The long winter of 1780 and 1781, with its changeful fortunes in the
South, went by without alteration in mine. There were constant alarms,
and leaves of absence were not to be had. We drilled our men, marched
hither and thither, and criticised our leaders over the winter
camp-fires, envying the men who, under Williams, Marion, and Morgan,
were keeping my Lord Cornwallis uncomfortably busy in the Carolinas. By
the end of January we knew with joy of the thrashing Tarleton got at the
Cowpens, and at last, in April, of the fight at Guilford. It began to
dawn on the wiseacres of the camp-fires why we were now here and now
there. In fact, we were no sooner hutted than we were on the march, if
there were but the least excuse in the way of a bit of open weather, or
a Tory raid.
Sir Henry was kept in doubt as to whether our chief meant for New York
from the north or from Jersey, and when at last he began to suspect that
it was not a city but an army which he intended to strike, it was too
late. Our brave old hawk, so long half asleep, as it looked, had begun
to flutter his wings, and to contemplate one of those sudden swoops
upon his prey which did to me attest the soldier of genius within this
patient, ceremonious gentleman. He was fast learning the art of war.
At last, as I have said, even we who were but simple pawns in the game
of empire knew in a measure why we had been thus used to bother and
detain this unlucky Sir Henry, who had failed to help Burgoyne, and was
now being well fooled again, to the ruin of Lord Cornwallis.
But all of this was chiefly in the spring. The winter up to February
was sad enough in our waiting camps, what with low diet, desertions,
mutinies, and the typhus fever, which cost us many more men than we lost
in battle. It brought us at last one day the pleasure of a visit from
the great physician, Benjamin Rush, now come to Morristown to see after
the sick, who were many.
This gentleman was a prime favourite with my Aunt Gainor, although
they had but one opinion in common, and fought and scratched like
the far-famed Irish cats. I think, too, the doctor liked your humble
servant, chiefly because I admired and reverenced him for his learning
and his unflinching love of his country.
At this time we lay about Morristown in New Jersey. There was to be a
great ball on the night of the doctor’s arrival. And just now, when his
delicate features appeared at the door of our hut, Jack and I--for Jack
was with me for a day--had used the last of our flour to powder our
hair, and Jack was carefully tying my queue.
“Good-evening, Master Hugh, and you, John Warder. Can I have a bite?”
We gave a shout of welcome, and offered him a herring--very dried it
was--and one of Master Baker Ludwick’s hard biscuits. He said we were
luxurious scamps with our powder, until we explained it to be the end
of a rather mouldy bag of meal. He thought powdering a fine custom for
young doctors, for it gave them a look of gray hair and wisdom; and he
was, as usual, amusing, cynical, and at times bitter.
When we were seated and had his leave for a pipe, he told us there was
now constant good news from the South, and that General Greene seemed to
be somehow doing well, losing fights and winning strategetic victories.
Probably it was more by luck than genius. By and by Gates would be heard
from, and then we should see. On which my naughty Jack winked at me
through the fog of his pipe smoke.
“And why,” said the doctor, “does your general keep so quiet? Was an
army made to sit still?”
I could not but remind him that the only lucky winter campaign of
the war had been made by his Excellency, and that it was not usually
possible to fight in the cold season; not even Marlborough could do
that. I was most respectful, you may be sure.
He assured me that our general would never end the war; for in
revolutions it was not they who began them who ever did bring them to
auspicious conclusions. Our general, the doctor went on to tell us, was
a weak man, and soon all would be of this opinion.
As he spoke I saw Hamilton in the doorway, and I made haste to present
him to the doctor.
The young aide said modestly that he must venture to differ as to our
chief. He was a man dull in talk, not entertaining, given to cautious
silence, but surely not weak, only slow in judgment, although most
decisive in action.
“No great soldier, sir,” said the doctor, “and never will be.”
“He is learning the business, like the rest of us, Dr. Rush. ‘T is a
hard school, sir, but it is character that wins at last; may I venture
to say this man has character, and can restrain both his tongue and his
own nature, which is quick to wrath.”
“Nonsense!” cried the doctor. “The whole country is discontented. We
should elect a commander-in-chief once a year.”
In fact, many were of this strange opinion. Hamilton smiled, but made no
reply.
