_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 assiduous
care. He passed 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 bloody frozen
mass 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 passions 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 God 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 horsemen, 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 cortége 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 assurance--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.
"Sir, I beg to thank you for this distinguished courtesy," said
Seymour, with deep feeling, extending his hand to the knightly Briton.
"Do not mention it, sir, I beg of you," replied Cornwallis, shaking his
hand warmly. "You will do the same for one of us, I am sure, should
occasion ever demand a like service at your hands. I will see that
your other men and officers are properly buried. Do you return now?"
"Immediately, my lord."
"Pray present my compliments to Mr.--nay, General--Washington," said
the generous commander, "and congratulate him upon his brilliant
campaign. Ay, and tell him we look forward eagerly to trying
conclusions with him again. Good-by, sir. Come, gentlemen," he cried,
raising his hat gracefully as he mounted his horse and rode away,
followed by his staff.