On the evening of the 4th of July, 1778, a merry dance was taking place at the small settlement of Kaskaskia, in that far western region afterward known as Illinois. It must not be imagined that this was a celebration of the American Independence day, for the people of Kaskaskia knew little and cared less about American independence. It was only by chance that this day was chosen for the dance, but it had its significance for all that, for the first step was to be taken there that day in adding the great Northwest to the United States. The man by whom this was to be done was a brave Kentuckian named George Rogers Clark. He came of a daring family, for he was a brother of Captain William Clark, who, years afterward, was engaged with Captain Lewis in the famous Lewis and Clark expedition across the vast unknown wilderness between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean.
Kaskaskia was one of the settlements made by the French between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. After the loss of Canada this country passed to England, and there were English garrisons placed in some of the forts. But Kaskaskia was thought so far away and so safe that it was left in charge of a French officer and French soldiers. A gay and light-hearted people they were, as the French are apt to be; and, as they found time hang heavy on their hands at that frontier stronghold, they had invited the people of the place, on the evening in question, to a ball at the fort.
All this is by way of introduction; now let us see what took place at the fort on that pleasant summer night. All the girls of the village were there and many of the men, and most of the soldiers were on the floor as well. They were dancing away at a jovial rate to the lively music of a fiddle, played by a man who sat on a chair at the side. Near him on the floor lay an Indian, looking on with lazy eyes at the dancers. The room was lighted by torches thrust into the cracks of the wall, and the whole party were in the best of spirits.
The Indian was not the only looker-on. In the midst of the fun a tall young man stepped into the room and stood leaning against the side of the door, with his eyes fixed on the dancers. He was dressed in the garb of the backwoods, but it was easy to be seen that he was not a Frenchman,—if any of the gay throng had taken the trouble to look at him.
All at once there was a startling interruption. The Indian sprang to his feet and his shrill war-whoop rang loudly through the room. His keen eyes had rested on the stranger and seen at a glance that there was something wrong. The new-comer was evidently an American, and that meant something there.
His yell of alarm broke up the dance in an instant. The women, who had just been laughing and talking, screamed with fright. All, men and women alike, huddled together in alarm. Some of the men ran for their guns, but the stranger did not move. From his place by the door he simply said, in a quiet way, "Don't be scared. Go on with your dance. But remember that you are dancing under Virginia and not under England."
As he was speaking, a crowd of men dressed like himself slipped into the room. They were all armed, and in a minute they spread through the fort, laying hands on the guns of the soldiers. The fort had been taken without a blow or a shot.
Rocheblave, the French commandant, was in bed while these events were taking place, not dreaming that an American was within five hundred miles. He learned better when the new-comers took him prisoner and began to search for his papers. The reason they did not find many of these was on account of their American respect for ladies. The papers were in Madame Rocheblave's room, which the Americans were too polite to enter, not knowing that she was shoving them as fast as she could into the fire, so that there was soon only a heap of ashes. A few were found outside, enough to show what the Americans wanted to make sure of,—that the English were doing their best to stir up the Indians against the settlers. To end this part of our story, we may say that the Americans got possession of Kaskaskia and its fort, and Rocheblave was sent off, with his papers, to Virginia. Probably his wide-awake wife went with him.
Now let us go back a bit and see how all this came to pass. Colonel Clark was a native of Virginia, but he had gone to Kentucky in his early manhood, being very fond of life in the woods. Here he became a friend of Daniel Boone, and no doubt often joined him in hunting excursions; but his business was that of a surveyor, at which he found plenty to do in this new country.
Meanwhile, the war for independence came on, and as it proceeded Clark saw plainly that the English at the forts in the West were stirring up the Indians to attack the American settlements and kill the settlers. It is believed that they paid them for this dreadful work and supplied them with arms and ammunition. All this Clark was sure of and he determined to try and stop it. So he made his way back to the East and had a talk with Patrick Henry, who was then governor of Virginia. He asked the governor to let him have a force to attack the English forts in the West. He thought he could capture them, and in this way put an end to the Indian raids.
Patrick Henry was highly pleased with Clark's plan. He gave him orders to "proceed to the defence of Kentucky," which was done to keep his real purpose a secret. He was also supplied with a large sum of money and told to enlist four companies of men, of whom he was to be the colonel. These he recruited among the hunters and pioneers of the frontier, who were the kind of men he wanted, and in the spring of 1778 he set out on his daring expedition.
