The Night Attack upon Quebec--And My Share in It.
Of these sad occurrences it was my fortune not to be informed for many
months. In some senses this was a beneficent ignorance. Had I known that,
under the dear old roof which so long sheltered me, Mr. Stewart was
helplessly stricken with paralysis, and poor Daisy lay ill unto death with
a brain malady, the knowledge must have gone far to unfit me for the work
which was now given into my hands. And it was work of great magnitude and
importance.
Close upon the heels of the Bunker Hill intelligence came the news that a
Continental army had been organized; that Colonel Washington of Virginia
had been designated by Congress as its chief, and had started to assume
command at Cambridge; and that our own Philip Schuyler was one of the four
officers named at the same time as major-generals. There was great
pleasure in Albany over the tidings; the patriot committee began to
prepare for earnest action, and our Tory mayor, Abraham Cuyler,
sagaciously betook himself off, ascending the Mohawk in a canoe, and
making his way to Canada.
Among the first wishes expressed by General Schuyler was one that I
should assist and accompany him, and this, flattering enough in itself,
was made delightful by the facts that my friend Peter Gansevoort was named
as another aide, and that my kinsman Dr. Teunis was given a professional
place in the general's camp family. We three went with him to the
headquarters at Cambridge very shortly after, and thenceforward were too
steadily engrossed with our novel duties to give much thought to
home affairs.
It was, indeed, a full seven months onward from the June of which I have
written that my first information concerning the Cedars, and the dear folk
within its walls, came to me in a letter from my mother. This letter found
me, of all unlikely places in the world, lying in garrison on the frozen
bank of the St. Lawrence--behind us the strange, unnatural silence of the
northern waste of snow, before us the black, citadel-crowned,
fire-spitting rock of Quebec.
Again there presses upon me the temptation to put into this book the story
of what I saw there while we were gathering our strength and resolution
for the fatal assault. If I am not altogether proof against its wiles, at
least no more shall be told of it than properly belongs here, insomuch as
this is the relation of my life's romance.
We had started in September with the expedition against Canada, while it
was under the personal command of our general; and when his old sickness
came unluckily upon him and forced his return, it was at his request that
we still kept on, under his successor, General Richard Montgomery. It was
the pleasanter course for us, both because we wanted to see fighting, and
because Montgomery, as the son-in-law of Mr. Livingston, was known to us
and was our friend. And so with him we saw the long siege of St. John's
ended, and Chambly, and then Montreal, Sorel, and Three Rivers, one by one
submit, and the _habitants_ acclaim us their deliverers as we swept the
country clean to the gates of Quebec.
To this place we came in the first week of December, and found bold Arnold
and his seven hundred scarecrows awaiting us. These men had been here for
a month, yet had scarcely regained their strength from the horrible
sufferings they encountered throughout their wilderness march. We were by
this time not enamoured of campaigning in any large degree, from our own
experience of it. Yet when we saw the men whom Arnold and Morgan had led
through the trackless Kennebec forest, and heard them modestly tell the
story of that great achievement--of their dreadful sustained battle with
cold, exhaustion, famine, with whirling rapids, rivers choked with ice,
and dangerous mountain precipices--we felt ashamed at having supposed we
knew what soldiering was.
Three weeks we lay waiting. Inside, clever Carleton was straining heaven
and earth in his endeavor to strengthen his position; without, we could
only wait. Those of us who were from the Albany and Mohawk country came to
learn that some of our old Tory neighbors were within the walls, and the
knowledge gave a new zest to our eager watchfulness.
This, it should be said, was more eager than sanguine. It was evident from
the outset that, in at least one respect, we had counted without our host.
The French-Canadians were at heart on our side, perhaps, but they were not
going to openly help us; and we had expected otherwise. Arnold himself,
who as an old horse-dealer knew the country, had especially believed in
their assistance and sympathy, and we had bills printed in the French
language to distribute, calling upon them to rise and join us. That they
did not do so was a grievous disappointment from the beginning.
Yet we might have been warned of this. The common people were friendly to
us--aided us privily when they could--but they were afraid of their
seigneurs and cures. These gentry were our enemies for a good reason--in
their eyes we were fighting New England's fight, and intolerant New
England had only the year before bitterly protested to Parliament against
the favor shown the Papist religion in Quebec. These seigneurs and priests
stood together in a common interest. England had been shrewd enough to
guarantee them their domains and revenues. Loyalty meant to them the
security of their _rentes et dimes_, and they were not likely to risk
these in an adventure with the Papist-hating Yankees. Hence they stood by
England, and, what is more, held their people practically aloof from us.
But even then we could have raised Canadian troops, if we had had the
wherewithal to feed or clothe or arm them. But of this Congress had taken
no thought. Our ordnance was ridiculously inadequate for a siege; our
clothes were ragged and foul, our guns bad, our powder scanty, and our
food scarce. Yet we were deliberately facing, in this wretched plight, the
most desperate assault of known warfare.
