WASHINGTON SPEAKS A NAME WHICH NAMES THE REPUBLIC
When Washington was at Cambridge his headquarters were at the Craigie
House, now known as the “home of Longfellow,” as that poet of the
world’s heart lived and wrote there for nearly a generation. Go to
Cambridge, my young people who visit Boston, and you may see the past
of the Revolutionary days there, if you will close your eyes to the
present. The old tree is there under which Washington took command
of the army; a memorial stone with an inscription marks the place.
The old buildings of Harvard College are there much as they were in
Washington’s days. The Episcopal church where Washington worshiped
still stands, and one may sit down in the pew that the general-in-chief
occupied as in the Old North Church, Boston.
The tree under which Washington took command of the army is decayed and
is rapidly falling away. It was once a magnificent elm, and Washington
caused a lookout to be made in the top, which overlooked Boston and
the British defenses. We can easily imagine him with his glass, hidden
among the green boughs of this lofty and bowery tree, watching the
movements of the enemy. Such an incident of the Revolution would seem
to invite a national picture like one of young John Trumbull’s.
Washington held his councils of war at the Craigie House. It was
doubtless from there that he sent his courier flying to Jonathan
Trumbull for help. His message was that the army must have food.
It was then that the Connecticut Governor called together the Committee
of Public Safety and sent his men of the secret service into the
farm-ways of Connecticut and gathered cattle and stores from the farms,
and forwarded the supplies on their way to Boston, and Dennis O’Hay
went with them.
Boston was to be evacuated. Where were the British going? What was next
to be done?
Washington called a council of his generals, and they deliberated the
question of the hour.
The help that had given strength to the army investing Boston during
the siege had come from Connecticut; the great heart-beat of Jonathan
Trumbull had sent the British fleet out on the sea and away from Castle
William (now the water-park of South Boston).
What should be done next? Officer after officer gave his views, without
conclusion. The Brighton meadows, afterward made famous by the pen of
Longfellow, glimmered in the light of early spring over which the happy
wings of birds were rising in song. The great trees rustled in the
spring winds. The officers paced the floor. What was to be done next?
The officers waited for Washington to speak.
He had deliberated, but was not sure as to the wisest course to pursue.
He lifted his face at last, and said:
“We will have to consult _Brother Jonathan_.”
The name had been used before in the army, but not in this official way
at a council.
It was at this council, or one like this, that he began to impress the
worth of the judgment of the Connecticut Governor upon his generals.
Washington had unconsciously named the republic.
The Connecticut Governor’s home name began to rise to fame.
These officers repeated it to others.
Dennis O’Hay heard it. He was told that Washington had spoken
it, probably at a council in the Craigie House, possibly at some
out-of-door consultation. However this may be, the word had passed from
the lips of the man of destiny.
“Cracky,” said Dennis, using the Yankee term of resolution, “and I will
fly back to Connecticut, I will, on the wings of me horse, and I will,
and tell the Governor of that, and I will, and all the people on the
green, and I will, and set the children to clapping their hands, and
the birds all a-singing in the green tree-tops, and I will.”
Dennis leaped on his horse as with wings. He slapped the horse’s neck
with his bridle-rein and flew down the turnpike to Norwich, and did not
so much as stop to rest at the Plainfield Tavern. That horse had the
swiftness of wings, and Dennis seemed to be a kind of centaur.
The people saw him coming, and swung their hats, but only to say, “Who
passed with the wind?”
The people of the cedars saw him coming up the hill and gathered on the
green to ask:
“What is it, Dennis?”
“Great news! Great news!”
It was a day at the brightening of spring among the cedars. The people
of the country around had heard of Dennis’s return and they gathered
upon the green, which was growing green. The buds on the trees were
swelling, the blue air was brightening, and nature was budding and
seemed everywhere to be singing in the songs of birds.
All the world was full of joy, as the people gathered that day on the
green. The Governor came out of his war office to hear Dennis speak;
the schools were there, and William Williams, afterward a signer of the
Declaration of Independence, honored the occasion with his presence.
Williams stood beside the Whig Governor under the glowing trees.
Dennis came out on the green, full of honorable pride.
His first words were characteristic:
“Oh, all ye people, all of the cedars, you well may gather together――now.
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, for it is good news that I bring to ye all.
Boston has fallen; it has tumbled into our hands, and Castle William has
gone down into the sea, to the Britisher, and the same will never play
Yankee Doodle there any more.