With a force of about one hundred and fifty men Colonel Clark floated down the Ohio River in boats, landing at length about fifty miles above the river's mouth and setting off through the woods towards Kaskaskia. It was a difficult journey, and they had many hardships. Their food ran out on the way and they had to live on roots to keep from starvation. But at length one night they came near enough to hear the fiddle and the dancing. How they stopped the dance you have read.
Thus ends the first part of our story. It was easy enough to end, as has been seen. But there was a second part which was not so easy. You must know that the British had other strongholds in that country. One of them was Detroit, on the Detroit River, near Lake Erie. This was their starting-point. Far to the south, on the Wabash River, in what is now the State of Indiana, was another fort called Vincennes, which lay about one hundred and fifty miles to the east of Fort Kaskaskia. This was an old French fort also, and it was held by the French for the British as Kaskaskia had been. Colonel Clark wanted this fort too, and got it without much trouble. He had not men enough to take it by force, so he sent a French priest there, who told the people that their best friends were the Americans, not the British. It was not hard to make them believe this, for the French people had never liked the British. So they hauled down the British ensign and hauled up the Stars and Stripes, and Vincennes became an American fort.
After that Colonel Clark went back to Kentucky, proud to think that he had won the great Northwest Territory for the United States with so little trouble. But he might have known that the British would not let themselves be driven out of the country in this easy manner, and before the winter was over he heard news that was not much to his liking. Colonel Hamilton, the English commander at Detroit, had marched down to Vincennes and taken the fort back again. It was also said that he intended to capture Kaskaskia, and then march south and try and win Kentucky for the English. This Hamilton was the man who was said to have hired the Indians to murder the American settlers, and Clark was much disturbed by the news. He must be quick to act, or all that he had won would be lost.
He had a terrible task before him. The winter was near its end and the Wabash had risen and overflowed its banks on all sides. For hundreds of square miles the country was under water, and Vincennes was in the centre of a great shallow lake. It was freezing water, too, for this was no longer the warm spring time, as it had been in the march to Kaskaskia, but dull and drear February. Yet the brave colonel knew that he must act quickly if he was to act at all. Hamilton had only eighty men; he could raise twice that many. He had no money to pay them, but a merchant in St. Louis offered to lend him all he needed. There was the water to cross, but the hardy Kentucky hunters were used to wet and cold. So Colonel Clark hastily collected his men and set out for Vincennes.
A sturdy set of men they were who followed him, dressed in hunting-shirts and carrying their long and tried rifles. On their heads were fur caps, ornamented with deer or raccoon tails. They believed in Colonel Clark, and that is a great deal in warlike affairs. As they trudged onward there came days of cold, hard rain, so that every night they had to build great fires to warm themselves and dry their clothes. Thus they went on, day after day, through the woods and prairies, carrying their packs of provisions and supplies on their backs, and shooting game to add to their food supply.
This was holiday work to what lay before them. After a week of this kind of travel they came to a new kind. The "drowned lands" of the Wabash lay before them. Everywhere nothing but water was to be seen. The winter rains had so flooded the streams that a great part of the country was overflowed. And there was no way to reach the fort except by crossing those waters, for they spread round it on all sides. They must plunge in and wade through or give up and go back.
We may be sure that there were faint hearts among them when they felt the cold water and knew that there were miles of it to cross, here ankle- or knee-deep, there waist-deep. But they had known this when they started, and they were not the men to turn back. At Colonel Clark's cheery word of command they plunged in and began their long and shivering journey.
For nearly a week this terrible journey went on. It was a frightful experience. Now and then one of them would stumble and fall, and come up dripping. All day long they tramped dismally on through that endless waste of icy water. Here and there were islands of dry land over which they were glad enough to trudge, but at night they often had trouble to find a dry spot to build their fires and cook their food, and to sleep on beside the welcome blaze. It was hard enough to find game in that dreary waste, and their food ran out, so that for two whole days they had to go hungry. Thus they went on till they came to the point where White River runs into the Wabash.
Here they found some friends who had come by a much easier way. On setting out Colonel Clark had sent Captain Rogers and forty men, with two small cannon, in a boat up Wabash River, telling them to stop at the White River fork, about fifteen or twenty miles below Vincennes. Here their trudging friends found them, and from this point they resumed their march in company. It was easy enough now to transport the cannon by dragging or rowing the boat through the deep water which they had to traverse.
