An Old Acquaintance Turns Up In Manacles.
A truly miserable fourteen months' period of thankless labor, and of
unending yet aimless anxiety, follows here in my story. It was my business
to remain in the Valley, watch its suspected figures, invigorate and
encourage its militia, and combat the secret slander and open cowardice
which there menaced the cause of liberty. Fortunately I had, from time to
time, assurance that my work was of actual advantage to General Schuyler,
and occasionally I had leisure hours to spend at the Cedars. If these
pleasurable things had been denied me, there would have been in the whole
Continental service no more unenviable post than mine.
I have never pretended, least of all to myself, to be much enamoured of
fighting; nor have I ever been regardless of personal comfort, and of the
satisfaction of having warm clothes, sufficient food, and a good bed in
which to sleep. Yet I would gladly have exchanged my state for that of the
most wretched private soldier, barefooted and famished, on the frozen
Delaware or at Morristown. War is a hateful and repellent enough thing;
but it is at least better to be in the thick of it, to smell burning
powder and see and feel the enemy, even if he be at your heels, than to be
posted far away from the theatre of conflict, spying upon an outwardly
peaceful community for signs of treason and disaffection.
I should not like to put down in black and white, here in my old age, all
the harsh and malignant things which I thought of my Mohawk Valley
neighbors, or some of them, during those fourteen months. I am able to see
now that they were not altogether without excuse.
The affairs of the revolted Colonies were, in truth, going very badly. No
sooner had Congress summoned the resolution to decree Continental
independence than the fates seemed to conspire to show that the
declaration was a mistake. Our successes in the field came to a sudden
halt; then disasters followed in their place. Public confidence, which had
been too lightly raised, first wavered, then collapsed. Against the
magnificent army of English and Hessian regulars which Howe mustered in
New York, General Washington could not hold his own, and Congress lost the
nerve to stand at his back. Our militia threw up the service,
disheartened. Our commissariat faded out of existence. The patriot force
became the mere skeleton of an army, ragged, ill-fed, discouraged, and
almost hopeless. In battle after battle the British won--by overwhelming
numbers or superior fortune, it mattered not which; the result was equally
lamentable.
There had been, indeed, a notable week at Christmas-time, when the swift
strong blows struck at Trenton and Princeton lifted for a moment the cloud
which hung over us. But it settled down again, black and threatening,
before spring came.
The Colonies quarrelled with one another; their generals plotted and
intrigued, or sullenly held aloof. Cool men, measuring on the one side
this lax and inharmonious alliance of jealous States, without money,
without public-spirited populations, and, above all, without confidence in
their own success, and on the other the imposing power of rich and
resolute England, with its splendid armies and fleets in the St. Lawrence
and in New York Harbor, and with its limitless supply of hired German
auxiliaries--cool men, I say, weighing dispassionately these two opposing
forces, came pretty generally to believe that in the end General
Washington would find himself laid by the heels in the Tower at London.
I cannot honestly say now whether I ever shared this despondent view or
not. But I do know that I chafed bitterly under the orders which kept me
in the Valley, and not only prevented my seeing what fighting there was,
but put me to no better task than watching in a ten-acre field for
rattlesnakes. I can in no apter way describe my employment from May of
1776 to July of the following year. There was unending work, but no
visible fruit, either for the cause or for myself. The menace of impending
danger hung over us constantly--and nothing came of it, month after month.
I grew truly sick of it all. Besides, my wounds did not heal well, and my
bad health from time to time induced both melancholy and an
irritable mind.
The situation in the Valley was extremely simple. There was a small
outspoken Tory party, who made no secret of their sympathies, and kept up
communications with the refugees in Canada. These talked openly of the
time soon to arrive when the King's troops would purge the Valley of
disloyalty, and loyalists should come by more than their own. There was a
somewhat larger Whig party, which by word and deed supported Congress.
Between these two, or rather, because of their large number, surrounding
them, was the great neutral party, who were chiefly concerned to so trim
their sails that they should ship no water whichever way the wind blew.
Up to the time of the Declaration of Independence these peaceful people
had leaned rather toward the Whigs. But when General Washington evacuated
Long Island, and the Continental prospects seemed to dwindle, it was
wonderful to note how these same trimmers began again, first furtively,
then with less concealment, to drink the King's health.
Roughly speaking, the majority of the avowed Tories were in the lower
district of Tryon County, that called the Mohawk district, embracing all
east of Anthony's Nose, including Johnstown, Tribes Hill, and Caughnawaga.
They had, indeed, out-numbered the Whigs by five to one before the flights
to Canada began; and even now enough remained to give a strong British
color to the feeling of the district. In the western districts of the
county, where the population was more purely Dutch and Palatine, the Whig
sentiment was very much stronger. But here, too, there were Tories,
confessed and defiant; and everywhere, as time passed, the dry-rot of
doubt spread among those who were of neither party. It came at last that
nearly every week brought news of some young man's disappearance from
home--which meant another recruit for the hostile Canadian force; and
scarcely a day went by without the gloomy tidings that this man or the
other, heretofore lukewarm, now spoke in favor of submission to the King.
