«Bl WK J W q r« 6?q<» « tann cq 'a io (a^ SSUED MPmE S' AMEF W'fq 'E S« V ■% AiSPlCES OF THE OF THE SONS OF THE R&VOLUTION Century ^0,F-.THE MERICAN EVOLUTION I ^ H rri;;i.:i.y!, jja! J^L[!Ii'I!J l! B IO£PIII!i3^ AHIW. IS STAND YOUR GROUND OOMT KIRE UNLESS FIREO UPON miT SF THEY MEAMTO HAVE A WAR lEr n BEGIN HERE ■"'■■*»^ 1"-^, •^■' k fv. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Margaret C. Hall in memory of Dr. Edward P. Hall (Class of 1924) CORNELL UNIVERSnV LIBRARY 3 1924 051 348 559 XI Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924051348559 * ^ ©tber boofss in tbe same series an& bg m tbe same autbor. 11 THE CENTURY BOOK i FOR YOUNG AMERICANS. MM The Story of the Government. * Issued under the auspices il of the National Society of |JJL, the Sons of the American Revolution. • With introduction by 511] GENERAL HORACE PORTER, * President-General of the Society. THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS. The Story of a Young People's Pilgrimage to Historic Homes. Issued under the auspices of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. With introduction by Mrs. ADLAI E. STEVENSON, President-General of the Society. Uniform with this book in size and style. Each containing 3^0 pages and nearly as many illus- trations. Price of each, $1.50. 2 < -J >■ u. £ O = f- < ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE EMPIRE STATE SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE STORY OF THE PILGRIMAGE OF A PARTY OF YOUNG PEOPLE TO THE BATTLE- FIELDS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS AUTHOR OF "the CENTURY BOOK FOR YOUNG AMERICANS,'' "the century book of famous AMERICANS," " A BOY OF THE FIRST EMPIRE,'' "historic boys/' "children's lives of GREAT MEN" SERIES, ETC. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW ILLUSTRATED THE CENTURY CO., NEW YORK Copyright, 1897, by The Century Co. The DeVinne Press. INTRODUCTION Office of the President of the Empire State Society, Sons of the American Revolution. New York, May ii, 1897. A few years ago the suggestion was made to The Century Company by Mr. John Winfield Scott, a member of the Executive Committee of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, appointed a committee of one for the Executive Committee, that The Century Company should issue a book in which should be set forth in a manner attractive to young people "the principles contended for in the American Revolution, and a description of the institutions of the Govern- ment." The result of this suggestion was embodied in " The Century Book for Young Americans," the story of the trip of a party of young people to the city of Washington, written by Elbridge S. Brooks and richly illustrated from the great store of material which the publishers possessed. The book was issued in the autumn of 1894, indorsed by the National Society, and with an introduction by General Horace Porter, President- General. Its success has been great, both as a book for children at home and for supplemental reading in schools, and in 1896 it was followed by "The Century Book of Famous Americans," written also by Mr. Brooks, telling of the adventures of the same young people and their well-posted uncle on a journey to the homes of historic Americans, Washington, Hamilton, Webster, Clay, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, Grant, and others. It was issued under the auspices of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The same publishers purpose offering to the public a volume in which the story of the American Revolution, from Lexington to Yorktown, shall be told in such a way as will interest young readers, and, at the same time, possess valuable informa- tion for old as well as young in its descriptions of the historic scenes made famous during the struggle of our forefathers for their independence. The book will have a living and personal interest because it takes the form of a journey to each of these historic places by the same party of young people and their guide. The illustrations, which include many photographs taken especially for this book, will add both to the attractiveness and the value of the work. The Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution is not respon- sible for the statements in the book and has no pecuniary interest in its publication. Individually, I take pleasure in commending the volume both in its scope and execution. Chauncey M. Depew, Pi-e'sident. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE I In Cambridge with Patriots and Poets i A Visit to Cambridge — Uncle Tom's Enthusiasm — Three Great Poets and Three Historic Houses — A City of Memorials — From the Vikings to the Boys in Blue — Uncle Tom's Suggestion^An Object-Lesson in America's Revolu- tionary Story. II On Lexington Common 17 On the Road to Lexington — Changed Condition of the Country — The Stone Cannon — Lexington Village and Its Famous Comtnon — T7ie Story of the Fight — The Monument — The Memorials and the Old Houses — Uncle Tom's Sum- ming-up. III Among the Embattled Farmers 35 How They Came to Concord — Dr. Prescott's Ride — Where the Congress Met — At Concord Fight — The Old Monument — The Statue of the Minute-man — The Story of the Retreat — Dr. Hale's Poem — Sites and Scenes in a Famous Old Town. IV On Bunker Hill 55 Climbing the Monument — The View from the Top — Tracing the Battle-ground — The Redoubt — Colonel IVescott — Warren and Putnam — The Story of the Assault — Victory or Defeat ? — Webster's Oration — The Tablet on Dorchester Heights — The First American Victory. V In Greater New York 73 Along the Shore Line — Historic Towns — The British Plan — Ticonderoga and Quebec — In Old New York — The Battle of Long Island — The Great Retreat — Harlem Heights and White Plains — The Fall of Fort Washington. VI Along the Delaware 95 Where Washington Crossed — The Wintry March — The Dash on Trenton — A Turning Point in the War — Princeton's Battle-ground — In "The Lair of the Tiger!" X TABLE OF CONTENTS VII On the Schuylkill and Thereabouts 115 By Brandywine Creek — Old-time Obstacles — The Fight at the Ford and on the Hill — Where Lafayette was Wounded — The Chew House — The Street Fight at Germantown — A Baffling Fog — At Valley Forge — An Object-lesson in Self-sacrifice — At Monmouth Court-house — The Monument at Freehold — A Gallant Foeman. VIII Up the Hudson 139 The Hudson as a Historic Waterway — Its Great Beacon-lights — The Neutral Ground — The Cow-Chase — Dobbs Ferry — Andrews Fate — Stony Point — Newburgh and West Point — Washington^ s Noblest Deed. IX Promenading with Burgoyne 159 At the Springs — Burgoyne' s Promenade — Oriskany and Bennington — Schuyler and Gates — The "Lone Tree" of Walloomsac — The Bennington Monument — Across Country to Schuylerville — Freeman's Farms and Bemis Heights — The Saratoga Monument — The Vacant Niche — The Surrender Spot. X' From the Sea to the Sand-hills 175 By Sea to Savannah — Where the British Landed — The Siege of Savannah — A City of Monuments — Fascinating Charleston — The Defense of Fort Moultrie — The Battle of Eutaw Springs. XI Among the Carolina Highlands 193 The Balmy Breezes of Camden — An Old-time Hill-town — The Battle of Camden — Gates the Blunderer — The Deserted Village — De Kalb's Monument — The Hogback of Hobkirk's Hill — King's Mountain and its Hero-story — A Monument on a Hilltop. XII In a Region of Rivers 211 From King's Mountain to Cowpens — Why Cowpens ? — Morgan vs. Tarleion — The Old Monument — The Statue in Sparta?iburg — The Hornets' Nest — A Land of Liberty — A Splendid Battle-park — The Field of Guilford — A Most Important Battle. XIII On the Heights Above York 229 The Sun on the Monument — After Guilford — Marion's Men — Cornwallis at Bay — The French Alliance — The Last Assault — The Surrender — Old York- town — Home Again. THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "THE BROAD STONE SEAT OF THE LONGFELLOW MEMORIAL." In the distance is seen Craigie House, which was Washington's headquarters and Longfellow's home- THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION CHAPTER I IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS A Visit to Cambridge — Uncle Tom's Enthusiasm — Three Great Poets and Three Historic Houses — A City of Memorials — From, the Vikings to the Boys in Blue — Uncle Tom!s Suggestion — An Object-Lesson in America's Revolutionary Story. |HAT a spot this is, boys and girls ! " Uncle Tom Dunlap exclaimed, with an impressive sweep of the hand. " The atmosphere is fairly charged with patriotism ; the air throbs with memories. I know of no spot in the whole country that is more absolutely a center of American interest than this old town of Cambridge. I know of none better calcu- lated to make you young people proud of America and of what America has done." Uncle Tom spoke with more than his customary enthusiasm. It was evident that he felt all that he said. He sat with his young people on the broad stone seat of the Longfellow Memorial in the old college town of Cambridge in Massachusetts, It was the same group of boys and girls that had gathered about him, as, on their personally conducted trip to Washington, he helped them study the gov- ernment of the United States of America in its own house and home ; it was the same group of eager young people that had taken, with him, the tour of inspection among the homes of great and famous Americans. Once again they had all met in Boston — Jack and Marian Dunlap, their cousin, Albert Upham, and Marian's "best friend," Christine Bacon. Uncle Tom Dunlap, as usual, had taken charge of them, and that morn- 3 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ing they had welcomed, at their hotel, their boy friend of the " Hub," Roger Densmore. Their lirst trip had been to Cambridge. "We did n't see half enough when we were there before," Bert com- plained. "That 's so," Roeer admitted. "We ouofht to o-ive more time to it. There 's lots to see there, you know ; and besides, it 's a good place to start from if you want to see more things. Is n't that so, Uncle Tom ? " Uncle Tom emphatically indorsed this statement, and they were speed- ily flying in "the electrics" through that wonderful piece of modern engi- neering, the big underground " Subway," out through Boston's stately Back Bay, and across the graceful Harvard Bridge, to what Uncle Tom: called "the classic shades" of Cambridge. Roger, as a prospective Harvard boy, had been their guide through the beautiful University town ; and even Jack, who was preparing for Yale, and Bert, whose educational future still lay unsettled between Princeton, Yale, and Cornell, were forced to admit that Harvard and its surroundings were, as Jack declared with characteristic emphasis, " Just great ! " ONE OF THE NEW GATES AT HARVARD. Under Roger's guidance they had " done " the colleges from the beauti- ful gates to the dormitories and the "gym," from Memorial Hall to the Agassiz Museum, and from the Fogg Art Museum and the Library to the tennis-courts on Jarvis Field, the "tree" in the quadrangle where the class- day scramble is held, and — what especially interested the girls — the rounded walls of Radcliffe. From here, after reading the tablet under the decrepit Washington elm„ IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS they had wandered up Brattle Street, and, entering the green Httle park known as the Longfellow Memorial, they had dropped upon its broad granite seat to rest and look about them. LEIF ERICSON, THE NORSEMAN. This statue, by Miss Whitney, is located on Commonwealth Avenue, in Boston, just above where that boulevard is crossed by Massachusetts Avenue, which extends for nearly twenty miles to Lexington and Concord. Then it was that Uncle Tom uttered his exclamation. So suggestive was the spot that the boys and girls unconsciously echoed his sentiments ; though Bert, ever ready with his query of investigation, tacked to his appreciative "that 's so!" his inevitable "but why?" "I '11 tell you why, Mr. Bert," his uncle replied. "Stand up, all of you, while I box the patriotic compass. Before you, if certain over-confident antiquarians are to be believed, lie the beginnings of historic America." " What ! over there in the swamp ? " asked Jack. "The marsh, if you please, sir," corrected Roger. "The idea of calling Longfellow's beloved marshes a swamp ! " 4 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " Yes, there, throuQ-h its marshes, winds the historic Charles River, upon whose banks, ahnost against the Cambridge Hospital yonder, Pro- fessor Horsford claimed to have discovered the cellar of Leif Ericson's fish-house — the first stone house, so he declared, built by Europeans in America, almost five hundred years before the caravels of Columbus tacked across the ' herring-pond.' " " Leif Ericson ! " exclaimed Marian. " Was n't his the beautiful statue we saw on Commonwealth Avenue ? " " Yes," Uncle Tom assented. " Oh, but he 's just a ' fake,' " Jack declared. " My teacher said so." "You don't really believe that story, do you. Uncle Tom?" queried Bert, with a tinge of skepticism. " I '11 discuss that question with you later, boys — say at Norumbega Tower?" Uncle Tom replied, with a non-committal shrug. " Oh ! what 's Norumbega Tower ? " Christine asked, attracted by the rhythm of the name. "It 's a stone tower on the Charles River, ten miles above here," Roger ex- plained. "Professor Horsford put it up, on the very rocks which, so he said, were part of the fort and city of Norumbega, built by Leif Ericson the Norseman in the year one thousand and one. It 's an awfully nice place for a picnic, girls. And the canoeing ! — well, you must just see it before you go home." "Which — the town or the canoe- ing ? " laughed Marian. "Both," replied Roger, gallantly, "one is historic and you '11 make the other so." " And there we '11 have our dis- cussion over Leif Ericson," said Uncle Tom. "Just now I wish to consider other things with you. Only, permit me to remark, ladies and gentlemen, the singular coincidence that places Leif Ericson's stone house here, on NORUMBEGA TOWER. the Charles, within sight of the house Erected on a knoll above the river. The tablet set in its face of tllC great pOet who WrOtC ' Tlie tells the whole story. A IliKht of stone steps within CI 1 'A '" leads to the outlook on the top. bkeletOU HI ArtTlOr. IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS LONGFELLOW'S HOME AT CAMBRIDGE. The famous Craigie House, used by Washington for his headquarters in Cambridge. The room on the right of the front door was Washington's office and Longfellow's study. The chamber over it was the General's bedroom. "That's so!" cried Jack. "Perhaps that sad old sea-dog stood right here where we stand to-day, and shouted ' I am a viking bold ! My deeds, though manifold. No skald in song has told. No saga taught thee ! Take heed that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man's curse — For this I sought thee ! ' Look out! Marian; he may be right behind you now," and Jack ended his quotation with so shrill a viking's "skoal!" that Marian jumped aside in terror, and everybody else laughed. " Let the viking rest. Jack," said Uncle Tom. " True or not, here is the beginning of the story, and, perhaps, though scholars scoff at the idea, the beginnings of the white man in America. Let me get on with my com- pass. Behind you, rising above its tall green hedge, is Longfellow's house. 6 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION — a Mecca for Cambridge pilgrims. There he wrote ' The Skeleton in Armor'; there he wrote 'Paul Revere's Ride'; there he wrote 'The Build- ing of the Ship' — that splendid poem that drew tears from President Lin- coln in the dreary war-days, and which, with its stirring closing lines, has thrilled countless Americans for over forty years. And in that very house, long before Longfellow was born, George Washington lived, when, here in Cambridge, he took command of the American army." LONGFELLOW'S STUDY. Occupied by Washington as his military office. Behind it is the poet's library, which was used as a stafF-room by General Washington. " Under that big elm, you know," put in Roger, " that you saw in front of RadclifFe College. They say it 's over three hundred years old." "What — the college?" said Jack. "The college !" echoed Marian, scornfully; "the elm, of course. What a goose you are. Jack Dunlap ! Don't you know the girls' college is some- thing new? " " Oh, is it?" said Jack. " I did n't suppose there was anything new in Cambridge. I thought the flavor of antiquity covered everything here, — IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS 7 Leif Ericson, Washington, Radcliffe, and Harvard's last base-ball victory over Yale." Uncle Tom paid no attention to Jack's rather flippant remarks, but took up the thread of his broken discourse. "To your right," he said, "there, beyond the trees of the Common, stood, until a few years ago, next to what is now the fine Law School building, the old-fashioned, roomy, gambrel-roofed house where lived the boy Oliver Wendell Holmes, who afterward wrote 'Old Ironsides' there." " Nail to the mast that tattered flag, Set every threadbare sail. And give her to the god of storms. The lightning and the gale," spouted Jack. " Only they did n't, you know," said Roger. "The frigate Constitution — 'Old Ironsides,' as she was called — was built here in Boston, and is scheduled to drop anchor this year at the Navy Yard, at the mouth of this very Charles River." "Just think of it," said Chris- tine, " what lots of things of that sort there are around Boston ! " " Why not ? It 's the Hub of the Universe — eh, Roger?" Jack said, in what the Boston boy de- clared to be " the regular New York tone." " Well, right here is where the American Revolution commenced, so why is n't it the hub ? " de- manded Bert. " Why not ? " was Uncle Tom's comment. "And in the old Holmes house near the Law School, of which I told you, the Committee of Safety held its meetings when the American Rev- olution was beginning. There, too, at the opening of the fight, were held the first councils of war, for that home was the headquarters of the first American commander-in-chief, General Artemas Ward." STAIRWAY IN THE OLD HOLMES MANSION. To the right, at the foot of the stairs, was the room in which the occupation of Bunker Hill was planned. 8 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "What! Artemus Ward, the funny man ?" cried Jack. "Was he a general in the Revolution ? " " No, no, Jack; how mixed up you do get ! " said Roger. " Why, my fa- ther heard Artemus Ward lecture; so he could n't have been a general in the Revolution." ' ' That 's only a make- believe name — what you call a nom de plume" Bert explained. "Your Artemus Ward, Jack, was America's first funny man; his real name was Browne. Uncle Tom's Artemas Ward was America's first major- general — the command- er-in-chief before Wash- ington took command. Is n't that so, Uncle Tom?" "That 's about it, Bert," his uncle replied, with his smile of approval. " It 's just another coincidence, the same as Longfellow and the viking's house, I suppose," said Marian. "Goon, Uncle Tom; Jack does break in so." " Over here to your left, across the tree-tops," Uncle Tom went on, " stands Elmwood, the house in which James Russell Lowell lived, and where he wrote what, I think, is America's noblest poem — his splendid ' Commemoration Ode.' " " Oh, yes, is n't that fine ! " said Christine. " Don't you remember how it ends ? I had to learn those lines at school. ELMWOOD, THE HOME OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Here Benedict Arnold and his Connecticut Volunteers were quartered just after the hattle of Lexington. The house was used as a hospital after Bunker Hill. ' O Beautiful ! my Country ! ours once more ! Smoothing thy gold of war-disheveled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it, IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS Among the nations bright beyond compare ? What were our lives without thee ? What all our lives to save thee ? We reck not what we gave thee ; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare.' " " Grand, is it not, boys and girls ? " Uncle Tom exclaimed, baring his head to that magnificent sentiment of the poet. "And that 's where Lowell wrote it — over there at Elmwood, is it?" said Jack. "Seems to me there must be something in the Cambridge air that just sets poetry a-sprouting; who knows what might happen if I should come here to Harvard, eh, Roger ? " Jack a poet! The idea was so funny that they all fell to laughing, much to Jack's disgust. When they had sobered down, Uncle Tom went to boxing his compass again. "The Elmwood house is very much like Longfellow's home, and has, like Longfellow's, a Revolutionary history. It was the mansion of Andrew Oliver, the Tory Lieuten- ant-Governor of Massachu- setts, and it was mobbed by the angry patriots be- cause Oliver took chars^e of the hated British stamps that brought about the row. HMI^^KI^^'^^.^l^^ftrftelBJi — ^T'V^ After Oliver left the country the house became the home of Elbridge Gerry, one of the signers of the Declara- tion of Independence." "Well, well; Cambridafe was 'right in it,' from the start, was n't it ? " said Jack. "I told you it was a ^^-^ wadsworth house. center of American inter- Built in 1726 for the president of the college. A British shell just grazed it, and „ • 1 T T 1 T^ Washington, who had occupied it, removed to safer quarters in the Craigie House. ests, .said Uncle iom. " Now, just keep still for a moment, will you, and let me try to give you the steps in American history that we can lay our fingers on, right here in Cam- bridge-town. There, on the Charles, the Norsemen, so it is said (let us grant, for the sake of historic steps, that they did), built the first house in lO THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION America. In those college buildings, in Harvard Square, or in the older ones that these have replaced, have gone to school men who built them- NEIGHBORS ON "TORY ROW," IN CAMBRIDGE, TALKING OVER THE TROUBLES. selves and their memories into the history of the republic. Here met the Provincial Congress, the Committee of Safety, and the council of war in the days that precipitated the American Revolution. Yonder is the old church whose organ-pipes the rebel soldiers melted into bullets for Bunker Hill. Wadsworth House in the College yard, and the Longfellow house, upon which we are looking, were both occupied by Washington when he came here to Cambridge to organize revolution. Along Brattle Street, in- cluding the Longfellow house, stood the fine old loyalist mansions that gave the street its nickname of " Tory Row." Under that old elm by Radcliffe, General George Washington took command of the American army, and upon the Common, beyond it, that army was drawn up for review. On that Common, Roger showed you the sturdy young elm grown from a shoot of the old elm and planted there in the centennial year of 1875. Close by the young elm rises the tall monument, topped by a splendid soldier-figure, in memory of the men of Cambridge who rallied to the defense of the flag in the Civil IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS II THE WASHINGTON ELM. Under this tree Washington took command of the American Army, July 3, 1775. Radcliffe College is on the right in the picture. Cambridge Common, with the growing shoot from the old elm, is at the left. War. Across the trees, overlooking all Cambridge, rises the imposing tower of Memorial Hall, an honor in stone paid by the great University to all her brave sons who fell in defense of the Union ; and, just across the river. 12 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Stretches the wide meadow upon which the college boys meet in the glori- ous tussle for mastery in base-ball and foot-ball. It is called Soldiers' Field, a gift to the college, and perpetuating by its name, as does Memorial Hall, the brave boys in blue who marched to defend what Americans in Cam- bridge, a century before, first strove for and attained. Was I not right when I told you the atmosphere hereabouts was charged with patriotism, that it just throbbed with memories? And, of these memories, two stand out above all others — the two so singularly linked by that old square, yel- low house across the wa3^ in which these two men lived and labored for America, though in such different fashion — Washington the soldier, and Longfellow the poet ; the man whose sword and the man whose pen have inscribed imperishable names in the history of the republic that so loves and honors them." "Somehow, Uncle Tom," said Christine, just a bit dreamily, as she leaned against the stone coping of the Longfellow Memorial and looked across the street to what had so long been the poet's home, " I keep thinking of what Long- fellow himself wrote after he had stood, one morning, before Lowell's gate at Elmwood. Does n't it fit both the great men who have lived over the way, and the others, too, who have made Cambridge famous? I wonder if I can remember the last lines: ' Sing to him, say to him, here at liis gate, Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, Some one hath lingered to meditate And send him unseen this friendly greeting; ' That many another hath done the same, Though not by a sound was the silence broken ; The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.' " PAUL REVERE. " That 's awfully nice, Christine, of course," said Jack, while all the others nodded approval, "only I call it rather rough on Uncle Tom, after he 's been spouting away here for half an hour." Christine colored up at Jack's bit of sarcasm. " You don't understand what I mean, Jack," she said. " But Uncle Tom does," and, with a con- IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS 1 3 fident smile, she slipped her hand into that of their "guide, philosopher, and friend," as Bert loved to call his uncle. As for that young gentleman, he was trying to dovetail history and poetry into a fixed fact. For Longfellow's name and Revolutionary sur- OLD NORTH CHURCH, SALEM STREET, BOSTON. From which, oh the night of April 18, 1775, Revere's signal-lights were hung. It is now known as Christ Church. The spire is a new one, built since 1804. A tablet on the front gives the story of the lanterns. roundings had recalled to Bert's mind the poet's stirring ballad of a certain famous gallop that had set the fires of liberty ablaze. " Let 's see, Uncle Tom ; Paul Revere did n't ride through Cambridge, did he ? " Bert inquired. " No, his route lay through Charlestown and Medford. But Cambridge had its ' fate-of-a-nation ' rider in William Dawes. He was Paul Revere's double, and, he set out for Concord even before Paul Revere started. Of course," continued Uncle Tom, "you know the story, and why Revere rode H THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION with news. The people were restless ; they were angry with the King of England for his tyranny, and were ready to protest in something more than words. The King's men in Boston were watchful and active ; they knew the spirit of the people, and hastened to possess themselves of the war-stores the people were gathering at different points about Boston. Their spies were abroad ; they knew where the muni- tions of war were stored ; they set out to destroy them. One expedition cleared them out at Salem ; another successfully raided the old powder- house at Winter Hill." " That old powder-house is still standing, you know," broke in Roger. " The city of Somerville has made a public park of the hill on which it stands. I want you to see it before you go." "We must, Roger," said Uncle Tom. " It is one of the few really Rev- olutionary relics left us hereabouts. Well, the Committee of Safety was sitting in Cambridge; a watch was set to keep an eye on the King's men, and when William Dawes rode through the little college town with word that the regulars were to march to Con- cord next day to destroy the stores collected there, the minute-men gath- ered, and from Cambridge and all the near-by towns marched toward Con- cord to help save the powder and stores upon which their success depended. Some of the men belonging to this section gathered here for their work, and, as they straggled past the Holmes house, where, years after, the poet was born, the Cambridge minister stood in the doorway and bade his neigh- bors Godspeed on their errand. Next day — the historic nineteenth of April, 1775 — came that famous fight." " Oh, Uncle Tom, can't we go to Lexington and see where the battle was fought ? " cried Marian, full of enthusiasm to find herself so near the scene of that world-renowned conflict. " Why not ? " said Uncle Tom. " I think it would be an excellent plan for us to ride to Lexington and Concord, to-morrow, and recall the story of the fight on the very spot. What do you say, Roger ? " " I say yes," Roger replied, catching the spirit of the suggestion. " If OLD POWDER-HOUSE, SOMERVILLE. Formerly a mill. Here in September, 1774, British soldiers seized and carried off the colony's store of powder. IN CAMBRIDGE WITH PATRIOTS AND POETS 15 yOu say so, I '11 get a wagonette and we '11 start from here bright and early." " A patriotic picnic, eh ? " said Jack. " I vote for it with both hands." The plan was unanimously agreed to. And so it came to pass that, next day. Uncle Tom and his tourists, coming out from Boston after an early breakfast, rode from Cambridge along the very road over which, so many years before, the British red-coats had marched on their hostile errand. For, as Uncle Tom said, there is nothing like getting the lay of the land if you really wish to understand things ; and, just then, there was nothing his young people wished more to understand than just how things looked on the village green at Lexington and that famous North Bridge at Concord, where once "the embattled fanners stood And fired the shot heard round the world." Thus it was that the tour of the Revolutionary battle-fields was begun by Uncle Tom Dunlap and his young Americans. B^SESLfeJ ACROSS THE MARSHES. View from the piazza of the Craigie House, looking south. 2; O o o H O 'z, w r-1 CHAPTER II ON LEXINGTON COMMON On the Road to Lexington — Changed Condition of the Country — The Stone Cannon — Lexington Village and Its Famous Common — The Story of the Fight — The Monument — The Memorials and the Old Houses — Uncle Tom's Summing-up. HE wagonette, with its freight of battlefield students, left the college quarter of Cambridge on a glorious morning. " What a day for a ride, and what a ride to take ! " was the composite remark of the five happy ones, as, with Uncle Tom in the corner, and a driver who, though Cam- bridge-born and bred, knew little beyond his horses, they drove by Wadsworth House, and past the old First Church and the ancient mile-stone. In the shadow of the Washington elm, — which, by the way, a certain learned professor of American history says is no Washington elm — but who will agree with him? — the horses turned to the right and were soon chasing the electrics up the wide thoroughfare of North Avenue to Arlington, Through that pleasant old town they rode, and were speedily on the Concord turnpike, following the track taken by Dawes, the messenger of danger, and by Smith, with his files of destroying red-coats, on that starlit April night so many years before. " Do you suppose it was much built up here in the days of the Revolu- tion, Uncle Tom ? " Marian inquired. "Scarcely at all, my dear," her uncle replied. "The highway from Cambridge to Lexington Common ran then through farmlands, with but an occasional house beside it. One hundred and twenty years in this growing country make quite a difference in the looks of things, you know. When the Revolution broke out, Arlington, which we have just left behind 1 8 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION US, was known as Menotomy ; this section through which we are now riding was called Cambridge Farms, and Lexington village was a collection of a few houses, grouped about the meeting-house on the green, and with a population, in village and outlying farms, of scarcely more than five hun- dred. To-day the town has a population of five thousand. This is why it is hard, in this country, for the antiquarian to locate historic events. The march of improvement and the growth of population have been so great that old landmarks have been swept away ; roads have been widened and graded, hills leveled, valleys filled, streams obliterated, villages merged into towns, and towns into cities, and the whole face of the land so changed and ' adapted ' that one who seeks to point out the exact spot where some famous man was born, or some notable event occurred, has to draw upon his imagination, and give the atmosphere rather than the exact surround- ings. Pray bear that in mind, boys and girls, when we are trying to dis- cover or replace the relics of our historic past." " But can you really call the battle of Lexington a battle. Uncle Tom ? " inquired Bert. " In the strict military sense," Uncle Tom replied, " it was not a battle ; it was scarcely even a skirmish. A battle conveys the idea of military manoeuvers, of strategy, charge and countercharge, the shock of squadrons, or the duels of artillerists. There were none of these at Lexington. In the sense that Saratoga and Gettysburg, Waterloo and Sedan were battles, Lexington, of course, is, as Jack would say, ' not in it.' " "Very kind of you, Uncle Tom," Said Jack, with an air of injured inno- cence, "to charge up all your convenient slang against me. But go ahead; I 'm not objecting." " Lexington," Uncle Tom resumed, with a wave of recognition toward Jack, "was simply an 'affair.' It was an organized resistance to what was considered an unlawful violation of the rights of EngUsh subjects — for the colonies were English still ; they were not in open nor armed rebellion. Indeed, the records on both sides, after the fight at Lexington, are filled with affidavits made by American and British participants in the affair, alleging that no hostile move was intended, and that no open resistance was made. You see, neither side wished to take the responsibility of saying 'We began the war.' The action of the minute-men was an armed protest rather than a real battle. But its results were unparalleled by any battle of ancient or modern times ; for from it sprang the American Revolution, and the American Revolution was the corner-stone of American nationality and of the world's progress in liberty." " Yes, I know," said Bert; " I have read somewhere that Samuel Adams, ON LEXINGTON COMMON 19 when he heard the firing at Lexington, exclaimed : ' This is a glorious morning for America.' " " Samuel Adams was a prophet, Bert," Uncle Tom replied. " He looked beyond the present ; he read the future correctly ; he knew the KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, In front of which Lord Percy's reinforcement of British soldiers formed for the march to relieve their comrades at Lexington. The chapel was built in 1749. Some of the Colonial governors and other people of note in colony days are buried in the old cemetery adjoining. temper of the people and saw that out of that conflict would spring, through all the colonies, the determination to be free. That is why the country through which we are riding and the town we are approaching are as famous as Thermopylae, or Waterloo, or Sedan." 