“Oh, but you should have seen him, as your brothers and I did――General
Washington. He looked as though he had been born to lead the world. And
what did he call our Governor――now, that is what I am bursting to tell
you――what did he call our Governor?”
“The first patriot in America,” answered a merry farmer.
“Not that, now, but something better than that. Hear ye, open the
mouths of your ears, now, and prepare to shout; all shout. He
called――so the officers all say――he called him what you call him now.
Colonel? No, no; not that. Judge? No, no; not that. Governor? No, no;
not that. He called him what the heroes here who ran from the fields
with their guns call him; what the good wives all call him; what the
old men call him; what the children call him; what the dogs, cats, and
all the birds call him; no, no; not that, but all nature here catches
the spirit of what we called him. He called him _Brother Jonathan_!
Shout, boys! Shout, girls! Shout, old men! Shout all! The world will
call him that some day. My soul prophesies that. Shout, shout, shout!
with the rising sun over the cedars――all shout for the long life and
happiness of BROTHER JONATHAN!”
Lebanon shouted, and birds flew up from the trees and clapped their
wings, and the modest old Governor said:
“I love the soul of the man who delights to bring the people good news.
I wrote to Washington, when he took command of the army at Cambridge,
these words:
“‘Be strong and very courageous. May the God of the armies of Israel
shower down his blessings upon you; may he give you wisdom and
fortitude; may he cover your head in the day of battle, and convince
our enemies of their mistake in attempting to deprive us of our
liberties.’ And, my neighbors, what did he answer me? He wrote to me,
saying: ‘My confidence is in Almighty God.’ So we are brothers. And my
neighbor Dennis brings good tidings of joy out of his great heart. His
heart is ours. What will we do for such a man as Dennis O’Hay?”
“Make him an ensign, the ensign of the alarm-post,” said one.
So Dennis O’Hay became known as Ensign Dennis O’Hay.
The Governor saw that in Dennis he had a messenger to send out on
horses with wings, to bring back to Lebanon green the tidings of the
events of the war.
The old Governor turned aside when the shouting was over.
“Dennis?”
“Your Honor?”
“You have been by the cabin of old Wetmore, the wood-chopper of the
lane.”
“Yes, your Honor.”
“Well, I am afraid that the old man is a Tory. You have heard how
he turned tall Peter, his nephew, out of doors? He said to the
boy: ‘Out you go!’ The boy came to me; my mind is taken up by the
correspondences, so I made him my clerk. I want you to put your arms
around him――for me.”
“Why did the old man say to the boy that?”
“The boy rejoiced over the Concord fight――you see! Put your arms around
him. I want you two should be friends.”
“I will put my arms around him, for your sake and for the sake of
Dennis O’Hay. He shall be my heart’s own.”
Peter had found friends――hearts.
He used to think of his old uncle as he slept under the cedars out of
doors, on guard after his duties in the store, amid the fireflies, the
night animals and birds.
He would seem to hear the old wood-chopper counting:
“One――
“Two――
“Three!”
He would wonder if the old man were counting for him, or if that which
was counted would go to the King. If the patriots won their cause, the
counted gold, if such it were, could not go to the King. What were the
old man’s thoughts and purposes when he counted nights?
At the corner of the Trumbull house, overlooking the hills and roads
in the country of the cedars, was a passageway that connected with
the high roof. From this passageway the approach of an enemy could be
signaled by a guard, and there was no point in the movements of the
army more important than this.
Governor Trumbull became recognized as a power that stood behind the
American armies. Lebanon of the cedars was the secret capital of the
colonies. Here gathered the reserves of the war.
The common enemy everywhere began to plot against the iron Governor.
Spies continued to come to Lebanon in many disguises and went away.
The people of Lebanon warned the Governor against these plots and
spies, but he believed in Providence; that some good angel of
protection attended him. When they told him that his life was in
constant peril, he would say, like one who commanded hosts invisible,
that “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.”
Dennis was in terror when he came to see the Governor’s danger. He had
a bed in the garret, or “cockloft,” overlooking the cedars. From his
room he watched the roads that led up to the hill.
One day some men of mystery came to the war office on horseback.
Dennis saw them coming, from the garret or upper room. He hastened to
the Governor at the war office, and gave the alarm. The men had their
story, but Dennis saw that they were spies, and thought that they
intended to return again.