The worst of their difficult journey lay before them, for surrounding the fort was a sheet of water four miles wide which was deeper than any they had yet gone through. They had waded to their knees, and at times to their waists, but now they might have to wade to their necks. Some of them thrust their hands into the water and shivered at the touch, saying that it was freezing cold. There were men among them who held back, exclaiming that it was folly to think of crossing that icy lake.
"We have not come so far to turn back now," said Colonel Clark, sternly. "Yonder lies the fort, and a few hours will take us there. Follow me," and he walked boldly into the flood. As he did so he told one of his officers to shoot the first man who refused to follow. That settled the matter; they all plunged in.
It was the most frightful part of their journey. The water at places, as we have said, came at times almost to their necks. Much of it reached their waists. They struggled resolutely on, almost benumbed with the cold, now stumbling and catching themselves again, holding their guns and powder above their heads to keep them from becoming wet, and glad enough when they found the water growing shallower. At length dry land was reached once more, and none too soon, for some of the men were so faint and weak that they fell flat on the ground. Colonel Clark set two of his men to pick up these worn-out ones and run them up and down till they were warm again. In this way they were soon made all right.
It was now the evening of the 18th of February, 1779. They were near enough to the fort to hear the boom of the evening gun. This satisfied the colonel that they were at the end of their journey, and he bade his men to lie down and sleep and get ready for the work before them. There was no more wading to do, but there was likely to be some fighting.
Bright and early the next morning they were up and had got their arms and equipments in order. They were on the wrong side of the river, but a large boat was found, in which they crossed. Vincennes was now near at hand, and one of its people soon appeared, a Frenchman, who looked at them with as much astonishment as if they had dropped down from the sky. Colonel Clark questioned him about matters in the fort, and then gave him a letter to Colonel Hamilton, telling the colonel that they had come across the water to take back the fort, and that he had better surrender and save trouble.
We may be sure that the English colonel was astounded on receiving such a letter at such a time. That any men on earth could have crossed those wintry waters he could hardly believe, and it seemed to him that they must have come on wings. But there they were, asking him to give up the fort, a thing he had no notion of doing without a fight. If Colonel Clark wanted the fort he must come and take it.
Colonel Clark did want it. He wanted it badly. And it was not long before the two cannon which he had brought with him were loaded and pouring their shot into the fort, while the riflemen kept them company with their guns. Colonel Hamilton fired back with grape-shot and cannon-balls, and for hour after hour the siege went on, the roar of cannon echoing back from woodland and water. For fourteen hours the cannonade was kept up, all day long and far into the night, the red flashes from cannon and rifle lighting up all around. At length both sides were worn out, and they lay down to sleep, expecting to begin again with the morning light.
But that day's work, and the sure shooting of the Kentucky riflemen, had made such havoc in the fort as to teach Colonel Hamilton that the bold Kentuckians were too much for him. So when, at day dawn, another messenger came with a summons to surrender, he accepted as gracefully as he could. He asked to be given the honors of war, and to be allowed to march back to Detroit, but Colonel Clark wrathfully answered, "To that I can by no means agree. I will not again leave it in your power to spirit up the Indian nations to scalp men, women, and children."
Soon into the fort marched the victors, with shouts of triumph, their long rifles slanting over their shoulders. And soon the red cross flag of England came down and the star-spangled banner of America waved in its place. Hamilton and his men were prisoners in American hands.
There was proof enough that this English colonel had been busy in stirring the Indians up to their dreadful work. His papers showed that. And even while the fight was going on some of the red demons came up with the scalps of white men and women to receive their pay. The pay they got was in bullets when they fell into the hands of the incensed Kentuckians. Colonel Hamilton and his officers were sent as prisoners to Williamsburg, Virginia, and were there put in fetters for their murderous conduct. It would have served them right to hang them, but the laws of war forbade, and they were soon set free.
We have told this story that you may see what brave men Virginia and Kentucky bred in the old times. In all American history there is no exploit to surpass that of Colonel Clark and his men. And it led to something of the greatest importance to the republic of the United States, as you shall hear.
It was not long after that time that the war ended and the freedom of the colonies was gained. When the treaty of peace was made the question arose, "What territory should belong to the new republic and what should still be held by England?" It was finally decided that the land which each country held at the end of the war should be held still. In that way England held Canada. And it would have held the great country north of the Ohio, too, if it had not been for George Rogers Clark. His capture of Kaskaskia and his splendid two weeks' march through the "drowned lands" of the Wabash had won that country for the United States, and when the treaty was signed all this fine country became part of the territory of the United States. So it is to George Rogers Clark, the Virginian and Kentuckian, that this country owes the region which in time was divided up into the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, and perhaps Kentucky also, since only for him the British might have taken the new-settled land of Daniel Boone.