20 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION So, with talk and laughter, with eyes open to see the beauty of the rural landscape, and ears attentive to all the details of the day that made the region famous, they rode to Lexington. The highway ran on past I, ' 1 i ■• a >1bb— *■• AJ ^ ^ JS ' ETK-TrcTI©^ OB TJEUB TTH^ xs- JB©ST©If THTATBiffi tmrnR „ From an old print. stretches of green fields, patches of woodland, trim market-gardens, and suburban estates, with here a modern house, and close beside it a patri- archal relic of colony days. They drove slowly by every tablet set in fence or wall or house front telling them that here such ap event occurred or that there lived such an one who participated in the fight, until, at last, they climbed the slope where, before the temple-like High School building, a mounted cannon, carved in stone, pointed toward the clustering houses of Lexington just beyond. "What is it — a petrified British battery?" queried Jack. " Well, you 're not so far out of the way. Jack," Uncle Tom replied. " That stone cannon marks the site of the British battery with which Lord Percy hoped to petrify the fighting colonists." " And did he ? " asked Marian. "Well, hardly," exclaimed Roger, with pardonable pride. " Go slow, my dear Boston boy," said Uncle Tom. " I am afraid the truth of history scarcely bears out your enthusiasm. If to petrify means to check, the field-piece of Lord Percy, planted where the stone tablet stands ON LEXINGTON COMMON 21 and on that hill-top over there, on ' Percy Road ' across the way, certainly did check the advance of the pursuing colonists as they drove the tired fed- coats through the village we are now entering." They found Lexington to be, as they rode through its main street, a large and pleasant New England village — "quite citified," Marian declared, as she noted its brick blocks, its spacious and attractive houses, its modern school and church buildings, and its signs of trade and life. There were trees everywhere, whose leafy boughs cast a grateful shade upon the broad street and the triangular plot of green before which the driver reined up his horses and Uncle Tom bade them all alight. "This, boys and girls," he said, "is one of the most famous bits of turf in all America — the battlefield of Lexington Common ! " Then, standing beside the pulpit-shaped monument of red granite that marks the site of the old meeting-house, Uncle Tom briefly rehearsed the story of the Lexington fight. " You know how it all came about,!' he said. "The tea had been thrown overboard at that wharf we saw in Boston. There was trouble brewing. The British were on the hunt for hidden war-supplies. Gage, the English com- mrrm 'mm Jit 'Mm iJi'j lami!) liii !iis.]i.im:niiiii mtm a;ii» ma numts w Mat! tiiiitn msiiii-i 'n>i ■liiiiij HE aimaixi/iiiim. mmm\ jm tmj rim nuissB Jiuaw -na Aim 'jMit tiii ■jtm!) ms ma rai Mtmm tMiJH! ur -m I THE "TEA-PARTY" TABLET. On the entrance to what is now Long Wharf, Boston. There the tea-ships Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver lay, when their cargoes of tea were thrown into the harbor. mander at Boston, had sent out soldiers to collect or destroy the powder and stores said to be gathered for war purposes by the colonists. Follow- ing out this plan, he had sent troops to Concord, eighteen miles from Bos- 22 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE HANCOCK^CLARK HOUSE, LEXINGTON. ' It belonged to relatives of John Hancock, and there he and Adams were sleeping when roused and warned by Paul Revere.' It is within sight from the boulder tablet. It was built in r6g5, enlarged in 1734. ton, where, he had been told, Avar suppHes were stored. They were also to arrest, on their way, those two persistent rebels and ringleaders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. By some means (it is said through the wife of Gage, a New Jersey woman) the secret leaked out, the signal lanterns were displayed in the North Church of Boston, and Paul Revere and Wil- liam Dawes rode, by different roads, toward Concord, spreading the alarm. On that very night of the eighteenth of April, Gage sent Colonel Smith with eieht hundred British soldiers on the errand of destruction. Boston had no bridges, .so the troops were ferried across the Charles River from what is now the Public Garden or Arlington street to East Cambridge, then called Lechmere Point. They marched across the marshes, and, striking the Concord highway, where now stretches Massachusetts Avenue, passed through North Cambridge, Arlington, and Lexington. Here where we stand, by this pulpit-like monument and that elm-tree back of us (planted by President Grant on the nineteenth of April, 1875), stood the old meeting- house — a square, boxlike building facing clown the street, up which, just as we have come, marched Major Pitcairn and his six companies of light ON I.EXINGTON COMMON 23 infantry and marines sent in advance by Colonel Smith to clear the way, and, if possible, to arrest Hancock and Adams." " Where were they ? " inquired Roger. " In that house which you can just see on the Bedford road across the railroad track," Uncle Tom replied, pointing out the old Hancock-Clark House. "It belonged to relatives of John Hancock, and there he and Adams were sleeping when roused and warned by Paul Revere. They es- caped to the woods, though against Hancock's desires, for he wished to stay and face the British. With them, too, escaped young Dorothy Quincy, who afterwards be- came Mrs. John UPti ffll^E^i^S^^^ "^H MMi— '.ui Hancock." nBH^^^Bj^^^KL ., y^^a^S^^^ '^''^■ " Oh, was n't she ■■^^HHi^^BfclLlr-^J^i^^Hl^^fe /«! the delightful ' Dor- othy Q.' of Holmes's poem ? " exclaimed Christine. " I re- member he says of her portrait : ■ Hold up the canvas full in view — Look! there 's a rent the light shines through, Dark with a century's fringe of dust: That was a Red- Coat's rapier thrust ! '" PORTRAIT OF DOROTHY QUINCY ("DOROTHY Q.") Showing injuries received from British bayonets during the Revolution. "Ah no," rephed Uncle Tom, "that charming young lady — she was young, you know, Christine, — 'Grandmother's mother; her age I guess. Thirteen summers, or something less,' — was aunt to the Dorothy Q. who married Hancock. They were captivating 24 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION young ladies, both of them ; but really we must tear ourselves away from them, for here comes Major Pitcairn ready to pop into us. " Lexington, as you know, had been warned of the coming of the regu- lars by Paul Revere, and, at two o'clock in the morning, the bell of the church, which hung, not in the church steeple, — for the church had no stee- ple, — but in an odd kind of belfry built on the ground very near the church, rang out the summons. The Lexington farmers (who were called minute- men, because they were pledged to rally in case of danger ' at a minute's notice') hurried to the meeting-house, but as there were no signs ol the British the minute-men were dismissed. At half-past four news came of the advance; the drum beat to arms; out of the Buckman Tavern, — that old house b)' the elm-tree, just over the way, — and from other houses near by, the minute-men came hurrying to the Common. Their leader was Captain John Parker, a big, brave man. He drew his men in line right here," and Uncle Tom led his tourists to the big granite boulder ten rods to the right of the meeting-house memorial. " He sent such of his men as had no am- munition into the meeting-house where the powder was stored, and then he said — what did he say, Marian? 'Y^ ^ ' ' Read what is carved on the boulder, just beneath the mus- ket and powder-horn." Then Marian read from the carved boulder Captain Parker's words to the minute-men : " ' Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon ; but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.' " " Here, then, they stood," continued Uncle Tom, " seventy Lexington farmers, against they knew not how many British soldiers, trained in the art of killing. Through the dim light of the earlv morning came the red-coats. They halted near the meeting-house, and Major Pitcairn rode toward the Americans. 'Disperse, ye villains; ye rebels, disperse ! ' he commanded. But they would not." "Well, I guess not," cried Jack, who was growing excited over the story. "That was n't what they were there for." " Pitcairn flourished his sword before the Americans," Uncle Tom went on, "and, I am sorry to say, swore at them, and added, 'Lay down )-our THE BUCKMAN TAVERN. Rallying-place of the minute-men on the night before the battle of Lexington and directly opposite the battle-field. ON LEXINGTON COMMON 25 THE STONE BOULDER ON LEXINGTON COMMON. Jonathan Harrington's house is the one on the left. To the front door, seen in the picture, he dragged himself to die at his wife's feet. arms, I say. Why don't you lay down your arms and disperse ? ' Still they did not obey, and what he would have done next or just how he would have made them disperse I cannot say. For, as I told you, the British had no wish to begin hostilities, and Pitcairn really did not desire to fire upon the rebels. But just then one of the minute-men, — probably a ' firesh ' young fellow, Jack, who was excited, heedless, and ' worked ' up, — in disregard of Captain Parker's order, raised his gun and snapped it at the British," " Good for him !" cried Jack. "What, against' orders, Jack?" said Bert. " I don't care ; I would have done it too," Jack declared. "Yes, I 'm afraid you would, Jack," his uncle assented with a significant nod, and then added, "The gun, you know, was one of the old-fashioned flint- lock muskets, — perhaps it was n't loaded, perhaps the minute-man snapped it 'just for a bluff,' as you boys say. At any rate the gun did not go off; but the flint struck the steel and the powder flashed in the pan. A British soldier saw the flash ; he saw his major turn to give an order of some sort. 26 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION and, just as much ' rattled ' as the minute-man, he aimed and fired. A few other British soldiers followed, suit. But no one was injured, and the Americans supposed the guns were loaded with blank cartridges and that the whole affair was just a scare. But the British blood was aroused, and though Pitcairn struck his staff into the ground as an order to desist fitring, his soldiers disregarded or did not understand his command. With a loud huzza they fired a general discharge. The musket- balls plowed into the 'rebel' ranks. Jonas Parker dropped to his knees ; Ebenezer Munroe's arm fell helpless at his side ; now one and now another of that heroic band sank beneath British bullets ; up the street came the tramp of the main body of, grenadiers, marching to the support of their comrkdes. Eight hundred against seventy was unequal odds. The minute-men had done what they were assembled to do : they had made their protest ; and with a few scattering shots in reply, the minute-men dispersed.' The British,, wreathed in the smoke of the deadly volley they had just fifed, let fly another broadside, gave a cheer of victory, and, wheeling about, marched on to Concord." The young people drew a deep breath as Uncle Tom concluded, and looked about them. "And here it happened," said Marian. "My, my, it does n't seem possible! " " It is sometimes hard to re-make surroundings," said Uncle Tom. " In this case, although the town has been filled with houses, the roads leveled, and the Common made into a beautiful lawn, we can still look upon some of the very witnesses of that famous fight. Among the relics in the Gary Library, down the street, is the tongue of the very bell that rang out the summons in the meeting-house belfry. On that hill, just beside the fine Hancock school-house, stands that same queer old belfry. Right across from us, on Monument Street, that house marked with a tablet is the Marrett-Munroe house, toward which young Caleb Harrington was running with powder from the church when he was shot down by the British. Into the Buckman Tavern, over the way, the colonists bore their wounded, and, to the left there, on Elm Avenue, at the corner of the Common, that house with the tablet is the one to which Jonathan Harrington, shot down by British bullets, dragged himself, only to die on the doorstep at his wife's feet. There are, in fact, of the forty houses that made up this village of • See frontispiece, reproducing Sandham's painting of the battle. THE MEETING-HOUSE BELFRY. Built in 1761. It formerly stood on the common, but it is now on Belfry Hill opposite the Hancock school-house. ON LEXINGTON COMMON 27 Lexington at the time of the battle, eight yet standing which were witnesses of that famous fight. And yonder, on the western edge of the Common, that gray and ivy-draped monument covers the bones of our first martyrs, and is said to be the oldest memorial of the American Revolution in the land. Let us walk around and inspect it." They did so, and on the rounded knoll upon which stands the old monu- ment, surrounded by an iron fence and clothed in its coat of " ivy-green," the visitors studied the quaint old shaft which, with neither grace of con- struction nor beauty of ornamentation, yet means more to Americans, and THE MARRETT-MUNROE HOUSE. A witness of the fight. Opposite the monument on Lexington Common, and to the left of the battle-ground. Built in 1729. even more to the world, than any of the world-famous memorials that tell of historic happenings in the old Europe over the sea. "This monument was erected in 1799 — the year in which Washington died," Uncle Tom announced. "The bones of the martyrs were removed' here from the old burying-ground in 1835 and placed in a stone vault just behind the monument. The inscription here on the front was written by the Rev. Jonas Clark, who was the minister of the old meeting-house on the Common at the time of the battle. It is as inspiring as it is quaint. Can you make it out, Bert ? " 28 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Bert settled his glasses firmly on his nose, and, shading his eyes from the sun, slowly read out the inscription on this, the oldest Revolutionary monument in the country : Sacred to the Liberty and the Rights of Mankind ! ! ! The Freedom and Independence of America, Sealed and defended with the Blood of her Sons. This Monument is erected By the inhabitants of Lexington Under the patronage and at the Expense of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts To the memory of their Fellow Citizens, Ensign Robert Munroe, and Messrs. Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, junr., Isaac Muzzey, Caleb Harrington and John Brown, of Lexington, and Asabel Porter of Woburn, Who fell on the Field, the First Victims to the Sword of British Tyranny and Oppression On the morning of the ever memorable Nineteenth of April, An. Dom. 1775. The Die was Cast ! ! ! The Blood of these Martyrs In the cause of God and their Country ■,\ Was the Cement of the Union of these States, then Colonies, and gave the spring to the Spirit, Firmness '-'■'■ and Resolution of their Fellow Citizens. They rose as one Man to revenge their Brethren's Blood, and at the Point of the Sword, to assert and Defend their native Rights. They nobly dar'd to be free ! ! The contest was long, bloody and affecting. Righteous Heaven approved the solemn appeal, Victory crowned their arms, and The Peace, Liberty, and Independence of the United States of America was their Glorious Reward. "Whew ! " said Jack, as B^rt concluded. " But that 's a long one, is n't it? I guess old Brother Clark thought folks had lots of time when he made that up." " Oh, Jack, how can you say so ? " Christine protested ; and Marian said, "Why, I think it 's just splendid. It reads just as folks talked and wrote a hundred years ago — all capitals and exclamation points and dignity." " Seems to me Marian 's just struck it, has n't she ? " said Roger. " That old monument is a sample of the way people worked and talked when it was built — solid and stilted, and yet, after all, simple and strong. I can't help ON LEXINGTON COMMON 29 thinking, though, that we do things better nowadays. While Bert was reading I could n't help comparing this inscription with the short but splen- did one on Milmore's grand Sphinx on Chapel Hill in Mount Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge. I want you all to see that before you go away. THE SPHINX, MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY. And all it says (in English on one side, Latin on the other) is : ' American Liberty Preserved, African ^lavery Destroyed, by the Uprising of a great People, by the Blood of Fallen Heroes.' " " That is grand ; and it tells the whole story," was Jack's comment. "Well, but I think this is fine," declared Bert, his eyes still fixed on the old vine-curtained battle monument. " It does n't say too much ; it tells the whole story, and it gives the names of those who fell — we should n't remember them in any other way." "I honor your loyalty to the old shaft, Bert," said Uncle Tom, as he signaled to their driver to bring the wagonette alongside. " It sits par- ticularly well on you, for, did you but know it, eleven of your kinsmen stood in the line of the seventy minute-men yonder where the musket-boulder stands, refusing to disperse, ' not being afraid of the King's commandment ' ; and to three of the names on this old monument you are related by ties of blood. Not many American boys can make such a claim." Jack took off his hat as the girls climbed into the wagonette, and made a low; bow to his cousin. "After you, sir; after you," he said. "Age be- fore beauty. I 'm not sure but so much noble lineage may overweight the 30 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE BOSTON MASSACRE. ' Eiitish troops fired upon Americans on King street (now State street) in Boston, March 5, 1770, killing iive men and wounding six, two of them mortally. The picture is a reproduction of a cut engraved by Paul Revere. The grave of the victims is in the old Granary Burying-ground on Tremont street. Their monument (see page 33) stands on Boston Common. carriage and make it one-sided. Don't you think you 'd better ride in front with the driver, my noble son of the Revolution ? " But, for all his fun, Jack was just as proud of Bert's "heraldry of honor " as any of the party, and made the most of his reflected light when boasting of his cousin's claim. As they headed up the Concord road they all gave a last look at the historic green they were leaving behind, and Bert, with his customary de- sire to get down to facts, said, ' Then that. Uncle Tom, is really the spot where the Revolution began ? " " Broadly speaking, it certainly is," Uncle Tom replied. "As to the actual first shot and first act of open resistance, however, there are as many claims as there were colonies. I have always felt that Golden Hill in New York City has as much claim to the credit of ' first blood ' as the Boston Massacre, where Crispus Attucks and his comrades fell, and which is commemorated by that slate-pencil sort of monument on Boston Common ; a certain North ON LEXINGTON COMMON 3 1 Carolina village has the same claim ; and, no doubt, some day we shall be talking of putting up a monument to Sukey Carroll." "Who under the sun was Sukey Carroll?" Marian inquired. "Why," replied Uncle Tom, "she was the Marblehead girl who sang out to the British soldier who pointed a musket at her, when the King's men were searching Salem for arms : ' Do you think I was born in the woods to be scared by you, you lobster-back ? ' Which was spirited, if not polite." "Was that what they called the British soldiers, — lobster-backs?" laughed Jack. " Did n't that fit their red coats well, though ? Good for Sukey ! " " But after all," said Uncle Tom, " right here in Massachusetts the American Revolution began. For when James Otis — that ' flame of fire,' as some one has called him — gave up his office of Advocate- General and, in February, 1761, in that room that we saw in the old State House in Bos- ton, argued the case of the people against the King, ' then and there,' as John Adams declared, 'American Independence was born.'" "Oh, yes, I remember about Otis," said Jack. "He's the patriot that was sandbagged by Tories, was n't he ? " " Yes, and was killed by sunstroke the very year the Revolution suc- ceeded," said Marian. " I must show you his statue. It is in the chapel at Mount Auburn, you know," Roger reminded them. "That 's the man," said Uncle Tom. "Well, from him and such fore- runners of revolution as he, came the historic conflict itself, begun under the elms of Lexington Common where we, to-day, have been re-reading the story." " But I thought you said both sides denied their intent to fight," said Jack, "and that our forefathers took their 'Alfred Davids,' as that chap in ' Our Mutual Friend ' called them, that the other side began it." "That is so, in fact," replied Uncle Tom. " Neither side had any desire for a conflict. The colonists had no thought but to obtain their rights, and were never more loud in loyalty to King George than after Lexington. In- deed, Mr. Dana argues that not until the Declaration of Independence was America in revolution. He insists that King George and his parliament were, in fact, the revolutionists." " Well ! that 's a new idea ! " exclaimed Jack. " But why ? " queried Bert. " They were going contrary to law, he claims," explained Uncle Tom, "while the colonists were standing in defense of the law. But, for all that, Lexington did open the ball, and the minute-men from these very farmlands 32 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION through which we are now riding gave to the world a lesson in resistance to tyranny that has stood from that day to this as a beacon-light of freedom. I wonder if I can recall Holmes's poem on Lexington. It is peculiarly apt just here, on the field it immortalizes and in the neighborhood of the site of the Cambridge house in which it was written." " Let 's have it," urged the boys. Marian said, " Do repeat it; " while Christine, with the glance that compels, silently echoed Marian's request. So Uncle Tom put on his thinking-cap, and, with but few slips and stumbles, repeated three or four of Holmes's stirring stanzas : " Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. Waving her golden veil Over the silent dale. Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; Hushed was his parting sigh, While from his noble eye Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. " On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing Calmly the first-born of glory have met; Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing! Look! with their Kfe-blood the young grass is wet! Faint is the feeble breath. Murmuring low in death ' Tell to our sons how their fathers have died ; ' Nerveless the iron hand, Raised for its native land, Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. " Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, From their far hamlets the yeomanry come; As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst rolling. Circles the beat of the mustering drlim. Fast on the soldier's path Darken the waves of wrath Long have they gathered and loud shall they fall; Red glares the musket's flash, Sharp rings the rifle's crash Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. " Green be the graves where her mairtyrs are lying ! Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest. While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying. Wraps the proud eagle they. roused from his nest. ON LEXINGTON COMMON 33 MEMORIAL OF THE BOSTON MASSACRE. Monument by Kraus, on Boston Common just to the right of the subway on West street. Borne on her Northern pine, Long o'er the foaming brine, Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun; Heaven keep her ever free, Wide as o'er land and sea Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won ! " "That 's fine, is n't it?" said Roger. " Sounds like Scott's ' Hail to the Chief song," declared Bert. 34 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "Got a dash and go to it that make you just tingle, has n't it?" said Jack. "And beautiful, too — that about the martyrs," said Christine. "I think so, my dear," said Uncle Tom; "and it is pleasant to know that our second leader and greatest martyr considered it Holmes's finest poem." " Meaning Lincoln ? " queried Bert. "Yes," Uncle Tom replied. " Noah Brooks, who was one of his secre- taries, tells us that Lincoln could not read it through without a tremble in his voice when he came to the line ' Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying.' Perhaps he felt in those verses a prophecy of his own end — a death that was to carry him on in history as our greatest martyr in all the long years that followed Lexington." Thus talking and commenting, amid fields and farms and woodlands, and bright stretches of hill and vale, the boys and girls rode on to Concord, where the second chapter in that famous story of our first Nineteenth of April was written in smoke and blood so many years ago. - - -^— ~ ^ - - -^n:.f.0""/' jj/j,^-, - ^; ,:".zm CHAPTER III AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS How They Came to Concord — Dr. PrescoWs Ride — Where the Congress Met — At Concord Fight — The Old Monument — The Statue of the Minute-man — The Story of the Retreat — Dr. Hale's Poem- — Sites and Scenes in a Famous Old Town. ijHERE the Lexington highway joins the old Bedford road and both are merged into Lexington Street in Concord town, Marian, with an eye for everything, spied an old house, a stone wall, and an inscription. "Oh, Uncle Tom!" she cried, pointing; "there 's a tablet in that stone wall. Let 's stop and read it." For reply. Uncle Tom bade the driver touch up his horses. "I 'm your young Lochinvar, just now, Marian," he declared. "You know how it was with him — ' He staid not for brake and he stopped not for stone.' Neither for carriage-brake nor tablet-stone have we any use just now. I propose to tell you nothing out of chronological order." "Then I rise to a point of order, Mr. Chairman," said Jack, leaning out of the carriage to look back. " What 's the matter with the stone ? " " It marks the line of retreat, Jack, and not of advance," Uncle Tom replied. " I propose that, instead of a wagonette-load of volatile young end-of-the-century Americans, we become one colonial patriot on a fleet horse — Dr. Samuel Prescott, galloping post-haste from Lexington bearing the news of the night-march of the British." " Who was Dr. Prescott ? " asked Roger. "A Concord man," replied Uncle Tom, "kin to a certain Colonel Pres- cott, of whom you will hear later. Well, we — Dr. Samuel Prescott, you 36 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION know — have had a hard gallop. But our horse is a fast one, and, by cut- ting across lots, jumping fences, walls, and ditches, we have narrowly es- caped the British scouts, and are now riding into this quaint peace-named town of Concord which nestles at the foot of its sand-ridge and along the banks of its pretty river. And re- member we are galloping along a street which to-day is one of the most famous in America." "Why? Because of the battle?" inquired Bert. " No ; no battle was fought just on this piece of road," Uncle Tom replied. ," But because, as we ride, we are passing the homes of a most remarkable group of American writers and thinkers — Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcotts." " Oh ! did Miss Alcott live here — on this street ? " came the quick inquiry from every admirer of the famous " Little Women." "Why, certainly, she — but there! I am breaking my own rule," Uncle Tom declared. "We were not to be led aside from our historical sequence. Presto ! vanish all modern things. Disappear, Jo, Amy, Meg, and Beth ! We are Dr. Prescott, the colonial newsbearer, riding on matters of life and death." So, beneath the elms that border Lexington street, they rode into Con- cord town. Uncle Tom resisted all queries and cajolements designed to lead him from his main purpose, and at last they drew up in front of a large white church, set well back from the street and topped by a gilded dome. "Who went to church here?" asked Jack, "Washington or the Little Women ? " " Read the tablet, Bert, while Dr. Samuel Prescott gets his breath," Uncle Tom suggested. " Here we are at the beginning of things." Bert adjusted his glasses and read the tablet that stands on the curb in front of the broad church lawn. The others helped, by reading with him in a sort of undertone chorus. "WE HAVE HAD A HARD GALLOP.' AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS n CONCORD, FROM LEE'S HILL. Lee was a Tory, and his house at the foot of this hilt was used as a target by the minute-men. FIRST PROVINCIAL CONGRESS OF DELEGATES FROM THE TOWNS OF MASSACHUSETTS WAS CALLED BY CONVENTIONS OF THE PEOPLE TO MEET AT CONCORD ON THE ELEVENTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1774. THE DELEGATES ASSEMBLED HERE IN THE MEETING HOUSE ON THAT DAY, AND ORGANIZED WITH JOHN HANCOCK AS PRESIDENT AND BENJAMIN LINCOLN AS SECRETARY. CALLED TOGETHER TO MAINTAIN THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE, THIS CONGRESS ASSUMED THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCE AND BY ITS MEASURES PREPARED THE WAY FOR THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. " Here, you see," said Uncle Tom, as the reading of the tablet ended, " is where the real trouble began. This provincial congress appointed a committee of safety, advised the people to pay their taxes not to the King's officer but to the appointed colonial treasurer, and directed the towns to double their stock of ammunition and store it up for the use of the colony in case of armed resistance to the demands of King George of England." " But had they the right to do that," queried Bert. 38 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "Why not?" demanded Roger. "It was their ammunition. Had n't they paid for the stuff? " "But they were colonists," persisted Bert. "They were subjects of King George, and had no right to gather supphes to make war on him." "No right!" exclaimed Jack. "Well! I guess yes. They took the right, anyhow." "It was a question of liberty of action and of self-defense," said Uncle Tom. "Whether or not, they really had the right as subjects of the King, at any rate, as Jack says, they took it. That is why General Gage, the British governor, sent out expeditions to hunt up, confiscate, or destroy these colonial war-stores, and why, as you know, the grenadiers and ma- rines were marching from Boston to Concord, where supplies were said to be stored. " But come ! While we have been arguing as to rights, here stands Dr. Prescott with tidings of approaching trouble." " I '11 bet he has n't been standing idle," said Jack. "The whole town knows his news by this time." "True enough, they do," Uncle Tom assented. "Already lights are flashing out and bells are set a-ringing ; the townsmen are aroused ; mes- sengers are sent Lexington-way, post-haste, for further tidings; the minute- men are summoned for duty. Soon after daybreak the messengers come galloping back, along the very road that we have traveled, with tidings of the sun- rise skirmish on Lexington Common and the news that eight hundred red-coats are well on their way to Concord. ^ "By this time, the minute-men of Acton and of Lincoln, Concord's next-door neigh- bors, have reported for action, here, in the square. There is a hurried consul- tation. Emerson, the minister, who lives in the old manse on the next street, is out- spoken. ' Let us stand our ground,' he says. ' If we die, let us die here.' Others, however, hesitate, remembering that open resistance means treason to the King. ' It will not do for us to begin the war,' they say. So, wishing to do everything properly, they decide to take post up on that hill, just back of us, and await developments. More minute-men join them there. Up comes Colonel Barrett from his home, on that hill yonder across the river, where he has HIDING SUPPLIES. AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS 39 THE ROAD TO THE BATTLE-GROUND. * Looking down a vista of tall and murmuring pines, they saw a sight they never forgot. " This avenue runs from Monument street to the Minute-man and then stops. « been hiding supplies and burying powder and shot. Silent but determined they stand and wait, but only for a brief time ; for at seven o'clock there is a gleam of color on the Lexington road, and here, into the square where we are standing, come the eight hundred British soldiers on the double quick." " Hey, now there 's going to be trouble," cried Jack, deeply interested. " No, not yet. Jack," said Uncle Tom. " Colonel Barrett saw that he was outnumbered. He withdrew from this hill, and marched down to the river where a country road crossed the bridge and stretched away between the farms. Then he took position on the hill slope beyond the bridge, hoping for more help, and waiting the moment to act. " But the British at once proceeded to business. Their first move was to take possession of the two bridges that spanned the river, — the north and the south, — and prevent the farmers from interfering with them. So, while Smith and Pitcairn with part of the troops held the center of the town and proceeded to smash things, six companies of light infantry marched on and, turning yonder to the right, into what is now Monument street, just 40 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION beyond the town hall, they pushed on to the North Bridge. My fellow min- ute-men, the lobster-backs are too many for us. Let us get to the bridge before them and join our comrades on the hill." ' " What ! " cried Jack ; " retreat ? Never ! " " Let 's not call it retreating, Jack," said Roger. " We '11 say that we 're marching rapidly in advance of the enemy." "That 's exactly what we 're doing, boys," laughed Uncle Tom, as the .wagonette turned to the right, into Monument street. "We 've simply j7?/f to get there before them." A ride of perhaps half a mile past very new and very old houses carried them across the railroad track to a sharp turn to the left. A signboard on a tree said "Battle Ground, 1775"; and, looking down a vista of tall and murmuring pines, they saw a sight they never forgot. It was the battlefield of Concord. THE OLD MONUMENT. This view is from a point just in front of the Minute-man. The bridge is a copy of the historic old North Bridge over which the fight was waged. "Formerly," Uncle Tom explained, "the road to Carlisle turned off here instead of going forward as it does to-day. This bit of the old road has been preserved and set apart as a memorial of the battle." AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS 41 They drew up beside the old monument while Uncle Tom gave them the lay of the land. " Here, you see, the Carlisle road crossed the river. The minute-men, falling back from the hill, crossed the bridge and took station on that slope just beyond. Here others joined them — minute-men from Bedford and West- ford, and Littleton, and Carlisle, and Chelmsford, — about four hundred in all. The British came down this road and halted just above where we stand. Some soldiers were hurried to the South Bridge, some were sent off on a search for war-stores, and about a hundred were left to oruard the North Bridore. Meantime the soldiers left in the villaee were unearthing and destroying a few thines. The smoke from their fire led the Americans to suppose that the whole village was to be destroyed. ' Shall we let them burn the town ? ' they asked each other. ' Let us march into the town for its defense,' they said. Then brave Captain Davis, of Acton, drew his sword. ' I have not a man that is afraid to go. March!' he said, and, together, in double file, the minute-men and militia marched down the slope toward the bridge. "They struck the Carlisle road; the British, seeing them coming, began to rip up the bridge planking ; the Americans broke into a run ; the British formed in line of battle here where the old monument stands ; the Americans halted and drew up in line at the other end of the bridge, where the statue stands. Let us cross over and join our comrades." They left the carriage in the shade of the pines, crossed the bridge, and o-athered beneath the impressive statue of the Minute-man. " Only for an instant did the farmers and red-coats face each other in silence," Uncle Tom continued. "Then — bang! went a British musket; bang! bang! went another and yet another. Two minute-men fell wounded. Crack — crack — crack! broke a volley from the British. Captain Davis THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE. 42 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION FRENCH'S STATUE OF THE MINUTE-MAN. Upon the other face of the granite pedestal is cut the verse from Emerson. fell dead across a great stone ; another and another are down here where we stand. England has begun the war. " Major Buttrick, the leader of the minute-men, fairly leaps from the ground in excitement. ' Fire, fellow-soldiers ! For God's sake, fire ! ' he cries, and, his own musket leading the fusillade, the first war-guns of the American Revolution speak out their sharp defiance to the King. Again and again the shots fly across the bridge. Two British soldiers fall dead ; seven are wounded. Then the firing ceases. The British turn and run back, down Monument street, toward the town, and the victorious farmers hold the little bridge they have so manfully defended." " Hooray ! " cried Jack, waving his hat in energetic emphasis, as if he were Major Buttrick himself " How long did it take?" asked Roger. " Just two minutes," replied Uncle Tom. " Short and sweet," was Jack's comment. " It was n't really much of a fight, was it?" said Bert. "Just a bit of a skirmish." AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS' 43 " It was the act more than the action, Bert," Uncle Tom declared. " It meant resistance; it meant war and not peace^ independence, not submis- sion. The minute-men at Lexington had stood in silent protest; they dispersed when once they had asserted their rights even in the face of death. The minute-men of Concord gave back blow for blow ; their guns were the first declaration of independence. A skirmish ? Yes, Bert. But a skirmish that was indeed a battle, more eventful in the history of the world, so Bancroft asserts, than were Agincourt and Blenheim. Come, cross the bridge with me and read what it says on that old monument, built on the very site of the British line of battle and dedicated in 1836, in the presence of sixty survivors of that memorable day." THE HOME OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON. On the Lexington road. Partly destroyed by fire in 1873. Here Emerson died in 1882. Marian read aloud, with the usual half-tone chorus of accompaniment, the inscription on the eastern face of the weather-stained pedestal : Here On the 19th of April, 1775, • was made the first forcible resistance to British Aggression. On the opposite bank stood the American militia Here stood the invading army, and on this spot the first of the enemy fell in the War of the Revolution, which gave Independence to these United States. In gratitude to God, and in the love of Freedom, This monument was erected, . A. D. 1836. 