Dennis had gained the confidence of the Governor and of the good man’s
family perfectly now. He had become a shadow of the Governor, as it
were.
After these mysterious men went away, the Governor called Dennis into
his war office, and said:
“Dennis, you know a tremendous secret, and you warned me against these
men. Why do you suspect them?”
“Because a conniving man carries an air of suspicion about him, your
Honor. I can see it; I have second sight; some folks have, your Honor.”
“Dennis, you may be right. A pure heart sees clear, and you are an
honest man, else there are none. Why do you think these men came? What
was their hidden motive?”
“To find out where you hid your powder, your Honor. They are powder
finders. In powder lies the hope of the cause, Governor. I have a thing
on my mind, if I have a mind.”
“Well, Dennis, what have you on your mind?”
“There must be a military alarm-post in the cedars. It must be
connected with hiding-places all along the way from Putnam to Norwich.
And it is a man that you can trust that you must set in charge of the
same alarm-post. As you said, I do know a tremendous secret.”
“You are a man that I can trust, Dennis; if not, who?”
“Your Honor,” said Dennis, bowing.
“Your heart is as true to liberty as that of Washington himself. To be
true-hearted is the greatest thing in the world; hearts are more than
rank.”
“Your Honor,” said Dennis, bowing again lower, “I would rather hear you
say that than be a king.”
“Good, Dennis. Samuel Adams replied to the agent of General Gage who
said to him, ‘It is time for you to make your peace with the King,’
and who then offered him bribes: ‘I trust that I have long ago made
my peace with the King of kings, and no power on earth shall make me
recreant to my duties to my country.’”
“Samuel Adams is a glorious man, your Honor, and has a heart true to
your own. I would die for liberty, and be willing to be forgotten for
the cause. What matters what becomes of Dennis O’Hay――but the cause,
the cause!”
“Then, Dennis, you are the one of all others to take charge of the
alarm-post that you propose to establish permanently.” Many are willing
to die in a cause that would not be willing to be forgotten, the old
man thought, and walked about with his hands behind him.
“Forgotten, Dennis, what is it to be forgotten? The winds of the desert
blow over the Persepolis, but where is the Persepolis? Babylon, where
are thy sixty miles of walls, and the chariots that rolled on their
lofty ways? Gone with the wind. Egypt, where are all the kings that
raised thy pyramids? Gone with the wind. Solomon, where is thy throne
of the gold and gems of the Ind? Gone with the wind. We all shall
be forgotten, or only live in the good that we do. I like that word
which you spoke, willing to be _forgotten_ for the welfare of mankind.
Dennis, I would be willing to be forgotten. I live for the cause. I
seek neither money nor fame, but only to do the will of the everlasting
God, to which I surrender all. To live for good influence is the
whole of life. Soul value is everything. How will you establish the
alarm-post?”
“I will watch the roads from the top of the second stairs as I have
done before. I will have trusty men in the cedars who will set up
signal lights at night. One of these men shall live in the rocks so
that he may guard the place where the powder is stored. He shall ride
a swift horse, and set up fire-signals at night. The secret shall
be known to but few, if you will trust it to me to pick my men. And
Peter――nimble Peter――your trusty clerk――who was sent out――he shall be
my heart’s own.”
“I leave it all to you, Dennis. Establish the alarm-post. Select you
hidden men. As for me, I believe like the men in the camp of the
Hebrews, in helpers invisible. An angel stayed the hand of Abraham,
and went before the tribes on their march out of Egypt, and led the
feet of Abraham’s servant to find Rebecca; and when the young king was
afraid to encounter so great a host, the prophet opened his spiritual
eyes, and lo! the mountain was full of chariots and horsemen. The angel
of Providence protects me; I know it, I feel it; it is my mission to
reenforce the American army when it is in straits. Faith walks with the
heavens, and I live by faith.”
Dennis went out. He felt free, like one commissioned by a higher power.
Yes, he did know a tremendous secret. He knew where the powder was
hidden.
When he had come to share with the Governor the secrets of collecting
saltpeter and powder, he learned all the ways of this secret service.
There must be found a place where this powder could be hidden, so as to
be safely guarded. It was a necessity.
Lebanon abounded in rocky hills in which were caves. These caves could
be guarded, and yet they would not be secure against spies. Dennis
began to put his Irish wits at work to devise a way to protect a
storage of powder against spies.
