A dastardly deed, if the thing had been true—
Cruel our foes, but in that thing we wronged them,
And let us in all give the demon his due.
Gallant Hugh Mercer fell sturdily fighting,
So long as his right arm his sabre could wield,
Stretching his enemies bleeding around him,
And then, overpowered, fell prone on the field.
Hearing the firing, we turned and we met them,
Our cannon replying to theirs with a will;
Fiercely with grape and with canister swept them,
And chased them in wrath from the brow of the hill.
Racing and chasing it was into Princeton,
Where, seeking the lore to be taught in that hall,
Red-coats by scores entered college, but stayed not—
We rudely expelled them with powder and ball.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF PRINCETON.]
Only a skirmish, you see, though a sharp one—
It did not last over the fourth of an hour;
But ’twas a battle that did us this service—
No more, from that day, had we fear of their power.
Trenton revived us, Assunpink encouraged,
But Princeton gave hope that we held to the last;
Flood-tide had come on the black, sullen water,
And ebb-tide for ever and ever had passed.
Yes! ’twas the turn of the tide in our favor—
A turn of the tide to a haven that bore.
Had Lord Cornwallis crossed over Assunpink
That day we repelled him, our fighting were o’er.
Had he o’ertaken us ere we smote Mawhood,
All torn as we were, it seems certain to me,
I would not chatter to you about battles,
And you and your children would not have been free.
DONALD M’DONALD.
The affair on which this lyric is founded is entirely different
from the attack on the fort at Schoharie by Johnson and Brant.
It was a raid by a party of loyalists and Indians, led by a Tory
partisan, Donald M’Donald. He was an active and relentless leader;
but not so bloody as Walter Butler. He should not be confounded
with the loyalist general of the same name in North Carolina. He
commanded part of the loyalists in the fight near Conewawah during
Sullivan’s expedition.
M’Donald died from wounds received in a very singular conflict. A
German, named Schell—the name usually spelled Shell—had founded a
little settlement about five miles north of Herkimer, which was
known as Shell’s Bush. Here he built a block-house, the upper-story
projecting all around. One August afternoon, while the people were
at work out-of-doors, M’Donald, with sixty men, made a descent
on the Bush. The inhabitants generally fled to Fort Dayton.
Schell saw the enemy almost too late, but managed to escape to
the block-house, with two of his sons—two others were taken. With
the aid of Mrs. Schell, who loaded the guns, the little garrison
made a vigorous defence. M’Donald, failing in an attempt to burn
the block-house, tried to open the door with a crow-bar. A shot
from Schell wounded him in the leg, and he was unable to stand.
Schell opened the door, dragged in M’Donald, and closed it. Then he
stripped his prisoner of all the cartridges he had. Schell felt he
had an insurance against fire while his prisoner was inside. But
the enemy, enraged at the loss of some of their number, made a rush
to the house, and five of them put the ends of their pieces through
the loop-holes. Mrs. Schell bent the barrels with the blows of an
axe, and Schell and his sons fired down on them. At dusk Schell
called to his wife from the second story, and told her that Captain
Small was coming from Fort Dayton. Presently he gave directions
loudly to imaginary troops, and the enemy taking fright ran away.
M’Donald’s leg was taken off next day at Fort Dayton, but he died
soon after the operation.
_COLONEL HARPER’S CHARGE._
As eastward the shadows were steadily creeping,
Fair wives were at spinning, stout husbands at reaping.
Loud chattered the children with no one to hush them;
None knew that the thunder was stooping to crush them.
But soon from the forest, the hill, and the dingle,
Came footmen and horsemen, in bodies and single.
Wild, painted Cayugas, relentless and fearless,
More barbarous Tories, black-hearted and tearless.
To hearth-stone and roof-tree destruction to carry,
The cruel M’Donald came down on Schoharie.
No mercy was offered, no quarter was given;
The souls of the victims departed unshriven.
Their requiem only the shrieks of the flying,
The yells of the slayers, the groans of the dying.
Too weak in our numbers to venture a sally,
We sat in our fortress and looked on the valley.
We heard the wild uproar, the screaming and yelling,
The firing and crashing, of butchery telling.
No tiger imprisoned in iron-bound caging
Felt half of our fury or equalled our raging.
Yet what could we hinder? Revenge was denied us,
While ten times our number to battle defied us.
Though wild was our anguish and deep our despairing,
With three hundred to fight would be imbecile daring.
But Colonel John Harper, who chafed at the ravage,
The pillage and murder, by Tory and savage,
Urged us on to the combat, and angrily showered
Hot words on our chief as a cold-blooded coward.