I saw Jack flush, and I shook my head at him. I thought what was said
foolish and ignorant, but it became not men as young as we to contradict
the doctor. It was Rush who, in ‘77, with Adams and others, sustained
Gates, and put him in the Board of War, to the bewilderment of affairs.
How deep he was in the scheme of that officer and Conway and Lee to
displace our chief none know. My aunt insists he had naught to do with
it. He was an honourable, honest man, but he was also a good, permanent
hater, and sustained his hatreds with a fine escort of rancorous words,
where Jack or I would have been profane and brief.
The cabal broke up with Lee’s trial, and when Cadwalader shot Conway
through the mouth, and, as he said, stopped one d--- lying tongue, it
did not change our doctor’s views. When he and Dr. Shippen, who was no
Tory like the rest of his family, quarrelled, as all doctors do, Rush
preferred charges, and was disgusted because his Excellency approved
the acquittal with some not very agreeable comments. I think he never
forgave the slight, but yet I liked him, and shall ever revere his
memory as that of a man who deserved well of his country, and had
the noble courage of his profession, as he showed amply in the great
yellow-fever plague of ‘93.
He told me of my father as still much the same, and of my Aunt Gainor,
and of Darthea, who, he thought, was troubled in mind, although why he
knew not. She had long since ceased answering the messages we sent her
through my aunt. Mr. Warder, he told me later, had given up his suit to
Madam Peniston, and was now an outspoken Whig. The lady was disposed to
seek refuge again with her De Lancey cousins in New York, but Darthea
was obstinate, and not to be moved. And so we got all the gossip of our
old town, and heard of Mrs. Arnold’s having been ordered to leave,
and of how the doctor, like our own Wayne, had always distrusted her
husband. Indeed, we had asked a thousand questions before we let the
doctor get to my bed, and we ourselves, pulling on our sherry-vallies, a
kind of overalls, to protect our silk stockings from the mud, were away
to the ball.
Despite our many cares and former low diet, we danced till late in the
night; the good people of Morristown contriving, I know not how, to give
us such a supper as we had not had for many a day. I had the pleasure to
converse, in their own tongue, with Comte de Rochambeau and the Duc de
Lauzun, who made me many compliments on my accent, and brought back to
me, in this bright scene, the thought of her to whom I owed this and all
else of what is best in me.
It was indeed a gay and pleasant evening. Even our general seemed to
forget the anxieties of war, and walked a minuet with Lady Stirling, and
then with Mrs. Greene. Very quiet and courteous he was, but not greatly
interested, or so it seemed to me.
Again in May we were in motion, now here, now there; and, with a
skirmish or two, the summer was upon us. Meanwhile, as I have said,
things went more happily in the South.
Greene, continually beaten, was ever a better soldier; and at last,
early in this summer of ‘81, my Lord Cornwallis, driven to despair
by incessant foes who led him a wearisome and fruitless chase through
States not rich enough to feed him, turned from the “boy” Lafayette he
so much despised, and finally sought rest and supplies on the seaboard
at Yorktown, while the “boy general,” planted in a position to command
the peninsula at Malvern Hill, sat down to intrench and watch the older
nobleman. I have no wish to write more history than is involved in
my own humble fortunes, and I must leave those for whom I write these
memoirs to read the story of the war on other pages than mine. Enough
to say that when his Excellency was sure of the French fleet and knew
of his lordship’s position, he made one of those swift decisions which
contrasted strangely with his patient, and even elaborate, businesslike
fashion of attending to all the minor affairs of life. Nor less secret
and subtle was the way in which he carried out his plan of action.
Leaving a force at West Point, he swept in haste through the Jerseys.
Even the generals in immediate command knew nothing of his real
intention until we were turned southward and hurried through the middle
colonies. Then all men knew and wondered at the daring, and, as some
thought, the rashness of this movement. Sir Henry had been well fooled
to the end, for now it was far on in August.
At Trenton I received an appointment which much amazed me. The army of
our allies was marching with us. DeGrasse, with a great fleet, was off
Chesapeake Bay; despatches were coming and going daily. His Excellency
had little knowledge of the French tongue, and had suffered for it
in his youth. Mr. Duponceau, of the Marquis de Lafayette’s staff, was
competent in both French and English, but, save one other officer, no
one of his Excellency’s staff spoke and wrote French well; and this aide
was, as a consequence, much overworked.