The tall, nimble boy who had been in the service of William Williams
came first into Dennis’s mind and heart. Mr. Williams, for whom the
boy had kept sheep, was a graduate of Harvard College, and had been
a member of the Committee of Correspondence for the Union and Safety
of the Colonies. This man had written several pamphlets to awaken the
spirit of the colonies to resist aggression, and the nimble boy to whom
we have referred, now the clerk, had listened at doors to the reading
of these pamphlets, and drank in the spirit of them until he had become
so full of patriotic feeling that he thought of little but the cause.
Dennis’s intuitive eye fixed itself upon this boy for secret service.
“Peter Nimble,” said Dennis to the young farmhand one day, as the
latter was resting under the trees after the planting of pumpkin-seeds
among the corn, while the sheep grazed, “I have come over here to have
a secret talk with you. I have long had my eye on you. You are full of
the new fire; you see things quick; you have long legs, and you are all
brain, heart, and legs. You are just the lad I want.”
“For what, Dennis?”
“For the secret service. Will you promise me never to tell what I am
about to tell you now?”
“Never, Dennis.”
“Though the sky fall?”
“Though the sky fall, and the earth cave in, and the waters cover the
land. Never, Dennis, if it be for the cause.”
“It is for the cause, Peter. Hark ye, boy. We must store powder here.
Powder is the life of the war. We must store it in a cave, and we must
have some one to guard the cave, and to give an alarm if spies shall
come.”
“I can run,” said Peter.
“Yes, Peter, you can run, and run the right way, too. You will never
turn your heels against the country. You can outrun all the boys. But
it is not for your heels that I come to you. I want a guard with nimble
thoughts as well as legs. You could run to me quickly by day, as on
feet of air, but it is for the night that I want you; for a curious
service, a queer service.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Hold a window before your face, with a light in the window, and stand
back by the roadside in the cedars.”
“That would be a strange thing for me to do, Dennis. How would that
help the cause?”
“You know all the people of the town. You would know a stranger to be a
stranger. Now, no stranger can pass down the turnpike at night without
a passport. If he does, he is an enemy or a spy.
“You are to stand behind the lighted window at night back in the
cedars, some distance from the road. If you see a stranger coming down
the road at night, or hear him, you are to leave the window and light
on a post and demand his passport. The window and light at a distance
will look like a house. If the traveler have no passport, you must ask
him to follow you at a distance toward the light in the window. Hear:
‘at a distance.’
“Then you are to take the window and the light and move up the hill, by
the brook ways, so that I can see the light at the alarm-post. Then you
may put out the light, and run for the war office: run like the wind.
That will detain the spy, should he be one, and we will be warned and
thwart his design. Do you see?”
“I see, but am I to be stationed near a cave where the powder is
hidden?”
“No――tish, tish――but at a place that would turn a night traveler from
the place where the powder is concealed. You yourself are not to know,
or to seek to know, where the powder is hidden. No, no――tish, tish. If
you were to be overpowered, you must be able to say that you do not
know where the saltpeter is. Tish, tish!”
“That is a strange service, Dennis, but I will do as you say. I will
watch by the window in the heat and cold, in the rain and snow, and I
will never desert my post.”
“That you will, my boy. The true heart never deserts its post. You may
save an army by this strange service. You are no longer to be Peter
Nimble, but a window in the cedars. Ah, Peter, Peter, not in vain did
the old man send you out. Boy, the Governor likes you, and you are my
heart’s own!”
“But I will have to give up my place in the store?”
“I will talk with the Governor about that.”
One day Dennis O’Hay stood by the high window, looking down the
turnpike road. A horseman seemed to leap on his flying steed into
the way. Dennis ran down the stairs to give an alarm, and found the
Governor in the great room, thinking as always.
“A man is coming on horseback, riding like mad. He looks like a
general.”
“Spencer――I am expecting him――I sent for him. Sit down; your presence
may make a clearer atmosphere.”
Dennis did not comprehend the Governor, but his curiosity was excited,
and he sat down by the stairway.
A horse dashed up to the door. A man in uniform knocked, and entered
with little ceremony.
“Governor, I am dishonored. Let me say at once that I am about to
resign my commission in the army.”
“You have been superseded by General Putnam.”
“Yes; I who offered my life and all in the north in the service of my
country, have been superseded. Congress little esteems such service as
mine. Governor, I am undone.”
“General Spencer, Congress is seeking to place the best leaders in the
field. It has done so now. It has not dishonored you; it honors you; it
wants your service under Putnam.”
