revolutionists mustered in New York and Brooklyn about five hundred and
fifty thousand men. Whatever reinforcements they received after the
first of May were cantoned in Jersey City and Hoboken, to watch the
movements of the loyalists up the river at Newburg. It was possible
that they might move down the west shore and cut off communication with
the South and West, as the allies had already cut off communication to
the North and East; and this was to be prevented at all hazards.
On the third of May, the allies carried by assault and at the point of
the bayonet a detached earthwork, known as Fort Schwab, which commanded
the village of New Rochelle. It was an isolated work, and most of the
garrison escaped behind the cover of their lines to the rear. But
they did not have time to spike their guns; and during the entire
night these pieces continued a harassing fire upon them. The morning
of the fourth, attack was resumed along the whole line. All that day
the contest raged with inconceivable fury. Again and again were the
allies repulsed; again and again were they pushed forward. Their
sledge-hammer blows were repeated first at one point, then at another,
with persistent and terrible iteration. Twice, after actually capturing
the outer line of defences, they were driven back into the open field.
They returned to the charge the third time, and nightfall found them
in possession of an entire division of this line. The revolutionists,
though not trained soldiers, saw that they would be unable to hold the
remaining portions, and under cover of the night withdrew to the next
line of defence. Though they had suffered a technical defeat, they
felt in no way disheartened over the result of the day. They had held
the allies in check and had inflicted losses which they knew from the
number of their own dead must have been terrible. They still retained
possession of a double line of intrenchments stronger than the one
which had been taken. They anticipated a delay of some days, if not
weeks, before another attempt was made.
That very night, while the revolutionists were sleeping, General von
Blücken despatched a force of fifty thousand men across the Sound to
Long Island. They landed in silence, and without discovery approached
the revolutionary lines so closely that at daybreak they were able
to surprise a small earthwork and carry it by mere rush of numbers,
without the firing of a single shot. But the surprise was short-lived.
The revolutionists sprang to their arms and fought bravely as soon as
the allied advance reached their next defence. The alarm was sounded,
and assistance from other parts of the Brooklyn lines was despatched
to the support of the overmastered socialists. Reinforcements were
hurried across the river from New York. The fight surged back and
forth, and the roar of conflict which reached New York was as loud and
as menacing as that of the preceding day’s battle near New Rochelle had
been.
The attack on that side was wholly suspended during this action. The
scouts and outposts of the revolutionists reported that transports
were to be seen moving in great numbers across the Sound to the Long
Island shore, loaded with troops and returning empty. The revolutionary
generals hastily decided that Von Blücken must have changed his
original intention, owing to the resistance he had met with above the
city, and that he was moving on what they felt to be their weakest
point, Brooklyn. They must defend that city at all hazards. Over two
hundred thousand men were withdrawn from the works to the northward of
New York and hurried across to the aid of the Brooklyn garrison.
Not till it was too late did the revolutionists discover that they had
been made the victims of a mere feint,--one of the simplest tricks
of war, though in this case shrewdly managed. It was true that the
transports which were kept plying across the narrow waters of the Sound
did, for an hour after daybreak, carry considerable reinforcements to
the allied forces which were engaged in the attack on the Brooklyn
intrenchments; but this was continued only until General von Blücken
felt sure that he had enough men on Long Island completely to engross
the enemy’s attention. During all the rest of the morning the
transports, which seemed to be full of men on their southward passage
and empty on their return, were really bringing back to the mainland
more troops than they carried over. Each one, on its southward trip,
was manned on the side towards the revolutionists’ lines with dummy
figures, among whom a few men moved about to give them the appearance
of life. On their return these figures were hidden below the bulwarks,
and the wounded, after whom the transports were really sent, were taken
below decks where they could not be seen. Several complete regiments,
whose services were found to be unnecessary for the success of the
feint, were brought back hidden in the same way, and rejoined their
divisions before the northern forts.
About the middle of the afternoon the allies drew back from Brooklyn
towards Great Neck, and the revolutionists recovered all the ground
which had been wrested from them in the first surprise. But their
assailants showed no signs of leaving the island, and were kept
constantly marching and countermarching so as to produce the conviction
that they were in greater numbers than was the fact. This belief,
corroborated by the reports of the outposts north of the city as to
the immense number of men who had been transported across the Sound,
was still further strengthened in the minds of the revolutionists by a
fierce attack which a small brigade made on them from the side towards
Coney Island during the night. A regiment of German hussars actually
dashed upon a camp of over ten thousand men on the extreme southern
wing, sabred their way through it, and carried off several prisoners.