We heard all his raving of anger in sadness;
We never resented, but pitied his madness.
John Harper looked round him, and said he scorned favor,
He’d seek for assistance from men who were braver.
He called for his horse, and defied us to stay him,
And scoffed at the cowards who dared not obey him.
His foot in the stirrups, he hearkened to no man,
Sank spurs to their rowels, and charged through the foeman.
He scattered them fiercely, and, ere they could rally,
Away like an arrow he shot through the valley.
He broke through the circle created to bound him;
The bullets they showered fell harmlessly round him.
When fair in the saddle, he never was idle;
He rode through the darkness, and kept a loose bridle.
On, on through the darkness, till daylight was o’er him,
And Albany’s houses rose proudly before him.
We heard the shots rattle, we saw his foes rally,
And thought that his life-blood had moistened the valley.
Meanwhile in the fortress, through all the night dreary,
We watched till the sunrise, disheartened and weary.
Noon came in its splendor; we saw them preparing
To storm our rude ramparts, and laughed at their daring.
For we were in shelter, and they were uncovered—
There was work for the buzzards that over us hovered.
Each step they took forward, with eagerness timing,
We handled our rifles, and looked to the priming.
But, stay! is this real, or only delusion?
What means their blank terror, their sudden confusion?
The whole of the foemen seem stricken with one dread—
’Tis Colonel John Harper, with horsemen a hundred!
We gaze but a moment in rapture and wonder—
Rides Harper like lightning, we fall like the thunder.
To saddle, M’Donald! your doom has been spoken;
The tigers are on you, the bars have been broken.
Whose horse is the swiftest may ride from the foray;
No hope for the footman if savage or Tory.
The heart shuts on pity when vengeance is portress;
And husbands and fathers came forth from the fortress.
As the wails of our wives and our babes we remember,
The bright fire of mercy goes out—the last ember.
They meant but a visit, we forced them to tarry;
But few of the foemen went back from Schoharie.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE-GROUND OF ORISKANY.]
ORISKANY.
The battle at Oriskany is one of the many instances during the
Revolutionary contest where disaster resulted through the rashness
and insubordination of inferior officers. A lack of discipline
continually placed the cause in peril, and success was frequently
won at a cost which might have been avoided. The enemy, under
the command of Johnson and Brant, were, fortunately for their
antagonists, troubled with the same fault. Had it been otherwise,
the Americans would have been exterminated.
[Illustration: PETER GANSEVOORT.]
The enemy had laid siege to Fort Schuyler, where Gansevoort lay
with a small garrison. General Herkimer, though without much
pretensions to military science, was a brave and prudent officer,
and perfectly fitted for the occasion. He had called out the
militia of Tryon County to the number of eight hundred. His plan
was to make an attack upon the enemy simultaneously with a sortie
from the fort, and he sent a messenger to effect that arrangement
with Gansevoort. The signal for Herkimer’s advance was to be a
single gun from Fort Schuyler. It was some time before the scout
could make his way safely through the investing force. In the
mean while some of the men grew impatient, and clamored for an
immediate advance. Colonels Cox and Paris headed this party, and
when Herkimer refused they denounced him as a coward. At length he
submitted to a precipitous movement, at the same time saying that
these very bold gentlemen would be the first to run. And so it
proved.
The incidents of the fight are so minutely given in the ballad that
no further explanation is needed. The Americans remained masters
of the field, but at a fearful loss, of which that of Herkimer was
not the least. Had the original plan been followed, much of the
slaughter would have been spared.
There is no portrait of Herkimer in existence; all that we learn
of his appearance was that he was short, stout, and full-faced. He
was a man of ability, and, had he survived, from his character and
courage he would doubtless have figured creditably in the partisan
warfare waged in Eastern and Northern New York, if not in a wider
sphere of action.
[Illustration: GENERAL HERKIMER’S RESIDENCE.]
_THE FIGHT AT ORISKANY._
On the fifth of August, in the morn,
I was ploughing between the rows of corn,
When I heard Dirck Bergen blow his horn.
I let the reins in quiet drop;
I bade my horse in the furrow stop,
And the sweet green leaves unheeded crop.
Down at the fence I waited till
Dirck galloped down the sloping hill,
Blowing his conch-horn with a will.
“Ho, neighbor! stop!” to Dirck I cried,
“And tell me why so fast you ride—
What is the news you scatter wide?”
He drew the rein, and told me then
How, with his seventeen hundred men,
St. Leger vexed the land again.
