Early in the morning the pickets of Cornwallis" army discovered that something was wrong in the American camp; the guard had been withdrawn, the fires had been allowed to die away, and the place was as still as death. A few adventurous spirits, cautiously crossing the bridge, found that the guns mounted in front of it were only "quakers," and that the whole camp was empty,--the army had decamped silently, and stolen away before their eyes! My Lord Cornwallis, rudely disturbed from those rosy dreams of conquest with which a mocking spirit had beguiled his slumber, would not credit the first report of his astonished officers; but investigation showed him that the "old fox"
was gone, and he would not be bagged that morning--nor on any other morning, either! But where had he gone? For a time the perplexed and chagrined commander could not ascertain.
The Americans had vanished--disappeared--leaving absolutely no trace behind them, and it was not until he heard the heavy booming of cannon from the northeast, borne upon the frosty air of the cold morning about sunrise, that he divined the brilliant plan of his wily antagonist and discovered his whereabouts. He had been outfought, outmanoeuvred, outflanked, and outgeneralled! The disgusted British were sent back over the familiar road to Princeton, now in hotter haste than before.
His rear-guard menaced, perhaps overwhelmed, his stores and supplies in danger, Cornwallis pushed on for life this time. The English officer conceived a healthy respect for Washington at this juncture which did not leave him thereafter.
The short distance between Trenton and Princeton on the direct road was pa.s.sed in a remarkably short time by the now thoroughly aroused and anxious British. A little party under command of Seymour and Kelly, which had been a.s.siduously engaged in breaking down the bridge over Stony Brook, was observed and driven away by two field-pieces, which had been halted and unlimbered on a commanding hill, and which opened fire while the troops advanced on a run; but the damage had been done, and the bridge was already impa.s.sable. After a futile attempt to repair it, in which much time was lost, the indefatigable earl sent his troops through the icy water of the turbulent stream, which rose breast-high upon the eager men, and the hasty pursuit was once more resumed. A mile or so beyond the bridge the whole army was brought to a stand by a sudden discharge from a heavy gun, which did some execution; it was mounted in a breastwork some distance ahead. The army was halted, men were sent ahead to reconnoitre, and a strong column deployed to storm what was supposed to be a heavy battery. When the storming party reached the works, there was no one there! A lone thirty-two-pounder, too unwieldy to accompany the rapid march of the Americans, had been left behind, and Philip Wilton had volunteered to remain, after Seymour"s party had pa.s.sed, and further delay the British by firing it at their army as soon as they came in range. These delays had given Washington so much of a start that Cornwallis, despairing of ever overtaking him, finally gave up the pursuit, and pushed on in great anxiety to New Brunswick, to save, if possible, his magazines, which he had the satisfaction in the end of finding intact.
To complete this brief _resume_ of one of the remarkable campaigns of history, Washington strongly fortified himself on Cornwallis" flank at Morristown, menacing each of the three depots held by the British outside New York; Putnam advanced from Philadelphia to Trenton, with the militia; and Heath moved down to the highlands of the Hudson. The country people of New Jersey rose and cut off scattered detachments of the British in every direction, until the whole of the field was eventually abandoned by them, except Amboy, Newark, and New Brunswick.
The world witnessed the singular spectacle of a large, well-appointed army of veteran soldiery, under able leaders, shut up in practically one spot, New York and a few near-by villages, and held there inexorably by a phantom army which never was more than half the size of that it held in check! The results of the six months" campaign were to be seen in the possession of the city of New York by the British army.
That army, which had won, practically, all the battles in which it had engaged, which had followed the Americans through six months of disastrous defeat and retreat, and had overrun two colonies, now had nothing to show for all its efforts but the ground upon which it stood!
And this was the result of the genius, the courage, the audacity of one man,--George Washington! The world was astounded, and he took an a.s.sured place thenceforward among the first soldiers of that or any age.
Even the English themselves could not withhold their admiration. The gallant and brave Cornwallis, a soldier of no mean ability himself, and well able to estimate what could be done with a small and feeble force, never forgot his surprise at the a.s.sunpink; and when he congratulated Washington, at the surrender of Yorktown years after, upon the brilliant combination which had resulted in the capture of the army, he added these words: "But, after all, your excellency"s achievements in the Jerseys were such that nothing could surpa.s.s them!" And the witty and wise old cynic, Mr. Horace Walpole, with his usual discrimination, wrote to a friend, Sir Horace Mann, when he heard of the affair at Trenton, the night march to Princeton, and the successful attack there: "Washington, the dictator, has shown himself both a Fabius and a Camillus. His march through our lines is allowed to have been a prodigy of generalship!"
CHAPTER XXVIII
_The British Play "Taps"_
The day after the battle Washington sent his nephew, Major Lewis, under protection of a flag of truce, to attend upon the wounded General Mercer; the exigency of his pursuit of the flying British and their subsequent pursuit of him having precluded him from giving to his old friend that personal attention which would have so accorded with his kindly heart and the long affection in which he had held the old Scotchman. Seymour received permission to accompany Lewis, in order to ascertain if possible what had become of Talbot.