Never was the South in so desperate a plight as in the autumn months of that year of peril, 1780. The British had made themselves masters of Georgia, and South Carolina and North Carolina were strongly threatened. The boastful Gates had been defeated at Camden so utterly that he ran away from his army faster than it did from the British, and in three days and a half afterward he rode alone into Hillsborough, North Carolina, two hundred miles away. Sumter was defeated as badly and rode as fast to Charlotte, without hat or saddle. Marion's small band was nearly the only American force left in South Carolina.
Cornwallis, the British commander, was in an ecstasy of delight at his success. He felt sure that all the South was won. The harvest was ready and needed only to be reaped. He laid his plans to march north, winning victory after victory, till all America south of Delaware should be conquered for the British crown. Then, if the North became free, the South would still be under the rule of George the Third. There was only one serious mistake in his calculations: he did not build upon the spirit of the South.
Cornwallis began by trying to crush out that spirit, and soon brought about a reign of terror in South Carolina. He ordered that all who would not take up arms for the king should be seized and their property destroyed. Every man who had borne arms for the British and afterward joined the Americans was to be hanged as soon as taken. Houses were burned, estates ravaged, men put to death, women and children driven from their homes with no fit clothing, thousands confined in prisons and prison-ships in which malignant fevers raged, the whole State rent and torn by a most cruel and merciless persecution. Such was the Lord Cornwallis ideal of war.
Near the middle of September Cornwallis began his march northward, which was not to end till the whole South lay prostrate under his hand. It was his aim to fill his ranks with the loyalists of North Carolina and sweep all before him. Major Patrick Ferguson, his ablest partisan leader, was sent with two hundred of the best British troops to the South Carolina uplands, and here he gathered in such Tories as he could find, and with them a horde of wretches who cared only for the side that gave them the best chance to plunder and ravage. The Cherokee Indians were also bribed to attack the American settlers west of the mountains.
But while Cornwallis was thus making his march of triumph, the American patriots were not at rest. Marion was flying about, like a wasp with a very sharp sting. Sumter was back again, cutting off strays and foragers. Other parties of patriots were afoot and active. And in the new settlements west of the Alleghanies the hardy backwoodsmen, who had been far out of the reach of war and its terrors, were growing eager to strike a blow for the country which they loved.
Such was the state of affairs in the middle South in the month of September, 1780. And it leads us to a tale of triumph in which the Western woodsmen struck their blow for freedom, teaching the over-confident Cornwallis a lesson he sadly needed. It is the tale of how Ferguson, the Tory leader, met his fate at the hands of the mountaineers and hunters of Tennessee and the neighboring regions.
After leaving Cornwallis, Ferguson met with a small party of North Carolina militia under Colonel Macdowell, whom he defeated and pursued so sharply as to drive them into the mountain wilds. Here their only hope of safety lay in crossing the crags and ridges to the great forest land beyond. They found a refuge at last among the bold frontiersmen of the Watauga in Tennessee, many of whom were the Regulators of North Carolina, the refugees from Governor Tryon's tyranny.
The arrival of these fugitives stirred up the woodsmen as they had never been stirred before. It brought the evils of the war for the first time to their doors. These poor fugitives had been driven from their homes and robbed of their all, as the Regulators had been in former years. Was it not the duty of the freemen of Tennessee to restore them and strike one blow for the liberty of their native land?
The bold Westerners thought so, and lost no time in putting their thoughts into effect. Men were quickly enlisted and regiments formed under Isaac Shelby and John Sevier, two of their leaders. An express was sent to William Campbell, who had under him four hundred of the backwoodsmen of Southwest Virginia, asking him to join their ranks. On the 25th of September these three regiments of riflemen, with Macdowell and his fugitives, met on the Watauga, each man on his own horse, armed with his own rifle, and carrying his own provisions, and each bent on dealing a telling blow for the relief of their brethren in the East.