Seeing this difficulty, which occasioned much confusion, the Duc de
Lauzun suggested that I be asked to serve as a special aide-de-camp. I
believe I owed this chance, in part, to Lafayette, and also to the fact,
stated elsewhere, that I had had the fortune to be presented to the duke
at our famous ball in Morristown, where he was pleased to talk with me
in French.
My appointment reached me on August 29. His Excellency was then with us
at Trenton, despatching couriers, urging haste, and filling all men with
the great hope which his audacious action excited.
I was ordered to turn over my command, to join his Excellency’s
headquarters staff at Philadelphia, and there to report to
Colonel Tilghman as extra aide-de-camp with the brevet rank of
lieutenant-colonel. A note from Hamilton, now with his regiment,
congratulated me, and related the cause of my unlooked-for promotion.
Would you see what my lifelong friend Jack had to say?
“I thank God for the happy fortune which has again fallen to Hugh. Had
it not been for his assiduity in youth, and the love and respect he bore
his mother, he would never have come by this promotion. Thus God rewards
us for that we do without thought of profit.” Alas! my dear Jack, those
French lessons were sometimes but ungratefully learned.
Early on September 2, having borrowed a horse from one of the staff, I
was ferried over the Delaware, and, once across the river, pushed on in
haste to my own dear city. I found the French about to enter the town.
I had left home in 1777 a raw youth, and it was not without a sense of
just pride that I returned a lieutenant-colonel at twenty-eight, having,
as I felt, done my country honest service.
Our allies halted in the suburbs to clean off the dust, and as they
began their march I fell in beside De Lauzun. They made a brilliant show
in neat white uniforms, colours flying and bands playing. Front street
was densely crowded, and at Vine they turned westward to camp on
the common at Centre Square. As they wheeled I bowed to the French
gentlemen, and kept on down Front street to Arch, soon halting before
my aunt’s door. The house was closed. All had gone forth to welcome the
marching troops. I mounted again and rode down Second street to my own
home, left my horse at the stable, and, seeing no one, passed into the
sitting-room. My father was seated at the open window, but to see him
dismayed me. He rose with an uneasy look as I went toward him. He was
so wasted that his large features stood out gaunt and prominent. His
clothes hung about him in folds, and his vast, bony frame was like a
rack from which they seemed ready to fall.
I caught him in my arms, and kissed his shrunken cheeks, utterly
overcome at the sight of this splendid body in ruins. Meanwhile he
stayed quite passive, and at last pushed me off and looked at me
steadily.
“It is Hugh,” he said. “Thy mother will be glad to see thee.”
I was shocked. This delusion of my mother’s being alive greatly
increased the grief I had in seeing this wreck of a strong, masterful
man.
I said something, I hardly know what. He repeated, “Thy mother will
be glad to see thee. She is upstairs--upstairs. She is with thy little
sister. Ellin has been troublesome in the night.”
After this he sat down and took no more notice of me. I stood watching
him. The dead alone seemed to be alive to him: my mother, and the little
sister who died thirty years back, and whose name I heard now from
my father for the first time in all my life. As I stood amazed and
disturbed at these resurrections, he sat speechless, either looking
out of the window in a dull way, or now and then at me with no larger
interest. At last, with some difficulty as to finding words, he said:
“Thy mother wearies for thy letters. Thou hast been remiss not to
write.”
I said I had written him, as indeed I had, and with regularity, but with
never an answer. After this he was long silent, and then said, “I told
her it was but for a week thou wert to be away. She thinks it more.” The
long years of war were lost to him, and as though they had not been.
I made a vain effort to recall him to the present and the living,
telling him of the army and the war, and at last asked news of my aunt.
He soon ceased to hear me, and his great head fell forward, the gray
locks dropping over his forehead, as he sat breathing deeply and long.
I found it a sorry spectacle, and after giving some orders to Tom I went
away.
I learned later that my father never went out, but sat at the window
all day with his pipe, drawing on it as if it were lighted, and heeding
neither the friends who still came to see him nor the vacant days which
went by. I had lost my father, even that little of his true self he had
let me see.