44 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " Now cross again," said Uncle Tom, and at his direction Christine read the verse carved on the granite pedestal which supports French's splendid bronze figure of the brave-eyed young Minute-man — one hand on his plow, the other grasping the ready musket: "By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world." THE OLD MANSE. Made famous by Hawthorne. It was from this house in a room on the right that Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandfather^ the Rev. William Emerson, watched the fight. "Who wrote that, boys and girls?" asked Uncle Tom, and, as with one voice, the five made answer, " Ralph Waldo Emerson." "Who lived in a square-white house on Lexington street, half a mile or more from here," Uncle Tom added, with a nod of approval ; " and who used to spend a good many of his boyish days in that old house to the left of us, among the trees, where his grandfather lived before him — a famous old house now, known all over the world ? " "Why?" asked Christine, "is it — is it — ?" AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS 45 " Yes, it is," Uncle Tom re- plied, " the Old Manse, made fa- mous by Hawthorne." " Oh, let 's go right over there and gather some mosses," said Marian. " You can't," grumbled Jack. " It says, ' Private Grounds. Tres- passing strictly prohibited.' " " How mean!" came the dis- approving verdict. " Yes; there Hawthorne wrote his ' Mosses from an Old Manse ' ; there Emerson wrote his essay, ' Nature,' and many of his best poems ; and there, from that upper window, now nearly covered from sight by its curtain of pines, the grandfather of the man who wrote the famous lines on the monument watched the fight with the greatest anxiety, fearful that his parishion- ers — who, it is said, locked him in to keep him out of danger — would not return the British fire." "But they did," said Jack, pointing at the statue. "What a beautiful statue!" said Marian, looking up at the fine but determined face. "What a splendid verse!" said Christine, studying the pedestal. "What a great day!" said Bert, thrilled by all the action of the time. " Right you are, boys and girls," Uncle Tom assented. " Here, indeed, is a remarkable combination. As some one has said of it, standing here as we do, THE OLD MANSE FROM THE RIVER. 46 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION i and looking upon this statue of the Minute-man, ' There are few towns in the world that can furnish a poet, a sculptor, and an occasion.' I think that 's so, don't you ? " They lingered long in that beautiful spot. At their feet flowed the river ; above them towered the spirited Minute-man ; before them stretched the beautiful avenue of pines that frames the historic field. The rusty gray obelisk that tells the story of the fight ; the suggestive slab set in the stone wall to mark the grave of the British soldiers who fell beneath the fire of the defiant farmers ; the bit of old road preserved only because of its historic as- sociations ; the place, the day, the delightful surroundings — everything held and impressed them, and as they strolled along the avenue of pines to where their carriage waited for them on the highway, Marian declared, en- thusiastically, "Splendid! is n't it? It 's worth, coming miles to see." And every boy and girl echoed the declaration. Then they took a last look down the green and piny vista to where, beyond the bridge, that farmer-boy in bronze stands sentinel beside his plow, the guardian spirit of that famous field. " 'Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, '" Bert quoted, musingly. " Is that really true. Uncle Tom? Did the minute-men carry a flag?" "Why not? " asked Jack. " What good is a battle without a flag? " " Bert is a born investigator," laughed Uncle Tom. " I 'm afraid it 's a case of poetic license. So far as I can discover, no flag was carried by the minute-men or displayed either at Lexington or Concord. The Nineteenth of April, 1775, was a protest and not a parade. There was no military or- der among these farmer-folk. It was a case of every man being a fighter on his own hook. It began here at Concord, and ended only when the last harried red-coats found safety under the guns of the English fleet at Charlestown, twenty miles away." "That was a great retreat, was n't it?" said Roger. "Sort of a twenty-mile go-as-you-please, I guess," said Jack. "How was the start, Uncle Tom ? " " Handicapped, Jack," replied his uncle, falling in with the boy's athletic simile. "The British officers knew they had roused the country-side, and when they had called in their men and started on the homeward march, they were so certain it would be a running fight that Smith, the commander, did everything he could to ward it off". He put ' flankers ' up on that sand- ridge to protect his line from the provincials, who, after the fight at the bridge, struck across country over the ' Great Fields,' as that pasture land to the left is called. But where the ridge stops at the Old Bedford road, the flankers on the hill were no longer of avail, and when the retreating ON THE ROAD TO CONCORD. •' From all the country round the farmers came hurrying to the relief of their neighbors, " 48 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION British struck that point where we saw the tablet at the junction of the Bed- ford and Lexington roads, their terrible troubles began. We '11 drive up there now and see the fight." " Which way ? " asked Roger. "Well, you see we can't drive across the Great Fields with the minute- men," Uncle Tom replied ; " so we '11 have to play that we are the British for a little while. Here we are, in the square. It 's no use, Jack, we 've simpl)^ got to retreat with the rest of them until we get to the cross-roads. Then we '11 become minute-men once more. Here is where it went on. For nearly an hour the red-coats were marching and counter-marching, because, you see. Colonel Smith, the British leader, was uncertain what to do. Then came the order 'About face! for Boston.' " By this time the news had spread. From all the country round the farmers came hurrying to the relief of their neighbors. Too late Smith saw that he would have to run the gantlet for home." " Began to see the box he was in, did n't he? " said Jack. "It was a box sure enough," Uncle Tom replied. "The highway stretched through Lexington to Charlestown and the sea. All along, it was flanked by stone walls or ran between hills. Behind these the Americans were posted as if behind breastworks. Here where the sand-ridge is stopped by the old Bedford road, was the first exposed place, and here, as I told you, the trouble began. This is Merriam's Corner. Now, Marian, you can give us the tablet you wished to read as we came riding into town." Marian stepped from the carriage, and standing before the tablet set in the low stone wall, read it aloud : THE BRITISH TROOPS RETREATING FROM THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE WERE HERE ATTACKED IN FLANK BY THE MEN OF CONCORD AND NEIGHBORING TOWNS AND DRIVEN UNDER A HOT FIRE TO CHARLESTOWN "That 's literally true," Uncle Tom remarked. "They were really 'driven' to Charlestown." " Under a hot fire?" queried Bert, "Never hotter," replied his uncle. "Here the Medford and Reading minute-men joined their Concord brethren and began the stone-wall fight that lasted for nearly twenty miles. On the Lincoln ridges the Woburn men took a hand and Pitcairn lost his horse; before Lexington was reached AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS 49 THE WRIGHT TAVERN. Where Major Pitcairn vowed vengeance on the " rebels." This house has suffered less change than any other building in Concord. the men who had faced the British on the green that morning ' pitched into them.' At Fiske's Hill, just this side of Lexington, a hot fight took place, and the British began to run in disorder. At Lexington village, near where we saw the stone cannon on the hill, the reinforcements sent from Boston under command of Lord Percy were met — twelve hundred men, with two cannon. But when, after a rest, the homeward march was taken again, numbers only increased the opportunity for good shots, and the enraged farmers hung on the skirts of the retreat and harried the red- coats, as hounds do the game, all along the road." "Poor fellows!" said Christine. "What do you say poor for?" asked Jack, indignantly. "It served them right. They had no business to be there." " But they could n't help it. Jack," said Christine. "They were ordered to march to Concord." "Soldiers have to obey orders, Jack," said Uncle Tom, "and those poor red-coats found the trip uncomfortable enough without your added con- demnation. As they lagged along under the hot April sun, foemen sprang out upon them at all points. The British would whirl around and drive away one force, only to be peppered at by another. It seemed, as one British soldier declared, to ' rain rebels.' The tablets all along the road between here and Charlestown record the story of that fearful retreat. It 50 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION cost King George nearly three hundred men out of a force of eighteen hundred, and the news, spread by swift riding from Maine to Georgia, aroused tliirteen colonies to action, and opened a seven years' fight for independence." " How many Americans were killed? " asked Bert. "About fifty," Uncle Tom replied. "They knew how to fight, you see. They were hunters and could stalk the game. There is a poem by Edward Everett Hale that you must hunt up and read when you get home. You will find it in his ' Story of Massachusetts,' and it is one of the most striking pictures of that Nineteenth of April man-hunt that I know of It ends something like this" — and beneath a spreading elm that cast long shad- ows across the Lexington highway, Uncle Tom reproduced the picture that Dr. Hale drew : "Well, all would not die. There were men good as new — From Rumford, from Saugus, from towns far away, — Who filled up quick and well, for each soldier that fell. And we drove them and drove them and drove them all day. We knew, every one, it was war that begun. When that morning's march was only half done. " In the hazy twilight, at the coming of night, I crowded three buckshot and one bullet down. 'T was my last charge of lead, and I aimed her and said, " Good luck to you, Lobsters, in old Boston Town." BACK FROM THE MAN-HUNT. "Good luck to you, Lobsters, in old Boston Town.' " In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraira Bates and Munroe, And Baker and Abram and I made a bed ; We had mighty sore feet, and we 'd nothing to eat, But we 'd driven the Red-coats ; and Amos, he said : AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS 51 THE JONES HOUSE. Now generally known as the *' Keyes House." It is opposite the battle-ground, and the white spot near a window in the ell, between two doors, marks a bullet-hole. Here too is the stone across which Captain Davis fell dead. " ' It 's the first time,' said he, ' that it 's happened to me To march to the sea by this road where we 've come ; But confound this whole day but we 'd all of us say We 'd rather have spent it this way than to home.' " " The hunt had begun with the dawn of the sun. And night saw the wolf driven back to his den. And never since then, in the memory of men, Has the Old Bay State seen such a hunting again." "Well! it was a hunting of men, was n't it?" exclaimed Jack as the wagonette turned and drove back to Concord. "It seems so dreadful, though," said Christine. "Think how many families it broke up." "War is always dreadful, my dear," Uncle Tom replied. "To-day we see only the heroic side of the American Revolution, but for a generation and more after Concord and Lexington, so old people have told me who were children then, the subject was never talked of at home ; it was all so dreadful, they said." Then, talking over the day and what it meant to America and the world, for all its tragic and sorrowful phases, they came at last to the little hotel where they were to spend the night in Concord. 52 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION They were well repaid for thus lengthening their stay. For what a day Uncle Tom gave them on the morrow ! Guided by him they walked about this " town of tablets," as Marian called it, deeply interested in all they saw. The citizens of the quaint old town have put up memorial stones to mark almost everything of note that THE WAYSIDE, AT CONCORD. On Lexington road, the line of the British retreat. Here Hawthorne lived when he wrote "Tanglewood Tales," and Miss Alcott when she was in her early *' teens," before she lived in *' Orchard House." ever occurred there, while the historic houses, the literary shrines, and the beautiful surroundings of Concord made a lasting impression on these re- ceptive young minds. They visited the houses of historic interest ; they saw the British bullet- mark in the ell of the rambling old Jones house ; they touched the very stone across which brave Captain Davis fell dead ; they stood within the identical Wright Tavern, in which Pitcairn, fuming at the "obstinacy" of the "rebels," stirred his toddy with a bloody finger and vowed vengeance ; they lingered before the tall gate-posts at the entrance of the Old Manse made famous by Hawthorne; they worshiped in clamorous admiration before the house which had been the home of Hawthorne and, later, the scene of the AMONG THE EMBATTLED FARMERS 53 early exploits of the " Little Women." They saw the house in which that charming story had been written ; they looked upon the home of Emerson, and followed the footsteps of Thoreau ; they canoed up and down the beau- tiful Concord River; they rode to Fairyland and to Walden Pond and added, each, a stone to the memorial pile on the spot where once had stood Thor- eau's hermit hut ; they visited the library and the antiquarian rooms, filled with memorials of famous folks from the days of the Puritans to those of John Brown. And, last of all, they stood on that remarkable knoll in beautiful Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and looked upon that little cluster of graves, almost within touch of each other, where lie the remains of Emerson and Hawthorne and Thoreau and the two Alcotts, — father and daughter, — as grand a group of worthies as can be found thus brought together anywhere outside of Westminster Abbey. Then they rode back, along the historic highway, following the British retreat quite to Charlestown neck, through Lexington and Arlington and Somerville — a road fairly peppered, as Jack declared, with memorial tablets and historic houses, eloquent reminders of that ever famous Nineteenth of April, 1775. At Sullivan Square they dismissed their carriage and took the electrics into Boston — saturated, so Bert affirmed, with facts and sights of one of the most famous episodes in the world's story of liberty, and of that eventful day that gave birth to American freedom. WALDEN POND. .^3 M CHAPTER IV ON BUNKER HILL Climbing the Monument — The View from the Top — Tracing the Battle- ground — The Redoubt — Colonel Prescott — Warren and Putnam — The Story of the Assault — Victory or Defeat? — Webster's Oration — The Tablet on Dorchester Heights — The First A merican Victory. OW many ? " panted Marian, poised on the topmost step ; " I lost count." "Two hundred and ninety-two, two hundred and ninety- three, two hundred and ninety-four ! " counted Bert, a good second in the race. "Dear me! are we at the top at last?" said Christine. "Where 's Uncle Tom?" "Coming, coming, my dear," a voice replied from the depths. "This tells on flesh, and thirty-six does n't spring up two hundred and twenty-one feet as easily as nimble fifteen." " Are we really two hundred and twenty-one feet from the ground ? " said Marian. " My, what a view ! " They stood at last, together, within the little circular chamber, pierced with four barred windows — the top of Bunker Hill Monument. The day was clear and bright. Sea and shore alike stood free of haze or mist, and far to the west, beyond the ridge of Monadnock, they traced the filmy outline of Kearsarge, the high New Hampshire mountain, a good ninety miles away. Uncle Tom had put all other plans aside. " It is an ideal day for the monument," he said. And indeed it was. " Two hundred and twenty-one feet seems short, alongside of the Wash- ington Monument's five hundred," said Jack. "And yet it seems as high." 56 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "That 's because there 's no elevator here," said Marian, still breathing hard from her race up the last turn. "There was an elevator here once, many years ago," Uncle Tom in- formed them. " But it was a crude, cramped, unsafe affair, and after it had fallen once, and nearly killed its passengers, it was given up, and* now visitors have to trust to ' Shanks's mare.' " Christine and Roger were already at the east window, drinking in the superb ocean view. Bert was studying out the inscription on the bursted memorial cannon hung up on the wall, while Jack was wondering how under the sun they could have rigged an elevator to slide up and down that narrow central cavity. Uncle Tom called them about him and slowly made the circuit from window to window. "No other place in all the world," so he told them, "unless it be the Acropolis at Athens, so clearly discloses the real panorama of a battle re- gion. It is almost as if we were taking a bird's-eye view from a balloon. See ! to the east is the sea ! " " Is n't it glorious ! " cried Marian, a great lover of salt water. " Over that stretch of blue, and here into Boston Harbor, came the British fleet to discharge its cargo of red-coats for the subjugation of America." " Only they did n't subjugate," put in Jack. " In this narrower stretch of the Charles River, just below us, six British men-of-war were moored with guns trained on these rebel heights. South of us is Boston-town, without bridges then, and small indeed compared with its bulk to-day ; but it was the very hotbed of rebellion ; working toward the west we see Dorchester and Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, and Medford, until we get around here to the Mystic, flowing down to join the Charles. To the North, across the Mystic, lie Maiden and Everett, Chelsea, Revere, and Lynn. And that rocky cape-like piece running into the sea is famous Nahant, where Longfellow and Agassiz and Sumner and other great Bostonians made their summer home. Across that long ridge — here out of the west window — lie Lexington and Concord. So, you see, we are indeed at the very center of revolutionary beginnings." " Is n't it down there that Paul Revere stood waiting for the signal ? " asked Christine, pointing to the river's edge. " Yes, we can see him if we look out here through the south window," said Uncle Tom. " See, that little clump of trees just across the river is Copp's Hill burying-ground — the site of a British battery, and the tall spire beside it is the old North Church where the signal lanterns were hung. There ! they are flashing out the news, and at once, galloping past us up ON BUNKER HILL 57 Main street, just at the ^''■ Charlestown and So- \ and Arlington, Revere tidings of tlie British ' the west window, you turns past East Cam- called Lechmere's Point, under Smith and Pit- march to Lexington. Further up the river, where the Roxbury road ran across the ; foot of this hill, through merville and Medford spurs on, spreading the march. Here, through can see where the Charles bridge — then it was There the 800 British cairn gathered for their BUNKER HILL MONUMENT, CHARLESTOWN. A hollow shaft, 30 feet square at the base and 221 feet high, built after designs by Horatio Green- ough and Solomon Willard. The corner stone was laid by Lafayette, June 17, 1825. The monument was dedicated June 17, 1843, Daniel Webster being the orator. narrow neck of land, marched Lord Percy and his 1200 reinforcements. And through this western window you can almost trace the line of retreat which we followed the other day, along which, from Concord to Charles- town, raced the British rout." "Where 's Sudbury, Uncle Tom ? " Christine asked. " Don't you know that 's where the landlord lived, in the Wayside Inn ? 58 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ' And over there, no longer bright, Though glimmering with a latent light, Was hung the sword his grandsire bore In the rebellious days of yore Down there at Concord, in the fight.'" " Sudbury is over Concord way, across those hills, through the west win- dow," Uncle Tom replied. "The Wayside Inn is standing yet and in fine condition ; we '11 try to get over there some day and visit it. Don't you re- member what the poet said about the landlord's grandfather as he looked on the sword ? 'Your ancestor who bore this sword As Colonel of the Volunteers, Mounted upon his old gray mare, Seen here and there and everywhere, To me a grander shape appears Than old Sir William, or what not, Clanking about in foreign lands. With iron gaundets on his hands And on his head an iron pot.' That 's my case exactly. I see more real heroism in these Minute-men and Militia Volunteers of Lexington, and Concord, and Bunker Hill, and get more real inspiration from them than from all the Battles of the Spears ALL ABOARD FOR AMERICA! Troop-ships leaving Portsmouth Harbor, England, for the "subjugation" of America. and of the Standards and what not, in the days that Cervantes, in ' Don Quixote ', laughed to death." "Lexington, you say, was an 'affair'; Concord was a 'skirmish'; was Bunker Hill really a battle ? " asked Roger. ON BUNKER HILL 59 "Let 's go down-Stairs and see," Uncle Tom replied. "We '11 fight it over again on its own ground." With a final look at the wonderfiil panorama of land and sea, caught through the four windows of that tall gray shaft, the party clattered down the two hundred and ninety-four stone steps and stood at last upon all that is left of the little elevation first known as Russell's Pasture (when it was the scene of war), afterwards as Breed's Hill and now forever famous under its mistaken name of Bunker Hill. Uncle Tom briefly reminded them of the causes that led to the fortifica- tion of this height by the Americans; how the farmers of New England had surrounded Boston-town, after Lexington and Concord had stirred them to action, with a cordon of rude little forts and earthworks extending in a wide semicircle from Dorchester Heights to Chelsea; how they had thus shut up the British in Boston, — sixteen thousand Yankee farmers hold- ing ten thousand disciplined British troops at bay ; how the Committee of Safety sitting at Cambridge decided that a good fort on Bunker Hill would keep the British ships from sailing up the Charles or the Mystic ; how they sent twelve hundred men to fortify it, and how, after looking over the ground, the soldiers decided to first throw up a redoubt on the lower height, nearer the river. He told them how the soldiers worked all night un- noticed by the British, who, when they awoke on the morning of the seven- teenth of June, and saw what the "rebels" had been at, proceeded to attempt to dislodge them. " Bunker Hill Monument," said Uncle Tom, " stands just about in the •center of the little fort, or redoubt, as it is called, which inclosed in an irregular rectangle something over seventeen thousand square feet of land." "About how much is that. Uncle Tom?" Marian asked, with a rather hazy idea of figures. " How much land is there in your house lot at home?" asked Uncle Tom. Marian looked at Jack. " It 's twenty-five by one hundred," he replied, answering her query. "Then the fort on Bunker Hill occupied about as much land as seven New York City house lots," said Uncle Tom. " The ramparts were about six feet high, with a narrow ditch at their base. See ! here is a stone tablet marking the southeast corner of the redoubt ; here " — and he led them along the asphalt walk an hundred feet or so — "is the stone that marks the northeast corner. Then it stretched back there toward Concord street, and at the south end over a defended entrance or sally-port. Here, to the north, as this tablet tells you, ran an outer or protecting breastwork three 6o THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION STATUE OF COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT. He commanded the redoubt on Bunker Hill. The statue stands just in front (jf Bunker Hill Monument. hundred feet, until it ended in a muddy bog where no one could wade. Across from this corner, as this tablet tells you" — and Uncle Tom led them along the path to the northern corner — "was to run another protecting breastwork to guard the rear. There was no time to build one, so Knowl- ton, of Connecticut, extended a rail-fence to the river, put up another parallel to it, and filled in between with new-mown hay to within about six hundred feet of this point. A similar fence ran out on the opposite. ON BUNKER HILL 6l side. It took a thousand men all night to finish this well-planned fortifica- tion. At sunrise it was scarcely done. But the British then discovered it and prepared to assault it." "Who commanded the Americans?" inquired Bert. STATUE OF GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN. Now in the relic room of Bunker Hill Monument. For answer, Uncle Tom led them to the southern front of the monument where stands the bronze statue of Colonel William Prescott — a strong and spirited figure. "That was the hero of Bunker Hill," he said, "the fearless commander within the redoubt — related by blood to that Dr. Samuel Prescott who, you remember, rode post-haste to Concord." " I thought Warren was the leader," said Bert. " That was his statue inside the monument office, was n't it ? " "Yes," Uncle Tom replied; "but Warren was only a volunteer, acting under orders at the battle, even though he was president of the provincial congress and a major-general." 62 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " But he was a hero," insisted Bert. "Most assuredly," his uncle replied. "When Elbridge Gerry, at Cam- bridge, begged him not to go into the fight, he replied quietly, 'Duke et decorum est pro patria mori' ; which means — what, Bert? " " It is sweet and becoming to die for one's country," replied the student Bert. "Yes," replied Uncle Tom; "and when he reached Bunker Hill he asked General Putnam, who directed there, to put him where he could be most usefijl. Putnam suggested this fort here on Russell's Pasture, and Warren, although appointed a major-general that day by Congress, refused to take the command offered him from Colonel Prescott, but said : ' I come as a volunteer with my musket to serve under you.' A very brave, courte- ous and lovable man was Doctor and General Joseph Warren." " Putnam was brave too, was n't he ? " asked Roger. "As brave and impetuous as when he faced the wolf in its den," Uncle Tom answered. "Bunker Hill — the height beyond this, you know — was his strong point. He held, and rightly, that the fortification on this slope was of no benefit unless protected by a redoubt on Bunker Hill. He began, in fact, to throw up earthworks there, but he had not men enough nor time enough to complete them. For, before he could fairly get to work, the battle was joined. You know the story of the fight, of course.".^ " Yes ; but tell it to us. Uncle Tom," said Marian. " That 's so, right here where it was really fought," Jack chimed in. "A few words should tell it," said Uncle Tom. "The British landed over there, where you see the Navy Yard buildings. The sun shone brightly ; the day was hot ; Prescott , a magnificent figure, walked calmly among his men, cautioning them to go slow and reserve their fire until the word came. At the rail fence Putnam held command. He, too, encouraged his men, told them that every shot must count, and ordered them not to fire until they could see the whites of their enemies' eyes." " George ! that was pretty close range, was n't it? " said Jack. " How horrible ! " sighed Christine. " It had to be, my dear. War is no child's-play. It is horrible," said Uncle Tom. " The British soldiers, marching as if on parade, came solidly against the American entrenchments. The right wing, led by General Howe, headed for the rail fence ; the left wing, commanded by General Pigott, advanced toward the redoubt. The Americans, standing on the little platform that brought their guns to the level of the rampart, waited quietly. The British fired as they marched ; but they aimed too high. The Americans covered each his man. Then, when their foemen were dan- ON BUNKER HILL ^i gerously near, came the word of command : Fire ! The muskets held by farmers and marksmen spoke with deadly effect. At the rail fence Howe's red - coats staes'ered r( e th PLAYING AT WAR. "'I 've played it lots of times on snow forts, boys.' *It 's great sport.' " broke — repulsed. Be- fore the re- doubt, here on the hill, the British fell under the murderous fire ; their line broke, swayed, turned and retreated down the hill. Again the red ranks re- form ; again they march against rail fence and redoubt, only again to be met by that murderous fire, and to stagger down the slope, where now their dead and wounded lie strewn in confusion. The farmers of New Eno-land have stood like their own o granite against the veteran troops of Eno'land. " "Then it zcas a victory. Uncle Tom," cried Jack. " I always said it 64 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION was. I 've played it lots of times on snow forts, boys. It 's great sport. You can just send the British kiting back every time. I always said it was a victory for us." "Wait, wait. Jack; the end is not yet," Uncle Tom replied. " It was a victory thus far. But now Prescott's men look troubled even in the midst ON THE SLOPE OF BUNKER HILL. ' Don't waste a kernel,' said Prescott, ' make every shot tell.' of their hurrahs. Their ammunition has given out. Only a few artillery cartridges for the almost useless cannon are on hand. Prescott has them torn open and the powder distributed, almost grain by grain, among the musket-men. ' Don't waste a kernel,' he says ; ' make every shot tell.' " " And they did, I '11 bet," said Jack. "They did, but to little avail," his uncle replied. " Howe was angered at his double repulse and put all his efforts into carrying the redoubt by storm. His red-coats surged up the hill; once more came the farmers' ON BUNKER HILL 65 deadly fire, but not with the strength or volume of the earlier broadsides. There came no second discharge. The British swarmed over the breast- work ; clubbed muskets, bare bayonets, paving-stones confronted them. It was a bloody hand-to-hand conflict. Then, the Americans turned and re- treated toward Bunker Hill, where Putnam, who had withdrawn his men from the rail fence, hoped to rally them. Over there, in the middle of Concord street, Warren fell — the American Revolution's first notable vic- tim. The British artillery swung around in flank, opened a galling fire on the fugitives, and the retreat, turning into a rout, surged down the hillsides and over toward the camp at Cambridge. Had reinforcements or ammu- nition been forthcoming, the day might have been crowned with success.'' "Then it was a defeat," sighed Bert. " Really it was, because the British gained and held the hill," Uncle Tom replied. " But in moral effect, in its influence on the Americans who now saw that they could stand their ground against British troops, and equally in its influence on the English commanders, who never after at- tempted to carry by storm an American earthwork, Bunker Hill was a vic- tory, and is so held and celebrated by us. Gage lost eleven hundred out of twenty-five hundred men, and lost besides his power and command ; for when the news of the battle reached England, the man who was so palpably outgeneralled by ' a parcel of Yankee farmers' was recalled, and his com- mand given into other hands." " How many Americans were killed. Uncle Tom, ? " asked Roger. "One hundred and forty," Uncle Tom replied. "Their names all ap- pear on those great bronze tablets yonder in Winthrop Park, where we will go after we leave the hill." They went there shortly, but first they made one more circle of the his- toric hill, following the lines of the redoubt. They stood on the spot where the brave Warren fell, in front of what is now No. 32 Concord street. They inspected all the pictures and relics in the little monument museum — the statue of Warren — the timber from the wreck of the Somerset, the British man-of-war whose marines set the town of Charlestown on fire — General Putnam's sword — Major Worthen's gun and cartridge-box, and the memorials of Daniel Webster, whose splendid orations at the begin- ning and the completion of the monument on Bunker Hill are now apart of the literature of America. Then, with a last look at Prescott's martial figure guarding the base of the tall gray shaft, they went down from the hill, and, at the entrance to Winthrop Park, read with deepest interest the names of the officers and men who fell in this famous Battle of Bunker Hill. 66 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE BUNKER HILL TABLETS. At the entrance to Winthrop Park, Charlestown. Bunker Hill Monument in the distance. These bronze tablets, erected by the city of Boston, give brief details of the battle and lists of the killed. As he read the line from Daniel Webster that stands at the bottom of one of the tall tablets ("The blood of our fathers — let it not have been shed in vain "), Jack backed away toward the soldiers' monument, and look- ing up the vista between the twin tablets where the tall shaft topped the green hill, he pointed at the monument, and broke out into those splendid words of Webster that so many school-boys have learned and spoken : '• The powerful speaker stands motionless before us. It is a plain shaft. It bears no inscrip- tions, fronting to the rising sun, from which the future antiquarians shall wipe the dust. Nor does tlie rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its summit. But at the rising of the sun and in the setting of the sun, in the blaze of noonday and beneath the rnilder effulgence of lunar light, it looks, it speaks, it acts to the full comprehension of every American mind and the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart. Its silent, but awful utterance ; its deep pathos, as it brings to our contemplation the seventeenth of June, 1775, and the consequences which have resulted to us, to our country, and to the world from the events of that day, and which we know must rain influence on mankind to the end of time ; the elevation with which it raises us high above tjie ordinary feeling of life surpass all that the study of the closet or even the ins|)iration of genius can produce." " Fine, fine indeed," cried Uncle Tom, appreciatively, while the others " rrave the palm" to Jack's oratorical powers. " Now let us have the com- ON BUNKER HILL 67 pletion of that same Webster oration, Jack, and then I think we can leave the Bunker Hill Monument duly impressed and benefited. Begin with the last paragraph, you know." And Jack, nothing loth, — he did dearly love to "spout" on occasion, — gave the desired peroration : " And when we and our children shall all have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of country glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and blood shall have descended. And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected — there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejaculation — ' Thank God ! — I also — am an American ! ' " Then they left the monument and the tablets and rode into Boston. That afternoon they boarded a City Point "electric "at Post-office Square and swinging about past the rising walls of the great Southern Depot and amid the railroad and shipping centers of the south side, they crossed the Federal street bridge and whizzed through Broadway, the wide main street of South Boston. As they rode along. Uncle Tom, who had informed his young people that he was now about to take them to the closing scene in the Revolutionary siege of Boston, told them that Bunker Hill was really one of America's turning-points. "The battle settled things in one way especially," he said. " It proved to the world that America meant war, and that there was possible no peace- able solution of the problem which England's obstinacy had raised. Though a defeat, it had given the colonies courage and backbone. As Webster said of it, the fearful crisis was past. The appeal now lay to the sword ; and the only question was whether the spirit and resources of the people would hold out till the object was accomplished. Washington, as he rode northward from Philadelphia on his way to the old elm at Cambridge, met a messenger carrying to Congress the news of Bunker Hill. To his inquiries the mes- senger answered that the provincials retreated only because of lack of am- munition. ' Did they stand the fire of the regulars ? ' Washington asked anxiously. ' That they did,' said the messenger, ' and held their own fire in reserve until the enemy was within eight rods.' Washington appeared re- lieved. ' Then,' said he to his companions, ' the liberties of the country are safe.' To him, the fearless stand of the New England militia meant material for soldiers — just what he was at that time most anxious about." " Was he commander-in-chief then ? " asked Roger. " Yes, he was chosen on the fifteenth of June, 1775, just two days before 68 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION the battle of Bunker Hill," Uncle Tom replied, "and at once he set out for the camp at Cambridge. On the second of July he reached the town and made his headquarters first in Wadsworth house, which I showed you fronting Harvard Square on the college grounds, and shortly after in the big square colonial house on Brattle street, now dear to all the world as WASHINGTON AND THE MESSENGER FROM BUNKER HILL. " * Did they stand the fire of the regulars? ' Washington asked anxiously." the home of Longfellow. On the next day — the third of July — he took command of the army, standing beneath the old elm in whose broken shadow you also stood, against Radcliffe College near to Cambridge Com- mon. All summer and winter he was striving to put his motley army of ten thousand constantly changing men into some sort of military shape. He drew the line of siege closer and closer about the British in Boston. But when spring came he knew that he must do something. He prepared to attack the British inside their lines, and, as the first movement, occupied and fortified the high land here in South Boston, then known as Dorches- ter Heights. Let us go and see the exact spot." A ride of twenty-five minutes brought them to the corner of H street, where, leaving the car, they passed down Broadway so that Uncle Tom ON BUNKER HILL 69 might show them the broad and breezily elevated building made famous by the marvelous life-stories of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller — the Perkins Institution for the Blind, the first "blind school" in America. " It is almost on the slopes of Dorchester Heights, you see," Uncle Tom explained, " and is thus doubly a notable landmark. See, we turn here from Broadwa)- into G street. W'e are now assaulting another slope quite as high and fully as historic as Bunker Hill." Where G street swept around a circular knoll of green. Uncle Tom crossed the street and led his )-oung people through the open gateway. " This slope," he said, " is a part of what was formerly known as Dor- chester Heights. It is now Thomas Park, so named in memory ol John Thomas, one of the best and bravest of our early Revolutionary generals." " Never heard of him," said Jack, sprinting up the asphalt slope. " Did A-ou, Koger ?" And the Boston boy was forced to confess that the name was new to him. "Is n't there something about John Thomas in Thackeray?" queried Christine, who was just beginning to enjoy the great English humorist. , S '"H ^ 1 3 n 2 5 ! ! niiiniJ.i.i-0 PERKINS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND. Standing near to Dorchester Heights on Broadway and G streets in South Moston. "Tut, tut! Christine," Uncle Tom corrected. "You are almost as bad as Jack — " "Come; I like that! " cried Jack, breaking a stride in half, by way of protest. 