A fiendish crew around him stood—
The Tory base, the Hessian rude,
The painted prowler of the wood—
The savage Brant was in his train,
Before whose hatchet, quick to brain,
Fell patriot blood in scarlet rain—
[Illustration: THE SITE OF OLD FORT SCHUYLER.]
How all this force, to serve the crown,
And win in civil strife renown,
Before Fort Schuyler settled down,
Where Gansevoort close with Willett lay—
Their force too weak for open fray—
Bristling like hunted bucks at bay.
And Dirck, by Herkimer the stout,
Was sent to noise the news about,
And summon all to arm and out.
Far must he spread the word that day,
So, bidding me come to join the fray,
And blowing his horn, he rode away.
I had been married then a year;
My wife to me was doubly dear,
For a child had come our home to cheer.
I had not mingled in the strife
That swept the land; my aim in life
To tend my farm and cheer my wife.
I watched my flocks and herds increase,
And ploughed my land and held my peace:
Men called me the Tory Abner Reece.
Yet now the country needed all
Her manly sons to break her thrall;
Could I be deaf to her piteous call?
I thought me of the cruel foe,
The red-skinned Mingo, skulking low,
The midnight raid, the secret blow—
Hessians and Brunswickers, the lees
Of Europe’s cup of miseries,
And brutal Tories, worse than these—
Britons, with rude, relentless hand:
All these made up the cruel band
Which came to spoil and vex the land.
I felt my heart in anger leap—
“No!” cried my spirit from its deep,
“I will not here ignobly creep.
“I have a strong arm for the fray;
I have a rifle sure to slay;
I fear no man by night nor day.
“When prowling wolves have left their den,
The hunter’s craft is needed then—
The country must not lack for men.”
So from the corn-rows green and tall,
I led my plough-horse to the stall,
Then took my rifle from the wall.
I slung my pouch and powder-horn,
I kissed my babe scarce three months born,
And bade my wife farewell that morn.
I journeyed steadily all that day—
Through brake and brier I made my way;
For stream or hill I did not stay.
At set of sun I made my camp
Mid alder bushes thick and damp,
And at the dawn resumed my tramp.
I reached the meeting-place at eight,
But, though no laggard, came too late—
They had not thought for me to wait.
Oh, fatal haste, so soon to stir!
Yet not the fault of Herkimer,
Who knew his foe too well to err.
Rash, headstrong men the others led,
Who mocked at what the general said,
And heaped contumely on his head.
“You know not what you seek,” he cried;
“Those are but fools who foes deride;
And prudence dwells with courage tried.
“My messenger left at set of sun;
When once his errand has been done,
Will sound Fort Schuyler’s signal-gun.
“Wait till that cannon’s voice you hear,
And then we’ll fall upon their rear,
As Gansevoort to their van draws near.”
Said Colonel Paris, then, “Not so!
We left our homes to strike a blow;
So lead us quickly to the foe.
“Else all may see those do not err
Who brand you as a coward cur
And skulking Tory, Herkimer.”
But Herkimer only smiled at first—
He knew those merely words at worst
That from hot-headed rashness burst.
“I have been placed your path to guide,
And shall I lead you, then,” he cried,
“To the jaws of ruin gaping wide?”
But Cox replied, “This talk is vain;
If Herkimer fears he may be slain,
Let him in safety here remain.”
Flashed Herkimer’s eyes with fire at this,
And sank his voice to an angry hiss—
“Such shafts,” he cried, “my honor miss.
“March on! but if I judge aright,
You’ll find, when comes our foe in sight,
The loudest boaster first in flight.”
And so they were marching through a glen
Not far from the mouth of Oriskany, when
I overtook their hindmost men.
I saw Dirck Bergen’s honest face
Among the rest; he had reached the place
An hour before me in the race.
He wrung my hand and told me all—
“Look out,” said he, “for a rain of ball
And the thickest shower that well can fall.
“For Brant is watching round about,
And long ere this, by many a scout,
He knows his foes are armed and out.
“We’ll have it heavily, by-and-by;
But that’s no matter—one can but die,
And safer it is to fight than fly.”
I laughed a little my fear to hide;
But I felt my memory backward glide
To the home I left on the river-side.
I saw that cabin of logs once more,
The ceiling low and the sanded floor,
And my wife the cradle leaning o’er.
I saw her bending with girlish grace,
And I knew the mother was trying to trace
The father’s look in the infant’s face.
The house-dog pricked his watchful ear—
He heard some traveller passing near—
She listened my coming step to hear.
But soon dispersed that pleasant scene,
And I glanced with vision clear and keen
Through the close-set boughs of the forest green.