It was my function to watch this shifting public opinion, to sway it where
I could, but to watch it always. No more painful task could have been
conceived. I lived in an atmosphere of treachery and suspicion. Wherever I
turned I saw humanity at its worst. Men doubted their brothers, their
sons, even their wives. The very ground underneath us was honeycombed with
intrigues and conspiracies. Intelligence from Canada, with its burden of
promises to speedily glut the passions of war, circulated stealthily all
about us. How it came, how it was passed from hearth to hearth, defied our
penetration. We could only feel that it was in the air around us, and
strive to locate it--mainly in vain--and shudder at its sinister omens.
For all felt a blow to be impending, and only marvelled at its being so
long withheld. It was two years now since Colonel Guy Johnson, with the
Butlers and Philip Cross, had gone westward to raise the Indians. It was
more than a year since Sir John and his retainers had joined them. Some of
these had been to England in the interim, and we vaguely heard of others
flitting, now in Quebec, now at Niagara or Detroit; yet none doubted that
the dearest purpose of all of them was to return with troops and savages
to reconquer the Valley. This was the sword which hung daily, nightly,
over our heads.
And as the waiting time lengthened out it grew terrible to weak and
selfish minds. More and more men sought to learn how they might soften and
turn its wrath aside, not how they might meet and repel its stroke.
Congress would not believe in our danger--perhaps could not have helped us
if it would. And then our own friends at this lost heart. The flights to
Canada multiplied; our volunteer militiamen fell away from the drills and
patrols. Stories and rumors grew thicker of British preparations, of
Indian approaches, of invasion's red track being cleared up to the very
gates of the Valley. And no man saw how the ruin was to be averted.
It was in the second week of July, at almost the darkest hour in that
gloomy first part of 1777, that a singular link in the chain of my story
was forged.
Affairs were at their worst, abroad and at home. General Washington's call
for more troops had fallen on deaf ears, and it seemed impossible that his
poor force could withstand the grand army and fleet mustering at New York.
The news of St. Clair's wretched evacuation of Ticonderoga had come in,
and we scarcely dared look one another in the face when it was told.
Apparently matters were nearing a climax, so far at least as we in New
York State were involved. For Burgoyne was moving down through the
Champlain country upon Albany, with none to stay his progress, and an
auxiliary force was somewhere upon the great northern water frontier of
our State, intending to sweep through the Mohawk Valley to join him. Once
this junction was formed, the Hudson lay open--and after that? We dared
not think!
I cannot hope to make young people realize what all this meant to us. To
comprehend this, one must have had not only a neck menaced by the halter,
but mother, sisters, dear ones, threatened by the tomahawk and knife.
Thinking back upon it now, I marvel that men did not go mad under this
horrible stress of apprehension. Apparently there was no hope. The old New
England spite and prejudice against General Schuyler had stirred up now a
fierce chorus of calumny and attack. He was blamed for St. Clair's
pusillanimous retreat, for Congressional languor, for the failure of the
militia to come forward--for everything, in fact. His hands were tied by
suspicion, by treason, by popular lethargy, by lack of money, men, and
means. Against these odds he strove like a giant, but I think not even he,
with all his great, calm confidence, saw clearly through the black cloud
just then.
I had gone to bed late one hot July night, and had hardly fallen asleep,
for gloomy musing upon these things, when I was awakened by a loud
pounding on the door beneath. I was at my mother's house, fortunately, and
the messenger had thus found me out promptly.
Tulp had also been aroused, and saddled my horse while I dressed, in
response to the summons. I was wanted at Johnstown by Sheriff Frey, on
some matter which would not wait for the morrow. This much I gathered
from the messenger, as we rode together in the starlight, but he could
tell me little more, save that an emissary from the Tories in Canada had
been captured near the Sacondaga, and it was needful that I should see
him. I wondered somewhat at this as a reason for routing me out of my
sleep, but cantered silently along, too drowsy to be querulous.
Daylight broke before we crossed the river, and the sunrise gun sounded as
we rode up into the court-house square at Johnstown. Soldiers were already
to be seen moving about outside the block-houses at the corners of the
palisade which, since Sir John's flight, had been built around the jail.
Our coming seemed to be expected, for one of the soldiers told us to wait
while he went inside, and after a few minutes John Frey came out, rubbing
his eyes. As I dismounted, he briefly explained matters to me.
It seemed that a Tory spy had made his way in from the woods, had
delivered letters both at Cairncross and at the Cedars, and had then
started to return, but by the vigilance of one of the Vrooman boys had
been headed off and taken.
