basket weaver, who sat in the sun which slanted in at his doorway while he contrived articles of reed and cane, had lived and worked there for forty years.

“Things were different when I first came,” said he to George, and he shook his white head in recollection of times past. “I was young then—not yet thirty—work was plenty and times were quieter. Good, God-fearing folk there was then—folk that had need of more baskets and less powder and ball. Then people were glad to be able to do each other a favor; now nothing will do them but that they’ll cut one another’s throats.”

“Times and people are always changing,” said George, agreeably. “But riches change folk more than anything else, perhaps,” he philosophized. “There’s your neighbor Camp, the merchant. He’s altered greatly in forty years, I’ll warrant you.”

“Why, not so much as you’d think,” said the basket maker. “Except for the fact that he prefers to live far away in the country and gives but little of his time to his trade or his ships, he’s much the same as he’s always been.”

George laughed.

“His hard and fast manner did not come with age, then?” remarked he. “As a young man he must have been a most forcible character.”

The old basket weaver nodded. “Always just the same in temper,” said he. “Just as you see him to-day. If a thing didn’t please him, he’d storm like a fury. But he was always good-hearted and honest; I’ll say that for him, Tory as he is.”

“It’s an odd thing—or so I’ve thought sometimes—that a man’s kin are so seldom like him.”

“That’s a true saying,” agreed the basket weaver, as he worked away industriously in the sunshine. “A very true saying, young sir. And perhaps it is even oftener the case than you’d think. In the matter of Merchant Camp, there are few that belong to him that have any but a trace of his quality. Miss Peggy is more like him than any one else. She has his pride in full and a rare bit of his peppery temper. But her brother is a surly young dog. He’s a patriot, of course,” and the old man grimaced, “but his deeds in that way will never break him down.”

“What do you mean?” asked George.

“Why, he went into the army when General Lee came, and strutted with the best of them. But now that there is a chance of employment against the enemy, he’s given up his commission—resigned, they tell me.”

This was news to George. True, he had seen nothing of Herbert Camp since his return to New York; and he had made no inquiries, thinking it best, for one reason and another, to put the whole episode of the “Wheat Sheaf” behind him.

“Of course, a man has a proper right to do as he will,” observed the basket maker, wagging his head. “He had his reasons, they say. However, the matter stands as I have put it. And since his giving up the army, little is seen of him; once or twice I’ve noted him pass my door, and his head was hanging like a dog’s that had been caught harrying a rabbit out of season.”

When George left the basket maker, he rode along Crown Street and passed the Camp mansion at a canter. By chance he lifted his eyes to one of the windows; there stood his cousin Peggy, an arm upraised, holding back the curtains; and as their glances met, she quickly let the curtain fall.

But that one look told him more eloquently than words could have done that Peggy’s mind was not at rest; there was a look of fear in her eyes; her expression was intent and anxious.

And so, day by day, as his affairs took him through Crown Street, he never failed to look up at the window; but not once again did he catch sight of her.