“Under! You may well say under. Would you, with a record like mine,
serve _under_ any man?”
“I would. My only thought is for the good of the people and the success
of the cause. I have given up making money, for the cause. I have given
up seeking position of popularity, for the cause. I am seeking to be
neither a general, nor a congressman, nor a diplomat, for the cause.
Whatever a man be or have, his influence is all that he is. I would do
anything that would tend to make my influence powerful for the cause. I
have snuffed out ambition, for the cause.”
General Spencer dropped his hands on his knees.
“Governor Trumbull, what would you have me do?”
“Serve your country under Putnam――as Congress wills――and never hinder
the cause by any personal consideration. Be the cause.”
“Governor, I will; for your sake, I will. I see my way clear. I was not
myself when I came――I am myself now.”
“Not for my sake, General, but for the cause!”
Dennis had seen the Governor’s soul. Giant that he was, tears ran down
his face. He went out into the open air.
It was evening at Lebanon. He looked up to the hills and saw the clerk,
who had again become a shepherd-boy, there in the dusk guiding the
sheep to sheltered pastures among the savins.
Dennis was lonesome for companionship. He was but a common laborer,
with no family or fortune, nothing but his honest soul.
He longed to talk with one like himself. He walked up the hills, and
hailed the shepherd-boy, who had become a guard in the new secret
service.
“Nimble,” he said, “you believe in the Governor, don’t you? I do, more
and more.”
“’Fore the Lord, I do,” said the shepherd in an awesome tone.
“I have just seen the soul of that man. He is more of a god than a man.
But, Nimble, Nimble, my heart’s own boy, he is surrounded more and more
by spies, and think of it, wagons of powder are coming here and going
away. What havoc a spy could make!
“Boy, my heart goes out to that man. I would die for him. So would
you. I am going to act as a guard for him, not only openly――I do that
now――but secretly. You will act with me.”
“Yes, yes, Dennis. But what more can I do?”
“Keep your eyes open on the hills against surprise, and guard the
magazines.”
“That I am doing, but where are the magazines?”
“Where are the magazines?”
“Oh, boy, boy, do not seek to know. Tish, tish! Have an eye on the
covered ways that are still. You watch nights by _the window_?”
“Yes, and I can watch days.”
The sheep lay down in the sheltered ways of the high hill, and the two
talked together as brothers. They had become a part of the cause.
And Dennis found in his heart a new and unexpected delight. It was
when he said to the shepherd-boy of the green cedars, as he did almost
daily, “You are my heart’s own; we serve one cause, and look for
nothing more!”
So these two patriots became to Brother Jonathan “helpers invisible.”
The Governor now hurried levies. Lebanon was a scene of excitement.
Connecticut forgot her own perils, for the greater need.
Dennis was ordered away with the men. He was to drive a powder-wagon.
The young shepherd was to leave for a time his place as a watchman and
to go with him.
In the midst of these preparations a beautiful, anxious face flitted to
and fro. It was that of Madam Trumbull.
“You must not go,” said she to Dennis. “We need you here.”
“Who?”
“I――spies swarm; the Governor is all of the time in peril. I can trust
your heart.”
“He must go,” said the Governor. “The powder-wagon needs him more than
I do. I shall be guarded. I can hear the wings; the rocks of Lebanon
are not firmer than my faith. Powder is the battle. Go, Dennis, go. Our
powder told at Bunker Hill; they will need it again.”
Dennis and the shepherd-boy went, guarding the powder.
“Good-by, Governor,” said Dennis. “We leave the heavens behind us
still.”
What a time that was! Every Whig forgot his own self and interests
in the cause. No one looked for any pay for anything. The cattle,
the sheep, the corn and grain, all belonged to the cause. Everything
followed the suggestion of the great Governor’s heart.
Tories and spies came to Lebanon with plots in their hearts, but they
went away again. Ships down the river landed men, who came to Lebanon
with evil intents; but they looked at the Governor from the tavern
window, as he crossed the green, and went away again.
The school for the training of Indian missionaries, that had been
founded in Lebanon and that had trained Occum, who became the marvelous
Indian preacher, had been removed to a log-house college on the upper
Connecticut now, where it was to become Dartmouth College. But Indians
still came to the green, and heard the cannon thunder with wonder.
The Governor’s house, the alarm-post, was to become the head of a long
line of signal-stations.