The boldness of the affair convinced the revolutionists that a strong
force had arrived on that side of them, ready to attack them there next
morning while the army resting at Great Neck renewed the fight from the
northward. The officers at the New York defences reported that only an
occasional gun had been fired from the works of the allies there during
the day, and that a sham attack had been made on a bastion about the
centre of the line, but that very few men were to be seen.
All but about one hundred and fifty thousand of the revolutionary
forces were sent to the Brooklyn side; and it was determined to take
advantage of the earliest dawn to turn the tables on the foreigners by
surprising them, without giving them the opportunity to repeat their
tactics of the day before.
A greater surprise than anything they meditated awaited the
revolutionists. General von Blücken had been busily, though secretly,
at work all that day and night gathering forces at a point just above
Mount Vernon and near the centre of the opposing line. Before midnight
he had massed there more men than were behind the whole extent of
the works in front of him. A show of activity and watchfulness was
kept up in the allied camp on Long Island; but before daybreak all
the troops sent there to join in the feint had been withdrawn again,
except a couple of flying horse-batteries and a single squadron of
cavalry, which were ordered to retire whenever attacked and keep out
of range,--as they could easily do, owing to the almost total lack of
cavalry among the revolutionists with which to pursue them. When the
besieged “surprised” the besiegers’ camp, at daybreak the next morning,
they found only empty tents and smouldering watch-fires which had been
burning untended for several hours.
They were allowed scant time to reflect upon the probable meaning of
this trick. Before they had really discovered what had happened, from
the allied parallels beyond New Rochelle a single gun boomed forth
in the clear morning air. It was Von Blücken’s signal for a general
attack. A thousand cannon mouths answered its summons, and told the
revolutionists on Long Island that deadly work was beginning for their
friends in the weakened intrenchments above the city. They strove with
desperate speed to return in time to be of assistance; but they were
not able.
This attack was no feint. In overwhelming numbers the allies poured
over the earthworks which confronted them. Redoubt after redoubt,
breastwork after breastwork, fort after fort was carried at the point
of the bayonet. The resistance made was desperate, and the retreat
sullen and slow. But the attenuated line of defenders at no moment
was able to stop or even delay the advance of the solid masses of men
which were hurled against it, first at one point, then at another. The
carnage was frightful. Whole regiments on both sides were literally
swept out of existence. But not for an instant did the attacking
columns waver. On and on they pressed: now charging with a rush like an
avalanche upon some fortification in which a more than usually stubborn
resistance was being offered them; now moving in compact and splendid
order along the routes which, long before he had ordered the assault,
had been marked down for them to follow by the brilliant strategist
commanding them.
It was not yet noon when Von Blücken, coming up from the rear, found
the enemy in flight from a redoubt near the centre of their last line
of defence, and the flag of his own Fatherland waving above it. Riding
to the fort, he ordered its guns to be instantly turned in either
direction upon the works which still held out. The revolutionist forces
from Brooklyn, hurrying pell-mell through the city, on their arrival at
the front found the allies in full possession of a half-dozen portions
of the last line of works, with guns already mounted in them which
commanded the city itself. Nowhere was a tenable position left in their
hands. Had the allies been desirous of doing so, they could at once
have entered the city. There was no power which could prevent them from
taking possession in the morning. It was seen that the city must be
evacuated.
All night the ferry-boats, which offered the only means of escape to
westward and southward, were kept hurrying back and forth between
the city and the New Jersey shore, loaded with the retreat. Slowly
the rear-guard of the revolutionists drew backward down the city as
the troops below crossed the river. In almost every block from which
they retreated they left “infernal machines” of more or less elaborate
construction, calculated to explode after a set time and destroy
everything about them, or to burst into flames after the same interval
and fire the buildings in which they were placed. Some fires were set
directly by impatient hands, and it was not long after midnight that
the allied sentries reported the city in flames.
General Wood, who had charge of the army during the night, was
notified, and rode forward to an eminence from which he could see the
city, by this time casting a brilliant light upon its own destruction.
He saw that the fire was confined, thus far, to the upper portion,
while the lower streets were still dark, and evidently held by the
revolutionists. He surmised at once that they were retreating to Jersey
City. Reports from the river bank soon verified this belief.
