“Sad was the year, by proud oppression driven,
When transatlantic liberty arose,
Not in the sunshine and the smile of Heaven,
But wrapped in whirlwinds, and begirt with woes,
Amidst the strife of fratricidal foes.”--_Campbell._
The house, into which our heroine and her attendant had been ushered
for safe keeping during the expected conflict, was divided into two
compartments, and separately occupied by a couple of young farmers, and
their still more youthful and recently espoused wives, twin sisters,
by the names of Mary and Martha. But as happy a social circle as these
close and interesting ties should have continued to render the inmates,
the fiend of discord, with the approach of the opposing armies, had just
entered in among them. One of the young men was a whig, and the other
a tory; and the wives had very naturally adopted the predilections of
their respective husbands. The young men had, as yet, however, taken no
active part in the public quarrel; and, while the war was at a distance,
their difference of opinion had not been permitted very essentially to
disturb their friendly intercourse. But now, as the war was brought to
their door, the sight of the two hostile armies, coming together for
deadly conflict on the great issue in which their hitherto repressed
sympathies were oppositely enlisted, had aroused the demon of contention
in their friendly bosoms. The boastful assumptions of the tory, uttered
in his excitement at beholding the imposing display of the British
forces around him, were promptly met by the counter predictions of the
other. Retort, recrimination, and darkly-hinted menaces followed, till
jealousy and rancor seemed completely to have usurped the place of all
those fraternal feelings that lately blessed their peaceful abode.
Such was the painful and ill-omened scene which was passing in the
apartment of the brother who had espoused the cause of his country,
where both families were assembled to witness the anticipated battle,
when the unexpected entrance of the girls put an end to the altercation;
and it soon after being announced that the Americans had retreated, the
tory, followed by his wife, retired with an exulting sneer, to his own
room, leaving the fair strangers, as it happily chanced, to the care
and more congenial companionship of the young patriot and his warmly
sympathizing Martha, who now kindly supplied their wants, and then
conducted them to their attic chamber, where, it being now nearly dark,
they immediately betook themselves to their homely but grateful couch.
And, overcome by the fatigues and harrowing anxieties of the day, they
soon fell asleep, expecting to be roused in the morning by the din of
the battle, which they felt confident was yet to take place before the
invaders would be permitted to advance farther on their boasted mission
of plunder and outrage.
But the next day was to be marked by the battle of the elements, rather
than of men. The morning was ushered in by a storm of unusual violence.
And as the day advanced, so seemed to increase the power of the tempest.
The black, flying clouds, deeply enshrouding the mountain tops, and
dragging the summits of the low, woody hills around, closer and closer
begirt the darkened earth. Heavier and heavier dashed the deluging
torrents against the smitten herbage of the field, and the trembling
habitations of men; and louder and louder roared the wind, as it went
howling and raging over the vexed wilderness, as if in mockery of
the intended conflict of the feeble creatures of earth, who now stood
shrinking and shivering in its rain-freighted blasts.
Miss Haviland and her friend, in the mean time, closely kept their
little chamber; and as little enviable as were their sensations under
the terrors which the tempest, as it roared around the rocked dwelling,
naturally inspired, it was soon with feelings of thankfulness that they
found themselves permitted to remain even there unmolested; for their
ears were continually shocked, and their liveliest apprehensions often
excited, by the profane vociferations, the noisy ribaldry, and lawless
conduct of the tories, who, driven from their drenched tents, which
afforded them but a feeble protection against the fury of the storm,
had crowded into the lower rooms of the house, where, half stifled, and
jostled for want of space, they filled up the stairway, and repeatedly
attempted to force open the fastened door of the trembling inmates
of the apartment above. But the latter were at length permitted
to experience a temporary relief from this source of annoyance and
apprehension. Towards night the tempest lulled, and the rain abated,
when the tories left the house, and joined in the universal rejoicing of
the troops of the encampment, that the discomforts and sufferings of the
storm were over. It soon became manifest, however, that they had been
relieved of one evil only to be disturbed by another. In a short time,
the American scouting parties began to show themselves on the border of
the field in various directions around the encampment. Presently, the
sharp crack of the rifle, followed by the whistling of bullets, and the
fall of one of their number, in the midst of the startled camp, apprised
them of the danger of remaining longer inactive. And Baum, astonished at
the temerity of his foes, and scarcely less so at their evident ability
to do execution with small arms at such a distance, instantly issued
orders to fit out parties of tories and Indians, to go and dislodge
them. At this juncture, the girls received a visit from their friendly
hostess, who, with a troubled look, entered their room, and, after
telling them that she and her sister had been, like themselves, little
else than prisoners in the other chamber, proceeded to inform them that
her husband, impressed with a sense of duty to his country, had secretly
stolen off, during the preceding night, to the American camp; and that
his tory brother-in-law, from whom she had contrived to conceal her
husband's absence through the morning, had just discovered the fact,
and, with bitter imprecations, seized his gun and rushed out to join the
parties fitting out to fight his countrymen. Scarcely waiting to finish
her hurried communication, the agitated woman hurried down and joined
her no less excited sister in the yard, to witness the expected
encounter of the opposing skirmishers; while Sabrey and Vine, sharing
with the sisters, though less keenly, perhaps, in the interest of the
event, took post at their window, which commanded a clear view of the
scene of action, and looked forth for the same purpose.