True patriots were they, risking their all for their duty to their native land. Their families were left in secluded valleys, often at long distances apart, exposed to danger alike from the Tories and the Indians. Before them lay the highest peaks of the Alleghanies, to be traversed only by way of lofty and difficult passes. No highway existed; there was not even a bridle-path through the dense forest; and for forty miles between the Watauga and the Catawba there was not a single house or a cultivated acre. On the evening of the 30th the Westerners were reinforced by Colonel Cleveland, with three hundred and fifty men from North Carolina who had been notified by them of their approach.
Their foe was before them. After Ferguson had pursued Macdowell to the foot of the mountains he shaped his course for King's Mountain, a natural stronghold, where he established his camp in what seemed a secure position and sent to Cornwallis for a few hundred more men, saying that these "would finish the business. This is their last push in this quarter." Cornwallis at once despatched Tarleton with a considerable reinforcement. He was destined to be too late.
Ferguson did not know all the peril that threatened him. On the east Colonel James Williams was pursuing him up the Catawba with over four hundred horsemen. A vigilant leader, he kept his scouts out on every side, and on October 2 one of these brought him the most welcome of news. The backwoodsmen were up, said the scout; half of the people beyond the mountains were under arms and on the march. A few days later they met him, thirteen hundred strong.
Not a day, not an hour, was lost. Williams told them where their foes were encamped, and they resolved to march against them that very night and seek to take them by surprise. It was the evening of October 6 when the two forces joined. So prompt were they to act that at eight o' clock that same evening nine hundred of their best horsemen had been selected and were on the march. All night they rode, with the moon to light them on their way. The next day they rode still onward, and in the afternoon reached the foot of King's Mountain, on whose summit Ferguson lay encamped.
This mountain lies just south of the North Carolina border, at the end of a branching ridge from, the main line of the Alleghanies. The British were posted on its summit, over eleven hundred in number, a thousand of them being Tories, the others British regulars. They felt thoroughly secure in their elevated fortress, the approach up the mountain-side being almost a precipice, the slaty rock cropping out into natural breastworks along its sides and on its heights. And, so far as they knew, no foe was within many miles.
The Americans dismounted; that craggy hill was impassable to horsemen. Though less in number than their foes, and with a steep mountain to climb, they did not hesitate. The gallant nine hundred were formed into four columns, Campbell's regiment on the right centre and Shelby's on the left, taking the post of greatest peril. Sevier, with a part of Cleveland's men, led the right wing, and Williams, with the remainder of Cleveland's men, the left, their orders being to pass the position of Ferguson to right and left and climb the ridge in his rear, while the centre columns attacked him in front.
So well was the surprise managed that the Westerners were within a quarter of a mile of the enemy before they were discovered. Climbing steadily upon their front, the two centre columns quickly began the attack. Shelby, a hardy, resolute man, "stiff as iron," brave among the bravest, led the way straight onward and upward, with but one thought in his mind,—to do that for which he had come. Facing Campbell were the British regulars, who sprang to their arms and charged his men with fixed bayonets, forcing the riflemen, who had no bayonets, to recoil. But they were soon rallied by their gallant leader, and returned eagerly to the attack.
For ten or fifteen minutes a fierce and bloody battle was kept up at this point, the sharp-shooting woodsmen making havoc in the ranks of the foe. Then the right and left wings of the Americans closed in on the flank and rear of the British and encircled them with a hot fire. For nearly an hour the battle continued, with a heavy fire on both sides. At length the right wing gained the summit of the cliff and poured such a deadly fire on the foe from their point of vantage that it was impossible to bear it.
Ferguson had been killed, and his men began to retreat along the top of the ridge, but here they found themselves in the face of the American left wing, and their leader, seeing that escape was impossible and resistance hopeless, displayed a white flag. At once the firing ceased, the enemy throwing down their arms and surrendering themselves prisoners of war. More than a third of the British force lay dead, or badly wounded; the remainder were prisoners; not more than twenty of the whole were missing. The total loss of the Americans was twenty-eight killed and sixty wounded, Colonel Williams, a man of great valor and discretion, being among the killed.
The battle ended, a thirst for vengeance arose. Among the Tory prisoners were known house—burners and murderers. Among the victors were men who had seen their cruel work, had beheld women and children, homeless and hopeless, robbed and wronged, nestling about fires kindled in the ground, where they mourned their slain fathers and husbands. Under such circumstances it is not strange that they seized and hanged nine or ten of the captives, desisting only when Campbell gave orders that this work should cease, and threatened with severe punishment all who engaged in it.