But what were they going to do with the city? Were they simply burning
the upper portion, so as to oppose a real wall of fire to the allied
advance, till they could safely complete their retreat? Or were they
determined to destroy the entire city rather than have it fall into
the allies’ possession? If any attempt should be made to save it from
destruction by sending soldiers to extinguish the flames already
raging, was it not likely that they would run great risk of being
destroyed by scores and hundreds in the explosion of the “infernal
machines,” which were the favorite weapons of the revolutionists, and
which they had no doubt scattered thickly along the route the troops
would have to take?
General Wood sat on his horse for some moments, watching the flames.
Turning at last to a staff officer beside him, he remarked: “They are
going to destroy behind them all of the place that will burn. I doubt
if our men will find much shelter left them.”
“The fire might possibly be checked if we should go at it now,”
responded the officer.
General Wood replied with abrupt decision: “That has been an Irish
city for forty years. It has been worse than Dublin. It has been more
dangerous to England than all Ireland itself, because it has been
beyond our reach. For the last dozen or twenty years it has been the
rottenest centre of socialism in the whole world. I would not risk the
life of a single honest and decent soldier to save the whole Sodom from
utter destruction!”
All night the sentries on picket duty along the allied lines watched
the flames extending and the light growing in intensity. Occasional
explosions from the midst of burning areas showed that General Wood had
been correct in his suspicion that deadly mines lay in wait for any who
might try to extinguish the conflagration. At daybreak he reported the
condition of affairs to General von Blücken. The commander approved
his action, but ordered several of the smaller vessels to reconnoitre
immediately the Hell-Gate passage of the East River and report if that
route was practicable for transports or war-ships.
Admiral Seymour had anticipated the need of this knowledge the moment
the burning and abandonment of the city was reported to him, and at
the earliest dawn three small vessels--two of them tugs and one a
light-armored cruiser--had pushed through the Gate and descended safely
as far as Blackwell’s Island. Their report was brought to General von
Blücken by Admiral Seymour in person, shortly after seven o’clock in
the morning. A force of seventy-five thousand men was instantly ordered
to embark and to proceed down the river to the Battery. If that was
deserted, they were to push across the Hudson and attempt a landing on
the New Jersey shore. Before the transports started, about twenty-five
of the lighter-armored and swifter of the fighting vessels in the fleet
steamed in advance down the narrow East River to clear the way and draw
the fire of any of the enemy who might still linger in their retreat.
At the same time a slow and cautious advance was made by the army from
the North directly upon the burning city.
It was soon found that the entire upper half of the town was
in hopeless ruins. But as morning approached, the retreat had
become more of a flight, and less time had been left the hurrying
revolutionists to devote to destruction. All through the lower half
of the city buildings were found on fire, but there had been no
such universal incendiarism as had caused the obliteration of every
structure above Central Park. No apparatus for putting out fires had
been left in working order in the city; but by the demolition of
surrounding buildings the allies succeeded in confining these detached
conflagrations to narrow limits, within which they eventually burned
themselves out.
The revolutionists made no stop at Jersey City on their retreat. They
knew that in a very short time it would be under the guns of the allied
fleet. They had been compelled to abandon all their artillery except
a few batteries of field-pieces, and could make no reply that would
be felt within the iron sides of the armored vessels. Picking up the
detachments which had been left along the west shore to watch the
loyalists at Newburg, they pushed on towards Philadelphia.
Though driven out of New York, they were by no means conquered. They
felt that they had been beaten by strategy and trick. In open fight
they still had confidence in their ability to hold the invaders in
check, if not signally to defeat them. The moment the news reached
Washington that New York had fallen, O’Halloran, Wagner, and Liest
despatched orders to every socialist and Irish organization in the
North and West, calling for their last available men. The three
themselves hurried northward to meet the retiring army, reaching
Philadelphia at the same time that its advance-guard arrived. Most
of the troops had been compelled to march on foot across New Jersey,
owing to the failure of railroad transport; and it was not till the
fourteenth of May that the last brigades arrived.
In this emergency, and by consent of the other two members of the
“Directory,” O’Halloran, who showed by far the most endurance and
courage of all, was given supreme military command. He found that he
was still in control of a formidable army. It had lost by death and
desertions about a hundred and fifty thousand men since the allies
landed. But the detachments which had been collected from the cities on
the shore of the Hudson opposite New York, the detail which had been
met at Philadelphia, the forces which had been brought from Washington
and Baltimore, and the reinforcements which had already arrived
from points to the westward, had more than made good these losses.