A deep ravine was in our way,
Marshy and damp, and o’er it lay
A causeway formed of logs and clay.
The spot was pleasant—stilly down
Fell forest shadows, cool and brown,
From branch and bough and lofty crown.
Fringing the foreground of the scene,
I saw the slender birches lean
Lovingly o’er the tussocks green.
The leaves were thickly set o’erhead,
The low-growth dense around was spread—
But suddenly filled my heart with dread.
A sight, a sound the soul to shock—
A dark face peering past a rock,
The clicking of a rifle lock.
Forth from a jet of fiery red
Leaped to its mark the deadly lead—
Dirck Bergen fell beside me dead.
To life the sleeping echoes woke,
As from each rock and tree there broke
A flash of fire, a wreath of smoke.
Then rang around us yell on yell,
As though the very fiends of hell
Had risen in that gloomy dell.
And though the foe we scarce could see,
Still from each bush and rock and tree
He poured his fire incessantly.
From a sheltering trunk I glanced around—
Dying and dead bestrewed the ground,
Though some by flight scant safety found.
Ay, flight! as Herkimer had said,
Appalled at blood-drops raining red,
The rear-guard all like dastards fled.
But Herkimer blenched not—clearer, then,
His accents rang throughout the glen,
Cheering the spirits of his men.
And though his horse was slain, and he
Was wounded sorely in the knee,
A cooler man there could not be.
He was not chafed nor stirred the least,
But, gay as a guest at a wedding-feast,
He bade them strip his dying beast.
A famous seat the saddle made
Beneath a beech-tree’s spreading shade,
From whence the battle he surveyed.
All through the hottest of the fight
He sat there with his pipe alight,
And gave his orders left and right.
[Illustration: GENERAL HERKIMER DIRECTING THE BATTLE.]
Whoever could gaze at him and flee,
The basest of poltroons would be—
The sight chased every fear from me.
None shrank the foe, though sore bestead;
Each from his tree the bullet sped,
And paid them back with lead for lead.
The battle-shout, the dying groan,
The hatchet’s crash, the rifle’s tone,
Mixed with the wounded’s painful moan.
Full many a stout heart bounding light,
Full many a dark eye beaming bright,
Were still’d in death and closed in night.
I was not idle through the fray;
But there was one alone that day
I had a fierce desire to slay.
I had seen the face, and marked it well,
That peered from the rock when Bergen fell;
And I watched for that at every yell.
No hound on scent more rapt could be,
As I scanned the fight from behind the tree;
And five I slew, but neither was he.
At length I saw a warrior brain
A neighbor’s son, young Andrew Lane,
And stoop to scalp the fallen slain.
’Twas he! my brain to throb began,
My eager hands to the gunstock ran,
And I dropped fresh priming in the pan.
His savage work was speedily through;
He raised and gave the scalp-halloo;
Sure aim I took, and the trigger drew.
Off to its mark the bullet sped;
Leaped from his breast a current red;
And the slayer of honest Dirck was dead.
Upon us closer now they came;
We formed in circles walled with flame,
Which way they moved our front the same.
Sore galled and thinned came Butler’s men,
With a bayonet charge to clear the glen,
And gallantly we met them then.
Our wrath upon the curs to deal,
There, hand to hand and steel to steel,
We made their close-set column reel.
Fiercely we fought ’mid fire and smoke,
With rifle shot and hatchet stroke,
When over our heads the thunder broke.
And I have heard the oldest say
That ne’er before that bloody day
Such storm was known as stopped our fray.
’Twas one of the cloud-king’s victories—
Down came the rain in gusty seas,
Driving us under the heaviest trees.
But short the respite that we got;
The rain and thunder lasted not,
And strife again grew fierce and hot.
At the foot of a bank I took my stand,
To pick out a man from a coming band,
When I felt on my throat a foeman’s hand.
At the tightening grasp my eyes grew dim;
But I saw ’twas a Mingo, stout of limb,
And fierce was the struggle I made with him.
Deep peril hung upon my life;
My foot gave way in the fearful strife,
The wretch was o’er me with his knife.
In my hair his eager fingers played,
I felt the keen edge of his blade;
But I struggled the harder undismayed.
I had sunk before his deadly blow,
When suddenly o’er me fell my foe—
A friendly ball had laid him low.
The Mohawks wavered—Brant in vain
Would bring them to the charge again,
For the chiefest of their braves were slain.
We heard a firing far away
In the distance where Fort Schuyler lay—
’Twas Willett with Johnson making play.
[Illustration: MARINUS WILLETT.]