The weeks went by swiftly enough. Much of the time I was with the
commander at our headquarters in Holland House, and I grew vastly attached
to the handsome, gracious, devoted young soldier. Brigadier-General
Montgomery had not, perhaps, the breadth of character that made Schuyler
so notable; which one of all his contemporaries, save Washington, for that
matter, had? But he was very single-minded and honorable, and had much
charm of manner. Often, during those weeks, he told me of his beautiful
young wife, waiting for his return at their new home on the Hudson, and of
his hope soon to be able to abandon the strife and unrest of war, and
settle there in peace. Alas! it was not to be so.
And then, again, we would adventure forth at night, when there was no
moon, to note what degree of vigilance was observed by the beleaguered
force. This was dangerous, for the ingenious defenders hung out at the
ends of poles from the bastions either lighted lanterns or iron pots
filled with blazing balsam, which illuminated the ditch even better than
the moon would have done. Often we were thus discovered and fired upon,
and once the General had his horse killed under him.
I should say that he was hardly hopeful of the result of the attack
already determined upon. But it was the only thing possible to be done,
and with all his soul and mind he was resolved to as nearly do it as
might be.
The night came, the last night but one of that eventful, momentous year
1775. Men had passed each day for a week between our quarters and Colonel
Arnold's at St. Roch, concerting arrangements. There were Frenchmen inside
the town from whom we were promised aid. What we did not know was that
there were other Frenchmen, in our camp, who advised Carleton of all our
plans. The day and evening were spent in silent preparations for the
surprise and assault--if so be it the snow-storm came which was agreed
upon as the signal. Last words of counsel and instruction were spoken.
Suppressed excitement reigned everywhere.
The skies were clear and moonlit in the evening; now, about midnight, a
damp, heavy snowfall began and a fierce wind arose. So much the better for
us and our enterprise, we thought.
We left Holland House some hours after midnight, without lights and on
foot, and placed ourselves at the head of the three hundred and fifty men
whom Colonel Campbell (not the Cherry Valley man, but a vain and cowardly
creature from down the Hudson, recently retired from the British army)
held in waiting for us. Noiselessly we descended from the heights, passed
Wolfe's Cove, and gained the narrow road on the ledge under the mountain.
The General and his aide, McPherson, trudged through the deep snow ahead
of all, with Gansevoort, and me keeping up to them as well as we could.
What with the very difficult walking, the wildness of the gale, and the
necessity for silence, I do not remember that anything was said. We panted
heavily, I know, and more than once had to stop while the slender and less
eager carpenters who formed the van came up.
It was close upon the fence of wooden pickets which stretched across the
causeway at Cape Diamond that the last of these halts was made. Through
the darkness, rendered doubly dense by the whirling snowflakes with which
the wind lashed our faces, we could only vaguely discern the barrier and
the outlines of the little block-house beyond it.
"Here is our work!" whispered the General to the half-dozen nearest him,
and pointing ahead with his gauntleted hand. "Once over this and into the
guard-house, and we can never be flanked, whatever else betide."
We tore furiously at the posts, even while he spoke--we four with our
hands, the carpenters with their tools. It was the work of a moment to lay
a dozen of these; another moment and the first score of us were knee-deep
in the snow piled to one side of the guard-house door. There was a murmur
from behind which caused us to glance around. The body of Campbell's
troops, instead of pressing us closely, had lingered to take down more
pickets. Somebody--it may have been I--said, "Cowards!" Some one else,
doubtless the General, said, "Forward!"
Then the ground shook violently under our feet, a great bursting roar
deafened us, and before a scythe-like sweep of fire we at the front
tumbled and fell!
I got to my feet again, but had lost both sword and pistol in the snow. I
had been hit somewhere--it seemed in the side--but of that I scarcely
thought. I heard sharp firing and the sound of oaths and groans all around
me, so it behooved me to fight, too. There were dimly visible dark forms
issuing from the guard-house, and wrestling or exchanging blows with other
forms, now upright, now in the snow. Here and there a flash of fire from
some gun or pistol gave an instant's light to this Stygian hurly-burly.
A heavy man, coming from the door of the block-house, fired a pistol
straight at me; the bullet seemed not to have struck me, and I leaped upon
him before he could throw the weapon. We struggled fiercely backward
toward the pickets, I tearing at him with all my might, and striving with
tremendous effort to keep my wits as well as my strength about me, in
order to save my life. Curiously enough, I found that the simplest
wrestling tricks I tried I had not the power for; even in this swift
minute, loss of blood was telling on me. A ferocious last effort I made to
swing and hurl him, and, instead, went staggering down into the drift with
him on top.
As I strove still to turn, and lifted my head, a voice sounded close in my
ear, "It's you, is it? Damn you!" and then a great mashing blow on my face
ended my fight.
Doubtless some reminiscence in that voice caused my mind to carry on the
struggle in the second after sense had fled, for I thought we still were
in the snow wrestling, only it was inside a mimic fort in the clearing
around Mr. Stewart's old log-house, and I was a little boy in an apron,
and my antagonist was a yellow-haired lad with hard fists, with which he
beat me cruelly in the face--and so off into utter blackness and void
of oblivion.