I went thence and reported to Colonel Tilghman at the City Tavern, where
his Excellency had alighted, and after performing that duty made haste
to see my aunt.
There I found the love and tender welcome for which I so much yearned,
and I also had news of Darthea. She, my aunt said, was well and still in
the city, but out of spirits; as to that “villain,” my cousin, my Aunt
Gainor knew nothing, nor indeed Mistress Peniston much. Letters were
difficult to get through our lines, and if he or Darthea still wrote, my
aunt knew no more than I. When I told her in confidence of the errand
on which, at my cousin’s prompting, General Arnold had sent me, she
exclaimed:
“Could he have wished to get you into trouble? It seems incredible,
Hugh. I hope you may never meet.”
“Aunt Gainor,” said I, “to meet that man is the dearest wish of my
life.”
“The dearest?”
“Not quite,” said I, “but it will be for me a happy hour.”
“Then God forbid it, Hugh; and it is most unlikely. You must go and
see Darthea. I suppose you will hardly tarry here long--and get your
epaulets, sir. I want to see my boy in his uniform. Bring Mr. Hamilton
here, and the French gentlemen. Fetch some of them to dinner to-morrow.”
Then she kissed me again, and told me how strong and well I looked, and
so on, with all the kind prettiness of affectionate speech women keep
for those they love.
As I knew not when we should leave, nor how busy I might be while still
in the city, I thought it well to talk to my aunt of my father’s sad
condition, and of some other matters of moment. Of the deed so strangely
come into my possession she also spoke. It seemed to be much on her
mind. I still told her I cared little for the Welsh lands, and this was
true. Nevertheless I discovered in myself no desire to be pleasant to
Mr. Arthur Wynne, and I began to suspect with my aunt that more than
Darthea, or stupid jealousy, or the memory of a blow, might be at the
bottom of his disposition to injure me.
It may seem strange to those who read what a quiet old fellow writes,
that I should so frankly confess my hatred of my cousin. Nowadays men
lie about one another, and stab with words, and no one resents it. Is
the power to hate to the death fading out? and are we the better for
this? It may be so. Think of the weary months in jail, of starvation,
insult, and the miseries of cold, raggedness, filth, and fever. Think,
too, of my father set against me, of the Mischianza business,--but for
that I blame him not,--and, last, of his involving me in the vile net
of Arnold’s treason. I could as soon forgive a snake that had bit me as
this reptile.
“Mr. James Wilson has the deed,” said my aunt; “and of that we shall
learn more when Mr. Cornwallis is took, and you come home a general. And
now go and see Darthea, and let me hear how many will be to dine,
and send me, too, a half-dozen of good old wine from my brother’s
cellar--the old Wynne Madeira. Decant it with care, and don’t trust that
black animal Tom. Mind, sir!”
Darthea lived but a little way from my aunt’s, and with my heart
knocking at my ribs as it never had done at sight of levelled muskets, I
found my way into Mistress Peniston’s parlour, and waited, as it seemed
to me, an age.
It was a large back room with an open fireplace and high-backed chairs,
claw-toed tables bare of books or china, with the floor polished like
glass. Penistons and De Lanceys, in hoop and hood, and liberal of neck
and bosom, looked down on me. It was all stiff and formal, but to me
pleasantly familiar. Would she never come?
Then I heard a slow step on the stair, and the rustle of skirts, and
here was Darthea, pale and grave, but more full in bud, and, I thought,
more lovely in her maturing womanhood.
She paused at the doorway, and made as it were to greet me with a formal
curtsey, but then--how like her it did seem!--ran forward and gave me
both her hands, saying: “You are welcome, Mr. Wynne. I am most glad to
see you. You are all for the South, I hear. Is it not so?”
I said yes, and how delightful it was to be here if but for a day or
two; and then, being pretty vain, must tell her of my good fortune.
“I am glad of my friend’s success, but I wish it were with the other
side. Oh, I am a mighty Tory yet,” shaking her head. “I have seen your
Mr. Washington. What a fine man! and favours Mr. Arnold a trifle.”