The victory of the men of the backwoods at King's Mountain was like the former one of Washington at Trenton. It inspired with hope the despairing people and changed the whole aspect of the war. It filled the Tories of North Carolina with such wholesome dread that they no longer dared to join the foe or molest their patriot neighbors. The patriots of both the Carolinas were stirred to new zeal. The broken and dispirited fragments of Gates's army took courage again and once more came together and organized, soon afterward coming under the skilled command of General Greene.
Tarleton had reached the forks of the Catawba when news of Ferguson's signal defeat reached him and caused him to return in all haste to join Cornwallis. The latter, utterly surprised to find an enemy falling on his flank from the far wilderness beyond the mountains, whence he had not dreamed of a foe, halted in alarm. He dared not leave an enemy like this in his rear, and found himself obliged to retreat, giving up his grand plan of sweeping the two Carolinas and Virginia into his victorious net. Such was the work done by the valiant men of the Watauga. They saved the South from loss until Morgan and Greene could come to finish the work they had so well begun.
The rain was pouring pitilessly from the skies. The wind blew chill from the north. The country was soaked with the falling flood, dark rain-clouds swept across the heavens, and a dreary mist shut out all the distant view. In the midst of this cheerless scene a solitary horseman stood on a lonely roadside, with his military cape drawn closely up, and his horse's head drooping as if the poor beast was utterly weary of the situation. In truth, they had kept watch and ward there for hours, and night was near at hand, the weary watcher still looking southward with an anxiety that seemed fast growing into hopeless despondency.
At times, as he waited, a faint, far-off, booming sound was heard, which caused the lonely cavalier to lift his head and listen intently. It might have been the sound of cannon, it might have been distant thunder, but whatever it was, his anxiety seemed steadily to increase.
The day darkened into night, and hour by hour night crept on until midnight came and passed, yet the lone watcher waited still, his horse beside him, the gloom around him, the rain still plashing on the sodden road. It was a wearing vigil, and only a critical need could have kept him there through those slow and dreary hours of gloom.
At length he sharply lifted his head and listened more intently than before. It was not the dull and distant boom this time, but a nearer sound that grew momentarily more distinct, the thud, it seemed, of a horse's hoofs. In a few minutes more a horseman rode into the narrow circle of view.
"Is that you, sergeant?" asked the watcher.
"Yes, sir," answered the other, with an instinctive military salute.
"What news? I have been waiting here for hours for the militia, and not a man has come. I trust there is nothing wrong."
"Everything is wrong," answered the new-comer. "Davidson is dead and the militia are scattered to the winds. Cornwallis is over the Catawba and is in camp five miles this side of the river."
"You bring bad news," said the listener, with a look of agitation. "Davidson dead and his men dispersed! That is bad enough. And Morgan?"
"I know nothing about him."
Sad of heart, the questioner mounted his impatient steed and rode disconsolately away along the muddy road. He was no less a person than General Greene, the newly-appointed commander of the American forces in the South, and the tidings he had just heard had disarranged all his plans. With the militia on whose aid he had depended scattered in flight, and no sign of others coming, his hope of facing Cornwallis in the field was gone, and he was a heavy-hearted man when he rode at length into the North Carolina town of Salisbury and dismounted at the door of Steele's tavern, the house of entertainment in that place. As he entered the reception-room of the hotel, stiff and weary from his long vigil, he was met by Dr. Read, a friend.
"What! alone, General?" exclaimed Read.
"Yes; tired, hungry, alone, and penniless."
The fate of the patriot cause in the South seemed to lie in those hopeless words. Mrs. Steele, the landlady, heard them, and made all haste to prepare a bountiful supper for her late guest, who sat seeking to dry himself before the blazing fire. As quickly as possible a smoking hot supper was on the table before him, and as he sat enjoying it with a craving appetite, Mrs. Steele again entered the room.
Closing the door carefully behind her, she advanced with a look of sympathy on her face, and drew her hands from under her apron, each of them holding a small bag of silver coin.
"Take these, general," she said. "You need them, and I can do without them."
A look of hope beamed on Greene's face as he heard these words. With a spirit like this in the women of the country, he felt that no man should despair. Rising with a sudden impulse, he walked to where a portrait of George III. hung over the fireplace, remaining from the old ante-war time. He turned the face of this to the wall and wrote these words on the back: "Hide thy face, George, and blush."