One morning in the latter half of January, nearly three weeks after, I
woke to consciousness again. Wholly innocent of the lapse of time, I
seemed to be just awakening from the dream of the snow fort, and of my
boyish fight with little Philip Cross. I smiled to myself as I thought of
it, but even while I smiled the vague shadows of later happenings came
over my mind. Little by little the outlines of that rough December night
took shape in my puzzled wits.
I had been wounded, evidently, and had been borne back to Holland House,
for I recognized the room in which I lay. My right arm was in stiff
splints; with the other hand I felt of my head and discovered that my hair
had been cut close, and that my skull and face were fairly thatched with
crossing strips of bandage. My chest, too, was girdled by similar
medicated bands. My mental faculties moved very sedately, it seemed, and I
had been pondering these phenomena for a long time when my cousin Dr.
Teunis Van Hoorn came tip-toeing into the room.
This worthy young man was sincerely delighted to find me come by my
senses once more. In his joy he allowed me to talk and to listen more than
was for my good, probably, for I had some bad days immediately following;
but the relapse did not come before I had learned much that was gravely
interesting.
It is a story of sufficient sorrow and shame to American ears even
now--this tale of how we failed to carry Quebec. Judge how grievously the
recital fell upon my ears then, in the little barrack-chamber of Holland
House, within hearing of the cannonade by which the farce of a siege was
still maintained from day to day! Teunis told me how, by that first volley
of grape at the guard-house, the brave and noble Montgomery had been
instantly killed; how Arnold, forcing his way from the other direction at
the head of his men, and being early shot in the leg, had fought and
stormed like a wounded lion in the narrow Sault-au-Matelot; how he and the
gallant Morgan had done more than their share in the temerarious
adventure, and had held the town and citadel at their mercy if only the
miserable Campbell had pushed forward after poor Montgomery fell, and gone
on to meet those battling heroes in the Lower Town. But I have not the
patience, even at this late day, to write about this melancholy and
mortifying failure.
Some of our best men--Montgomery, Hendricks, Humphreys, Captain Cheseman,
and other officers, and nearly two hundred men--had been killed out-right,
and the host of wounded made veritable hospitals of both the
headquarters. Nearly half of our total original force had been taken
prisoners. With the shattered remnants of our little army we were still
keeping up the pretence of a siege, but there was no heart in our
operations, since reverse had broken the last hope of raising assistance
among the French population. We were too few in numbers to be able now to
prevent supplies reaching the town, and everybody gloomily foresaw that
when the river became free of ice, and open for the British fleet to throw
in munitions and re-enforcements, the game would be up.
All this Dr. Teunis told me, and often during the narration it seemed as
if my indignant blood would burst off the healing bandages, so angrily did
it boil at the thought of what poltroonery had lost to us.
It was a relief to turn to the question of my own adventure. It appeared
that I had been wounded by the first and only discharge of the cannon at
the guard-house, for there was discovered, embedded in the muscles over my
ribs, a small iron bolt, which would have come from no lesser firearm.
They moreover had the honor of finding a bullet in my right forearm, which
was evidently a pistol-ball. And, lastly, my features had been beaten into
an almost unrecognizable mass of bruised flesh by either a heavy-ringed
fist or a pistol-butt.
"Pete Gansevoort dragged you off on his back," my kinsman concluded. "Some
of our men wanted to go back for the poor General, and for Cheseman and
McPherson, but that Campbell creature would not suffer them. Instead, he
and his cowards ran back as if the whole King's army were at their heels.
You may thank God and Gansevoort that you were not found frozen stiff with
the rest, next morning."
"Ah, you may be sure I do!" I answered. "Can I see Peter?"
"Why, no--at least not in this God-forgotten country. He has been made a
colonel, and is gone back to Albany to join General Schuyler. And we are
to go--you and I--as soon as it suits your convenience to be able to
travel. There are orders to that purport. So make haste and get well, if
you please."
"I have been dangerously ill, have I not?"
"Scarcely that, I should say. At least, I had little fear for you after
the first week. Neither of the gunshot wounds was serious. But somebody
must have dealt you some hearty thwacks on the poll, my boy. It was these,
and the wet chill, and the loss of blood, which threw you into a fever.
But I never feared for you."
Later in the year, long after I was wholly recovered, my cousin confided
to me that this was an amiable lie, designed to instil me with that
confidence which is so great a part of the battle gained, and that for a
week or so my chance of life had been held hardly worth a _son marquee_.
But I did not now know this, and I tried to fasten my mind upon that
encounter in the drift by the guard-house, which was my last recollection.
Much of it curiously eluded my mental grasp for a time; then all at once
it came to me.
"Do you know, Teunis," I said, "that I believe it was Philip Cross who
broke my head with his pistol-butt?"
"Nonsense!"
"Yes, it surely was--and he knew me, too!" And I explained the grounds for
my confidence.
"Well, young man," said Dr. Teunis, at last, "if you do not find that
gentleman out somewhere, sometime, and choke him, and tear him up into
fiddle-strings, you've not a drop of Van Hoorn blood in your
whole carcass!"