70 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " I mean that Artemus Ward query of yours in Cambridge," Uncle Tom explained. " To far too many of this generation Artemas Ward is only, as Jack said, America's funny man, and John Thomas means Thack- eray's English flunky. Instead, to Americans, those names should stand for the two leading generals in the early American army, before George Washington took command here at Boston. To General John Thomas was due the wonderfully rapid and effective fortifying, by Washington's order, of this rise of land called Dor- chester Heights. There were several heights here- abouts then, you know, and they commanded the beleaguered city, as you can readily see." They did see this at once, as they stood on the jjjLL crest of the hill, beside the fence that separates the old reservoir basin from the green park. Before them stretched the chain of treeless islands that dot the broad, blue harbor ; beyond them lay the town, within easy cannon-range, and Bert declared that he really could n't see what under the sun the British were thinking of, to allow the Americans to get in ahead of them. "Why did n't they seize and occupy this height?" he asked. " Too slow in action, I imagine," Uncle Tom replied. " Howe, who succeeded Gage as British commander in Boston, did have the idea, but he failed to carry it out. Washington saw the wisdom of it soon after he got the lay of the land, and a part of his plan of assault was to have this hill complete the circle of his fortifications. So he sent General Thomas here with twelve hundred men one March night in 1776, and under cover of a friendly fog the earthworks were well thrown up by daylight, just on a line with where this tablet stands. Read what it says there, Marian." And Marian, standing before the squat, unlovely memorial stone, read : Location of the American Redoubts on Dorchester Heights Which compelled the Evacuation of Boston by the British Army- March 17, 1776 "I can just see how it did, can't you?" said Roger. "Look here! It's in a direct line with the State-House dome'on Beacon Hill." " Howe appreciated the fact, too," Uncle Tom told them. " He in- stantly prepared to attack the new redoubt." ON BUNKER HILL 71 TABLET MARKING LINE OF REDOUBTS ON DORCHESTER HEIGHTS. Now Thomas Park, South Boston. " How? the same as he did Bunker Hill?" asked Jack. " Perhaps," Uncle Tom replied ; " though I doubt if that style of assault would have been tried again. But a ^larch storm came on and spoiled his plans, and that night, upon due consideration, he and his officers deter- mined to evacuate the town. Washington had outgeneraled him. General Thomas pushed forward his work and made a strong fort here, but before it was finished the British army, amounting to nearl)- nine thousand men, accompanied by over a thousand Tory refugees, embarked with supplies and luggage on seventy-eight vessels, and sailed away to Halifa.x. This was on Sunday, the seventeenth of March, 1776. From that day Boston was free." " Hurrah tor us, and good riddance to them ! " cried jack. " \\"h)- don't we put up a decent-sized monument here ? " " Probably something better than this crude stone-yard slab will some day rise on this height," Uncle Tom replied. " Indeed, certain public- spirited folk are already agitating the matter of a suitable monument on what they call the spot that marks the first American victory." "Was it the first? " inquired Marian. "Why, yes, it must be so," said Bert. "Don't you see we reallv were defeated on Bunker Hill. These fortifications drove the British oft". Is n't that so, Uncle Tom ? " 72 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "That 's about it," his uncle repHed; "and no doubt the growing wave of Revolutionary remembrance will some day land a shaft on this sightly spot. " Of one thing you may be sure, boys and girls," Uncle Tom told them, as they descended the hill and took the cars back to the center of town : " in this land of tablets, as this section of the old Bay State appears to be, the memorial will not long be lacking that shall indicate the spot where the guiding hand of Washington first showed its masterly grasp, and added to the protest of Lexington and the defiance of Bunker Hill the stern and compelling measures of Dorchester Heights." BOSTON FROM DORCHESTER HEIGHTS. From an old drawing made by Governor Pownall. CHAPTER V IN GREATER NEW YORK Along the Shore Line — Historic Towns — The British Plan — Ticonderoga and Quebec — In Old New York — The Battle of Long Island — The Great Retreat — Harlem Heights and White Plains — The Fall of Fort Washington. A FEW days later, while on the way to New York, Uncle Tom drew the attention of his young companions to the fact that, along the way, were numerous towns that possessed a stirring Revolutionary record. "Newport, just off our route," he said, "was for three years occupied by the British, and, later, was the rendezvous for our French allies; Stonington, through which we passed, was attacked. by the British early in the war ; New London and Groton, its opposite neighbor, suffered terribly, as that tall monument on the hill will tell you ; New Haven, Fair- field and Norwalk all showed marks of British invasions, in fire, shot, and sword. In fact, not one of the thirteen colonies lacks its Revolutionary rec- ord. From Maine to Georgia, from Portland to Savannah, you can study the record and the relics of those dreadful days of war. For in every col- ony the desire for independence followed fast upon the uprising of the Massachusetts minute-men, and the British plan to divide the colonies by distinct but related invasions laid the touch of war upon every section." "How do you mean?" queried Bert. "Did they try to split them apart ? " " That was their plan," replied his uncle. " Orders went out from the English councils to occupy, overrun, and terrorize each section separately, cutting off the eastern from the middle and the middle from the southern colonies. That was England's intent; if her generals in America had been spry enough it might have succeeded." " But we had Washington," said Roger. 74 THE CENTURY BOOK OE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION STATUE OF ETHAN ALLEN. By Larkin G. Mead. Placed in Statuary Hall in the Capitol "Yes, and he was more than a match for England's lazy leaders — he and Nathanael Greene," Uncle Tom assented. " You see, in these days of railroads, steamboats, and bridofes, one cannot imagine this land without those modern conveniences. But )'Our great- great-grandfathers had to get along without them. So rivers and mountain ridges kept people separate and at home ; and in war, the possession of river fords and mountain passes was the key to every military situation." " That 's so," said Jack. " It they could n't wade the rivers or cross the mountains, they could n't get any- where or do anything." " Exactly ; communication means union, and this the British aimed to prevent. See here" — and Uncle Tom, with his blue pencil, hastily sketched on his folded newspaper a rough out- line map of the colonies. " Here to the north," he said, " is the St. Lawrence ; here, almost at right angles to it, is the Hudson — they bounded New England north and west; further down, the Delaware and its tributaries cut away up into middle New York and its chain of lakes; Chesapeake Bay and its feeders break the Pennsylvania ridges; while, from Virginia to Georgia, the rivers seam at Washington, by the State of Vermont, in honor of its heroic leader. the land from the sea beach to the hills. It was the British plan to con- trol these rivers. The St. Lawrence they held by the occupation of Canada — a section which never shared the sentiment of independence. Ethan Allen's capture of Fort Ticonderoga — " " In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress ! " put in Jack. IN GREATER NEW YORK 75 "^ Uncle Tom smiled. " Do you know what he is said to have said, Jack?" he asked. "Why, I have said what he is said to have said. What else is he said to have said?"- Jack demanded, in what Bert called "his reiterative protest." " Oh, Uncle Tom ! Did n't Ethan Allen roll out those splendid words ? " cried Marian. "Perhaps," her uncle answered. "But old. Vermonters tell us that when the impetuous Allen, at the head of his ninety followers, roused the surprised commander at night, he called out to that gentleman roughly : ' Here ! come out of that, you old rascal, and give us the fort, quick, or we '11 smoke you out like rats!'" " Oh, I just won't believe that," Marian declared. " It does n't sound half as nice." " I should n't wonder, though," Jack decided, with a nod of approval. " Those Green Mountain boys were rough-and-ready fellows." "They got the fort, anyhow," said Roger. " Yes, and its capture brought into prominence a brave man who after- ward went wrong," Uncle Tom added. " I know," said Christine. " Bene- dict Arnold." " The traitor ! " cried Jack, lunging at the supposed renegade a vindictive dagger-thrust with his fountain-pen. "Oh, but was he brave?" asked Marian. " I thought he was every- thing bad." " His great crime must not blind our eyes to his great courage," Uncle Tom replied. "Benedict Arnold is one of the world's terrible examples of a man of great possibilities wrecked by his inability to conquer himself" " But, talking of conquest," said Bert, line, was it, Uncle Tom ? " "No, it was a sad failure," Uncle Tom answered, "although the march OLD ST. JOHN'S GATE, QUEBEC. Near here, Montgomery fell. " Ouebec was n't much in that -^i: r ■^i^S'T-s isr i fa*' ' I, I ' ~i DRAWN BY E. H. BLASHFIELD ENGRAVED BY J. H. £. WHITNEY. 'CAN THE YANKEES GET QUEBEC?' IN GREATER NEW YORK ']'] of the Americans terrified the Canadians and set all the beleaguered town to asking, ■ Can the Yankees get Quebec ? ' As a matter of fact, Washington's plans were excellent, but the obstacles in the way were almost insurmount- able. Arnold's march through the Maine woods was a series of fearful hardships; Ethan Allen, over-hasty as usual, 'got rattled,' as you boys say, in an attempt to capture Montreal on his own hook, and, instead, was cap- tured himself; Schuyler, an able general, was taken sick and had to give up the lead, and only Montgomery and his thousand men safely crossed the border and captured Montreal. Hurrying toward Quebec with but three hundred men, he found Arnold and his remnant beneath the heights of the city, and there a thousand bedraggled Americans attempted to storm the strongest fortress in America garrisoned by two thousand British soldiers. Leading a forlorn hope, Montgomery, in the teeth of a wintry Canadian northeaster, stormed one of the barriers and fell dead. Arnold, leading another forlorn hope against another barrier, had almost carried it when he fell wounded. A sortie of the British streamed out of the gates, one half of the Americans were captured, and the invasion of Canada ended in sorry defeat before the walls of Quebec' " That was a shame ! " cried Jack, pounding Bert's knee emphatically. "Perhaps not," his uncle replied. "Through failure we learn the way to success. Out of this Canadian defeat came the caution, the patience, and the knowledge when and how to strike, that developed Washington into a great commander, and led the way to the final act at Yorktown." " But all this has led us away from your map, Uncle Tom," said Bert, never forgetful of starting-points. " That 's so," said Roger ; " what about the rivers ? " "The British held the St. Lawrence and were sure of Canada," said Uncle Tom, returning to his blue pencil and his outline map. " Thereafter, the American Revolution became a series of struggles for the possession of the Hudson, the Delaware, and the rivers of the South. We are all to be in New York for a while ; suppose we sandwich a little patriotism between your days of pleasure, and take a look at the places made famous by this struggle for the Hudson and for the Delaware ' in the times that tried men's souls ' here in America, when George the Third was king. What say you ? " And Jack, beating time, led off the company in an " under- the-breath" chorus of " So say we all of us ; So say we all." The "patriotic picnic," as the children, adopting Jack's convenient phrase, persisted in calling their search for Revolutionary reminders, gave them 78 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION many pleasant outings in and about the metropolitan city. While Uncle Tom went at it systematically, he was too wise a cicerone to weary his young comrades by too much sight-seeing along one particular line. A day here, a day there, interspersed with other occupations, gradually covered the ground, and gave his "picnickers" an excellent idea of the Revolutionary operations in and around New York. Taking an early Sunday-morning stroll, long before church hours, about that section of lower Broadway so busily crowded at all other times in the week, he brought the boys and girls to what he called the initial letter in New York's Revolutionary chapter. It was the tall building of red brick known as Number One, Broadway. Uncle Tom pointed out the bronze tablet set in the front wall by the Society of the Sons of the Revolution. At once, as was their custom, the young people read the inscription aloud, in moderated chorus : Here stood Kennedy House, Once Headquarters of Generals Washington and Lee. On the Bowling Green Opposite, the Leaden Statue of King George was destroyed by the people July 9, 1776, and later made into bullets for the American Army. "Well, that does give us a good starter, and that 's a fact," said Jack. " I did n't suppose you had any places marked like that in New York," said Roger. "That's fine." " Oh, you must n't think Boston does it all, Roger," Marian retorted. "We know what to do, too." "Wish I 'd been there! Would n't I have held the ropes, though, that pulled the statue over ! " cried Jack. " Made into bullets, eh? Well, that was giving old Georgy a Holland for a Gulliver, was n't it ? " NUMBER ONE, BROADWAY, IN 1776. The old Kennedy House (Washington's Headquarters) and the Watts Mansion. Bowling Green opposite. IN GREATER NEW YORK 79 "A what?" came the puzzled query, while even Uncle Tom seemed at sea. And Marian said, "There! I know that 's just another of Jack Dun- lap's horrible misquotations. Where did you get it from ? " NUMBER ONE, BROADWAY, IN 1897. " Out of my extensive reading, ma'am," replied her brother. " Don't think that you monopolize all the education of the family, my dear." Then Uncle Tom saw a licrht. He lauQfhed aloud. " Poor Jack ! " he said. " He does hit the bull's-eye sometimes, though more by luck than skill, I fear. I recognize his quotation, Marian. It 's a historic tit for tat; he means a Roland for an Oliver — those two famous paladins of old Charlemagne, you know. And it does fit this case ; for, in melting George the Third into bullets for their own use, his American rebels returned him, with thanks; reall)' a tit for tat, )Ou see." "Thanks, Uncle Tom," said Jack, bowing deeply. "You appreciate me. Praise from — " "There, there! pray don't try another on us, Jack," implored his uncle. " It is really too brain-fatiguing to unravel them." Standing in that famous spot about which centered so many of the dra- matic happenings of old New York, they pictured to themselves that excit- ing day in Bowling Green, and the others that so quickly followed. In fancy they saw again the flying post-rider speeding down Broadwa)- with his tidings of Lexington fight; the)' saw the volunteer companies parading the streets, drilling for liberty ; the)' watched the Sons of Libert)' drive oft 8o THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION fROM THE PAINTING BY EDWIN A ABBEY. IN VERY OLD NEW YORK. the carts which bore the arms and ammunition of the British reinforcements ordered to Boston, and Uncle Tom showed them where, at the corner of Broadway and John Street, the "confiscated" arms were stored. In Trinity cliurchyard they stood before the tall brown shaft that rises " to the memory of those great and good men who died while imprisoned in this city for their devotion to the cause of American Independence " ; they saw the one remaining building in Cit)' Hall Park which was one of those dreadiul British prisons ; they stood before the tomb of the hero of Quebec, the brave Montgomery, set in the wall of old St. Paul's ; they heard again, before his touching statue in the shadow of the granite Post-office, the moving story of the bravery and death of glorious Nathan Hale ; they looked from the broad Battery out upon the splendid harbor, while I'ncle Tom traced for them on the hazy horizon, oft toward Sandy Hook, the track of the king's fleet which brought, in the summer days of 1776, a great Brit- ish arm)', with its hated Hessian contingent, for the subjugation of New \'ork and the control of the valley ot the Hudson. "And that brings us," said he, "to our next notable conflict — the battle of Long Island. To-morrow or the next day we will cross the bridge and study that fight upon its own historic ground." On the selected day, crossing the great web-like span of the l^rooklyn Bridge, the party of investigators descended to the street on the lirooklyn side, and were soon speeding in the Platbush " trolley " to the main battle- ground in Prospect Park. IN GREATER NEW YORK 81 IN THE HOTEL IMPERIAL, NEW YORK. PLAYING AT BOWLS ON BOWLING GREEN. As they went, Uncle Tom endeavored to give them a brief outline of the battle they were to study. "The battle of Long Island," he told them, "was something in the na- ture of what the Western cattlemen would call a round-up. You know what that is, boys." " Getting around the cattle and gradually driving them into a pen or corral, is n't it?" queried Bert. "Yes; and in this case," said Uncle Tom, "the pen was the Americans' own line of fortifications, poorly constructed and barely half made and half manned, stretching- almost from the Narrows to Hell Gate. General Ho\\'e, who had succeeded Gage at Boston — " "And been driven out himself," put in Roger. " Yes," commented Uncle Tom, " — had learned a lesson from his Ameri- can foemen, and, when he came sailing in through the Narrows to the in- vestment of New York, had a plan of action well thought out. He would land his troops on Long Island, surround the rebels in their lines, force them back by weight of numbers and discipline to Brooklyn Heights, and there capture them. From Brooklyn Heights he could command or bombard New York, precisely as the Americans did Boston from Dorchester Heights, and thus end the war." " Only he did n't," said Jack. " His game was well played," Uncle Tom continued, disregarding Jack's parenthesis. "Twenty thousand British and Hessian troops were landed, 82 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION and marched by devious ways through the four passes which cut the lines of hills that stretched across the island. Many of those hills to-day are leveled, but you can see traces of what they then were, in Prospect Park, in Greenwood Cemetery, and on toward Jamaica. To these twenty thousand Washington could oppose scarcely ten thousand men, half of them militiamen and fresh volun- teers. But some of the ten thousand were fighters, — the Marylanders especially, — and to-day they are remembered as the heroes of the fight." "What did they do?" asked Marian. "I '11 show you, my dear, on the very spot," replied Uncle Tom. " The battle was really more a series of skir- mishes or small engagements than a single conflict, but some of these were bloody and obstinate. General Howe's plan worked well. By three THE MEMORIAL ARCH. At the entrance of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. This arch, erected as a memorial to the Soldiers and Sailors of the Civil War, overlooks almost the entire range of the Battle of Long Island. THE TABLET IN PROSPECT PARK. In Battle Pass, showing the line of defense. roads his three detachments advanced upon the Americans, while he, with ten thousand troops, marching silently in the dead of night, and guided by IN GREATER NEW YORK 83 a Tory farmer, got into the rear of the Americans on the Jamaica road. On the morning of the twenty-seventh of August, 1776, the Americans found themselves surrounded and in the heat of a desperate battle, the line of which stretched over ten miles or more of country. There could be but one result. Washington, fearing for New York as well as for the Brooklyn defenses, hurried over the river with reinforcements. Greene, who had studied and alone knew the ground, was too sick to move. No other general officer was capable of filling his place. Wash- ington saw at once that Howe had the advantage of position, discipline, and BATTLE PASS. From the Terrace and Arbor, Prospect Park. This gives a bird's-eye view of the main battle-ground. numbers; and as he watched the fight, helpless to check or concentrate it, he wrung his hands in anguish and cried, ' Good God ! what brave fellows I must lose this day ! ' " " Why did n't he chip right in and lead them on ? " asked Jack. " Washington never was backward about rushing in and leading on when it would do any good, I assure you. But this was not a case where individual leadership could avail anything," Uncle Tom replied, as, leaving the cars by the splendid memorial arch, they entered the Park through the main gate, and hailing a Park carriage, rode to Sullivan Heights. " Here," said Uncle Tom, as they stood among the cages of the "Zoo," " General Sullivan, who had command outside of the fortifications, was sta- tioned; but down below us is the slope on which the fiercest fight occurred." They descended the hill, crossed the Vale of Cashmere, and came out 84 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Upon a swelling lawn where, in the face of a broken, tree-shaded knoll, Uncle Tom halted them before a bronze tablet. " Line of defense, August 27, 1776, Battle of Long Island, 175 feet south. Site of Valley Grove house, 150 feet north," read Bert and the others. " This is Battle Pass," explained Uncle Tom, "where the Hessians, twice repulsed, finally swarmed upon Sullivan's men, and drove or captured them, forced the redoubt, and combining with the rest of the British army, finally sent the defeated Americans flying fey safety within the weak security of their Brooklyn defenses. So the round-up, you see, was successful, although some of the 'cattle' were obstinate." " But what about the Maryland men ? " asked Marian. For answer. Uncle Tom led them back across the lawn to where, above a broad drive- way, upon a sightly slope, rose a graceful shaft of granite and marble, topped with a polished globe. " Read the inscription, Marian," he said, "while Jack gets his kodak ready. Is n't it a fine location ? The monument was placed here in 1895 through the efforts of the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and is a beautiful shaft, well worthy a shot," And Marian read : " In Honor of Maryland's Four Hundred Who on this Battle-field, August 27, 1776, Saved the American Army." THE MONUMENT TO THE MARYLAND MEN. Between Sullivan Heights and Battle Pass in Prospect Park. " How did they save it?" queried Christine, as Jack shot his kodak. " By facing about here, and, against terrible odds, holding off the swarm- ing enemy until the bulk of the Americans could withdraw. Then," said Uncle Tom, "surrounded, flanked, decimated, but heroic to the last, they surrendered, .sacrificing themselves for their comrades and their cause." " Good for them ! " cried Jack, who had taken what he considered a most satisfactory picture. " Now let 's get the battle-field from the arbor." IN GREATER NEW YORK 8 = He did so, and added other pictures to his roll of films. For Uncle Tom and his companions " did " Revolutionary Brooklyn thoroughly, traversing the ground from the Cortelyou house, where the Marylanders almost "bagged" Cornwallis, to the points now swallowed up by the great and growing city, where hot and deadly fights occurred. At last they stood beside the tall flag- staff on what, in 1776, was Fort Putnam, and now is called Fort Greene. At their feet stretched away Greater New York, the cities of Brooklyn and New York so merged into a tall and broken sky-line that the dividing river was obliterated and the great bridge seemed suspended above the crowding roofs. Under their feet, on the lowest terrace of the high redoubt, was the "tomb of the martyrs" — the vault in which are laid the bones of those brave but unfortunate patriots who died in the dreadful prison-ship Jersey, then moored near by in the Wallabout. This and the story of the battle seemed to tell of disaster, and Bert said soberly, "And it was a defeat, Uncle Tom ? " THE PRISON-SHIP "JERSEY OVER GREATER NEW YORK. View from the Tomb of the Martyrs, Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn. " Certainly a defeat, my boy," Uncle Tom answered ; " but the battle of Long Island simply had to be fought. The defense of New York from 6* 86 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND. Washington directing the passage of the American Army across the East River, at night. The location is near the Brooklyn pier of the great bridge, Brooklyn was certain to be a failure if once a strong and disciplined force were concentrated on Long Island. Had General Howe followed up his success, the army of Washington would practically have been wiped out. But Howe was dilatory, as usual; and Washington, in a retreat that is one of his greatest achievements, carried the American army across to New York, and compelled his adversary to fight yet other battles before New York was wrested from ' the rebel grip,' as they called it." "A retreat an achievement?" cried Roger. "Assuredly," said Uncle Tom. " Two days after the battle of Long Island, Washington skilfully laid his plans, and while the British were pre- paring to gobble up the whole American army, in the teeth of a drenching IN GREATER NEW YORK 87 Storm and under cover of a friendly fog, in boats manned by Glover and his hardy Marblehead fishermen-soldiers, the American army silently stole away, with all their arms, guns, and military stores — " "And General Howe was left!" cried Jack, his spirit recovering from the Long Island defeat. "Well, "... he who fights and runs away May live to fight another day, I suppose, and G. W. did certainly know how to do that." " He did, certainly," said Uncle Tom*; " and military critics regard his masterly retreat from Long Island as sufficient to rank him among the great captains of the world." The day in Brooklyn thus proved most successful, and Uncle Tom, fol- lowing it up soon after with a visit to the field of operations on Manhattan Island, showed his young folks what he called "the sequel to Long Island." He explained to them that Washington, expecting that Howe would bombard New York from Brooklyn Heights, advised the destruction of the city, but was overruled by Congress. "At last, however," he said, "the British crossed the East River and landed at Thirty-fourth street. Here the Americans posted to oppose them became panic-stricken. They scattered like sheep, while Washington, distracted by their lack of courage, stormed at them like a Trojan, and would have sacrificed his life leading a forlorn hope in assault, had he not been urged away." "Then G. W. could get mad, eh?" said Jack. " I thought nothing ever ruffled him." " Nothing ever did, except cowardice," said Uncle Tom. " He could forgive even stupidity, but he had no patience with a coward." " I know I should have been one," Marian declared. " Oh, well, you 're a girl," said Jack apologetically. " That does n't count." " Does n't it, though. Master Jack?" cried Uncle Tom. " It counts very much sometimes, as history will tell you. And I 'm pretty sure that if the test ever should com.e, my girls here" — and he passed an arm lovingly about his "gleams of sunshine," as he called Marian and Christine — "would prove as brave as did plucky Mistress Robert Murray, who at her comfort- able house on Murray Hill (that 's just about at Park Avenue and Thirty- seventh street, you know) detained the whole British advance by her cleverness, and gave Washington time to escape." "How?" asked Christine. 88 THE CEKTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " By forcing her hospitality upon General Howe and his ofificers, and fixing up a fine dinner for them, just as they were in hot pursuit of Putnam and the rear-guard of the retreating Americans." "Then they did retreat," said Bert, while Marian clapped her hands. MRS. ROBERT MURRAY ENTERTAINING BRITISH OFFICERS WHILE PUTNAM ESCAPES. "They had to," Uncle Tom replied. " Howe's force was too strong to resist, and Washington began another masterly retreat up the valley of the Hudson." "But about Mrs. Murray?" said Christine. "Why, she made herself so agreeable at dinner," Uncle Tom explained, "that while Howe and his officers were enjoying themselves, and their ad- vance was halted, the whole American army got safely beyond the site of Central Park and behind their intrenchments here in Harlem." " Good for her ! " said Marian, applauding again. "What was there so very brave about that? " Jack demanded. "Any- body could give a dinner." IN GREATER NEW YORK 89 " Put yourself in her place, and you '11 soon discover, my boy," said Un- cle Tom, " Courage does not only exist behind a bayonet or a sword : courage is the ability to be heroic in any way that faces danger and con- quers circumstances." " But there was a battle here in Harlem, was n't there ? " queried Bert. " Right where we now stand," said Uncle Tom. He had come with his party by the cable-cars to One Hundred and Twentieth street and Manhattan Avenue. Then he had led them in the shadow of the walls of the new Columbia College to the heights at One Hundred and Nineteenth street, at the end of Morningside Park, and still surmounted by the ruins of an old block-house. " Here ran the fight," he said. " It was one of Washington's plans to inspirit his men by a rapid attack on the advancing British. Had his instructions been followed out, and the British flanked, it would have proved something more than a skirmish; but the Americans had not yet learned discipline or obedience. They attacked in front instead of in flank, and the battle of Harlem proved but a temporary check, though a brave and gallant fight. There ran the line of battle — all along the ridge where the new college buildings stand, and up as far as Riverside Drive and Grant's splendid tomb." "Say, that 's great, is n't it," Roger burst in, "to think that the tomb of our greatest soldier should be right here on a real battle-ground!" "It is a telling coincidence," assented Uncle Tom; "and here where we stand, on this rocky knoll at One Hundred and Nineteenth street, is a point made glorious by a hero's fall." "Who was that?" asked Marian. THE OLD BLOCK-HOUSE. At Tenth Avenue and One Hundred and Nineteenth Street, From just above this spot Washington directed the Battle of Harlem. New York. 90 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " Our old friend Colonel Knowlton, who fought so bravely at the rail- fence on Bunker Hill," Uncle Tom answered. " From down yonder at One Hundred and Twelfth street and Twelfth Avenue, he fought the High- landers, disputing the ground step by step, until forced back to this high bluff. Here, standing at bay, he and his comrade Major Leitch fell pierced with wounds, while the ever-ready Marylanders, charging in, routed the Highlanders and brought off Knowlton's command. Over this very bluff on which we stand Knowlton fell, fighting until death." Leaving the heights of Harlem, the party crossed to the " Elevated," and riding as far north as One Hundred and Seventy- fifth street, set off to discover the remains of Fort Washington, considered when built, so Uncle Tom informed them, an uncon- querable redoubt. It proved really a journey of discovery, for even the polite policemen could not di- rect them ; but accosting a bevy of small boys, they found their guide. " I kin tek yer to the ol' fort," said the leader of the escort; "but yer can't find nuthin' there, unless yer dig." Up hill and down dale, through fields, over a deep railroad cut, and into a grove he led them ; and there, shaded by great trees, he pointed it out. "That 's the ol' fort," he said. Uncle Tom was delighted. "Right you are, my boy; here it is," he said. "Just enough of it remains to stand in proof See, here are the sloping curtains, and here are two of the five corners^- for it was a five-sided bastioned earthwork, you see. On this height it commanded the river, and with its outlying defenses had a circuit of six miles. It was indeed the inner citadel of all the northern defenses of the island, and was an excellent fortification. You can see that, after all these years of change, it is still wonderfully preserved in outline. "General Howe," Uncle Tom explained, "sought to put into execution here the same tactics that had gained him Long Island. He did not dare to THE TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT. In Riverside Park. It stands upon the line of battle of the iight on Harlem Heights. IN GREATER NEW YORK 91 PortfieXQndaajyfagaaaneiy-ys, Atia/JjGfJSMtf^-J-''*^ /^^..g^.m.