“Fie for shame!” said I, pleased to see her merry; and then I went on to
tell her the sad story of Andre, but not of what he told me concerning
Arthur. The tears came to her eyes, although of course it was no new
tale, and she went white again, so that I would have turned the talk
aside, but she stopped me, and, hesitating a little, said:
“Did that miserable treachery begin when Mr. Arnold was in the town?”
I said it was thought to have done so. For my own part, I believed
it began here, but just when I could not say. “But why do you ask?” I
added, being for a reason curious.
For a little she sat still, her hands, in delicate white lace mittens,
on her lap. Then she spoke, at first not looking up, “Men are strange to
me, Mr. Wynne. I suppose in war they must do things which in peace would
be shameful.”
I said yes, and began to wonder if she had divined that Arthur had been
deep in that wretched plot. I do not know to this day. She kept her
counsel if she did. Women see through us at times as if we were glass,
and then again are caught by a man-trap that one would think must be
perfectly visible.
“And was poor Peggy Shippen in it?”
“Oh, no! no!” I replied.
“I am glad of that; but had I been she, I would never have seen him
again--never! never! To think of life with one who is as black a
creature as that man!”
“But, after all, he is her husband.” I wanted to see what she would say.
“Her husband! Yes. But a husband without honour! No! no! I should have
to respect the man I loved, or love would be dead--dead! Let us talk of
something else. Poor Peggy! Must you go?” she added, as I rose. “This
horrid war! We may never meet again.” And then quickly, “How is Captain
Blushes, and shall we see him too?”
I thought not. Already the army was making for Chester, and so toward
the Head of Elk. “No; I must go.” On this she rose.
“Is it the same, Darthea, and am I to go away with no more hope than the
years have brought me?”
“Why,” she said, colouring, “do you make it so hard for me--your
friend?”
“Do I make it hard?”
“Yes. I used to say no to men, and think no more of the thing or of
them, but I am troubled; and this awful war! I am grown older, and to
hurt a man--a man like you--gives me pain as it did not use to do.”
“But you have not said no,” said I; “and I am an obstinate man.”
“Why will you force me to say no? Why should I? You know well enough
what I think and feel. Why insist that I put it in words? It were
kinder--not to urge me.”
It seemed a strange speech. I said I did not understand her.
“Then you had better go. I am engaged to Mr. Arthur Wynne, sir. I have
had no word of him for a year, and can get no letter to him.”
I might have given her Miss Franks’s letter, and poured out to her
the story of his treachery and baseness. I may have been wrong, but
something in me forbade it, and I preferred to wait yet longer.
“Shall I get you a letter through the lines? I can.”
“You are a strange man, Mr. Wynne, and an honest gentleman. No, you
cannot do me this service. I thank you.”
“Then good-by; and it is love to the end, Darthea.”
“I wish you would go,” she said faintly.
“Good-by,” I repeated, and rose.
“Come and see me some day when you can,--not now, not this time,--and do
not think ill of me.”
“Think ill of you! Why should I?”
“Yes! yes!”
I did not understand her, but I saw that she was shaken by some great
emotion. Then she spoke:
“I have given my word, Mr. Wynne, and _I_ do not lightly break it.
Perhaps, like some men, you may think that women have no such sense of
honour as men believe to be theirs.”
“But do you love him, Darthea?”
“He is not here to answer you?” she cried, looking up at me steadily,
her eyes ablaze. “Nor will I. You have no right to question me--none!”
“I have every right,” I said.
“Oh, will you never go away?” And she stamped one little foot
impatiently. “If you don’t go I shall hate you, and I--I don’t want to
hate you, Hugh Wynne.”
I stood a moment, and once more the temptation to tell her all I knew
was strong upon me, but, as she said, Arthur was not here; first I must
tell him face to face, and after that God alone knew what might come. I
must tell him, too, with such proof as neither her love nor his subtlety
could gainsay. And when this hour came--what then? If I killed him,--and
I meant to,--what of Darthea? That would end my slender chance, and yet
I knew myself so surely as to be certain that, when the hour came, no
human consideration would be listened to for a moment. I could hate
in those days, and I did. If I had had the assured love of Darthea, I
should perhaps have hesitated; but not having it, I only longed once
to have that man at the point of the sword. It is all very savage and
brutal, but in those my young days men loved and hated as I do not think
they do of late. It was a strong and a choleric generation, but we did
some things for which the world should thank us.