A company of tories were cautiously stealing along a low, bushy vale,
towards the most westerly of the opposite woody points, from which the
firing had proceeded. On the extreme right of the field, under a clump
of tall evergreens, was seen the encampment of the Indians, who were
in lively commotion, and evidently preparing to join in the meditated
sally. One, whose stature, accoutrements, and bearing denoted him to
be a chief, and principal leader of the band, appeared to be actively
engaged in giving orders, and pointing out the course to be taken to
reach some designated station in the woods. But just as the whole party
were beginning to file away in their usual fashion, their steps were
suddenly arrested by a rapid discharge of rifle-shots, that burst upon
them from behind an old bush fence on the border of the forest, about a
hundred yards to the east; when the tall chief, and three or four of his
followers, in different parts of their line, were seen leaping wildly
into the air, and then pitching headlong to the earth, to rise no more.
The next instant, every dark form had vanished, and their places of
refuge were only distinguishable by the occasional reports of their
guns, as the protracted skirmish gradually receded within the depths of
the forest.
Meanwhile, the tories had proceeded on their destination undiscovered,
till they reached the termination of their screening ridge on the left,
which brought them within fifty yards of the bushy point where the
largest party of their opponents lay concealed, unsuspicious of any
immediate attack. Here the former made a brief pause, when they rushed
forward with a loud shout, and, after a rapid exchange of shots, and
a brief hand to hand conflict, drove the others from their ground, and
compelled them to flee across the intervening opening to the opposite
jungle, for protection. A cry of exultation now burst from the lips
of the wife of the tory, as she witnessed this successful onset of her
husband's party, and, crowing over her disappointed sister, she began
to treat the insignificant result as the certain precursor of the speedy
flight of the whole rebel army. But her triumph was of short duration;
for, almost the next moment, the discomfited party, in conjunction
with the band of their associates, to whose covert they had retreated,
sallied out, and, returning impetuously to the charge, sent a fatal
shower of bullets into the huddled ranks of the unprepared tories, and
soon routed them entirely from the woods, from which they were seen
flying, in wild disorder, towards the encampment. The rallying wife of
the whig now, in turn, broke out in retaliatory exclamations of joy and
exultation. But her triumphs, also, were destined to be cut short as
speedily as those of her equally thoughtless sister, but in a different,
and far more sorrowful manner.
A man, bearing the lifeless body of one of the slain on his shoulders,
now emerged into view, and came hurriedly staggering along over the
field, directly towards the house. The instant the careless eye of the
elated Martha fell on the approaching figure, it became fixed as if
enchained by a spell. The half-uttered word she was speaking suddenly
died on her faltering tongue. An instinctive shudder seemed to run over
her; and, for nearly a minute, she stood gazing in motionless silence.
“What is that? O! what is that?” at length burst sharply from her
blanched lips.
But no one answered; and she again relapsed into the same ominous
silence, and continued gazing with the same burning intensity, till the
man, with a look of conscience-smitten agony, came up, and laying down
his burden on the grass, gently turned it over, and presented to her the
face of her slain husband; when shriek after shriek broke, in quick and
startling succession, from her convulsed bosom, and she was carried, in
a state of wild and fearful frenzy, into the house. The homicide was the
tory husband, who, having met his victim in the fight, and acting, as he
averred, under an irresistible impulse, had singled out and slain one,
whom, the next moment, he would have given worlds to have been able to
bring to life. [Footnote: The scene here introduced is drawn from an
incident belonging to the local history of the battle of Bennington, and
is but one among the many sad and touching occurrences which tradition
has preserved as connected with that memorable conflict.]
The scattered forces of the sky now again began to collect, the rain
to descend, and the angry winds to roar through the surrounding forest,
compelling both the assailed and assailants to retire from the fields
and woods to their respective places of rendezvous for shelter. And soon
night closed over the scene, and shrouded every object from view with
its Egyptian darkness.
Widely different were the feelings and impressions which the events of
that afternoon had imparted to the troops of the two opposing armies.