"He is as close as the bark on a beech-tree," concluded the sheriff. "We
could get nothing out of him. Even when I told him he would be hanged this
morning after breakfast, he did not change color. He only said that if
this was the case he would like first to see you; it seems he knows you,
and has some information for you--probably about Philip Cross's wife.
Perhaps he will tell _you_ what was in the letter he brought to her."
It occurred to me on the instant that this was the real reason for my
being summoned. These were days of universal suspicion, and the worthy
sheriff had his doubts even of Daisy.
"All right! Let me see the man," I said, and we entered the jail.
When the soldier in charge had opened the cell-door, the object of our
interest was discovered to be asleep. Frey shook him vigorously by the
shoulder. He sat bolt upright on the instant, squinting his eyes to
accustom them to the light, but evincing no special concern at
our presence.
"Is your hanging-party ready?" he said, and yawned, stretching his arms as
freely as the manacles would admit.
I looked curiously at him--a long, slender, wiry figure, with thin, corded
neck, and twisted muscles showing on so much of his hairy breast as the
open buckskin shirt exposed. The face was pointed and bony, and brown as
leather. For the moment I could not place him; then his identity dawned on
me. I stepped forward, and said:
"Is that you, Enoch Wade?"
He looked up at me, and nodded recognition, with no show of emotion.
"It might have been my ghost, cap'n," he said, "if you hadn't hurried
right along. These friends of yours were bent on spoiling a good man to
make bad meat. They wouldn't listen to any kind of reason. Can I have a
palaver with you, all by yourself?"
"What does he mean by a 'palaver'?" asked the honest Swiss sheriff.
I explained that it was a common enough Portuguese word, signifying
"talk," which Enoch in his wanderings had picked up. Furthermore, I told
Frey that I knew the man, and wished to speak with him apart, whereupon
the sheriff and the soldier left us.
"It is all in my eye--their hanging me," began Enoch, with a sardonic
smile slowly relaxing his thin lips. "I wasn't fooled a minute by that."
"Perhaps you are mistaken there, my man," I said, as sternly as I could.
"Oh, no, not a bit! What's more, they wouldn't have caught me if I hadn't
wanted to be caught. You know me. You have travelled with me. Honest
Injun, now, do you take me for the kind of a man to be treed by a young
Dutch muskrat-trapper if I have a mind not to be?"
I had to admit that my knowledge of his resourceful nature had not
prepared me for such an ignoble catastrophe, but I added that all the more
his conduct mystified me.
"Quite so!" he remarked, with another grim smile of complacency. "Sit
down here on this bed, if you can find room, and I'll tell you all
about it."
The tale to which I listened during the next half-hour, full of deep
interest as it was for me, would not bear repeating here at length. Its
essential points were these:
After Sir William's death Enoch had remained on at the Hall, not feeling
particularly bound to the new baronet, but having a cat's attachment to
the Hall itself. When Sir John finally resolved to avoid arrest by flight,
Enoch had been in two minds about accompanying him, but had finally
yielded to the flattering reliance placed by all upon the value and
thoroughness of his knowledge as a woodsman. It was largely due to his
skill that the party got safely through the great wilderness, and reached
Montreal so soon. Since his arrival in Canada, however, things had not
been at all to his liking. There was but one thought among all his refugee
companions, which was to return to the Mohawk Valley and put their old
neighbors to fire and sword--and for this Enoch had no inclination
whatever. He had accordingly resisted all offers to enrol him in the Tory
regiment which Sir John was raising in Canada, and had looked for an
opportunity to get away quietly and without reproach. This chance had only
come to him a week or so ago, when Philip Cross offered to pay him well to
take two letters down the Valley--one to his servant Rab, the other to
Mrs. Cross. He had accepted this errand, and had delivered the letters as
in duty bound. There his responsibility ended. He had no intention to
return, and had allowed himself to be arrested by a slow and uninventive
young man, solely because it seemed the best way of achieving his purpose.
"What is your purpose, Enoch?"
"Well, to begin with, it is to make your hair stand on end. I started from
Buck's Island, on the St. Lawrence, on the 9th of this month. Do you know
who I left there? Seven hundred uniformed soldiers, English and Tory,
with eight cannons, commanded by a British colonel--Sillinger they called
him--and Sir John Johnson. They are coming to Oswego, where they will meet
the Butlers with more Tories, and Dan Claus with five hundred Indians.
Then the whole force is to march on Fort Stanwix, capture it, and come
down the Valley!"
You may guess how eagerly I listened to the details which Enoch
gave--details of the gravest importance, which I must hasten to send west
to Herkimer and east to Schuyler. When this vital talk was ended, I
returned to the personal side of the matter with a final query:
"But why get yourself arrested?"
"Because I wanted to see you. My errand wasn't finished till I had given
you Philip Cross's message. 'Tell that Dutchman,' he said, 'if you can
contrive to do it without peril to yourself, that when I come into the
Valley I will cut out his heart, and feed it to a Missisague dog!'"