The men of Mercer"s command reported that they had seen the two officers dismounted and fighting bravely, after having refused to retreat. The two young officers were very melancholy as they rode along the familiar road. Lewis belonged to a Virginia regiment, and had known both Mercer and Talbot well, and in fact all the officers who had been killed. The officers of that little army were like a band of brothers, and after every battle there was a general mourning for the loss of many friends. The casualties among the officers in the sharp engagement had been unusually severe, and entirely disproportioned to the total loss; the bulk of the loss had fallen upon Mercer"s brigade.
They found the general in Clark"s farmhouse, near the field of battle, lingering in great pain, and slowly dying from a number of ferocious bayonet wounds. He was attended by his aid, Major Armstrong, and the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Rush came especially from Philadelphia to give the dying hero the benefit of his skill and services. He had been treated with the greatest respect by the enemy, for Cornwallis was always quick to recognize and respect a gallant soldier. The kindly Quakers had spared neither time nor trouble to lighten his dying hours, and the women of the household nursed him with gentle and a.s.siduous care. He pa.s.sed away ten days after the battle, leaving to his descendants the untarnished name of a gallant soldier and gentleman, who never faltered in the pursuit of his high ideals of duty. Brief as had been his career as a general in the Revolution, his memory is still cherished by a grateful posterity, as one of the first heroes of that mighty struggle for liberty.
Details of the British were already marching toward the field of action to engage in the melancholy work of burying the dead, when Seymour, under Major Armstrong"s guidance, went over the ground in a search for Talbot. He had no difficulty in finding the place where his friend had fallen. The field had not been disturbed by any one. A b.l.o.o.d.y frozen ma.s.s of ice and snow had shown where Mercer had fallen, and across the place where his feet had been lay the body of Talbot. In front of him lay the lieutenant with whom he had fought, the sword still buried in his breast; farther away were the two men that the general and he had cut down in the first onslaught, and at his feet was the corpse of the man he had last shot, his stiffened hands still tightly clasping his gun. Around on the field were the bodies of many others who had fallen. Some of the Americans had been literally pinned to the earth by the fierce bayonet thrusts they had received in the charge; some of the British had been frightfully mangled and mashed by blows from the clubbed rifles of the Americans before they had retreated. Off to the right a long line of motionless bodies marked where the Pennsylvania militia had advanced and halted; there in the centre, lying in heaps, were the reminders of the fiercest spot of the little conflict, where Moulder"s battery had been served with such good effect; here was the place where Washington had led the charge.
In one brief quarter of an hour nearly three hundred men had given up their lives, on this little farm, and there they lay attesting in mute silence their fidelity to their principles, warm red coat and tattered blue coat side by side, peace between them at last; indifferent each to the severities of nature or the pa.s.sions of men; unheeding alike the ambitions of kings, the obstinacy of parliaments, or the desire of liberty on the part of peoples. Some were lying calmly, as if their last moments had been as peaceful as when little children they laid themselves down to sleep; others twisted and contorted with looks of horror and anguish fixed upon their mournful faces, which bespoke agonies attending the departure of life like to the travail pains with which it had been ushered into existence. Seymour with a sad heart stooped and turned over the body of his friend, lifting his face once more to that heaven he had gazed upon so bravely a few hours since--for it was morning again, but oh, how different! The face was covered with blood from the wound in the forehead, by which he had been beaten down.
Sadly, tenderly, gratefully, remembering an hour when Talbot had knelt by his side and performed a similar service, he endeavored to wipe the lurid stains from off his marble brow. Then a thought came to him.
Taking from his breast Katharine"s handkerchief, which had never left him, he moistened it in the snow, and finding an unstained place where her dainty hand had embroidered her initials "K. W.," he carefully wiped clean the white face of his dead friend. There was a little smile upon Talbot"s lips, and a look of peace and calm upon his face, which Seymour had not seen him wear since the sinking of the frigate.
His right hand, whiter than the lace which drooped over it, was pressed against his heart, evidently as the result of his last conscious movement. Seymour bent down and lifted it up gently; there was something beneath it inside his waistcoat. The young sailor reverently inserted his hand and drew it forth. It was a plain gold locket.
Touching the spring, it opened, and there were pictured the faces of the two women Talbot had loved,--on the one side the mother, stately, proud, handsome, resolute, the image of the man himself; on the other, the brown eyes and the fair hair and the red lips of beautiful Katharine Wilton. There was a letter too in the pocket. The bayonet thrust which had reached his heart had gone through it, and it, and the locket also, was stained with blood. The letter was addressed to Seymour; wondering, he broke the seal and read it. It was a brief note, written in camp the night of the march. It would seem that Talbot had a presentiment that he might die in the coming conflict; indeed the letter plainly showed that he meant to seek death, to court it in the field. His mother was to be told that he had done his duty, and had not failed in sustaining the traditions of his honorable house; and the honest soldierly little note ended with these words,--
_As for you, my dear Seymour, would that fate had been kinder to you!