^-Lj.arfnJf.CrfanUfa!^ Kip's Bay is where the British landed at Thirty-fourth street — McGowan's Pass is just below Grant's tomb — Inclenburg is where Mrs. Murray lived — Snake Hill is just above Point of Rocks, where Knowlton fell — Fort Washington is where Magaw surrendered — Fort Lee, across the river, is where Washington watched the disaster. attempt an assault on the fortifications on these broken heights; but, instead, would encircle the 'Americans, cut them off from the city on the south and 92 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION the country on the north, and thus entrap them. Forced across the Har- lem, the Americans intrenched themselves at White Plains, a few miles above here, in Westchester County. On and around the slope of Chatter- ton Hill, west of the little Bronx River, and near to the village, the two armies, each thirteen thousand strong, again stood face to face." " Much of a battle ? " asked Jack. " Howe expected it to be the decisive and closing battle of the war," Uncle Tom replied. " But the Americans fought with so much spirit that they were able to retire with credit, and Howe, as usual, 'waited for rein- forcements.' " " That means that he was whipped, then," declared Roger. " It was almost that," said Uncle Tom; "for while he waited, Washing- ton, by another of his masterly retreats, fell back to North Castle, five miles away, a high ground from which the British army could not dislodge him." "Good generalship," was Jack's patronizing comment. " Indeed it was," his uncle agreed. " Howe changed his plans and fell back to the attack upon Fort Washington, here where we stand. It had been held by the Americans after the retreat from New York, contrary to Washington's desire, and was garrisoned by twenty-five hundred men. " Seems to me they ought to have held it, if it was so strong a work," said Bert critically. " It was not well provisioned, had no water, and was not prepared to withstand a siege," Uncle Tom explained. " But worse than this, treason was abroad. Dumont, the adjutant, one of our earliest^ traitors, deserted to the British with a correct plan of the defenses. At once the fort was sur- rounded by three storming-parties, who completely invested it, north, south, and east, while a war-ship in the river bombarded it from the west. Piece by piece the outer defenses were taken. The whole garrison was crowded into this little space where we stand, and where there is scarcely standing- room, as you see, for a thousand." " It is pretty cramped quarters, and that 's a fact," said Jack. " Rescue was impossible ; surrender was the only alternative. Magaw, the brave commander, made a brief but spirited resistance, and finally sur- rendered; while Washington, across the river yonder at Fort Lee, unable to help in any way, could only stand anxiously watching, a spectator of the defeat and capture of twenty-five hundred good fighting-men." " Say, I kin show yous the rock over at Fort Lee that Washington stood on and cried," announced the little guide, who seemed well "up" in lotal history ; and it would not have required much to send the whole party to the Fort Lee ferry to cross over and "see that rock." IN GREATER NEW YORK 93 But Uncle Tom decided otherwise, and after picknicking awhile on the green slopes of the old fort, they all went cityward again. " This Fort Washingtoo scrimmage about settled things for New York, did n't it ? " Jack inquired. " Yes ; when Magaw surrendered the last American post fell, and New York became British," Uncle Tom replied. "Washington, crossing into New Jersey, conducted another of his desperate but well-planned retreats until he had put the Delaware River between him and his pursuers, who finally gave up the chase, boasting that they would catch him and end the war as soon as there was ice enough to cross the Delaware." "Ah ha! somebody else crossed, if I know my history," said Bert. " Right you are," said Jack. " Tell us about that, Uncle Tom." " No use telling without seeing, I imagine," Uncle Tom replied. " Our New York campaign has been a success, even if we did have to retreat. What do you say to changing our base of operations, just as Washington did, to Philadelphia, and follow up his Jersey campaigns ? " " Cross the Delaware where he did? " asked Marian, delightedly. " Surely," replied her uncle. " This is to be an object-lesson, you know." "All except the ice," said Christine. "We '11 take that with our soda," said Jack. "All irufavor of campaign- ing in New Jersey, hold up their hands. Twice five is ten. All up, Uncle Tom. It 's a unanimous vote. The army will now move across the Hudson." And three days later it did. THE REMAINS OF FORT WASHINGTON. The embankment is just to the west of the raihoad cut, and is easily discernible when found. It is on the descending road from One Hundred and Seventy-fifth street to Fort Washington station. This view is from the outside of the fort, CHAPTER VI ALONG THE DELAWARE Where Washington Crossed — The Wintry March — The Dash on Tren- ton — A Turning-point in the War — Princetons Battle-ground — In " the Lair of the Tiger " / BROAD river, broken by a low island and spanned by a long, covered bridge ; a green bank sloping down to the river's edge, cut by a railroad track and a quiet canal stretch- ing along peacefully side by side, and parallel to the river below ; a plain wooden railway-station, and, across the ruddy road, an old-fashioned house faced with yellow stucco ; further up the canal- side a little, low, gambrel-roofed house gray with age ; across the river a group of scattered houses fringed about with trees — this is what, with a quick glance, the boys and 'girls took in as they descended from their brief railway journey from Philadelphia, in answer to the brakeman's announce- ment : " Washington Crossing ! " " So this is the very spot where Washington crossed the Delaware, is it ? " queried Marian, balancing herself on the railroad track and surveying the pleasant landscape. " Pretty place, is n't it ? Not at all as I imagined it — all icy and snowy and horrid." " I don't see why they make such a talk about it," Jack remarked criti- cally. " W^hat did they go poking through the ice for ? What 's the matter with the bridge ? " " Oh, Jack ! " came thexhorus of protest; and Bert said, " Why, what are you talking about, old man? There was n't any bridge here then — was there, Uncle Tom ? " " It looks old enough to have been here then, anyhow," retorted Jack. " Just think of this river with its winter current running swollen with ice," said Roger, trying to picture the scene. " Br-r-r ! how cold it must have been. Were n't they Marblehead fishermen who got the boats across ? " 96 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "Yes, of Captain John Glover's regiment," Uncle Tom replied. "The same brave fellows who piloted Washington across the East River in that gloomy August retreat from Brooklyn manned the boats that brought their WHERE WASHINGTON CROSSED THE DELAWARE. The view is from the east bank. New Jersey side, and it is taken from what is said to be the exact spot where Washington and his army landed. determined leader and his heroic men across this placid-looking stream on that pitiless December night." " Not very placid then, I guess," said Roger. "Anything but placid, Roger," replied Uncle Tom. "Choked with ice, fringed with gathering snow, pelted with hail and sleet — that was the pic- ture here as the dusk of Christmas fell in 1776. Come; let 's go over to the Pennsylvania side and do this crossing systematically — without the boats." They paid their toll to the skeptical bridge-keeper, who gruffly doubted even the existence of Washington, in reply to their eager query as to the exact point of crossing, and walked briskly across the thousand-foot bridge that unites the New Jersey and Pennsylvania sides of the Delaware. To still their indignation at this startling official disbelief, Uncle Tom, as they walked, catechized them as to the steps that led up to this Christmas crossing of the Delaware ; for he had already outlined the tale. ALONG THE DELAWARE 97 They answered well, for they had imbibed the whole story — the mas- terly southward retreat of the little American army after the fall of Fort Washington and the evacuation of Fort Lee — the chase through "the Jerseys" by Howe and Cornwallis — the shrewd manner in which Wash- ington "corralled" all the boats along the river for miles, and crossed the Delaware at Trenton just as the British advance, led by Cornwallis, reached the bank — the failure of the British leader to get any boats for the cross- ing — his decision to occupy the New Jersey side of the river — Washing- ton's decision to make a desperate attack at some weak point in the British line — the gathering of one section of his little army along the Pennsylvania bank of the Delaware, above Trenton, and their rendezvous at this very point upon which, so Un- cle Tom told them, they were now looking, as they emerged from the cavern- ous mouth of the covered bridge and stood in the bright sunshine on the Pennsylvania shore. "This was then called McKonkey's Ferry," said Uncle Tom. "It is now Taylorsville. It is nine miles above Trenton, and the approach to that town, on the New Jersey side, was by two roads, along which certain patriot far- mers of New Jersey had volunteered to guide the Continentals." Turning to the right, as they emerged from the bridge. Uncle Tom led his party a short distance along a pleasant village street, and then suddenly stopped before a roomy brown house which, so he said, was the home of Doctor Griffee. And there, -in Doctor Griffee's front yard, they saw before them a plain three-course, stunted monument of brown sandstone, upon the face of which WASHINGTON GIVING DIRECTIONS FOR THE BOATS. 'CORRALLING' 98 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Marian speedily read this inscription, placed upon the tablet upon its erec- tion in 1895, by the Bucks County Historical Society: NEAR THIS SPOT WASHINGTON CROSSED THE DELAWARE ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT, 1776. THE EVE OF THE BATTLE OF TRENTON. "But I want to see the very, pot, Uncle Tom," said Christine. "This says ' near' it." In reply to Uncle Tom's knock at the door, a friendly lady and her pleasant-faced young daughter came from the house and cheerfully answered all the questions of the visitors. The lady showed where the old road had turned toward the river, run- ning through what was now her vegetable-garden. She pointed out the place where the boats gathered that cold Christmas day and where, later, a small monument had been raised on the river brink to mark the spot of embarkation. "The stones of that old monument," their hostess told them, "are now worked into the foundations of the new monument up there by our front fence." "And down here, just where we are standing, marched Washington's men," said Uncle Tom, "each soldier carrying three days' rations and forty rounds of ammunition. They were almost barefooted; the blood from their wounded feet reddened the freshly fallen snow as they marched." " Poor fellows!" said Christine the sympathetic. " Perhaps they did n't mind it so much as you think," said Jack. "They 'd got used to it by that time, I guess ; and besides, they knew where they were bound." " So did some of the enemy," added Uncle Tom. " A Tory farmer saw what was up, and sent a note to the nearest British post — which happened to be the Hessian camp at Trenton. But Colonel Rahl, the commander, was having too good a time celebrating Christmas, and stuck the note in his pocket without reading." " My ! but that was a narrow escape," said Marian. "It was a pitiless night — dark, cold, and dismal; the air was full of mingled snow and hail ; the river was choked with floating cakes of ice. But Glover's Marblehead men were ready; and so was Washington, even ALONG THE DELAWARE 99 though the two other divisions that he had ordered to cooperate with him failed to keep the appointment." "Why was that?" asked Bert. "They thought the night was so bad that the march would not be made," Uncle Tom explained. L,^.y.-^:,m^^^^^:,,i:, MILMORE'S STATUE OF GENERAL GLOVER. General John Glover, of Marblehead, was the hero of the retreat from Long Island aiid of the crossing of the Delaware. His statue stands in the broad central walk on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. " H'm ! guess they didn't know G. W. very well," said Jack. "He never went back on his word." " He did n't this time, surely," Uncle Tom remarked. "The boats were manned; rank upon rank the soldiers passed aboard, and Knox, the Boston bookseller, with a big heart and a voice just as big, shouted out Washing- lOO THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "ABOVE THE CROSSING-PLACE." On the canal parallel to the Delaware River. ton's orders as he stood by his chief, who, right here where we stand, sat on an overturned and empty bee-hive anxiously watching the crossing of the troops — twenty-four hundred men with eighteen pieces of artillery." " Did n't he go over in the last boat, striking an attitude and with the Stars and Stripes wrapped around him, same as in the picture?" asked Jack. "I can 't say, Jack," Uncle Tom replied, "the painters made it so, and they ought to know, for both Peale and Trumbull were at Trenton. But, however he crossed, it was hard lines. The jagged ice floating down the river made progress slow and difiicult ; but the Marblehead men pulled and poled through it; the New Jersey farmers piloted the fleet across, and by three o'clock in the morning of December 26, the troops were all put across and Washington was ready to set them on the forward march for Trenton. Now we '11 see just where they landed." Once more they crossed the covered bridge, conversing pleasantly with the country doctor jogging along beside them in his travel-worn buggy, and passing over the canal stood beside the six-foot sandstone monument, in the face of which was set a bronze tablet stamped with the eagle and laurel badge of the Cincinnati. ALONG THE DELAWARE lOI Roger read off the inscription in a voice that combined dignity and despatch : THIS TABLET IS ERECTED BY THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI IN THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY TO COMMEMORATE THE CROSSING OF THE DELAWARE RIVER BY GENERAL WASHINGTON AND THE CONTINENTAL ARMY ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT OF SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX But while the rest sentimentaHzed over the event and its historic record, Jack hunted up a lady to whom the doctor on the bridge had referred him. Her family, it seems, had lived for years in the yellow house by the railway station, and she at once dropped her gardening tools and took Jack to the traditional "exact spot" where Washington had landed on the New Jersey side. Jack hailed his party, and they hastened over the canal bridge and the railway track, and soon stood in the gentle dip where the old ferry road had led up from the river in Revolutionary days. Thereupon, Jack put them all aboard the little punt that lay moored to the bank, and, posing them in proper attitudes, pushed the punt off at rope's length and kodaked them all with an enterprising snap-shot, — "caught in the act of crossing," he said. Then they all accompanied Uncle Tom to the little old gambrel -roofed house on the hill — the only witness of that famous crossing of the icy Dela- ware. They stood within the quaint, old-fashioned, heavily- fTrf--" "T ~,r^^-„, — -""";-->•??« iiTUf/""^ timbered rooms and tried to re- construct the historic scene — even to Washington taking a hasty bite in that very room at three o'clock in the morning, and immortalizing it so long as its frame shall last. Standing beside the old house. Uncle Tom showed them about where the ferry road had climbed the rise. "Along this," he said, " Washington's tattered regiments slipped over the slushy ground to the Bear Tav- ern, a mile beyond the river. Here, by Washington's command, the little army divided into two sections — one taking the river road and one the 7* WHERE WASHINGTON BREAKFASTED. In this house, which stands near the landing-place, Washington took breakfast at thiee o'clock in the morning. I02 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Pennington highway. Then, with the password, ' Victory or death,' they stole quietly on the unsuspecting Hessians at Trenton, nine miles away." The visitors said good-by to the hospitable folk they had met at this pleasant riverside spot, and, taking the train to Trenton, dropped off at the Warren street station, and made a bee-line for the tall battle monument that overtops the roofs and spires of New Jersey's famous capital. In the center of the town, at the junction of Warren and Greene streets, they came upon the tall white shaft that commemorates that day of surprise, of terror and of blood, of victory and of death. "What a splendid place to set up a monument! " said Marian. " And what a fine monument ! " said Roger. "It stands upon the exact spot," Uncle Tom explained, "on which young Captain Alexander Hamilton, of the New York artillery, planted his battery that winter morning and raked the startled Hessians. Just back of the monument on that middle street, where Fountain and Princeton avenues now cross, Washington stood to direct the fight." " Upon his big white horse," put in Bert. " I 've seen the picture, have n't you? — Washington at Trenton. It 's a fine one." "It may or may not be authentic," Uncle Tom replied. "The portrait painters had a way of labeling Washington's pictures as at this or that battle. The records say he stood over yonder — but whether on horseback or be- side his horse, or whether he had a horse at all, just then, I am unable to say. The statue on top of the monument, you see, represents him standing. At any rate, he had plenty to occupy him. Trenton was one of the few battles of the American Revolution that was a town fight. Up and down the streets of this old city — then a wooden town of about one hundred houses — ran the short, fierce conflict. Here down Warren street, where we stand, Sullivan led his brigade in a resistless charge. His chief aides — Captain William Washington and Lieutenant James Monroe — fell wounded in the rush." "Was that Monroe who was afterward President?" asked Bert. "Yes, he won his spurs at Trenton, under Washington's own eye," said Uncle Tom. "Though wounded, both those brave officers sprang to their feet, and, manning two field-pieces, cleared the street of the Hessians, who after the first rush tried to repel the charge. General Mercer's men at the same instant dashed in a fierce charge down Greene street. Rahl, the Hessian leader, who had stumbled out of his house at the first assault, tried to rally his men down there on Greene street. But even as he was shout- ing, ' All who are my grenadiers, forward ! ' a bullet struck him down, and he was carried off to die. The lines of retreat were all closed. Stark, the ALONG THE DELAWARE 103 jfT^ Vermonter, swung around into State street with a resistless rush ; Glover of Marblehead held the bridge across the creek ; down yonder, on Han- over street, Forrest's six-gun bat- tery unlimbered for action ; resis- tance came to an end; the Hessians, huddled in an apple-orchard close beside what is now the new post office building on State street, lowered '^,'^. 1 WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE.— THE MARCH TO TRENTON.— WASHINGTON DIRECTING THE ARTILLERY AT TRENTON. I04 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE BATTLE-MONUMENT AT TRENTON. ALONG THE DELAWARE IO5 their standards, grounded their arms, and Colonel Baylor galloped back to Washington with the joyful report : ' Sir, the Hessians have surrendered ! ' " " Hooray for our side ! " cried Jack, smiting the old six-pounder that stands as a relic of the fight before the big bronze door of the battle monu- ment. " Must n't Washington have felt glad ? " "He did, indeed," said Uncle Tom. "He caught a boy-soldier — one of St. Clair's aides — by the hand and cried, ' This is a glorious day for our country.' "And so it was. It turned the gloom of defeat into the sunlight of vic- tory ; it gave heart and courage to the soldiers, to Congress, and to the people of the colonies ; it established the fame of Washington as a leader and a soldier, and drew the attention and respect of Europe to the struggling and defiant colonists. Trenton was the dawn of a new day for America." They passed the guardian sentinels at the portals, and stood within the monument. To a height of one hundred and thirty-four feet it springs into the air, topped by a heroic figure of Washington, his uplifted hand one hundred and fifty feet above the street-level. Guarding the doorway in the pedestal, on the right hand and the left, stand two bronze statues, typical soldiers of that historic daj'^ — the one a private of Glover's fisherman regi- ment from Marblehead, the other a gentleman private of the Philadelphia light-horse troop. Upon the four sides of the pedestal are bronze memorial tablets depicting, in relief, the crossing, the battle, the surrender, and the historical inscription. This latter Bert, before they entered, had read for the edification of the company : This monument is erected by the Trenton Battle Monument Association to commemorate the victory gained by the American Army over the forces of Great Britain in this town on the 26th of December Anno Domini 1776 Presented by The Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey. "E"^'"'- «"""« "■ <^"'". WHO WAS IN THE FIGHT AT TRENTON. They rode in the electric elevator to the top of the shaft ; they stood upon the breezy outlook at the crown, and looked off upon the fair, broad landscape, while at their feet stretched in every direction the roofs and spires and smoking chimneys of the busy and growing city of Trenton. " It means a good deal," said Uncle Tom, " this monument, reared in this city and above the streets through which the tide of battle surged that io6 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION brief wintry hour so many years ago. This bronze statue above us may crumble into dust, but the man it represents will ever be one of the world's immortals. Read us here, Christine, the lines that Richard Watson Gilder wrote in commemoration of the man and the day we are here considering." And Christine, taking from Uncle Tom's hands the " Battle Monument" pamphlet he had secured, read, on that bright and breezy height, Gilder's helpful and inspiring lines : "Since ancient Time began, Ever on some great soul God laid an infinite burden : The weight of all this world, the hopes of man. Conflict and pain, and fame immortal, are his guerdon ! "And this the unfaltering token Of him the Deliverer — what though tempests beat, Though all else fail, though bravest ranks be broken, He stands unscared, alone, and never knows defeat. " Such was that man of men ; And if are praised all virtues, every fame Most noble, highest, purest, then, ah ! then, Upleaps in every heart the name none needs to name." GENERAL HENRV KNOX, WASHtNGTON'S RIGHT-HAND MAN AT TRENTON. " 'The name none needs to name' — that 's it," said Uncle Tom. " We know him as the inspiration of all that is grand, all that is gracious, all that is good in American life ; and here at Trenton his fame became glory. Now let us see the town." They descended to earth, and then, walking slowly through the town, they visited the points made famous by the famous fight : the spot where Washington stood to direct the assault, the house in which Colonel Rahl had too much Christmas, the place where he was shot, the house in which he died, the apple-orchard where the Hessians surrendered, and the points on the Pennington and the River road by which the Americans had entered and surprised the town. They examined and noted down the exhibits in the relic-room of the monument, and studying once again the graceful and towering shaft that rises upon the street that led straight on from gloom to glory, listened with real appreciation as Christine, at Uncle Tom's request, read the second part of Mr. Gilder's memorial poem. "It is the moral of the whole splendid story," Uncle Tom declared. And so it was : " Ye who defeated, 'whelmed. Betray the sacred cause, let go the trust; Sleep, weary, while the vessel drifts unhelmed ; Here see in triumph rise the hero from the dust! ALONG THE DELAWARE 107 ' All ye who fight forlorn 'Gainst fate and failure; ye who proudly cope With evil high enthroned; all ye who scorn Life from Dishonor's hand, here take new heart of hope. ■ Here know how Victory borrows For the brave soul a front as of disaster, And in the bannered East what glorious morrows For all the blackness of the night speed surer, faster. ' Know by this pillared sign For what brief while the powers of earth and hell Can war against the spirit of truth divine. Or can against the heroic heart of man prevail." GENERAL SAMUEL WEBB, WHO FOUGHT AT TRENTON. That evening, gathered about the ample hearth of the pleasant inn at Princeton, — for the night was cool, — the boys and girls listened while Uncle Tom again went over the story of the fight in the streets of Trenton, and showed how it led directly to the battle, a week later, fought on Princeton's streets and fields, and about the walls of its quaint and central college building. " It is well for us to study the battles of Trenton and Princeton to- THE WILLOWS NEAR PRINCETON. gether," he said. " They were but ten miles apart ; one followed fast upon the other — in fact, one was the companion enterprise to the other." io8 THE CENTURA BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " Sort of a two-part Revolutionary story, eh ? " put in Jack. "Very much so," Uncle Tom assented. " Cornwallis, angered at Wash- ington's victorious dash on Trenton, gave up his trip to England, and marched against the American leader with eight thousand men, vowine to drive him across the Delaware or cap- ture him and his army." " Those British orenerals were always going to do such a lot," commented Marian. "They planned well," said Uncle Tom ; " but, as the saying is, they reckoned without their host." "That 's a fact. Washington was a host in himself" added Roger. "Well, Cornwallis left this very town of Princeton on the morn- ing of the second of January, 1777," Uncle Tom proceeded. "He pushed the American outposts before him as he approached Trenton, and, having cooped up Washington's army in the town, sat down to rest and to wait for the morning and for the reinforcements he had or- dered to follow him." Did n't the British generals do ? " '•CORx\ERED, BUT NOT CAGED." ' The American cumniandei' thought things out in Trenton." a lot of sitting cl own and waitmg ; queried Marian. " Far too much for their own good," Uncle Tom replied. "And so it proved in this case. Cornwallis was certain that now he had Washington ca'hen he resisted temptation." THE TOWER OF VICTORY Stands in the northeast corner of the headquarters ground. It is of stone, fifty- three feet high, pierced with four bronze gates, and has a fine view from the belvedere, into which the stairways open. " Who tempted ous event in Washington's life occurred there, " What temptation ? " queried Bert. "To be King of America," replied Uncle Tom. " I guess not. He was n't that kind," exclaimed Jack, him ? " "His own soldiers," Uncle Tom replied. "Wearied by the dela)'s of Congress, uncertain as to the future, they thought that Washington's seiz- ing the power was the only way to settle things, and they were ready to aid him." UP THE HUDSON 155 WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS, NEWBURGH. The old Hasbrouck House on Liberty street, Newburgh, occupied by Washington from April, 1782, to August, 1783. " Caesar and Napoleon over again," remarked Bert. "But George Washington was neither of these," said Uncle Tom. " George Washington was the noblest kind of a patriot." " 'First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts ot his countrymen,' " cried Jack. " He was angry, indeed, at the bare thought," said Uncle Tom. " He turned on the proposer magnificently. ' I am at a loss to conceive,' he said, ' what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to a;i address which to me seems big with the greatest mischief that can befall any coun- try. . . . Let me conjure you, if you have any regard tor your country, con- cern for yourself or posterity, or respect tor me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature ! ' " "Great!" said Jack. "That settled it, I guess." "Indeed it did," Uncle Tom replied; "and to me, boys and girls, that seems one of the noblest moments in the life of the great Washington." 156 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ~%\-ii^i-^Q^r<^ DRAWN Hy B. WEST CLINEDIN&T THE MASTER OF CLAREMONT. Chancellor Robert R Livingston and his young relatives — also his great gilded coach. Chancellor Livingston helped draft the Declaration of Independence and administered the oath of office to President George Washington. And of course Uncle Tom's auditors, being enthusiastic young republi- cans, agreed with him vociferously. Past Fishkill, where Baron Steuben drilled the recruits into soldiers; past Kingston, with its old Senate House and its reminders of British invasion ; past Clermont, the noble estate for which Fulton named his first steamboat, where lived the Livingstons — soldiers, statesmen, and patriots; past the long, splendid ridge of the Catskills, fringing the western sky, they sailed; and finally, at sunset, made fast to the pier at Albany, tired but enthusiastic at the close of what they all claimed to be one of the most delightful of all their delightful trips. " What lots and lots we 've seen ! " they said. " Such a sail!" cried Roger. "THE SPLENDID RIDGE UK THE CATSKILLS," As seen from the river above Kingston, which the British devastated in 1777. 