Dawned 1781.
The war was coming into Virginia at last. Virginia falling would thrust
a great wedge through the centre of the Confederacy, feed the British
armies and end the fight. Cornwallis was to drive the wedge, and never
had the opening seemed easier. Virginia was drained of her fighting men,
and south of the mountains was protected only by a militia, for the most
part, of old men and boys. North and South ran despair. The soldiers had
no pay, little food, and only old worn-out coats, tattered linen
overalls, and one blanket between three men, to protect them from
drifting snow and icy wind. Even the great Washington was near despair,
and in foreign help his sole hope lay. Already the traitor, Arnold, had
taken Richmond, burned warehouses, and returned, but little harassed, to
Portsmouth.
In April, "the proudest man," as Mr. Jefferson said, "of the proudest
nation on earth," one General Phillips, marching northward, paused
opposite Richmond, and looked with amaze at the troop-crowned hills
north of the river. Up there was a beardless French youth of
twenty-three, with the epaulets of a major-general.
"He will not cross--hein?" said the Marquis de Lafayette. "Very well!"
And they had a race for Petersburg, which the Britisher reached first,
and straightway fell ill of a fever at "Bollingbrook." A cannonade from
the Appomattox hills saluted him.
"They will not let me die in peace," said General Phillips, but he
passed, let us hope, to it, and Benedict Arnold succeeded him.
Cornwallis was coming on. Tarleton's white rangers were bedevilling the
land, and it was at this time that Erskine Dale once more rode Firefly
to the river James.
The boy had been two years in the wilds. When he left the Shawnee camp
winter was setting in, that terrible winter of '79--of deep snow and
hunger and cold. When he reached Kaskaskia, Captain Clark had gone to
Kentucky, and Erskine found bad news. Hamilton and Hay had taken
Vincennes. There Captain Helm's Creoles, as soon as they saw the
redcoats, slipped away from him to surrender their arms to the British,
and thus deserted by all, he and the two or three Americans with him had
to give up the fort. The French reswore allegiance to Britain. Hamilton
confiscated their liquor and broke up their billiard-tables. He let his
Indians scatter to their villages, and with his regulars, volunteers,
white Indian leaders, and red auxiliaries went into winter quarters. One
band of Shawnees he sent to Ohio to scout and take scalps in the
settlements. In the spring he would sweep Kentucky and destroy all the
settlements west of the Alleghanies. So Erskine and Dave went for Clark;
and that trip neither ever forgot. Storms had followed each other since
late November and the snow lay deep. Cattle and horses perished, deer
and elk were found dead in the woods, and buffalo came at nightfall to
old Jerome Sanders's fort for food and companionship with his starving
herd. Corn gave out and no johnny-cakes were baked on long boards in
front of the fire. There was no salt or vegetable food; nothing but the
flesh of lean wild game. The only fat was with the bears in the hollows
of trees, and every hunter was searching hollow trees. The breast of the
wild turkey served for bread. Yet, while the frontiersmen remained
crowded in the stockades and the men hunted and the women made clothes
of tanned deer-hides, buffalo-wool cloth, and nettle-bark linen, and
both hollowed "noggins" out of the knot of a tree, Clark made his
amazing march to Vincennes, recaptured it by the end of February, and
sent Hamilton to Williamsburg a prisoner. Erskine plead to be allowed to
take him there, but Clark would not let him go. Permanent garrisons were
placed at Vincennes and Cahokia, and at Kaskaskia. Erskine stayed to
help make peace with the Indians, punish marauders and hunting bands, so
that by the end of the year Clark might sit at the Falls of the Ohio as
a shield for the west and a sure guarantee that the whites would never
be forced to abandon wild Kentucky.
The two years in the wilderness had left their mark on Erskine. He was
tall, lean, swarthy, gaunt, and yet he was not all woodsman, for his
born inheritance as gentleman had been more than emphasized by his
association with Clark and certain Creole officers in the Northwest, who
had improved his French and gratified one pet wish of his life since his
last visit to the James--they had taught him to fence. His mother he had
not seen again, but he had learned that she was alive and not yet blind.
Of Early Morn he had heard nothing at all. Once a traveller had brought
word of Dane Grey. Grey was in Philadelphia and prominent in the gay
doings of that city. He had taken part in a brilliant pageant called the
"Mischianza," which was staged by André, and was reported a close friend
of that ill-fated young gentleman.
After the fight at Piqua, with Clark Erskine put forth for old Jerome
Sanders's fort. He found the hard days of want over. There was not only
corn in plenty but wheat, potatoes, pumpkins, turnips, melons. They
tapped maple-trees for sugar and had sown flax. Game was plentiful, and
cattle, horses, and hogs had multiplied on cane and buffalo clover.
Indeed, it was a comparatively peaceful fall, and though Clark plead
with him, Erskine stubbornly set his face for Virginia.
Honor Sanders and Polly Conrad had married, but Lydia Noe was still firm
against the wooing of every young woodsman who came to the fort; and
when Erskine bade her good-by and she told him to carry her love to Dave
Yandell, he knew for whom she would wait forever if need be.
There were many, many travellers on the Wilderness Road now, and Colonel
Dale's prophecy was coming true. The settlers were pouring in and the
long, long trail was now no lonesome way.
At Williamsburg Erskine learned many things. Colonel Dale, now a
general, was still with Washington and Harry was with him. Hugh was with
the Virginia militia and Dave with Lafayette.
Tarleton's legion of rangers in their white uniforms were scourging
Virginia as they had scourged the Carolinas. Through the James River
country they had gone with fire and sword, burning houses, carrying off
horses, destroying crops, burning grain in the mills, laying plantations
to waste. Barbara's mother was dead. Her neighbors had moved to safety,
but Barbara, he heard, still lived with old Mammy and Ephraim at Red
Oaks, unless that, too, had been recently put to the torch. Where, then,
would he find her?