Advancing, then, with friendly cries,
A band of patriots met our eyes—
The Tories of Johnson in disguise.
They came as though to aid our band,
With cheerful front and friendly hand—
An artful trick and ably planned.
We hailed their coming with a cheer,
But the keen eye of Gardinier
Saw through their mask as they drew near.
“They think,” he cried, “by tricks like these,
To lock our sense and bear the keys—
Look! those are Johnson’s Refugees!”
A deadly purpose in us rose;
There might be quarter for our foes
Of Mingo breed, but none for those.
For cabins fired, and old men slain,
And outraged women pleading vain,
Cried vengeance on those sons of Cain.
A hurtling volley made to tell,
And then, with one wild, savage yell,
Resistless on their ranks we fell.
The Mohawks see their allies die;
Dismayed, they raise the warning cry
Of “Oonah!” then they break and fly.
A panic seized the startled foe;
They show no front, they strike no blow,
As through the forest in rout they go.
We could not follow—weak and worn
We stood upon the field that morn;
Never was triumph so forlorn.
For of our band who fought that day
One half or dead or wounded lay,
When closed that fierce and fearful fray.
And on that field, ere daylight’s close,
We buried our dead, but mourned not those
We laid to rest beside our foes.
Revenge, not grief, our souls possest—
We heaped the earth upon each breast,
And left our brothers to their rest.
_BAUM’S EXPEDITION._
[Illustration: Map]
When Burgoyne was making the descent from Canada which ended
in his capture, he began to fall short of provisions. Having
learned that the colonists had a store of cattle, he despatched
Lieutenant-colonel Baum, with a force of Hessians, loyalists,
and savages, to capture the stock and drive it into camp. There
were other ostensible objects, such as feeling the opinion of the
country and recruiting the corps of loyalists; but the main object
was the capture of the cattle. Baum received a sort of roving
commission. He was ordered “to scour the country from Rockingham to
Otter Creek,” to go down the Connecticut to Brattleborough, return
by the Albany road, and rejoin Burgoyne, and to impress people with
the belief that his force was the advance guard of Burgoyne’s army
on its way to Boston. He was to arrest all officers or men of the
enemy who were found to live off the country, and to impress all
the horses in the way, “with as many saddles and bridles as can be
found.” There were to be thirteen hundred horses, at least, taken,
tied in tens for convenience. In short, Baum was to plunder.
The command marched, and on the next day, the 14th of August, 1777,
they arrived at the mill on Walloomscoick, after a little skirmish
with some Americans who were guarding cattle at Cambridge. Here
Baum began to find that his march would not be a holiday parade.
[Illustration: VAN SCHAIK’S MILL.]
People were uncertain as to the real destination of Burgoyne. He
had partially succeeded in convincing many that he meant to march
on Boston. The Green Mountain men sent word to Exeter imploring
aid. The Provincial Assembly of New Hampshire was called hastily
together, and its speaker, John Langdon, offered a subsidy of
several thousand dollars in hard money to raise and equip troops,
and suggested that John Stark should take command. Langdon’s words
aroused his hearers. Two brigades were raised, one under Whipple
and the other under Stark. The latter was then at home. He had
distinguished himself at Trenton and Princeton, and had been sent
home to direct recruiting. While there, Congress promoted several
junior officers, and left his name off. He resigned, but kept up
active efforts in behalf of the cause. He accepted the command
offered, with the stipulation that he should act at his own
discretion; and a part of the brigade raised for him, and a part
of Whipple’s, was at once placed under his separate command. Men
flocked to his support, and at Manchester, twenty miles north of
Bennington, he was joined by Colonel Warner, with the remnant of
the Vermont men from the disastrous field of Hubbardton. At the
same time General Lincoln, who had been ordered to conduct these
new forces to the Hudson River, made his appearance. But Stark
refused to yield the command, notwithstanding Congress had passed
a resolution that the agreement made between him and New Hampshire
was “highly prejudicial to the common cause.” He held his position.
Hearing of the skirmish at Cambridge, he sent a detachment to meet
them. Learning of Baum’s advance, he collected all the additional
forces possible, and on the morning of the 14th he set forward to
support the advance detachment. He soon met the retreating advance
under Gregg, and found the enemy posted upon high ground near the
Walloomscoick, where they were throwing up hasty intrenchments.
Stark fell back to wait for support and plan his action; and Baum,
alarmed at the number of the Americans, sent an express to Burgoyne
asking for reinforcements. It resulted in Brayman being sent with
five hundred men; but they came too late to be of use.
[Illustration: JOHN STARK.]