Were Katharine alive, I would crave your permission to say these words to her: "I love you, Kate,--I"ve always loved you--but the better man has won you." My best love to the old mother. Won"t you take it to her? And good-by, and G.o.d bless you!----Hilary Talbot._
The brilliance went out of the sunshine, the brightness faded out of the morning, and Seymour stood there with the tears running down his cheeks,--not ashamed to weep for his friend. And yet the man was with Kate, he thought, and happy,--he could almost envy him his quiet sleep.
The course of his thoughts was rudely broken by the approach of a party of hors.e.m.e.n, who rode up to where he stood. Their leader, a bold handsome young man, of distinguished appearance, in the brilliant dress of a British general officer, reined in his steed close by him, and addressed him.
"How now, sir! Weeping? Tears do not become a soldier!"
"Ah, sir," said Seymour, saluting, and pointing down to Talbot"s body at the same time, "not even when one mourns the death of a friend?"
"Your friend, sir?" replied the general officer, courteously, uncovering and looking down at the bodies with interest; his practised eye immediately taking in the details of the little conflict.
"He did not go to his death alone," he said meaningly. ""Fore Gad, sir, here has been a pretty fight! Your name and rank, sir?"
"Lieutenant John Seymour, of the American Continental navy, volunteer aid on his excellency General Washington"s staff."
"And what do you here? Are you a prisoner?"
"No, sir, I came with Major Lewis to visit General Mercer, and to look for my friend, under cover of a flag of truce."
"Ha! How is General Mercer?"
"Frightfully wounded; he cannot live very long now."
"He was a gallant fellow, so I am told, sir, and fought the father of his majesty in the "45."
"Yes," said Seymour, simply; "this is where he fell."
The general looked curiously about him.
"And who was your dead friend?" he continued.
"Captain Hilary Talbot, of Virginia, of General Washington"s staff."
"What! Not Talbot of Fairview Hall on the Potomac?" said one of the officers.
"The same, sir."
"Gad, my lord, Madam Talbot"s a red-hot Tory! She swears by the king.
I "ve been entertained at the house,--not when the young man was there, but while he was away,--and a fine place it is. Well, here "s a house divided truly!"
"Is it indeed so, Mr. Seymour?"
The young man nodded affirmatively.
"What were you proposing to do with the body?"
"Bury it near here, sir, in the cemetery on the hill by the college.
We have no means of transporting it hence."
"Well, you shall do so, and we will bury him like a soldier. I remember the family now, in England, very well. Don"t they call them the Loyal Talbots? Yes, I thought so. He was a rebel, and so far false to his creed, but a gentleman nevertheless, and a brave one too.
Look at the fight he made here, gentlemen! Damme, he shall have an escort of the king"s own troops, and Lord Cornwallis himself and his staff for his chief mourners! eh, Erskine?" said the gallant earl, turning to the officer who rode near him.
"How will that suit you, Mr. Seymour? You can tell that to his poor old mother too, when you see her once again. Some of you bring up a company of troops and get a gun carriage,--there"s an abandoned one of Mawhood"s over there,--and we "ll take him up properly. Have you a horse, sir? Ah, that"s well, and bring a Prayer Book if you can find one,--I doubt if there be any in my staff. I presume the man was a Churchman, and he shall have prayers too. We have no coffin for him, either; but stay--here "s my own cloak, a proper shroud for a soldier, surely that will do nicely; and now let us go on, gentlemen."
In a short time the martial cortege reached the little Presbyterian cemetery. The young man wrapped in the general"s cloak was soon laid away in the shallow grave, which had hastily been made ready for him.
Seymour, attended by the two other American officers, Armstrong and Lewis, after cutting off a lock of Talbot"s dark hair for his mother, read the burial service out of the young soldier"s own little Prayer Book, which he had found in the pocket of his coat; as the earth was put upon him, Cornwallis and his officers stood about reverently uncovered, while the sailor read with faltering lips the old familiar words, which for twenty centuries have whispered of comfort to the heart-broken children of men, and illumined the dark future by an eternal hope--nay, rather, fixed a.s.surance--of life everlasting.
There was one tender-hearted woman there too, one of the sweet-faced daughters of the kindly Quaker, Miss Clark. She had taken time to twine a hasty wreath from the fragrant ever-verdant pine; when the little mound of earth was finished, softly she laid it down, breathing a prayer for the mother in far-off Virginia as she did so.
Then they all drew back while the well-trained soldiers fired the last three volleys, and the drummers beat the last call. "T was the same simple ending which closes the career of all soldiers, of whatever degree, when they come to occupy those narrow quarters, where earthly considerations of rank and station are forgot.