158 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " Such a river," exclaimed Marian. " Such a panorama," said Bert. " Such a picnic," declared Jack. "Such an Uncle Tom," said Christine. And thereupon all the five gave a characteristic demonstration of ap- proval, as they gathered up their traps ; and the next moment they were threading the streets of ancient Albany. Of course they enjoyed the famous old city. It is full of interesting spots as it sits upon its hill-tops, looking off toward the western Helderbergs and the Berkshires across the great river. They heard many stories of the old Dutch days, and especially of the boy baron — the last of the patroons of Rensselaerswyck. Uncle Tom told them, too, that the old town was one of the chief depots of supply in the Revglution and was always " going to be taken " by the British, but never was. The travelers, however, had eyes but for one thing — the splendid, stately new State capitol whose white walls and towers rise above everything else. THE PEACE MONUMENT ON TEMPLE HILL, NEWBURGH. Built of field stone and erected by the people of the surrounding towns to mark the spot where peace was proclaimed in 1783. &: ALBANY, FROM THE HUDSON. With the new State capitol rising above everything. CHAPTER IX PROMENADING WITH BURGOYNE A I the Springs — Burgoynes Promenade — Oriskany and Bennington — Schuyler and Gates — The "Lone Tree" of Walloomsac — The Benning- ton Monument — Across Country to Schuylerville — Freeman's Farms and Bem.is Heights — The Saratoga Monument — The Vacant Niche — The Surrender Spot. HE morning concert in the great hotel was over; the well- dressed throng wandered away on rest or pleasure bent ; Roger and Jack, who had tested and tasted of each and every spring in the whole gorgeous Spa, were quite in con- dition to remain quiescent for a space, and Uncle Tom, gathering the five chairs about him on the broad and shaded piazza, turned the attention of his youthful group of comrades to the business in hand — battle-fields. " There 's an odd thing about this fight we are now to consider, boys and girls," he said. "Which is — ?" queried Bert. " That it was not fought here at Saratoga, nor by the general who has all the credit of the affair," Uncle Tom replied. "Sir," said Jack senatorially, "you speak in riddles." " Yes, what do you mean ? " cried Marian. " It 's called the battle of Saratoga." "But that battle-ground is fully a dozen miles away," Uncle Tom re- plied; "and Schuyler, who planned the campaign, was the real victor of the fight." " But why is it called the battle of Saratoga? " asked Roger. "And why is Gates called the victor of Saratoga? " queried Bert. " Because both are correct," his uncle replied. " But you just said it was n't so," said Marian. " Uncle Tom, what is the matter with you ? " l6o THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " Too bad, too bad," said Jack. " He 's taken one spring too many." " Do give us the facts. Uncle Tom," said Bert. " The tacts are these," Uncle Tom remarked, smiling at their perplexity. " Burgoyne, a brave soldier and a gallant gentleman, though with an over- supply of conlidence and bluster, was placed in command of a picked English arm)' and sent south from Canada to clear the Hudson Valley of rebels and join with Clinton in New York." " Nice little contract laid out for him," remarked Roger. " He considered himself equal to it," said Uncle Tom. " He had already asserted that with ten thousand men he could promenade through America. The British government took him at his word, gave him a fine army of ten thousand men, and told him to promenade." BATTLE-FIELD OF ORISKANY. The ravine where the Indian ambush was made is at the bottom of the slope on the left. Here 1500 men — Americans, British, Tories, and Indians — fought hand-to-hand in the midst of a violent storm. "And that 's what we 're up here for, is it — to promenade with him?" remarked Jack. "All right; fall in, boys! mark time — for'ud — hup! Where do we promenade first, Uncle Tom ? " " Easy walking at first. Jack," his uncle replied. " From Quebec to Fort Edward, Burgoyne found it really a promenade. Fort and post fell betore him ; resistance was faint, and he was so confident of victory that he hurried off a special messenger to King George, telling the king that everything was CToincf iust as he wished it." " ' Better not holler until you 're out of the woods,'" said Roger. "That 's so, Roger; it 's a waste of breath ; and so Burgoyne found it," PROMENADING WITH BURGOYNE l6l Uncle Tom replied. " For, while he was enjoy- ing- his promenade, and his Tories and Indians were thinking of the pickings they were to have when the arm)- got into the rich Hudson Valley, a determined and valiant man — a soldier and a general indeed — was working against desperate odds to stop the triumphal career of Burgoyne." " Schuyler ? " " Yes. That able and masterly soldier had been working like a beaver to head off Burgoyne. Against almost insurmountable obstacles, in spite of jealous)', misrepresentation, secret wire-pull- ing, and Congressional stupidity, Schuyler had labored on, upheld by his own sense of duty and Washington's support. Soon the fruits of his work began to show. Two side-issues attempted by Burgoyne were brought to naught by the up- rising of the people, and crippled Burgoyne be- )'ond repair." " What were they. Uncle Tom ? " asked Bert. " One was the devastation of the beautiful Mohawk Valle)- ; the other, the seizure of sup- plies and horses at Bennington, across the Ver- mont line. Both were signal failures," Uncle Tom remarked. "At Oriskany, just beyond the present city of Utica, St. Leger and his Tories and Indians were checked and turned back by the valiant old General Herkimer after one of the bloodiest engacrements of the war. At Bennington, on the slopes of the Green Mountains, brave General Stark cut to pieces the invading Hessians of Baum." " Molly Stark's husband, was n't he?" cried Marian. "Who 's Molly Stark?" said Jack. "I '11 tell you at Bennington," replied Uncle Tom. "Just now we 're interested in BurgO}'ne. Checked at Oriskau)-, overwhelmed at Benning- ton, rudely awakened by a few other experiences ot the same sort, Bur- iroyne saw that his promenade was not to be such a success, after all." " Not a real sprinting-match for the championship, eh? " said Jack. •'Well, the sprinting-match was there," Uncle Tom replied, "but the championship was in dispute. Burgoyne began to feel alarm. Reinforce- ments were not forthcoming, either from Sir Guy Carleton at Quebec, or THE BATTLE MONUMENT AT ORISKANY. About half-way between Uticn and Rome. 1 62 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION from Sir Henry Clinton at New York. Driven to extremities, surrounded by an aroused and gathering people, disappointed in his hope of succor from the Tories of the invaded section, Burgoyne's only course was to force his way through to the lower Hudson and unite with Clinton. ' This army must not retreat,' was his order, as he crossed the Hudson on his bridge of boats above Schuylerville, a dozen miles to the east of us, and marshaled his forces for battle." "Here?" asked Roger. "No; over by the Hudson," replied Uncle Tom. "We '11 go over the ground to-morrow or next day. Burgoyne had got himself into a bad box. The Americans were as jubilant as the British were despondent. Suddenly, a serious thing happened. On the very eve of the victory which he had been organizing so splendidly, Schuyler was deprived of his command." " Why, how mean ! " cried Marian. "What for?" asked Bert. " Because Gates was a place-hunter, a wire-puller, a worker for him- self and no one else," Uncle Tom replied. " He was very jealous of Schuyler, of whom Washington entertained a high opinion, and who had replaced Gates in the northern command. So he just haunted Congress, working secretly for Schuyler's position. His influence was strong enough to com- pass his ends, and Schuyler was set aside in favor of this intriguer and poli- tician, who" never showed ability or fitness for anything save setting sly traps for successful rivals." "A little hard on him, are n't you, Uncle Tom?" asked Bert. " No, I think not," Uncle Tom replied. " From the day he took the command at Boston in Massachusetts, to the day he ruined himself at Cam- den in South Carolina, the career of Horatio Gates was that of a self-seeker. He played Washington false at the crossing of the Delaware, and was the whole background of the infamous plot to ' down ' that greatest patriot, which is known as the ' Conway Cabal.' He aroused in Benedict Arnold the spirit of discontent that drove that unbalanced partizan to treason. He supplanted Schuyler by persistent and peculiar methods, robbed him of his opportunity and his fame, and would joyfully have degraded him had not the gallant Schuyler, unlike the hot-headed Arnold, been above resentment. When relieved of his command, Schuyler only said, ' The country before everything,' and set about helping Gates all he could by his influence and position in the region about Saratoga. For he lived just beyond those hills, toward the Hudson, you know." "Why did n't he kick?" cried Jack indignantly. " I would." "No, you would not, Master Jack," his uncle replied, "not when you THE ARROWS OF THE ALLIES. When the Indians came over the border with Burgoyne to ravage the valley of the Hudson, it was on this raiding march Jane McCrea was murdered, and that such iucidents as this occurred; for there were Indians on both sides. that 164 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION saw how much depended on union of action and purity of purpose. Schuy- ler saw this, and heaped upon his rival's head those coals of fire that had set the patriotism of these hills ablaze." " Good for him ! " cried Jack. " Was n't he fine ? " said Christine. " Just as he had things right where he wanted them, too," said Roger. "Yes, folks do say," Uncle Tom re- marked, "that Stark's victory at Benning- ton decided the campaign, and that Bur- goyne was really defeated then. This is hardly the fact, for the nail had to be clinched after it was driven ; yet it is certain that the defeat of Baum and his Hessians did pave the way for Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga." With Bennington in view as a starting- point, they boarded the train the next day, and running east to Hoosick Falls, took the trolley through that pleasant hill-town, vocal with its tumbling waters and the whir of its busy industries, and whizzed out to the hill at Walloomsac, where the battle was fought. "What, here?" cried Bert. "Why, I thought it was fought at Bennington." " No, sir ; right up along that ridge yonder before you cross the York State line," said a communicative villager who stood beside them on the piazza of the village hotel. " Of course, they marched down from Bennington, and it was mostly Bennington folks who did the fighting, so that lets 'em out ; but when they tell you the battle of Bennington was fought in Vermont, you tell 'em it was the battle of Wal- loomsac in York State." " Another idol shattered," said Bert, who did like to deal in facts. " That 's all fight," Uncle Tom remarked, as they walked across the fields toward the "lone pine" that marks the battle-line on the ridge; "it 's an- other case of local difference, you see. But, for all practical and historical purposes, it was the battle of Bennington. In that town it was arranged ; there the militia rendezvoused ; from there they marched to the field ; and it GENERAL HORATIO GATES. Bronze statue in the niche on the battle monument at Schuylerville. PROMENADING WITH BURGOYNE 165 was really a running fight from the grist-mill by the falls to the bridge near Bennington. It was a spirited action, too." They climbed the ridge of Battle Hill, once cut by Baum's hasty intrench- ments and marked now by the "lone tree of Walloomsac"; then, descending, they passed the supposed burial-place of that brave but defeated Hessian, and took the train for Bennington. At North Bennington, where Stark spent the night before the fight, and through which runs the creek where the battle began, they changed cars, and were soon at the beautiful city of the hills, nestled in the wide green valley of the Walloomsac, They drove to the pleasant hotel on Monument Avenue, while ever before them, at the foot of the verdant cone of Mount Anthony, rose the big blue shaft of the battle monument, the second tallest in the land. " I had no idea it was such a big thing," said Jack, while even Roger felt that Bunker Hill was overtopped. Set on the top of a green knoll over seven hundred feet above the sea, the obelisk of blue dolomite springs three hun- dred feet in air, from the very spot where, in Revolutionary days, stood the Conti- nental store-house which was Burgoyne's objective point in the Bennington raid. Four hundred iron steps lead to the out- look chamber at the top. Up these they groped their way, read the inscriptions, and marveled at the un- rivaled view. Descending, they stood be- neath the great captured camp-kettle of Burgoyne, suspended above their heads as a relic of Saratoga's fight; and then, cross- ing the lawn, read upon a simple marble slab, cracked and stained with long ex- general philip schuyler. _, „^,, -^ 4-UC« . Bronze statue in the niche on the battle monument pOSUre, this: at SchuylervUle. On this site stood the Continental store-house, the rendezvous of the Green Mountain Boys who fought the glorious batde of Bennington, the i6th of August, 1777. This battle turned the scale of Victory in favour of American Independence. To the memory of those patriots this humble monument is erected by one who had a father and nine uncles in the battle, one of whom was killed. 1 66 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "The old and the new," said Christine, looking from the simple, time-stained slab to the tall and towering obelisk ; " and both tell the story, too, don't they ? " " Great boy, that Stark, was n't he?" exclaimed Jack as, a little later, walking down Monument Avenue, they stood before the bronze cata- mount, high on its pedestal of Ver- mont marble, and erected in 1897 ^o mark the site of the Catamount Tavern, which played a remarkable part in the history of Vermont. There Ethan Allen had planned the attack on Ticonderoga ; there Stark had decided upon and directed the fight above the Walloomsac ; there the Green Mountain boys and the men of New Hampshire came hurry- ing to the rendezvous, determined to "hobble the Hessians." " You 're right. Jack," said Uncle Tom ; " John Stark was a valiant fighter. He knew how to do his duty. He made his mark at Bunker Hill. He led the van at Trenton. He fought in the 'college rush' at Princeton ; and here he disobeyed the orders of Congress by staying at Bennington to fight Baum and his Hessians. ' There they are, boys ! ' he cried, waving his sword toward the raiding Germans. " We '11 get 'em, or to-night Molly Stark '11 be a widow ! ' Then he ' pitched in ' and won. For this he received pro- motion and thanks from the very Congress whose words of censure for his disobedience of orders had hardly had time to cool." " It all depends, does n't it?" said Jack. " How would it do to try on that sort of tactics at school, I wonder ? " COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY M. E. WATSON. USED BY PERMISSION. THE BATTLE MONUMENT AT BENNINGTON, VT. The second highest monument in America, located at the foot of Mount Anthony, 739 feet above tide-water. The shaft, 302 feet high, fronts the Green Mountains and is in a battle park at the head of Monument Avenue. The "Catamount" Monument is a quarter of a mile down the avenue. PROMENADING WITH BURGOYNE 167 " Not until you know more than your teachers, Jack," was Uncle Tom's comment. " Stark did." They spent the night in beautiful Bennington so that the boys and girls could get into their trip the trolley-ride up the mountain, and enjoy from the hotel piazza that superb early-morning view of the broad and picturescpie Walloomsac A^alle\' and the forest- crested ramparts ot the Green Moun- tain heifrhts. Then they rode back to Johnson- ville on the main line, took a branch road to pleasant Greenwich, and drove across country to Schuylerville, where, on the height above the town, rises another mighty obelisk of blue granite, commemorating the field of what has been judged by historians to be one of the decisive battles of the world — Saratoga. Standing beside that splendid shaft reared by the exertions of patriotic citizens and the aid of Congress, Uncle Tom briefly sketched the story of the victory it commemorates. He told his boys and girls of Schuyler's untiring efforts and Bur- go\'ne's growing perplexities, of the British advance across these very hills and by the river-road, while Gates, following Schuyler's lines, marched his constantly growing army of minute- men and militia from the Mohawk to the Hudson, and threw up breast- works and rude fortifications stretching from the river to the heights. He told them that the region all about Schuylerville was known at that time as Saratoga, though now divided up into various post-offices and settle- ments, while the little town of Schuylerville, lying about the mouth of Fish Creek, was really known for years as Old Saratoga. " Hence it is really the battle of Saratoga, you see." " Perplexed and dispirited by the defeats at Oriskany and Bennington," said Uncle Tom, " Burgoyne moved down the river, while an American colonel with a strong spy-glass, perched in the top of a tree on a hill across the river, watched all the preparations tor the start, and hurried across to re- GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN. Who commanded the riflemen at Saratoga. From a portrait in the possession of Mrs. V. N. Taylor, of Washington, D. C, Reproduced, by permission, from " Battles of Saratoga, 1777." 1 68 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION , „vA" port the fact to Gates in his camp at Stillwater. The Americans prepared to meet the enemy, and soon battle was joined. There were two engage- ments — the first at Freeman's Farms, about ten miles southwest of us, across the hills, the other three weeks later, at Bemis Heights, near to the river." " I know the dates," said Bert; " September 19 and October 7, 1777." Uncle Tom nodded. " That 's right. One battle was the complement of the other. Saratoga was, in fact, a sort of bivalve battle. One shell was Freeman's Farms on September 19; the other shell was Bemis Heights on October 7." "And Burgoyne the oyster shut in between," said Roger. "Exactly," Uncle Tom assented. "The shells closed on him relentlessly and locked him fast ; then Arnold's sword and Morgan's rifle-barrel pried the bivalve open." "And Gates ate the oyster," said Jack. " Just so. It was all in logical order," Uncle Tom declared. " The country was roused. Burgoyne was desperate. He had to fight, and he fought. He had veteran troops ; he had brave and competent gen- erals, both English and Hessian : Frazer and Reidesel, Phillips and Breyman." " But Gates had their equals, did n't he ? " said Bert. "That he had," Uncle Tom replied; "Arnold and Morgan, Kosciusko, Dearborn, Poor, and Learned — valiant fighters all. And how they did fight ! While Gates stayed in his tent, hesitat- ing, Arnold led the battle at Free- man's Farms, hurling back the British onset, and Morgan's shrill whistle directed his riflemen in their impetuous rush. Phillips and Arnold, destined to fight on the same side later — the more 's the pity ! — fought up and down the ravine I will show you, while the little stream that trickles through it ran red with blood." " Oh, dear ! " shuddered the girls. GARflTuC; 1777 FREEMAN'S FARMS, Where one of the Saratoga battles was fought, September 19, 1777. From " Battles of Saratoga, 1777," by permission. PROMENADING WITH BURGOYNE 169 '-i "Night alone closed the fight; but the British advance was checked. Had Gates seconded Arnold promptly and properly, the battle would have been a decisive victory. Instead, his jealousy swallowed up his justice ; he slighted and censured Arnold, and finally deprived him of his command and gave him nothing to do or say." "That was mighty mean," said Jack indignantly. "Yes; Arnold was furious, and when the chance came he snapped his fingers at Gates's orders," said Uncle Tom. " That dilatory leader — really ; , a case of a man having greatness thrust upon him — stayed in his en- campment while, of their own accord, the plans that Schuyler had so skilfully laid combined tor the closinsf struo-ale. It came at last — off there, toward the river, just beyond Freeman's Farms, on a ridg-e called Bemis Heights. Bur- goyne led out his troops. ' Order out Morgan,' said Gates, and Morgan op- posed the British advance. The battle raged hotly. Morgan swept down upon Frazer, and the brave Fnglish- man fell on the field. The Hessians held their ground; victory hung in the balance. Then, with a rush — he could simply stand it no longer, you see — Arnold galloped from his tent, where he had been a restless spectator of the battle, and, in open defiance of Gates, regardless of the aide who came spurring after him to order his return, he was speedily in the thick of it all. His coming was an inspiration. The regiments rallied ; charg- ing after their impetuous leader, they stormed the Hessians, who turned in flight before the rush. Burgoyne tried in vain to rally his army ; he was driven into his camp. Then Arnold, turning, charged against the Hessian camp on the hill, killed Breyman, the commander, and sent everything scattering before him. Then he fell wounded ; and then came the night. Burgoyne retreated here to Schuylerville, and encamped on this very hill, down which, ten days later, the red-coats and Hessians marched to the flats by the river and surrendered to the American com- BRITISH LINE OF BATTLE. Marking the battle-line of Bemis Heights, October 7, 1777. From " Battles of Saratoga, 1777," by permission. I70 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ■^^-™-"'-^ '"^^riTTTS'T^ mander. It was the end of the 'promenade'; it was the beginning of the Republic." " ^777~'^'^^3'" read Bert, turn- ing to the bronze plate set at the entrance into the obelisk : tall ofranite o " This monument was erected under the auspices of the Saratoga Monu- ment Association, to commemorate the surrender of General Burgoyne to Gen- eral Gates, on the 17th of October, 17 77." Good enouo-h ! smiting the captured cried Jack, British 24- pounder before the portal a sound- ing smack. "Show us the ver)^ spot, Uncle Tom." "All in good time; let 's look at this first," his uncle replied. They entered the neatly kept memorial-room in the base ; they climbed the stairs and studied all the fine and striking bas-reliefs in bronze that picture the great event ; they admired the heroic bronze statues of the great leaders of the battle, each in a niche on the outer faces of the obelisk. There stood Schuyler, organ- izer of victory ; there Gates, who plucked the fruits of that organi- zation ; there Mortjan, hero of Northern and Southern fields; and there — "Why, hullo!" cried Jack, "this one is vacant. Who goes in here ? " They had come to the southern side of the monument expectantly, and now stood gazing up perplexedly at the empty niche that yawned before them. THE BATTLE MON UMENT AT SCIIUYLERVILLE. Commemorating Burgoync's defeat and surrender in the batde autumn of 1777. PROMENADING WITH BURGOVNE 171 "Don't you know who should have gone there, boys and girls?" said Uncle Tom. "Who was the real hero of the battle? Who led the charge and really won both fights ? Who ? " "Why — Arnold," said Marian. " And yet his niche stands vacant. Why? " asked Uncle Tom. " Because he was a traitor ! " said Bert. " Oh, how dreadful that is ! " said Christine. "'T is kind of rough, is n't it?" was Roger's comment. But Jack said stoutly, "No; it serves him right." " And how does it serve us ? " demanded his uncle. " Is it not a lesson and a reminder as well ? That niche would have been filled with Arnold's statue had he not proved a traitor to his country. What he won he lost. To me that empty niche is the most eloquent of all the reminders ot this famous field of strife and history." Impressed, all of them, by this sermon in stone, they descended the hill and walked about the historic town of Schuylerville, known to far too few — *j,«->*»-A«^(ias.a THE OLD SCHUYLER HOUSE, On the banks of Fish Creek, Schuylerville, the residence of General Philip Schuyler, the "organizer of victory. " Americans. Above them towered the monument ; below them flowed the Hudson, for whose possession all this blood had been shed ; all about them stretched green fields and crested heights, ever speaking of a great struggle and a wonderful victory. They saw the home of General Schuyler on the banks of the rushing, tumbling Fish Creek ; they saw the fine old Marshall house, in which Madame Reidesel and her three little girls passed that dreadful day of bat- tle, and in which the brave General Frazer died ; they stood on the field 172 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION of surrender, now no field at all, but a busy business street, and read the bronze tablet set in the dead wall of a brick block : "Near this spot, October 16, 1777, American and British officers met and consummated articles of capitulation of General Burgoyne to General Gates. And on this ground the British army laid down their arms, thus securing Ameri- can Independence.'' Next day they took carriages and drove slowly over the two battle- fields, whose important spots are marked by granite tablets carefully in- scribed — "a good deal like Con- cord and Lexington," so Roger declared. Along the old highway, by wide farms, far-reaching valleys, and forest-covered ridges, they drove — an intensely interesting ride, that led them through Quaker Spring and Freeman's Farms and Bemis Heights, not so rapidly but that they had time to see all the tablets and read all the inscrip- tions. Here General Frazer fell; here lay the great ravine where Acland was wounded, and the rivulet ran blood-red ; here was the old battle well at Freeman's Farms, for which so desperate a fight was waged; here stood old Fort Neil- son — a rude breastwork of logs and earth ; here were Gates's headquarters, here Bemis's tavern, here Kos- ciusko's water-battery. A tablet marked the British line of battle and the American encampment ; a tablet stood where Arnold was wounded at the heroic assault of Breyman's camp ; a tablet showed where Morgan assailed Frazer, and another stood where fell Lieutenant Hardin of Morgan's rifle- men, storming Balcarras's redoubt. And so, all along that historic road, the granite tablets dotted hill and plain — an object-lesson in American valor and British pluck, displayed in a field that speaks forever of patriotism, courage, the desperation of defeat, the jubilation of victory, combined in one of the world's most notable con- flicts — the double battle of Saratoga. WHERE ARNOLD WAS WOUNDED. Breyman's Hill, last stronghold of the Eritish, battle of Saratoga, Oc- tober 7, 1777. From "Battles of Saratoga, 1777," by permission. PROMENADING WITH BURGOYNE ^7i Then, full of what they had seen, they drove on to Stillwater, where they dismissed their Schuylerville teams and "trolleyed" it to Mechanics- ville, and so by rail to Saratoga again. But as next day they went southward and homeward, Jack said: " It 's no use. Uncle Tom ; we 're in for it, and so are you. If we 've seen the Northern battle-fields, we must see the Southern ones. Must n't we, folkses ? " And all the " folkses " replied with an enthusiastic and vociferous "Yes." "Ask father," said Jack. Ungle Tom yielded — willingly; and so did " father " and all the other powers. As a result, maps were carefully studied, guide-books closely examined ; and at the proper time the Southern campaign was duly and delightfully opened by Uncle Tom and his battle-field brigade. THE MARSHALL HOUSE, SCHUYLERVILLE, Overlooking the Hudson. Here Madame Reidesel and her children lived during the hatde, hiding the most of the time in the cellar to escape the American bombardment : and here the British General Frazer died. } , !~-pf__ i^- li nm if ? cfi ^ If , ■MX' Ji THE TRAIL OF WAR. ' Here had galloped Tarleton's troopers, here had passed Sherman's veterans." winter resident of Camden from the North ; one who knew and loved its people, its traditions, and its homes, but looked at them through practical eyes which saw alike the strength and weakness of the hero-stories that are the heritage of to-day. Besides this, he was, as you have heard, a caretul student of both the battles fought in this alluring piny region. "For there ivcrc two battles fought in Camden," he explained. "The first one, they don't talk much about 'round here. It was n't exactly in- spiring, even though it did serve its purpose as an experience, and though it did give a hero to history and a monument to Camden." "Who was that, please?" asked Marian. " The Baron De Kalb," was the answer, " one of the brave foreign officers who came over the seas to help fight the battles of freedom. He led the Continentals with the greatest valor in the first battle of Camden, and died a prisoner in the hands of the British." "That means, I suppose," grumbled Jack, "that the British had every- thing their own way." 196 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE COOL-SPRING HOUSE. An old-time South Carolina mansion of Revolutionary days, now standing on the road to Gum Swamp, or Sander's Creek, where was fought the first battle of Camden, August 16, 1780. "They certainly did," their new acquaintance admitted, "though I will say that De Kalb tried hard not to let them. You see, it was this way : Gates was the victor of Saratoga — " " Excuse me, sir," said Bert; "but we 've been to Saratoga. That was Schuyler's battle"; and all the five echoed vigorously, "Yes, sir; Schuyler's!" " Whe-e-ew ! " The gentleman gave a long whistle. " What a nest of partizans I 've got into ! " he said. " But that 's so; you're right. Only, for all practical purposes. Gates was the victor, because he was in command at the surrender. Well, the people sang his praises ; Congress, in spite of itself, was forced to honor him; and, contrary to the advice of Washington, who wished Greene sent south in command. Gates was sent down here to conduct the Southern campaign." "Well, how did he conduct it? As he did at Saratoga — come in and take the glory from some other fellow?" asked Jack. " He did n't have the chance," said Uncle Tom. " He ruined himself by his blunders." "That's so," their new acquaintance assented. "He bungled things from the beginning. As soon as he got south he started out to march on AMONG THE CAROLINA HIGHLANDS 197 the British post here at Camden and surprise and capture it. But CornwalHs had ' sized him up,' as you boys say. He started in to surprise Gates. The surprise was mutual. The two armies came upon each other just beyond here, had a bit of a brush in the dark, and the next morning a regular battle." "Whereabouts did they fight?" asked Bert. "Four or five miles up this road," was the reply. "We'll drive there. They call it Gum Swamp." " Excuse me," said Uncle Tom. " I thought the battle of Camden was on what they call Sander's Creek." "Yes, so it was, pretty near it," their friend replied. "But the folks hereabouts speak of it only as the old battle-ground in Gum Swamp." " Pepsin ? " slyly suggested Jack to Roger. "Too healthy," said the Boston boy. Uncle Tom caught the aside. " Not so far wrong, Roger," he said; " it was the gum that cured Gates of some of the indigestion of vainglory." Their conductor laughed too. He rather enjoyed this group of merry, chaffing, but interested sight-seers. Then he went on : "You see, the British position was between the creek and the swamp," he explained. " They rather had the best of it, and De Kalb suggested a retreat. He saw the danger. But Gates scorned the suggestion. Corn- walHs, he was sure, would not dare to stand against the conqueror of Bur- goyne. So the battle was joined." "Were we whipped right off ? " queried Jack, lugubriously. "Well, yes — the most of us," their new friend admitted, smiling at Jack's unhappy interest. "The British, gallantly led, came charging on. The militia could not stand the shock ; they broke and fled, carrying Gates with them. ^Two thirds of the army melted away. But the other third, the Con- tinentals, led by the brave De Kalb, charged headlong upon the British left, broke through their line, wheeled about, and, standing at bay, fought the whole British army. Then De Kalb fell, pierced with eleven wounds, not thinking it possible that he had not won the day." " Mighty mean that he did n't," said Jack. "The odds were too big. He could n't," said Roger. "Was n't he brave ! " said Christine. " Why did n't Gates stay and help him ? " queried Marian. " He was doing the John Gilpin act, I guess," said Jack. "That's just what he was doing," laughed their Northern friend. " He explained, afterward, that he was carried away with ' the torrent ' of the militia and did not know of De Kalb's brave stand ; but, whether this was so 13' 198 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION or not, it is a fact that he led the stampede on his big horse and never stopped until he reached Charlotte, in North Carolina, sixty miles away." " Just think of it ! " exclaimed Marian. " Seven cannons, including some that Gates had captured at Saratoga, two thousand muskets, all the baggage, and a thousand prisoners were the IN THE CAMP OF CORNWALLIS. " Even the children are rank rebels," Cornwallis declared in his reports. price Congress paid for yielding to public clamor rather than following the advice of Washington," their host concluded. "Well; did they change things?" Bert inquired. " Speedily," was the reply. " General Greene, Washington's choice, was sent to the command of the southern army, and he and Cornwallis were at last fairly matched in Carolina." "And then they fought the battle up there where our inn is?" asked Roger. AMONG THE CAROLINA HIGHLANDS 199 "Oh, no," said Uncle Tom; "several came in between; but we will go over that battle-ground while we are here." They rode on, between green fields and past old mansions, to the battle- ground at Gum Swamp, as the Camden people call it. They saw the Ime beyond Sander's Creek, where the two armies drew up in battle array ; they saw where the militia broke and fled, led on by " skedaddling" Gates ; they saw, to the right of the swamp, the second position in the battle, where De Kalb broke through the British right, and fell, encircled by his foes. Then they turned and rode back to Camden, loudly criticizing the stu- pidity that thus threw away a battle. "When Washington lost he lost to win," said Bert. "That 's where he was great, I say. Gates simply did n't know how, I guess." Along the broad main street of the fine old town they rode, clear to the ancient ferry upon the Wateree, down the slope, and beyond the deserted churchyard. Here, beside the yellow river, so their Northern friend told them, had been built the first Camden in the earliest days of settlement. Malaria and freshets, and the search for better fields for their crops, sent them higher up, and the second Camden was built among its broad fields of ^,^^^^~^^ ^ _ =-^ corn and cotton — the Cam- den of Revolutionary days. "And all that is left to mark its site," he said, as they climbed the rise, " is this overgrown graveyard with its crumbling head- stones and its tangle of vines and grasses. But it was a wealthy, busy, and beautiful old colonial town that stood here, a hundred years ago." "Think of- it!" said Marian. " Not a thing left to mark the spot ? " queried Bert. " Not a stick or a stone," their friend replied. " Over there across that big cotton-field — let 's see — can't you see a tree standing all alone in the lot — that small green one? " They saw it as he pointed it out, above the springing cotton growth. THE CORNWALLIS HOUSE, CAMDEN, S. C. (Now entirely swept away.) 200 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "Well, that marks the spot where stood the last historic mansion — the old Cornwallis house, as it was called," said their conductor, "because it was occupied by Cornwallis and the other British commanders as headquarters. It was burned when Sherman's March went through here in 1864, and, a few years ago, the last bricks and timbers were carted away and the site plowed over for a cotton-field — the same as the other old-time home-sites." "Why," said Bert, " it 's just like a whole village wiped out. What became of the people ? " "They built, up above, where it now stands, the Camden that you see to-day," was the answer. "Advantages of health and location drew the well- to-do planters and proprietors up to the sand-hills ; the old houses were torn down or allowed to go to ruin ; and now, where once stood the Camden of history, you see — farmlands." "Why, it seems sad, does n't it? " said Christine. " It makes me think of Goldsmith's ' Deserted Village.' " "That 's so," said Bert; "and see here, Christine; here 's the regular thing — " ' Near yonder copse where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden-flower grows wild. There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose.' Perhaps the minister's house was right here by this old graveyard." "And see," cried Marian, "here 's the 'garden-flower' growing wild — and oh, see this old, old headstone almost buried in the grass ! " "Ah, you 've found' it have you, my dear," said their Camden com- panion ; " that 's our romance of the Revolution." At once all the young people were down before the old headstone, study- ing out the inscription : " Here lies y° body of Agnes of Glasgow." " Oh ! who was she ? " they asked. "Who shall say? A camp-follower, perhaps, — a servant, maybe, — a fine lady, so some of the stories run, who followed her lover to America and died across his grave. No one knows," their friend answered. "This is all the story — this low headstone, almost lost in the rank grass, its in- scription rudely scratched out afresh by some ' Old Mortality ' of Camden. Just — 'Agnes of Glasgow.' " The girls were not satisfied. They could not be interested even in the ruins of Tarleton's earthworks — a low ridge along the road, just beyond the old graveyard, and now crested with a row of stately pines. Indeed, all their way back to town they were weaving impossible romances for an almost impossible Agnes — " poor Agnes," they called her. AMONG THE CAROLINA HIGHLANDS 20I In the town, before the plain, pillared church, they stopped to read the inscriptions upon the old-fashioned shaft that rises to the memory of the brave De Kalb. It stood within the churchyard, just behind the gate. "To De Kalb," it said; and beneath, on the southern face : Here lie the remains of Baron De Kalb a German by birth but in principles a citizen of the world. Upon the eastern face they read: His love of liberty induced him to leave the Old World to aid the citizens of the New in their struggle for Independence. His distinguished talents and many virtues weighed with Congress to appoint him Major-General in the Revolutionary Army. And on the western face, this : DE KALB MONUMENT, CAMDEN. Erected by the citizens of Camden in front of the Presbyterian Church. He was second in command in the battle fought near Camden, on the i6th of August, 1780, between the British and Americans, and there nobly fell, covered with wounds, while gal- lantly performing deeds of valor in rallying the friends and opposing the enemies of his adopted country. " In gratitude for his zeal and services the citizens of Camden have erected this monument," Jack read on the northern face. ■" Well, it tells the whole story, does n't it ? " " Yes, and it seems about all we shall ever know of the brave German," said Uncle Tom. " His life is a mystery ; but here, in Camden, he died like a brave man and a hero." A few minutes later they were pulling up the hill beyond the woods toward the sightly old McRea mansion, and their Camden conductor told them that now — when they had turned off to the left, — they were upon the line of the second battle of Camden, better known as the battle of Hobkirk's Hill. "As your uncle will show you when you cross the line," he told them, 202 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION PHOTOGRAPHED BY J. PRINCE LOUD- BOSTON CAMERA CLUB. GREENE'S SPRING, CAMDEN. " Here some of the soldiers of Greene were making coffee for breakfast, while in the stream below others were washing their clothes, when the British surprised them." " Greene and Cornwallis had been dodging each other up and down the Old North State. At last, outgeneraled and defeated, Cornwallis made a dash for the sea-coast, Greene hot in pursuit until ammunition failed. Then the American general changed his tactics and marched back this way into South Carolina, bent upon driving Lord Rawdon and his British force out of Camden. Rawdon was safely entrenched behind the earthworks we saw down by the old graveyard, you know." " Yes, we know," said the girls, giving another thought to "poor Agnes." "Greene," their friend went on, "halted on this side of the 'hogback' — that 's what they call this sand-ridge, boys — known as Hobkirk's Hill. He encamped in that big field in the valley, and determined to await his expected artillery. This was on the twenty-fourth of April, 1781. That AMONG THE CAROLINA HIGHLANDS 203 very night a good-for-nothing drummer-boy deserted and told Rawdon all about Greene and his army." " The young villain ! " said Jack. " He may have been a friend of Curry, the deserter, Jack," Uncle Tom explained. "You remember he was the Charleston sergeant who deserted and told the British about the proposed attack on Savannah. The Ameri- cans got hold of Curry here and hanged him, I believe." "Yes, but after the battle," their Camden authority repHed. " He was among the prisoners, and the boys hanged him over yonder at Gum Swamp." " They had good memories, eh ? " said Jack. " Is n't war dreadful, though ? " said Christine. "If you have heard of ' Tarleton's