It is said that this portrait was still hanging in the same place not many years ago, with Greene's writing yet legible upon it, and possibly it may be there still. As for Mrs. Steele, she had proved herself a patriot woman, of the type of Mrs. Motte, who furnished Marion with arrows for the burning of her own house when it was occupied by a party of British soldiers whom he could not dislodge. And they two were far from alone in the list of patriot women in the South.
The incident in General Greene's career above given has become famous. And connected with it is the skilful military movement by which he restored the American cause in the South, which had been nearly lost by the disastrous defeat of General Gates. This celebrated example of strategy has often been described, but is worth telling again.
Lord Cornwallis, the most active of the British commanders in the war of American Independence, had brought South Carolina and Georgia under his control, and was marching north with the expectation of soon bringing North Carolina into subjection, and following up his success with the conquest of Virginia. This accomplished, he would have the whole South subdued. But in some respects he reckoned without his host. He had now such men as Greene and Morgan in his front, Marion and Sumter in his rear, and his task was not likely to prove an easy one.
As for Morgan, he sent the rough-rider Tarleton to deal with him, fancying that the noted rifleman, who had won undying fame in the North, would now meet fate in the face, and perhaps be captured, with all his men. But Morgan had a word to say about that, as was proved on the 17th of January, 1781, when he met Tarleton at the Cowpens, a place about five miles south of the North Carolina line.
Tarleton had the strongest and best appointed force, and Morgan, many of whose men were untried militia, seemed in imminent danger, especially when the men of the Maryland line began to retreat, and the British, thinking the day their own, pressed upon them with exultant shouts. But to their surprise the bold Marylanders suddenly halted, turned, and greeted their pursuers with a destructive volley. At the same time the Virginia riflemen, who had been posted on the wings, closed in on both flanks of the British and poured a shower of bullets into their ranks. The British were stunned by this abrupt change in the situation, and when the Maryland line charged upon them with levelled bayonets they broke and fled in dismay.
Colonel Washington commanded the small cavalry force, so far held in reserve and unseen. This compact body of troopers now charged on the British cavalry, more than three times their numbers, and quickly put them to flight. Tarleton himself made a narrow escape, for he received a wound from Washington's sword in the hot pursuit. So utter was the rout of the British that they were pursued for twenty miles, and lost more than three hundred of their number in killed and wounded and six hundred in prisoners, with many horses, wagons, muskets, and cannon. Tarleton's abundant baggage was burned by his own order to save it from capture. In this signal victory Morgan lost only ten men killed and sixty wounded.
And now began that famous retreat, which was of more advantage to the Americans than a victory. Morgan, knowing well that Cornwallis would soon be after him to retrieve the disaster at the Cowpens, hastened with his prisoners and spoils across the Catawba. Cornwallis, furious at his defeat and eager to move rapidly in pursuit, set fire to all his baggage and wagons except those absolutely needed, thus turning his army into light troops at the expense of the greater part of its food-supply and munitions.
But when he reached the Catawba, he found it so swollen with the rains that he was forced to halt on its banks while Morgan continued his march. Meanwhile, General Greene was making earnest efforts to collect a force of militia, directing all those who came in to meet at a certain point. Such was the situation on the 1st of February when Greene waited for weary hours at the place fixed upon for the militia to assemble, only to learn that Cornwallis had forced the passage of the river, dispersing the North Carolina militia left to guard the ford, and killing General Davidson, their commander. He had certainly abundant reason for depression on that wet and dreary night when he rode alone into Salisbury.
The Catawba crossed, the next stream of importance was the Yadkin. Hither Morgan marched in all haste, crossing the stream on the 2d and 3d of February, and at once securing all boats. The rains began to fall again before his men were fairly over, and soon the stream was swelling with the mountain floods. When Cornwallis reached its banks it was swollen high and running madly, and it was the 7th of February before he was able to cross. It seemed, indeed, as if Providence had come to the aid of the Americans, lowering the rains for them and raising them for their foes.
Meanwhile, the two divisions of the American army were marching on converging lines, and on the 9th the forces under Greene and Morgan made a junction at Guilford Court-House, Cornwallis being then at Salem, twenty-five miles distant. A battle was fought at this place a month later, but just then the force under Greene's command was too small to risk a fight. A defeat at that time might have proved fatal to the cause of the South. Nothing remained but to continue the retreat across the State to the border of Virginia, and there put the Dan River between him and his foe.
To cover the route of his retreat from the enemy, Greene detached General Williams with the flower of his troops to act as a light corps, watch and impede Cornwallis and strive to lead him towards Dix's ferry on the Dan, while the crossing would be made twenty miles lower down.