The advantages gained, though not very important or decisive, had yet
been almost wholly on the side of the Americans. Their different parties
of scouts and skirmishers, who, with the first slackening of the storm,
had filled the woods in every direction around the British encampment,
had slain or disabled, in the various encounters of the day, more than
thirty of their opponents, and, among them, two Indian chiefs, whose
destruction caused a rejoicing proportioned to the exasperation which
their presence here had occasioned. And the effect of the whole had been
to banish the last remaining doubts of success from their bosoms, and
make them long for the hour when they should be permitted to meet the
foe in regular battle. The losses and defeats of the royal forces, on
the other hand, had proportionally depressed their feelings, and filled
them with dark forebodings of the fate which was in store for them. Nor
did these feelings, in conjunction with the natural effect of the
gloom and physical discomforts of their situation, long fail of a
characteristic manifestation among the contrasted bands of that fated
army. And strange and fearful were the sights and sounds which their
encampment exhibited during the night of storm and darkness that
followed. The sullen oaths and outlandish grumbling of the Germans,
delving and splashing away at their unfinished intrenchments,--the noisy
execrations of the exasperated tories moving restlessly about from tent
to tent, and swearing revenge for the losses,--the sputtering of the
Canadians,--the frightful whooping of the discontented savages, as their
dark forms were seen darting about in the flickering light of their
camp fires, and finally, the groans and blaspheming curses of the poor
wretches who had been wounded in the skirmishes of the day, all mingling
with the wailing of the wind, and the ceaseless pattering of the rain,
combined to form a scene as wild and dismal as language could well
paint, or even imagination conceive, and throw over this devoted spot of
earth more of the air of the regions of the damned, than of the abodes
of human beings.
But what, in the mean while, were the thoughts and sensations of
the hapless maiden, whose fate and fortune seemed to have become so
strangely involved in the movements and scenes we have been
describing? To her the day had been but a varying scene of gloom and
wretchedness--of maidenly terror and painful excitement. And night had
come only to be made still more hideous by its accumulated horrors.
Shuddering at the strange and appalling sounds, that constantly assailed
her recoiling senses from without, and pained and distressed at the
ceaseless wailing of the bereaved and heart-broken wife within--often
startled and alarmed at the noisy intrusions of the heartless tories in
the room below, and their frequent threats, and even occasional
attempts to get into her apartment above, and tortured by the anxieties,
suspense, and apprehension she felt respecting the fate for which she
might be reserved, independent of the more immediately-menaced evils
around her, she lay, hour after hour, during the first watches of that
fearful night, tremblingly clinging to her less-troubled companion, and
earnestly praying for death, or the approach of morning, to relieve her
from some of the horrors of her situation. But at length her exhausted
system yielded to the requirements of nature, and her senses became
locked, and her cares lost, in the forgetfulness of slumber.
She and her attendant were awakened, the next morning, by the reveille
of the clangorous brass drums of the Hessians, and the mingling hum
of the stirring camp around them. Attiring themselves with that haste
which, whether required or not, is usually consequent on a state
of great anxiety, they ran to the window and glanced out over the
landscape. But what a contrast with what it yesterday presented! The
black storm-cloud, that had so closely brooded over the earth, had been
rolled away, and the cerulean vault above was as calm and cloudless as
if storm and tempest had never disfigured its beautiful expanse. The air
was full of balmy sweetness; and soon the golden sun, slowly mounting
over the eastern hills, poured down his floods of light upon the
varigated landscape, transforming the still-weeping forest into a sea of
glittering diamonds, converting the hitherto unnoticed openings on the
surrounding hill-sides into bright spots of smiling verdure, and
adding a brighter tint to the yellow fields of waving grain, that stood
ripening in the valley, soon to be trod and trampled by other than
peaceful reapers' feet:--
“For here, far other harvest here
Than that which peasant's scythe demands,
Was gathered in by sterner hands,
With musket, blade, and spear.”
Slowly rolled the bright hours of that calm and beautiful morning away,
as Miss Haviland, with her attendant, sat by the window, often and
anxiously glancing along the road to the east, to catch a glimpse of
that army, in whose movements all her hopes were centred, making its
expected advance. But it came not. No American--not even a scout or
skirmisher--any where made his appearance; and no signs of a battle
were visible in any quarter, unless they might be gathered from the
busy labors of the British troops in putting their arms in order, or the
unusual stillness and the air of anxious suspense that seemed to pervade
their whole encampment. Noon came; and still all remained quiet as
before. That hour, and the next, also, passed away with the same ominous
stillness; and the desponding girl began seriously to fear, that the
Americans had indeed retreated from the vicinity, and left her and
the country alike at the mercy of the foe. But just as this depressing
thought was taking possession of her mind, a sound reached her ears from
afar, that caused her suddenly to start to her feet with a look of joy
and animation that, for weeks, had been a stranger to her countenance.