quarters,' my dear, since you have been here in South Carolina," their friend explained, "you will understand these deep hatreds and quick revenges." " But all the same, it 's dreadful," Christine persisted. "Forward, march!" said Jack. "Never mind the sentiment. Let 's get to the battle." "Entirely Lord Rawdon's idea, Master Jack," said his friend. "Well, when he had the facts, at once he determined upon a surprise. Moving his force up the main road from Camden, he detached a large flanking forc^e and sent it around by the road we have just come over. Right down yonder, in the hollow, these flankers came upon Greene's outposts. Let 's go down and see where." Leaving their big wagon, the party climbed the fence and descended the slope to where a clear running stream, a succession of spring-holes, and an artificial pond lay in the tree -bordered hollow. "This particular spring-hole is called Greene's Spring," said their con- ductor, " because here some of the soldiers of Greene were making coffee for breakfast, while in the stream below others were washing their clothes, when the British surprised them. Up this hillside and over the ridge they fled, with the British after them, and had it not been for Greene's masterly arrangement of his encampment, the surprise might have been a rout. He speedily prepared for attack. The flanking party was driven off, and then, massing his men in the field, he led them up the slope — some going along the Camden road and others to the right and left — to meet the advance of Rawdon." They drove along the ridge road, and came to where the Camden high- way cuts through the high red banks of the "hogback" and runs down to the town. " Up this road from the town came Rawdon," their battle-guide an- 204 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION nounced ; "here the Americans advanced toward him. Right through this cut they charged with a withering fire and drove the British back, beyond that clump of trees to the right and over the fields just back of our inn. All up and down this road the fight raged hotly. But, unfortunately, one of Greene's commanders mistook his order and weakened the line. Raw- don, taking instant advantage of this error, brought up his reserves, swept up the hill, and broke the American line in confusion. To get his troops PHOTOGRAPHED BY J- PRINCE LOUD, BOSTON CAMERA CLUB. THE BATTLE-FIELD OF HOBKIRK'S HILL, CAMDEN, S. C. This road lies back of the inn at Camden, and is the same road up which Rawdon charged and Greene fought, below the "hogback,' at the second battle of Camden, known as the battle of Hobkirk's Hill, April 25, 17S1. well in hand again, Greene reluctantly ordered a retreat, and fell back to the old battle-ground at Gum Swamp, five miles away, disappointed but whole." " A defeat again ? " cried Jack. " A reverse but not a defeat," was the reply. " Rawdon did not pursue, but retired within his entrenchments and awaited developments and rein- forcements. The latter did not come. Lee and Marion were coming to the aid of Greene ; Rawdon judged discretion the better part of valor. He evacuated Camden ; other points in the Carolinas were given up ; and, in less than a month, the whole British force was retreating toward Charles- AMONG THE CAROLINA HIGHLANDS 205 yl-,. i Vif 1; ^'' AT THE HOME OF SEVIER. "They gathered under the command of their best leaders. " ton. Then the battle of Eutaw Springs, of which your uncle has told )ou, cleared the Carolinas and ended the British occupation. So much for Greene's action here at Camden." "Good enouiifh ! " cried Roeer ; "I was afraid it was to be another slump." " Not much ! " Jack said, greatly relieved ; " Greene was n't Gates." " Indeed he was not," Uncle Tom declared. " 'We '11 take another try at Camden in a day or two,' he said, just after the battle. And to the French minister he wrote: 'We fitrht, gfet beat, rise, and ficrht acrain.'" " That 's the talk," said Jack. " No wonder he came out on top." Yielding to the fascinations of Camden — its location, its surroundings, its delightful Northern company, its splendid horseback rides, its walks 206 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION and its tramps through meadow, farmland, woodland, old estates and twist- ing country roads, our tourists lingered two more days before -regretfully pushing on. Then they took the noon train for a ride up the State to where Blacks- burg sits among its mountains and its mines in the ore-bearing country of the Carolinas. They rode out of Camden with the Wateree on their right, across the rice-lands flanked by towering pines. Then on, until rising higher, they ran across the sandy plateaus and through the famous Waxhaw settlements, where Andrew Jackson was born and first imbibed his hatred of England by his boyish experiences at the hands of Tarleton's rough-riders. They saw the place where, in the battle of Hanging Rock, the valiant Sumter first faced the British in victorious fight, and so at last they reached the mountain town of Blacksburg and its atmosphere of gold mines and engi- neering. For these Carolina hills, Uncle Tom assured them, have prom- ising yields of ore and mineral. The next day came a long, never-to-be-forgotten ride. Over the hills they drove, until, out of the rolling plateau, rose sharp and sheer before them the famous sixteen -mile ridge, covered with its forest growth, known as King's Mountain, "because, I suppose," so Roger sug- gested, " it was n't the king's mountain very long." "Indeed it was not," Uncle Tom remarked. "We are approaching, boys and girls," he continued, "the scene of one of the most dramatic epi- sodes in American history. This rugged country is full of stern romances. From the days of John Sevier and Daniel Boone to those of the Confederate raiders and the ' moonshine ' men, this land has been a region of peril and adventure. It is a land that still lies untouched in story, awaiting the pen of some wizard like Walter Scott to give its legends life. For such a one it is a mine with more ' pay rock ' in it than all the Blacksburg cuttings." "Try it on. Uncle Tom," suggested Marian. " Thank you, no, my dear," her uncle replied. " I 'm not anxious to go down in literary shipwreck. The mine would be spoiled unless a master- miner touched it. See here ; all through this rough hill-country, stretching over into Tennessee, lived the sturdy highlanders — farmers, pioneers, and patriots of the border. When Gates was defeated at Camden, and all the country lay at the mercy of the British invader, the mountain men rose in wrath to the defense of their homes ; they gathered under the command of their best leaders, — bold partizans all, Sevier and Campbell and Shelby and McDowell and Cleveland, — and swept over the mountains into this foot- hill section, where a famous and fearless British officer and rough-rider, AMONG THE CAROLINA HIGHLANDS 207 THE CHARGE OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIERSMEN AT KING'S MOUNTAIN. Colonel Ferguson by name, with an army of regulars and Tories, was wasting the land. " They drove him before them ; they cooped him up in the hills ; they 'treed' him on yonder mountain-top; they encircled his whole command with an unbroken ring of fire and of hate; then, closing in upon him, they killed or captured his entire force, and, their duty done, melted away as silently as they had gathered. But the terrible punishment they had visited upon the invaders was never forgotten by friend or foe in all the strife that swept these twin States. It was a rising of the clans, as vivid in its story as any rhymed in ' The Lady of the Lake ' ; it was the fiercest, most relentless, most dramatic, and most picturesque engagement of the whole American Revolution." They climbed the ridge, they dropped into the valley, they rode through the far-reaching cotton-lands, they crossed the ford, they climbed the long, steep rise, they entered the timber-belt, and at last stood before the old monument, now almost obliterated by relic-hunters, which, years ago, the sons of the mountain men erected to the valor of their fathers. But not alone did they go. For, when they stopped to get their bear- 208 THE CENTURV BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON THE SLOPE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN. Here red-coat and Tory gave up in surrender, October 7, 1780. the ridge that faces the mountain, Mr. Hambright mounted his mule and followed them to the battle-field; Mr. Patterson climbed to the seat they readily made for him, and acted as guide and chief tradition-teller. And both these genial and courteous mountaineers were direct descendants of the gallant men who, on that October afternoon of 1 780, encircled this rugged peak as with a band of iron, and crushed tyranny and Toryism in a terrible death-grip. For these friendly cicerones every stone and tree and turning had its story. They showed the boys and girls the old monument by the roadside, erected in 1815 in memory of those who fell ; they led the way up the path, pointing out the positions occupied by the several commands of the moun- taineers as they drew in a great open circle about their foe ; they indicated the site of Ferguson's lofty camp, and of the headquarters hut from which he sent out his confident and blasphemous message to Cornwallis — that he was safe on King's Mountain and the Almighty himself could n't dislodge him ; they showed the spot where Ferguson fell, fighting desperately and gallantly to the last, and the big round boulder beside which, wrapped in a bull's hide, the daring leader was buried ; they pointed out the knoll where, hedged about, the entrapped Tories were struck down by the victorious mountain-men, — neighbors and relatives, often, — in revenge for old crimes and feuds and cruelties, and where the gallant De Peyster of the New York loyalists hung out at last the white flag of surrender and gave up King's Mountain and its camp and stores to the conquering pioneers. AMONG THE CAROLINA HIGHLANDS 209 And then they took their visitors to the loftiest point and stood them silently about the granite monument, thirty feet high, reared as a centen- nial landmark to the memory and the valor of the conquering clans, and inscribed with the names of those who, on this field of bloody victory, gave up their lives in defense of home and honor. Bert read the inscriptions. On the southwest face : " In memory of the Patriotic Americans who participated in the Battle of King's Mountain this Monument is erected by their grateful Descendants." ' On the northwest face : " Here on the seventh day of October, 1780, the British forces commanded by Colonel Patrick Ferguson were met and totally defeated by Campbell, Shelby, Williams, Cleveland, Sevier and their heroic followers from Virginia, the Carolinas and Tennessee." " Here the tide of battle turned in favor of the colonies." It was an interesting place, that battle-monument on a mountain-top. The young people lingered long about it, enjoying the extended view and lis- tening to the stories and traditions of the place as told by these two grand- children of the patriots themselves. At last they turned their backs upon the spot, bade a warm good-by to their mountaineer friends, who gave them most generous invitations to their hospitable homes, and speeding over the country to the railway station of King's Mountain, — ten miles from the battle-ground, — took the train for Spartanburg and the country round about the Cowpens. THE MONUMENT ON KING'S MOUNTAIN. Erected by the people of North and South CaroUna in memory of the patriots who fell in the battle on King's Mountain. ^. llhul.^:^ -^ -m DRAWN BY GILBERT QAUL. EN GRAVED BY J. W. EVANS. 'YANKEE DOODLE!" — INDEPENDENCE DAY IN GRANDFATHER'S TIME. CHAPTER XII IN A REGION OF RIVERS From Kings Mountain to Cowpens -^ Why Cowpens ? — Morgan vs. Tarleton — The Old Monument — The Statue in Spartanburg — The Hornets Nest — A Land of Liberty — A Splendid Battle-park — The Field of Guilford — A Most Lm,portant Battle. HE clouds hung low, like a fleecy blanket, about the long, broken top of the King's Mountain spur, as our travelers took the short ride down the railroad to Spartanburg. They had crossed the State line twice in their trip to the battle-field; for, though King's Mountain station is in North Carolina, the battle-field of King's Mountain is in South Carolina, ten miles and more away. As they tried to locate the " whereabouts " of the famous fight, suddenly the clouds lifted for the moment and disclosed the sharp spur which, at the north, rises so abruptly from the plain that, as Jack observed, " it looks as if they were selHng mountains around here at so much a yard, and that 's where the yard ended — cut off short." "It seems to be a sort of terminal moraine," Uncle Tom explained; "the end of a glacier, you know." "Glacier, eh?" said Jack. "Perhaps that 's what made it such a cold day for Ferguson and his Tories over there "; and it was at least a minute and a half before the girls could see the point of Jack's remark. They left behind them the mining-plants and the new cotton-mills of Blacksburg — a rapidly developing industry in the prosperous cotton-belt — and crossed the Broad River, as muddy as it was wide, and true to its name in every way, as it slipped down from the hills between tall pine-forests and far-stretching cotton-fields. The boys and girls enjoyed this leisurely travel in local trains for short distances. It gave them a chance to see folks, they declared. They were 212 THE CENTURiT BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION good at asking questions, though not so fresh as to be forward, and were ready to talk with those who had a word to say. Jack, indeed, Hked to stand about the "Waiting-room for Colored People," which he found at every station, and was sure to get into conversation with some friendly old aunty or uncle, and imbibe much of the local news and tradition. Gaffney was passed, so pretentious in its bustling importance that a tired child in the car, bound on a long ride North, raised the query : " Is this Washington ? " much to our young friends' amusement. At Thickety Station, Uncle Tom told them they were crossing the track of Morgan's and Tarleton's race for the Cowpens, where the battle was fought, and as they spanned the wooded cleft through which Thickety Creek breaks its way, he gave them the story of the battle of Cowpens. "In the month of January, 1781," he began, "Cornwallis was in camp near Camden; Greene was but a few miles away. The British leader learned that the American general had been acting while he was rest- ing, and had so placed Morgan with a goodly force of Continentals that both flanks of the British army, and all the small forts and posts that pro- tected the rear, were in danger, either from Greene on the one flank or Morgan on the other." "That was good work on Greene's part, was n't it?" said Roger. " It was, indeed," Uncle Tom replied. " Greene was sleepless in his at- tempts to circumvent his adversary. If only he had been supplied with men enough, or those he had could have been depended upon, he could have settled Cornwallis speedily." " Why could n't he ? " asked Bert. " Militia are always uncertain," Uncle Tom replied. "The Continentals, who had enlisted for three years, or for the war, could be made into soldiers, but the militia, — here to-day and gone to-morrow, while good fighters, many of them, were not to be depended upon in close quarters or in plans that needed time. Their term of service was always just expiring, greatly to the disgust of leaders who had plans — such as Washington and Greene. "Well, to return. In this dilemma Cornwallis resolved upon immediate action. He himself, he said, would take 'Mister Greene' in hand, while Tarleton, with eleven hundred men, was to finish up Morgan." " Sounds easy enough," said Jack. " Tarleton came up with Morgan somewhere in this vicinity, and Morgan fell back, here, across Thickety Creek, hunting for a good position. He found it at last at the Cowpens." "What under the sun does that mean. Uncle Tom — the Cowpens?" queried Marian. IN A REGION OF RIVERS 213 SOME OF "THE FOLKS" THEY SAW. " Wash'n'ton's bufday perceshuii." " Just what it says, my dear — pens for cows," Uncle Tom replied. " The farmers all through this section, for years, had a way of sending their cows out to pasture under the oversight of some farmer who keeps salt in quantity — 'salting cattle,' you know, is quite a necessity. Every once in a while this farmer would round up the cows in his charge, driving them into pens, or rail-built yards, where he would give them salt. These were cow-pens. Over yonder, between the Pacolet and the Broad rivers, there was just such a salting-place, owned by a farmer named Hanna. This was the famous Cowpens." "And who got salted there, Uncle Tom? " Roger inquired. " Tarleton, I hope." "Well, pretty nearly, Roger," Uncle Tom replied. " He was what you boys call a trifle previous. He was so anxious to get to work on Morgan that he would not wait until all his force was in hand. His line, you see, 214 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION A RED-COAT. was a long one ; it extended for miles, stringing along after the retreating Morgan. But when the Americans had gone into camp at farmer Hanna's cow-pens, their intrepid leader saw his opportunity. There he determined to make his stand." " Was it such a good place ? " asked Bert. " Well, it was hardly such a position as a strategist would have selected," his uncle answered. "The river was at his back; his flanks were unpro- tected ; the land was just suited for cavalry, in which Tarle- ton was strong." "That does n't look very promising for victory," said Roger. " No, but there was method in Morgan's madness," said Uncle Tom. " He was a fighter ; he knew his men. ' With a river back of me,' he reasoned, ' my militia can't retreat. They '11 just have to stay and fight it out.' And they did. Up came Tarleton, eager for the fray. It was the morning of January 17, 1781. But if he had expected to polish off Morgan at once he had reckoned without his host. Daniel Morgan was a general, in every sense of the word." " Yes, I remember him at Saratoga," said Bert. " What did he do ? " "Just what he had meant to," Uncle Tom replied. " He fought just as he had planned. ' Hold up your heads, boys,' he said to his soldiers ; ' three fires, three cheers, and a charge, and you are free.' And so it proved. As Tarleton came to the attack, the militia, as expected, fired and dropped back ; the Continentals stood firm." " ' In their ragged regimentals Stood the old Continentals, Yielding not ' — ' that was the kind they were, eh. Uncle Tom .-* " broke in Jack. "Yes," Uncle Tom nodded, "they had a good deal of the music of McMaster's ' Carmen Bellicosum ' about them. At just the right moment they fell back on William Wash- ington's cavalry — " "Oh! he was there, was he? — the man with the silk-curtain standard," cried Jack. " Yes, he was there, and proved himself, as usual, a splendid cavalry leader," responded Uncle Tom, "The British thought the Continentals A CONTI- NENTAL. IN A REGION OF RIVERS 215 were retreating, and made a great rush for victory. But about face, Conti- nentals ! 'Give them one fire, and the victory is ours!' cried Morgan. The fire rang out from the Continental ranks at close range. The British line reeled. ' Charge ! ' shouted Morgan ; and into the swerving mass swung RESIDENCE OF COL. WILLIAM WASHINGTON (And Jane Elliott, his wife). On the Battery at Charleston, S. C. (still standing). the bayonets of the Continentals. Tarleton's dragoons refused to charge ; Washington's cavalry came on at a gallop. Down fell the red-coat infantry in death or surrender. ■ Tarleton turned in flight with but a remnant of his force, and the battle of Cowpens was won." " Good for Morgan ! " cried Jack. " He knew how to fight 'em." " He did, just, did n't he ? " exclaimed Roger enthusiastically. " Tarleton met his match that time." "Morgan, you know, was a real soldier," said Uncle Tom. "You re- member how skilfully he led his riflemen at Mill Creek, and how gallantly he fought at Breyman's Hill, in the Saratoga fight. Tarleton had not struck many such leaders in his raiding about the Carolinas." Evidently the republic echoes Uncle Tom's opinion, and counts Morgan as a "real soldier"; for, in the public square in Spartatiburg — in which enterprising little city our travelers were soon comfortably lodged — they saw a fine bronze statue of Daniel Morgan, more spirited even than the one in the great niche on the Saratoga monument. It was erected by order of Congress, to crown the column of Victory raised by the original thirteen States in commemoration of the battle of Cowpens. 2l6 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE COWPENS MONUMENT. Bronze statue, by J. Q. A. Ward, of Morgan in rifleman's costume, in Morgan Square, Spartanburg, S. C. " Why do they have it here ? " asked Bert. "What 's the matter with having it on the battle-field?" queried Jack. " Hardly safe," replied Uncle Tom. " It seems there was a shaft erected on the battle-field in 1856 — an octagonal pillar built of shell concrete from Fort Moultrie, and supporting a fluted iron shaft capped with a ball and eagle. It was a neat, if old-fashioned, memorial, but it early fell a prey to vandal and relic-hunter, and to-day not a stone or scrap of it remains." " What a shame ! " exclaimed Marian, " Human nature, my dear," Uncle Tom replied. "When people are ar- rested nowadays for chipping off bits of the splendid Washington Monu- ment in Washington, or for cracking off snips of the Boston Public Library, how can you expect an unguarded memorial in the sparsely settled border- land between two southern States to stand untouched ? At any rate, when IN A REGION OF RIVERS 21/ a new monument v/as proposed, it was decided to put it in a safer place, and hence it rises in Morgan Square, here in this very live city of Spartan- burg, seven miles from the battle-ground." They walked leisurely from face to face of the fine monument, studying the inscriptions and "sizing up" the spirited figure of the old "Wagoner of the Alleghenies " as his men called him, because he had started in life as a teamster in the Virginia mountains. "At a distance," said Roger, "he looks, perched away up there, like an old Greek warrior, from greave to helmet." " A Spartan of Spartanburg, eh ? " said Jack. "That 's good. Jack," said Bert; "but Roger's right; I thought it was some old Greek or Roman myself, when I saw it first." " It 's the costume, in outline, that gives it that efiect," Uncle Tom ex- plained. " There is n't much that 's classic in a hunting-frock, leggings, and coon-skin cap. But up there it does have a sort of classic effect. Ward's statue is a good one, though. It is intrepid, aggressive, alert — the figure of the Virginia rifleman whose gallantry turned the tide at Saratoga and won the field of Cowpens." On the main or east face of the pedestal Bert read aloud this general inscription : "To the American Soldiers, who, on the Field of Cowpens, January 17, 1781, Fought victoriously for the Right of Self-Government and Civil Liberty. We enjoy the result of their toil and sacrifice, let us emulate their fortitude and virtue. This Column is erected by the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connec- ticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina — the Old Thirteen States — and the State of Tennessee, 1881." [And below.] " The Unanimous Resolve of the Congress of the United States crowns this Memorial Column with the form and face of General Daniel Morgan, the hero of Cowpens, who, on that field, was victorious in the great cause of American Independence.'' The next day they drove to the battle-field, across a fine rolling country, dark with pine forests, and green with cotton-fields destined, in time, to burst into fleecy white. By stream and field, across the brawling Pacolet, and on to the banks of the yet more pretentious Broad, catching glimpses of the distant cloudlike line of the Blue Ridge and the shorter uplift of his- toric King's Mountain, they rode along, until at last they came to Mr. Ezell's grazing-lands, and the rise above the Broad, on which was fought the plucky battle of Cowpens. A slight hollow in the wooded elevation marks where the fight was fiercest, where Howard's Continentals, coming down from the river ridge, 2l8 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Stood their ground and hurled back Tarleton's "infantry mob," charging across from the parallel ridge. Here, above them, William Washington's crimson flag had floated in victory as he tore through Tarleton's ranks ; there, to the left, had Morgan stood when he cried: " Now turn and give 'em one more, boys ! " Here the two " grasshoppers," or field-guns, first taken from Burgoyne at Saratoga, and then retaken by the British at Camden, were re- covered by the Americans ; and here, just on the rise, had stood the now vanished concrete pillar on which had been inscribed the sentiment that now appears on the new monument in Spartanburg : " To the Victors of Cowpens ! We enjoy the result of their struggle. Let us * emulate the virtues which secured it." IN A REGION OF RIVERS 219 CHARLES CORNWALLIS, MARQUIS AND EARL. Who played the game of war with Greene in the Carolinas and lost. It was all interesting, and Jack found himself, on that breezy hillside, leading his company in the " Banner Song of Cowpens," which they had found, and learned, in the judge's office in Spartanburg, the day before : " Unfurl the glorious standard Which at Eutaw shone so bright. And as a dazzUng meteor swept Thro' the Cowpens deadly fight. Sound, sound our lively bugles. Let them pour their loudest blast. Whilst we pledge both life and honor To stand by it to the last." And -SO on, with two more verses, and a vociferous and continuous chorus. It was stirring, at any rate, and they all enjoyed it greatly a^hey sang it out on the battle-field of Cowpens. Next day they took up the line of march from lively Spartanburg and the sacred soil of South Carolina, bathed, so the Confederate general at Charles- ton had surprised them by the information, in the blood of one hundred and thirty-five engagements with the British in the American Revolution (Jack, himself, had seen the general's tabulated statement). They crossed the State line dividing the Carolinas, their iron trail threading the track over which now British and now American armies had advanced or re- treated during the years of British occupation. As they ran into Charlotte, Uncle Tom reminded them that this old town was the goal in General Gate's sixty-mile gallop after his defeat at Camden. In this old town, he 220 THE CENTURV BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN THE "HORNETS' NEST.'^ " Even the boys were full of fight." also told them, Cornwallis had settled down, to use it as a sort of head- quarters and base of supplies ; but he found the people openly unfriendly to England. Even the boys were full of fight. Or, as he put it, " Charlotte is an agreeable village, but in a 'blarsted' rebellious country." " Did he say ' blarsted,' Uncle Tom ? Honest, now, did he ? " said Jack. " Well — that 's English, and that's what he meant," Uncle Tom replied. " His lordship's language was not always choice, you know, and he found this North Carolina section so peppery with rebellion that he called it the ' hornets' nest.' " "That 's good! I hope they stung him," said Jack. " They were capable of it," Uncle Tom responded. "We are in the heart of a Revolutionary region. Over yonder, just on the outskirts of Charlotte, stood old Mecklenburg, where, in May, 1775, the people of this section made the first Declaration of Independence. Further up the line, toward Greensboro, you run through such indications of old-time patriotism as Concord and Lexington, named for those foundation-stones of Revolution, and beyond Greensboro, near the railway at Graham, is old Alamance, where, so Carolinians claim, the first blood of the American Revolution was shed." IN A REGION OF RIVERS 221 So, talking, resting, reading, and noting, they rode on to Greensboro, for that thriving North Carohna town was the nearest point of departure for the battle-iield of Guilford Court House, some seven miles or so away ; and Cowpens and Guilford Court House, so Uncle Tom told them, were direct stepping-stones to Yorktown. Cowpens, he assured them, threw the British on the defensive. Cornwallis, wishing to be unburdened in his quick marches so as to "fight light," burned his baggage and started after Mor- gan. That skilful general, however, dodged him, and speedily joined Greene, who, calling in all his scattered detachments, fell back, across stream after ENTRANCE TO GUILFORD BATTLE-GRUUX l>. The new museum stands just to the left of the pyramidal battle-monument, near the entrance. stream in this seamy region of rivers and creeks, and finally made a stand at Guilford Court House. "To which place," added Uncle Tom, " we are bound this day." Under the guidance of one who had studied this famous field from boy- hood, inheriting the ardor of his father, the judge, who had given years to the " reconstruction " of the battle-ground of Guilford, our party drove along the ruddy Carolina roads, by field and forest, and cabin and cross-road, to where once stood the clustered building of Guilford Court House- — long- since disappeared, after busy Greensboro became the county town. Their introduction to the battle-field was the stone slab at the corner of the cross-roads. " This granite slab," it said, "marks the southern limit of the battle-field." 222 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION BRITISH OFFICER TAKING POSSESSION OF THE HOSKINS HOUSE. " Why ! it is like Concord," exclaimed Marian. Indeed, they found it to be much like Lexington and Concord, as they drove slowly over the battle-ground reservation. "It is the only real Revolutionary battle-park in existence," said Uncle Tom, "and as a monument of energy, patriotism, and pride is worthy of all praise." Within a park of fifty acres of mingled pasture and woodland the Guilford Battle-Ground Company has carefully and conscientiously reclaimed from oblivion the famous field of conflict, and has made it an object-lesson in courage, patriotism, history, tradition, and endeavor. The running fights of Lexington and Concord are illustrated by tablets; the extended field of Saratoga is dotted with memorials. But here at Guil- IN A REGION OF RIVERS 223 ford the line of battle has been carefully marked out by granite blocks; monuments and statues rise in their proper locations, marking some gallant stand of troops or the death-spot or rallying-ground of some intrepid leader; every tree and run and rock and vantage-ground that contributed to the story of Guilford has been noted and "ticketed," while a large auditorium for patriotic gatherings, a museum of Revolutionary relics, an outlook, a keeper's lodge, a railway station, a restaurant, and other appropriate and necessary accessories give opportunity for study, comfort, or pleasure to the visitors to this storied field. Of course, our young people were delighted. Uncle Tom was enthusi- astic, and the doctor, who acted as guide, was correspondingly happy. Ap- preciation of his father's hobby was highly acceptable to him. He took them everywhere. He outlined the whole battle. From the outlook platform they had a bird's-eye view of the entire field — from the site of the old court-house, and the liberty tree to which Greene fastened his horse while he directed the fight, to the persimmon-tree on the further side of the field, beneath which Cornwallis's big white horse was killed and he himself narrowly escaped capture. They roamed over the field, from the auditorium with its inspiring inscriptions to the Holt monument, where the last conflict took place. They drank from the Clyde spring, once red with the blood of heroes ; they inspected all the monuments, read all the memo- rials, and visited the Hoskins house, which, riddled by bullets on that bright March day, still stands as a landmark of the fight. Spot by spot, the doctor checked off the chief points of interest. "Here," he told them, "fell Forbis, the brave North Carolina colonel who fired the first shot at Guilford; here Winston's men withstood the last charge, retiring in good order; here, in the hollow, back of the Maryland monument, raged the fiercest fight, where Washington charged the Guards and Smith and Stuart met in a fatal sword-duel. Under that old white oak — " "The very same?" asked Christine. "The very same," the doctor replied, — "Cornwallis gave the stern com- mand to fire into and through his own lines as a last desperate resort, while the brave O'Hara hid his face in grief" " How dreadful ! " cried Marian. " Over yonder was the old bull-pen in which the American prisoners were confined ; along the line of these granite markers ran the rail-fence where the Carolina riflemen met and hurled back the first onset; and there, across the field, far over by the liberty tree, Greene resolved not to sacrifice his army simply for glory, but to withdraw in time from a well-fought field on which the victor suffered more than the vanquished." 224 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "Then the battle was a defeat for our side, was it?" queried Jack. " I thought you said it was the decisive battle of the war." " So it was," the doctor replied. " Retreat is n't always defeat. With- out this battle it is probable that our independence would never have been won. That is why I claim that Guil- ford Court House was second to no battle of the Revolution in its results." The boys and girls had heard this claim advanced in behalf of almost every battle-ground they had visited. They therefore did not respond heartily to the doctor's remark, al- though Jack and Bert were tempted to reply in a negative way. Uncle Tom, however, said musingly, "Let 's go over the story again, and see if the doctor's claims can be allowed." They stood beside the original battle-monument, its eight graduated courses of brownstone topped with a pyramid of cannon-balls, as Uncle Tom went swiftly over the story. " Greene, pursued by Cornwallis, drew up, at bay, upon these rolling pastures flanked by forests. Corn- wallis, boasting, but doubtful, accepted the American challenge to battle. Greene decided to use the same tactics as did Morgan at Cowpens ; but he was facing quite a different antagonist. Cornwallis was a general ; Tarleton was young and heedless. In three lines of battle, one behind the other, Greene placed his forces, with the command : ' Fire on 'em twice, boys, and then fall back.' On they came — the Hes- sians and the Highlanders, the Guards, the Grenadiers, and the Yagers, veteran fighters all. Crack ! across the rail-fence there, where you see the line of granite blocks — went the rifles of the North Carolina riflemen. Lee, with his Legion, held the right in check. Again the North Carolina fire blazed out full at the still advancing enemy ; then, obeying orders, the Car- olina men turned and ran toward the Court House. The Virginia militia opened fire, standing firm in face of the British advance ; then, they too '^•^■■'.v.i^a^.Zi ONE OF GREENE'S FIGHTING-MEN. IN A REGION OF RIVERS 225 dropped back, and the splendid old Continentals took up the fight. Back there, in the hollow behind the Museum and beside the spring, the clinch of battle came. The Continentals fired and charged. The British line broke, turned, and fled up the slope, the Americans pursuing closely." "Great!" cried Jack. "I tell you, our boys had learned how to fight, had n't they ? " " It was the turning-point of the whole affair," said Uncle Tom. "If only Greene had been supplied with fresh veterans instead of uncertain militia to send in to the support of his Continentals, he might have forestalled Wash- ington in the capture of Cornwallis. But he had none, and to turn about and advance his whole line in support would have weakened his flanks. So he could not interfere. But Cornwallis did. As the Continentals and the Guards came together with a crash, while Washington's cavalry charged in like a whirlwind where the brave Eng- lishman Stuart stood stoutly at bay, Cornwallis saw that relief could only come by desperate measures. He ordered his artillery to fire straight in the face of his own struggling Guards as they strove with the Con- tinentals below him." " Oh ! I think that was horrible," said Marian. " War always is, my dear, as I have had occasion to say, and to repeat, many times on this trip," Uncle Tom replied. " Desperate diseases require desperate remedies, you know. This one did — and the British army was saved. The artillery fire broke up the hand-to-hand fight; the American advance fell back ; the British line re- formed, and charged, supported by the Highlanders, who had hurried up ; Lee and his Legion were in another part of the field and could not support the Continentals; and Greene, feeling that he had sufficiently crippled the enemy, and knowing that he had not Conti- nentals enough to withstand the British regulars, withdrew from the ground in good order. THE HOLT MONUMENT. Here the last stand was made by the Continentals against the Highlanders. 