It was a terrible march which the poor patriots made during the next four days. Without tents, with thin and ragged clothes, most of them without shoes, "many hundreds of the soldiers tracking the ground with their bloody feet," they retreated at the rate of seventeen miles a day along barely passable roads, the wagon-wheels sinking deep in the mud, and every creek swollen with the rains. In these four days of anxiety Greene slept barely four hours, watching every detail with a vigilant eye, which nothing escaped. On the 14th they reached the ford, hurrying the wagons across and then the troops, and before nightfall Greene was able to write that "all his troops were over and the stage was clear."
General Williams had aided him ably in this critical march, keeping just beyond reach of Cornwallis, and deceiving him for a day or two as to the intention of the Americans. When the British general discovered how he had been deceived, he got rid of more of his baggage by the easy method of fire, and chased Williams across the State at the speed of thirty miles a day. But the alert Americans marched forty miles a day and reached the fords of the Dan just as the last of Greene's men had crossed. That night the rear guard crossed the stream, and when Cornwallis reached its banks, on the morning of the 15th, to his deep chagrin he found all the Americans safe on the Virginia side and ready to contest the crossing if he should seek to continue the pursuit.
That famous march of two hundred miles, from the south side of the Catawba to the north side of the Dan, in which the whole State of North Carolina was crossed by the ragged and largely shoeless army, was the salvation of the Southern States. In Greene's camp there was only joy and congratulation. Little did the soldiers heed their tattered garments, their shoeless feet, their lack of blankets and of regular food, in their pride at having outwitted the British army and fulfilled their duty to their country. With renewed courage they were ready to cross the Dan again and attack Cornwallis and his men. Washington wrote to General Greene, applauding him highly for his skilful feat, and even a British historian gave him great praise and credit for his skill in strategy.
Shall we tell in a few words the outcome of this fine feat? Cornwallis had been drawn so far from his base of supplies, and had burned so much of his war-material, that he found himself in an ugly quandary. On his return march Greene became the pursuer, harassing him at every step. When Guilford Court-House was reached again Greene felt strong enough to fight, and though Cornwallis held the field at the end of the battle he was left in such a sorry plight that he was forced to retreat to Wilmington and leave South Carolina uncovered. Here it did not take Greene long, with the aid of such valiant partisans as Marion, Sumter, and Lee, to shut the British up in Charleston and win back the State.
Cornwallis, on the other hand, concluded to try his fortune in Virginia, where there seemed to be a fine chance for fighting and conquest. But he was not long there before he found himself shut up in Yorktown like a rat in a trap, with Washington and his forces in front and the French fleet in the rear. His surrender, soon after, not only freed the South from its foes, but cured George III. of any further desire to put down the rebels in America.
In the harvest season of the cotton States of the South a vast, fleecy snow-fall seems to have come down in the silence of the night and covered acres innumerable with its virgin emblem of plenty and prosperity. It is the regal fibre which is to set millions of looms in busy whirl and to clothe, when duly spun and woven, half the population of the earth. That "cotton is king" has long been held as a potent political axiom in the United States, yet there was a time when cotton was not king, but was an insignificant member of the agricultural community. How cotton came to the throne is the subject of our present sketch.
In those far-off days when King George of England was trying to force the rebellious Americans to buy and drink his tea and pay for his stamps, the people of Georgia and South Carolina were first beginning to try if they could do something in the way of raising cotton. After the war of independence was over, an American merchant in Liverpool received from the South a small consignment of eight bags of cotton, holding about twelve hundred pounds, the feeble pioneer of the great cotton commerce. When it was landed on the wharves in Liverpool, in 1784, the custom-house officials of that place looked at it with alarm and suspicion. What was this white-faced stranger doing here, claiming to come from a land that had never seen a cotton-plant? It must have come from somewhere else, and this was only a deep-laid plot to get itself landed on English soil without paying an entrance fee.
So the stranger was seized and locked up, and Mr. Rathbone, the merchant, had no easy time in proving to the officials that it was really a scion of the American soil, and that the ships that brought it had the right to do so. But after it was released from confinement there was still a difficulty. Nobody would buy it. The manufacturers were afraid to handle this new and unknown kind of cotton for fear it would not pay to work it up, and at last it had to be sold for a song to get a trial. Such was the state of the American industry at the period when the great republic was just born. It may be said that the nation and its greatest product were born together, like twin children.