2 26 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "The British held the field all night, but Cornwallis realized his weak- ened, condition, and next day retreated in hot haste to the sea-coast, with Greene in full pursuit. Then, as you remember, Greene turned again ; he fought at Camden — the second battle, called Hobkirk's Hill, you know — and at Eutaw Springs, and thus cleared the Carolinas of red-coats. So perhaps, you can see what the doctor means. Though a retreat, the battle of Guilford Court House was not a defeat. Victory really remained with Greene, and the British army was so crippled that, before winter came, it fell an easy prey to Washington at Yorktown." "Well, that looks decisive," Bert admitted. "But see here, doctor, our independence would have been won just the same even if Cornwallis had cut Greene all to pieces on this spot." " Perhaps so," replied the doctor, " but it is not probable. Suppose that Greene had surrendered or been destroyed here at Guilford. His was the last Continental army in the south. With that lost, the Carolinas would be lost. Cornwallis would have marched victoriously into Virginia, and com- municated with the British fleets at Norfolk and New York. France would have dropped away from a losing cause ; Washington, caught between Cornwallis and Clinton, would have been destroyed or driven far away ; Congress would have scattered in flight. With their army and their gov- ernment gone, the last hope of the colonies would have gone — and where is your independence then ? " "That 's so," said Bert. " Big chance for Cornwallis, was n't it? " " I '11 bet he felt bad," said Roger. And Jack said defiantly that he hoped he did. "Where was Morgan all this time?" asked Roger. " He, unfortunately, was very sick and had to keep out of the fight, greatly to his disgust," said the doctor. "Well, he had done his part," said Uncle Tom; "for Cowpens gave strength to Guilford ; and on this field, as these monuments and memorials testify, many heroes gave up their lives, and brave men, on both sides, here fought their last fight. See this ! " He turned toward the plain marble shaft in the hollow behind them, and on its southern face Marian read the inscription : " Hon. Lieut. Colonel Stuart of the Second Battalion of the Queen's Guards was killed on this spot by Captain John Smith of the First Maryland Regiment. Erected by the Guilford Battle-Ground Company in honor of a brave foeman, 1895." "That 's the best thing here, I think," said Christine; "that and the crossed flags in the Museum." IN A REGION OF RIVERS 22/ And even the boys, even belligerent Jack, nodded assent. For they, too, had been impressed to see in the Schenck Museum on the battle-ground, above the relics and mementos of a bloody struggle, the crossed flags of the two contending people — the Union Jack of England, the Stars and Stripes of the United States. So, standing beside the memorial to a gallant foeman. Jack leading, they all removed their hats in salute, while Bert spoke the hearty utterance of our greatest soldier and chief arbitrator : " ' Let us have peace! ON THE GUILFORD BATTLE-GROUND. The Clyde Spring — "once red with the blood of heroes." :^K'^^^^^^^\\'^^\^^^^^^^.'^^, THE ITINERARY. This map shows the range of Revolutionary travel taken by Uncle Tom and his young companions, covering the ground from Lexington to Yorktown, CHAPTER XIII ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK The Sun on the Monument — After Guilford — Marions Men — Cornwallis at Bay — The French Alliance — - The Last Assault — The Surrender — Old York town — Home Again. HE storm came down upon them as the steamer ran into the broad mouth of the river. The shore-line vanished in the mist. The sea rolled dull and dark, with steely tinges here and there, or broke in a smother of foam about the cleaving prow. Now and then a belated duck, with a flutter of wings, rose from the surface to join a brief procession of other eleventh-hour ducks flying leisurely northward. An oysterman, headed for Norfolk, heeled over with the wind and vanished in the gloom ; a dingy fisher-boat with a comfortable fare of shad dropped behind as the steamer forged ahead. The day grew blacker ; then the thunder broke, and a torrent of rain drove them helter-skelter into the abbreviated cabin on the upper deck. Then, as suddenly, the thunder ceased ; the clouds broke away ; the blue appeared. The storm was over, and Uncle Tom, standing well for- ward, showed his young people the low, piny shore running up into mea- dows, the meadows into bluffs, and the broad and beautiful York River stretching far away before them. Suddenly, on the high bluff to the left, the sun, breaking through a fly- ing blanket of cloud, fell in startling brilliance upon a tall white shaft that rose high above everything else ashore — above ridge and roof, and the green tree-line that fringed the distant bluff The low-lying clouds be- hind it served as a background for the slender shaft, the sun gleamed on its white surface and sparkled on the broad river flowing at its feet. There it stood, solitary, glorious, impressive — a landmark for miles of river- way, the beacon and delight of that whole quiet, sleepy shore. The children knew it, now. 15* 229 230 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ON THE YORK RIVER. The approach to Yorktown. The Surrender Monument on the lefL " The Surrender Monument ! " they cried. And so they came to Yorktown. From the plains about Greensboro they had ridden all day over the old North State, bound for Norfolk and the sea. Across intersecting rivers, through farmlands green with growing crops, past cities, towns, and vil- lages, — Durham sitting amid her tobacco factories and Raleigh with its State capitol — until, at sunset, they came to Norfolk, on the historic James. They sailed down the river to the splendid roadstead, beside which rise the green-embrasured defenses of Fortress Monroe, and Old Point Comfort with its Capuan delights. " For it is a Capua to us Hannibals and battle-scarred veterans," Uncle Tom declar-ed, as after a particularly delicious dinner at the big hotel he stretched his legs on the broad piazza flooded with electric lights, and vocal with the strains of the military band from the fort. But Bert and Jack sternly censured their uncle's lapse into laziness. "Come, come, Uncle Tom," cried Bert, who knew his Shakspere ; "this will never do for a Continental and an old campaigner. ' Look thou be true ; do not give dalliance Too much the rein.' " "No, sir; no dalliance here," said Jack. "We 've one more battle-field to do, you know." And so, next morning, they all embarked on the little river steamer for the trip by water around to historic and retired Yorktown. ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK 231 In the intervals of the trip, and while storm-bound in the little cabin, Uncle Tom had led on the story from Guilford to Yorktown. " Guilford, you know," he said, " though published by Cornwallis as a victory, was really, for him, a defeat." " That 's right ! claim everything," exclaimed Jack. " I like his cheek ! " "Well — we were driven off, you know," said Bert. "That 's all right; say we were," retorted Jack. " But what was it the doctor told us that bright chap Fox — the friend' of America, you know — said in the British Parliament? 'Another such victory will destroy the British army ! ' Huh ! great victory, that was ! " "It really was n't much to brag of" Uncle Tom declared. "It left Cornwallis short of men, short of rations, and short of hope. He gave up trying to ' pacify ' the Carolinas and made a bee-line for Wilmington, on the sea-coast, with Greene hot on his heels." " Did they fight?" asked Roger. "No battle," Uncle Tom replied. " Light- Horse Harry Lee kept pricking the British in the back as they ran ; but after chasing Cornwallis over half the State, Greene turned in his tracks, and, as you remember, began to harry Lord Rawdon, and crowd out the rest of the British invaders." "He was a soldier, was n't he — that Greene?" commented Jack. "Indeed he was," Uncle Tom replied. " He had lost a battle, but he won the campaign." " Good for him ! " cried Roger. " You know how he fought the battle at Hobkirk's Hill — near our inn in Camden," Uncle Tom continued. " You know how he fought the battle at Eutaw Springs, nearer to Charleston. Both of these were, apparently, British victories. But they were what you might call negative victories. The British held the field to be sure, but that was all they did ; and at once they went scurry- ing off for security, behind the fortifications of Charleston and the sea- towns. Greene had really cleared the South of invaders, or cooped them up in close quarters. Do you wonder that the Savannah folks gave him a home and a statue, or that history places him high in military ability ? " " Fine, was n't he ? " said Roger. THE WHARF AT YORKTOWN. 232 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION "What about his helpers ? " asked Bert. "They were excellent lieutenants — William Washington, Light- Horse Harry Lee, Marion, Morgan, Howard, Kosciusko, Kirkwood, Webster, » 1 ■ THE PRINCIPAL STREET OF YORKTOWN. and others as able and as brave. All honor is due to them," Uncle Toni declared ; " for their energy and push and valor helped Greene to carry out his ends." "Did n't they call Marion the 'Swamp Fox'?" asked Roger. "Was n't he a trump ? " And Jack declaimed to the steely sea : " ' Our band is few, but true and tried, Our leader frank and bold; The British soldier trembles When Marion's name is told. ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK 233 Our fortress is the good greenwood, Our tent the cypress-tree ; We know the forest round us, As seamen know the sea; We know its walls of thorny vines, Its glades of reedy grass, Its safe and silent islands Within the dark morass.' "And then, you know — let 's see, how does that other verse go? " 'Well knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads — The glitter of their rifles, The scampering of their steeds. 'T is life to guide the fiery barb Across the moonlit plain ; 'T is life to feel the night-wind That lifts his tossing mane. A moment in the British camp — A moment — and away ! Back to the pathless forests. Before the peep of day.' " "That 's great!" cried Roger. "Would n't you like to have been one of Marion's men, boys ? " But Bert looked doubtful. Bert liked to have things very systematic and satisfactory. "I don't know; think of living in those swamps!" he said. "We 've seen 'em, you know. Ugh ! no, thank you ! " Jack pooh-poohed loudly. " It reads well, anyhow," he said. "Yes," said Uncle Tom, "it 's good for Bryant. But history does n't altogether agree with him. Marion's men were a^ rather hard lot, if we are to believe their own ' true and tried' leader. They were out for plunder quite as much as for patriotism, and Marion again and again asked Greene to let him go to the regular army at Philadelphia, or have a Continental command." •' Well, they all played their parts, I suppose," said Bert, " and so helped on to the end." " Yes, it takes all kinds to make up the total, you know," responded Uncle Tom ; " and it 's the total that counts. It was the total that drove Cornwallis to Wilmington, and finally into Virginia, where Lafayette — ' that boy,' as Cornwallis called him — was pluckily fighting the British invasion 234 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION by Arnold and Phillips — formerly enemies at Saratoga, now comrades in destruction through all the fair land that lies off there, behind the storm." "Boy, eh? That 's what Cornwallis called Lafayette, did he?" said Jack. " Well, I like that ! " " How old was he, Uncle Tom? " asked Christine. "Lafayette? Oh, about twenty-four," answered Uncle Tom; "and as bright and plucky a young fellow as there was in the two hemispheres. He is the popular figure of our Revolution. From the day when, a boy of eigh- teen, he heard, while at dinner with the English ambassador, that the American colonies had declared their independence, to the day when he stormed the heights of Yorktown, he was one of the heroes of the conflict. And here, in Virginia, he made his mark, keeping up a brave resistance until the French fleet came sailing into these very waters, and the allied armies finished the war on these green heights above York." They landed at the darky-fringed wharf at the foot of the bluff, and, climbing the slope, stood at last before the splendid monument which the Congress of the United States erected in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the surrender of Cornwallis. "Cornwallis, you see," said Uncle Tom, "found that he could not get any reinforcements from Clinton in New York, who was afraid of Washing- ton and the French. So he came here from Wilmington, fortified this bluff on the wide and deep river York, where he could have a fleet behind him, and again begged Clinton to send him more men." " And Clinton would n't ? " "No, he did n't dare," said Uncle Tom. "But Washington gave him the slip, marched rapidly across country, and, joining his French allies, headed for Yorktown, where the French fleet was to come ; then Clinton set sail also for the South, to relieve Cornwallis. But before he could get near here, all was over, and he went kiting back to New York." "Was there a battle fought here?" asked Marian. "There was a siege and two or three assaults, but no battle," her uncle replied. "The allied armies — Washington's and Rochambeau's — reached this place on the twenty-eighth of September, 1 781. Here, where we stand, were the British intrenchments. At once the besiegers threw up what are called parallels — " "What are they? — earthworks that run parallel to the enemy's for- tifications, I suppose," said Bert. "That's it," replied Uncle Tom. "The Americans made two, one in advance of the other, and thus got within three hundred yards of the British line. On the fourteenth of October, under orders from Lafayette, Alex- LAFAYETTE AND THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR. Lafayette, dining with tht British Ambassador at Pans, determines to go to the assistance of the American colonies. 236 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN THE PALMY DAYS OF YORKTOWN, LONG AGO. At the door of the Custom House. ander Hamilton led an assault on the British redoubt — we can find the remains of it perhaps, just down the hill there. Next day, the British made an unsuccessful sortie ; that failing, Cornwallis tried to cut his way out and escape across the river to Gloucester — that treeless point on the further shore ; but he was driven back by a storm, and that last resort failed." " Poor man ! " said Christine. "Good enough for him!" retorted Jack. "Why do you say 'poor man ! ' Christine ? " " Oh," replied the girl, " I always feel sorry for anybody in trouble." ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK 237 "Well, he was in it, sure enough," said Roger. " He was, indeed," Uncle Tom responded. " And, with the clerk of the weather and fate both against him, he gave in at last. On the seventeenth of October one of his drummer-boys appeared on the ramparts and beat a parley. Arrangements were made for the surrender, and on the nineteenth day of October, 1781, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the British army marched out of the fortifications, with their drums beating the very sugges- tive air of ' The World Turned Upside Down,' and, on the plain just beyond that little church at the left, laid down their arms in surrender upon the heights above York." "Hooray!" cried Jack. "Last act — ting-a-ling-ling! ring down the curtain." "Author! author!" cried Bert, applauding vehemently for so "proper" a boy. " Here stands his representative before you, stately and tall," said Uncle Tom, pointing at the Surrender Monument. " Or, perhaps I should say their representative ; for the surrender at Yorktown was the work of the Americans and their allies — what we might call a work of collaboration. Read the inscriptions, now." One by one they deciphered the elaborate inscriptions which box the four sides of the lofty shaft, as, en- circled by stars, ringed by thirteen joyous female figures, and topped by a welcoming and victorious Liberty, it stands on that green bluff, a worthy memorial of a great historic event. On the north side of the base Bert read : " Erected in pursuance of a resolution of Congress adopted October 29, 1781, and an act of Congress approved June 7, 1880, to commemorate the victory by which the Independence of the United States of WITHIN THE WORKS AT YORKTOWN. America was achieved. ' ' Washington just escaped a spent ball. " One hundred years in building," said Roger. "How was that, I wonder? " "A good many things came in between," Uncle Tom replied. " It took the nation's centennial enthusiasm to put the work through, you see." 238 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. On the south side Marian read : "At York, on October 19, i78i,aftera siege of nineteen days, by 5,500 American and 7,000 French Troops of the Line, 3,500 Virginia Militia under command of Gen- eral Thomas Nelson, and 36 French ships of war, Earl Cornwallis, Commander of the British Forces at York and Gloucester, surrendered his army, 7,251 officers and men, 840 seamen, 244 cannon and 24 standards to His Excellency, George Washington, Commander-in-chief of the Combined Forces of America and France, to His Excellency the Comte de Rochambeau, commanding the auxiliary Troops of His Most Christian Majesty in America, and to His Excellency the Comte de Grasse, Commanding in chief the Naval Army of France in Chesapeake." Loud applause ! ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK 239 On the west side Jack read: " The Treaty concluded February 6, 1778, between the United States of America and Louis XVI., King of France, declares the essential and direct end of the present defensive alliance is to maintain effectually the Liberty, Sovereignty and Independence, absolute and unlimited, of the said United States as well in matters of government as of commerce.'' On the east side — "fronting the rising sun," Uncle Tom remarked — Roger read : "The Provisional Articles of Peace, concluded November 30, 1782, and the Definitive Treaty of Peace, concluded September 3, 1783, between the United States of America and George III., King of Great Britain and Ireland, declare : His Britannic Majesty Acknowledges the said United States, viz. : New Hamp- shire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Caro- lina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be Free, Sovereign and Independent States." More applause, vociferous and repeated, at the close of which Christine, looking above the inscriptions, read upon the belt encircling the shaft at the feet of the joyous thirteen girls, typical of the enfranchised colonies, the immortal and inspiring words : " One country, one constitution, one destiny." "Well, now! that 's a fine one, is n't it?" exclaimed Bert, really at a loss for words before this splendid bit of history in stone. "And is n't it a spot, though?" said Christine, looking all about her. The blue sky, the green bluff, the towering trees, the significant lines of softened ramparts (relics of two wars), the distant view of old roof-trees, the broad river flowing down below — all these, with the tall white shaft, and the crowding memories of the place, affected the girl, as it did all her companions, with a peculiar mingling of pleasure, pride, and patriotism ; in which, if glorification also had a part, who shall criticize ? In some places and at some moments it is not only allowable but justifiable to be a bit conceited. And, to an American, the Surrender Monument at Yorktown on a perfect spring day affords just the proper opportunity. But to Christine came something else — a memory of her dear Whittier. And, standing there beside the memorial shaft, she recited his lines on York- town, as most nearly meeting her sentiments on the occasion : " From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still. Two lines stretch far, o'er vale and hill. Who curbs his steed at head of one ? Hark ! the low murmur : Washington. Who bends his keen, approving glance Where, down the gorgeous line of France, Shine brightly star and plume of snow ? Thou, too, art victor, Rochambeau ! 240 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION " The earth which bears this calm array Shook with the war-charge yesterday, Plowed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel, Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel. October's pale and noonday sun Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun ; And down night's double darkness fell. Like a dropped star, the blazing shell. '' Now all is hushed : the gleaming lines Stand nerveless as the neighboring pines ; While through them, sullen, grim and slow, The conquered hosts of England go. O'Hara's brow belies his dress. Gay Tarleton's troop ride bannerless. Shout from thy fired and wasted homes — Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes. " Nor thou alone : with one glad voice Let all thy sister States rejoice ; Let Freedom, in whatever clime She waits with sleepless eyes her time. Shouting from cave and mountain-wood Make glad her desert solitude, While they who hunt her quail with fear — The New World's chain lies broken here!" " I tell you, Whittier always fetches it, does n't he ? " said Jack, in whose eyes the mist of patriotic enthusiasm told how deeply the place and the poem thrilled the sometimes heedless, but always appreciative boy. And they all responded " Yes." They moved away from the Surrender Monument, and, skirting the brow of the bluff, hunted out the slight remains of the redoubts which young Alexander Hamilton and the Frenchman, de Deux Fonts, carried by assault in that last engagement of the Revolu- tion. Then, passing around by the little church and its burying-ground, they saw beside the fence a short plain brown shaft, before which ap- THE VERY SPOT. Signboard before the small monument erected on the plain of surrender. r-*^ fHOroGHAPHEO ay c. '■ THE MONUMENT AT YORKTOWN. 242 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE OLD NELSON HOUSE, YORKTOWN. This was the residence of the General Thomas Nelson whose name is on the Surrender Monument. In the hombardment of the British workshesaid: " Never mind my house. Knock it down." peared the placard: "Spot where Cornwallis surrendered to Washington, October 19, 1781." " Oh ! then this is the very real spot, is it ? " cried Marian. "So it would seem," her uncle replied. "This little shaft of German cement, erected by the keeper of the monument in 1895, stands, it is claimed, upon the exact spot on which O'Hara gave to Lincoln his sword, in surrender." ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK 243 " German cement, eh ? " soliloquized Jack. " Why not plaster of Paris ? It was a French alliance, and not a German one." "Does sound just a bit Hessian for a Revolutionary monument; does n't it ? " said Roger. " Don't be ridiculous, boys," broke in Marian. " I should think you would be just full of the scene here as it must have looked when Cornwallis gave up his sword to Washington." "Ah ha, missy-missy! where are your ears?" cried Jack. " Did n't you hear Uncle Tom say that O'Hara gave up his sword to Lincoln ? " said Bert. "Why, I thought it was Cornwallis and Washington," said Marian, be- wildered. " See, that 's what the sign says." "All signs fail in times of get-out," said Jack, with one of his blundering attempts at quotation. " You see," said Uncle Tom, laughing with the rest at Jack's remark, " Cornwallis had no desire to be the central figure in the show, so he said he was sick." "Well, I guess he was," Roger observed with a significant shake of the head. "I am sure I would have been sick under the same circumstances." "And so he sent O'Hara as his repre- sentative, while Washington, equal to the occasion, had Lincoln represent him." "That 's right," said Jack. "Could n't get ahead of Washington, could he ? " " There is a story," Uncle Tom remarked, "to the effect that there was a taste of Washingtonian justice in this. It seems that when General Lincoln surrendered to Clinton and Cornwallis at Charleston, you know, in 1780, the British commander turned Lincoln over to a subordinate, as if treating his sur- render with contempt. So, at Yorktown, when O'Hara approached Washington with his sword, the general motioned him toward that same General Lincoln whom Cornwallis had humbled at Charleston." " That 's right, too," said Jack em- phatically. " It does n't seem quite like Washington, though," Christine observed. "Why not?" asked Bert. "Washington was as just as he was good." A BIT OF THE NELSON HOUSE. Looking across toward Gloucester. York River in the distance. 244 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION PHOTOGRAPHED BY C. M. BELL, WASHINQTON. THE MOORE HOUSE, YORKTOWN. Where the details of the surrender were arranged. " It gave him a first-class chance to get even with CornwalHs, too," said Jack. " There are times, boys and girls," said Uncle Tom, " when lessons need to be taught. Washington knew just the right time to point his morals. And Yorktown was one." "And here it all occurred," said Marian. "Well, I 'm much obliged to both sides. Washington and CornwalHs showed great taste in selecting such a fine spot for their big closing scene." They took a long and lingering look at the scene of the eventful surren- der; and then they walked up and down the one disheveled street of the ragged old town — picturesque even in its poverty, with that tall white shaft rising above everything. Conducted by a bright young girl, the daughter of the Northern owner of the mansion, they went through the old Nelson house, Cornwallis's head- quarters during the siege, and a reminder of the days when Virginia hospitality was ample and regal. Here were the great rooms that had echoed to the tread of colonial aristocrats ; here, before the wide door- ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK 245 way, stood the same laurel-tree from which was made the wreath presented to Lafayette on his visit to Yorktown in 1824; here, within and without, were reminders and relics of the two wars that had raged around this historic old mansion. They saw the Moore house, just beyond the town — that fine old farm- house in which were drawn up the terms of surrender — " the most im- portant house in all America," its owner assured them; "for here," he declared, " a nation was born." They saw the dark hole in the bluff, by the river shore, locally known as Cornwallis's Cave. Whether Cornwallis used it as a retreat or a wine- cellar" really mattered little, Jack asserted, " for one thing is certain, Corn- wallis's biggest cave was right on top of the bluff, there. Good point, eh. Uncle Tom?" he added; "bluff and cave tfoth were tried by Cornwallis, right here." Then, in the midst of laughter at Jack's final sally, the tourists turned their faces away from Yorktown, and drove ^.long the pleasant roads of the beautiful York peninsula to Lee's Sta- tion, seven miles away, and were soon whizzing on by train to Richmond. The battle-field pilgrimage was over. A short stay in beautiful Rich- mond, a delightful two days spent in revisiting old scenes in stately Wash- ington, and then — home ! They were glad to rest after their repeated ramblings, and as they talked it over in what Bert called " execu- tive session," they decided that it had been "simply great," an object- lesson in American history, American geography, and American patriotism, for which they were deeply grateful to Uncle Tom, whom they honored with the customary vote of thanks and, as he entered the room just then, — it was Mr. Dunlap's New York library, you know, — the Chautauqua salute. Jack, for his part, declared that Washington was forever fixed in his estimation as a wise and great commander because he had always fought his battles in such beautiful parts of the country and within easy distance of first-class hotels. " Of course, he did n't know it then, but we do to-day," said Jack. CORNWALLIS'S CAVE. 246 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AFTER THE VICTORY. Washington bidding farewell to his generals in Fraunces' Tavern in New York. "Think of Lexington Common and Harlem Heights and Prospect Park and our fine hotel in Philadelphia — which, you know, was within easy reach of four battles and a winter encampment ! That 's what I call working for posterity." "That 's all right. Jack," said Bert; "but I tell you, joking aside, the chief memory we 've brought away from all these battle-fields is just — Washington ! Is n't that so, Uncle Tom." "I don't see how it can help being so," Uncle Tom repHed. "From Cambridge Common to Yorktown, through six years and more of toil, of patience, of endurance, of rare generalship and unwavering faith, George Washington is the central figure of the American Revolution. He, beyond all others, carried its burdens ; he, beyond all others, was its guiding and controlling spirit. Saratoga was as much his victory as Yorktown. He ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE YORK 247 planned everything. His line was always the right one on which to fight it out. His fortitude, his nobility, his supreme unselfishness, his absolute belief in the justice and final triumph of the cause he led, stamp him not only as the patriot but as the man — worthy, indeed, the tide given him, the grandest ever accorded by man to man, the ' Father of his country.' " "And next to Washington," said Christine, "I think that the things that impressed me most were the crossed swords — the British and American — in the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston and the crossed flags at Guilford battle-ground. That means something, does n't it, Uncle Tom?" "It does, indeed, my dear," Uncle Tom replied. "It means peace, it means friendship, it means respect for brave foemen, veneration for gallant brothers ; it means settlement of difficulties without the clash of sword or HOME AGAIN. the boom of cannon ; and, recognizing the same strain of blood that runs through the veins of Englishman and American, it means, from each side of the Atlantic, love and honor for what Mr. Gladstone called ' kin beyond the sea.' It means forgetfulness of old wrongs, old feuds and old hates. The time has come to forget them, though not to forget the heroism that sprang 248 THE CENTURY BOOK OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION from them and made the republic. To-day, republic and empire should march shoulder to shoulder. For let me tell you, boys and girls, those crossed swords, those intermingled flags, mean, in my belief, the continued and triumphant progress of the English-speaking race, and while they mean recognition of bravery, while they mean glory for those heroes whose blood made our republic possible, they are also silent proposers of the mingled and fraternal sentiments : God bless the President of the United States, and God save the Queen * " Whereupon the peripatetic five sang "America" to the tune of "God save the Queen," and then retired to dream of shaking hands with England on the battle-fields of the American Revolution. INDEX. Only the important names are entered here, and many like "Washington," " Comwallis" " Burgoyne" etc., which occur constantly in the text are not entered at all. There are also slight allusions in the book to many persons and places which it has not been thought necessary to include in the Index, and the entries given generally refer to an important mention (or illustration) of the subject. When the treatment of a sub- ject occupies an entire chapter, or a number of pages, the reference is to the first page only. Adams, Samuel, i8. Albany, N. Y., 158. Alcott, Louisa M., 36, 53. Allen, Ethan, 74. Andre, Major John, 146. Attucks, Crispus, 30. Bennington, Vt., 164. Birmingham Meeting-house, 120. Boston Massacre, 30. Boston " Tea-Party," 20. Bowling Green, New York City, 80. Brandyn'ine, Battle of the, 115. Buckman Tavern, Lexington, 24. Bunker Hill, 55. Cambridge, Mass., I. Camden, S. C, 193. Carroll, Sukey, 31. Chadd's Ford, Brand vwine, 116. Charleston, S. C, 176, 184. Charlotte, N. C, 219. Chester, Pa., 1 20. Chew House, Germantown, 123. Chew, Peggy, 126. Concord, Mass., 35. Comwallis's house, Camden, S. C, 199. Cowpens, The, 212. Craigie House, Cambridge, 5. Dawes, William, 13. De Kalb Monument, Camden, S. C, 201. Delaware, Crossing the, 95. Delaware River, 95. Dillworthtown, Pa., 118. Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., 148. Dorchester Heights, Mass., 70. "Dorothy Q.," 23. Elmwood, the Home of Lowell, 8. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Home of, 43. Emerson, Rev. William, 38, 44. Ericson, Leif, 3. Eutaw Springs, S. C, 188. Fort Clinton, N. Y., 153. Fort Lee, N. J., 92. Fort Montgomery, N. Y., 153. , Fort Moultrie, 185. Fort Sumter, 185. Fort Ticonderoga, 74. Fort Washington, N. Y., 92. Freehold, N. J., 130. Freeman's Farms, Battle of, 168. Gates, General Horatio, Portrait of, 164. Germantown, Pa., 122. Gilder, Richard Watson, Lines by, 106. Glover, Gen. [ohn, Statue of, 99. Golden Hill, New York, 30. Greene, Nathanael, Gen., Portrait of, 182. Greene's Spring, Camden, S. C.,202. Greenesboro, N. C, 221. Guilford Court House, N. C, 221. Hale, Edward Everett, Verses by, 50. Hancock-Clark House, Lexington, 22. Hancock, John, 22. Harlem Heights, Battle of, 89. Harvard University, 2. Haverstraw, N. Y., 151. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 45. Hobkirk's Hill, S. C, 202. Holmes's, Oliver Wendell, House, 7. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Verses by, 7. 23, 32- Hudson River, 139. Irving, Washington, 149. Jasper, Sergeant William, 178. "Jersey," Prison-ship, 85. Jones House, Concord, 51. Kennedy House, New York City, 78. Kennett Square, Pa., 119. King's Chapel, Boston, 19. King's Mountain, S. C, 206. Lafayette Dining with the British Ambassador, 234. Lafayette Wounded at Brandywine, 122. Lee, Charles, 131. Lexington, Mass., 17. Livingston, Chancellor, 156. Longfellow's Home, Cambridge, 5. Longfellow Memorial, Cambridge, I. Longfellow, Verses by, 12, 58. Long Island, Battle of, 81. Louis XVI of France, 176. Lowell, James Russell, Home of, 8. Lowell, James Russell, Verses by, 8. Marion, Gen. Francis, 232. Marrett-Munroe House, Lexington, 27. Mecklenburg Declaration of Indepen- dence, 220. Merriam's Corner, Concord, 48. Minute-man, Statue of the, 42. Monmouth, N. J., 130. Montgomery, Gen. Richard, 77. Morgan, Gen. Daniel, Portrait of, 167. Morristown, N. J. 142. Murray, Mrs. Robert, 87. Newburgh, N. Y., 154. Newport, R. I., 73. New York, N. Y., 73. Norumbega Tower, 4. North Bridge, Concord, 40. North Church, Boston, 13. 249 Old Manse, Concord, 44. Oriskany, N. Y., Battle of, 160. Otis, James, 31. Perkins School for the Blind, Dor- chester, Mass., 69. Philadelphia, Pa., 115. Pitcher, MoUie, 133. Pitt Monument, Charleston, S. C, 1S8. Poland, Dismemberment of, 181. Powder-house, Somerville, Mass., 14. Prescott, Dr. Samuel, 35. Prescott, Col. William, Statue of, 60. Princeton, N. J., 107. Pulaski, 180. Putnam, Gen. Israel, 62. Quebec, 75. Revere, Paul, 12, 56. Rochambeau, 148. Saratoga, N. Y., 159. Savannah, Ga., 175. Schuyler, Gen. Philip, Portrait of, 165. Schuylerville, N. Y., 159. Schuylkill River, 115. Simms Statue, 190. Sphinx, Mount Auburn Cemetery, 29. Stark, Gen. John, 166. St. Michael's Church, Charleston, S. C, 189. Stony Point, N. Y., 151. SuUivan's Island, S. C, 185. Tappan, N. Y., 143. Tarrytown, N. Y., 131. Taylor, Bayard, 119. Thoreau, 53. Trenton, N. J., 102. Trinity Church, New York City, 80, 138. Valley Forge, Pa., 127. Verplanck's Point, N. Y., 153. Wadsworth House, Cambridge, 9. Walden Pond, 53. Walloomsac, N. Y., 164. Ward, Gen. Artemas, 7. Warren, Gen. Joseph, Statue of, 6i. Washington Elm, Cambridge, 11. Wayside Inn, Sudbury, 57. Wayside, The, Concord, 52. Webster, Daniel, Oration at Bunker Hill, 66. West Point, N. Y., 153. White Plains, N. Y., 92, 143. Whittier, J. G., Lines by, 239. Wright Tavern, Concord, 49. Yonkers, N. Y., 146. Yorktown, 229.