O’Halloran found that he could oppose to the invaders as numerous an
army as had met them before New York, while he assumed that they would
be unable to replace the men whom they had lost.
In a measure, this was true; yet General von Blücken had repaired his
losses much more fully than O’Halloran suspected. During the attack
on New York of the fourth of May he had sent to Boston for twenty
thousand men from the British garrison there. The day that New York
fell, eighteen thousand more were called to his force, leaving only
about five thousand to hold Boston, and as many more along the line of
communication southward. But the retreat of the revolutionists had made
this force ample. Meanwhile several troop-ships had arrived, bringing
reinforcements from Europe.
Two days after he had taken possession of New York, Brooklyn, and
the New Jersey cities, General von Blücken found his strength so far
recruited that he was able to push forward in pursuit of the retiring
foe. At the same time a portion of the fleet, with a considerable force
of marines, was sent to make a demonstration against Washington, and if
the city was found undefended, to seize it. Another smaller detachment
was ordered up the Chesapeake to try Baltimore.
XVI.
THE FINAL STRUGGLE.
The contending forces were too large to admit of rapid movement on
either side; but the better discipline and greater attention to detail
on the part of the allies gave them an advantage in the race, and they
slowly but surely gained on the revolutionists. The latter were falling
back, with the evident intention of resting behind the defences of
Washington, when the advancing troops of the allies began to press upon
their rear. By a strange fatality, this encounter took place near the
town of Gettysburg; and it was on that historic field, which saw the
most decisive struggle of the civil war, that the last battle of 1888
was also fought.
It was the 11th of June when the two armies found themselves once
more face to face. For the whole of the preceding day and evening
impassioned socialistic and Irish agitators had been passing around
the revolutionary camp, inciting their hearers to wilder and fiercer
fanaticism. So successful had they been that even the camp followers
who had fled in panic out of New York to escape the allied guns, became
clamorous for an opportunity to meet their victors once more in open
fight.
Early the following morning (June 12, 1888) the battle opened. For two
days the desperate fight raged around the little town; and the two
“Round Tops,” whose summits were the objects of constant attack by one
party or the other, once more shed rivulets of blood down their steep
and rocky sides. The allies were by far the better armed and the better
disciplined; but the revolutionists fought literally “to the death.”
They introduced a new and terrible element into civilized warfare by
refusing to give quarter to their prisoners. The allied soldiers soon
learned of this barbarism, and, despite the attempts of their officers
to restrain them, retaliated in kind. Their rage became as furious as
the fanaticism of their opponents.
The close of the second day found the hordes of the revolution in panic
and flight. They were more than defeated, they were annihilated. Their
disorganization was as rapid and complete as had been their first
successes, a year before. Not a brigade was left to guard a retreat.
The whole array of survivors dissolved into mere bands and scattered
over the country.
Many thousand prisoners were taken, among them a few who had become
known as leaders in the different revolutionary organizations. Kopf
was caught hiding in a farm-yard, near Harrisburg, several days after
the battle; he was sent to Germany for trial. Herr Liest had been
killed during the first day’s battle. Wagner escaped, and has never
since been heard of. It is thought he perished of starvation, or was
killed during one of the raids which were frequently made by small
bands of outlaws on scouting parties of the allies during the summer
and fall. O’Halloran was captured during the pursuit after the battle.
He had thrown himself into a ditch, and tried to conceal himself by
hiding in a pool of mud and water, with his head covered by the weeds
which grew from the sides of the filthy drain. He was dragged out and
almost immediately recognized by an English soldier who had once met
him in Ireland. He was court-martialled on the spot, charged with
responsibility for the order to his followers to give no quarter to
their prisoners, and shot at sunrise the following morning. A few other
prisoners, who were proved guilty of murdering wounded and helpless
men, were similarly tried and executed. Several thousand, who had been
known in Europe as professional plotters and agitators, were sent back
to their respective Governments in irons for trial on account of old
offences.
Zealous effort was made by the allies to discover and arrest the
mysterious leader whose edicts, emanating from the “Council of Seven,”
had been so powerful in the early days of the revolution. Nothing was
ever found to furnish even a clew to his identity. There are those,
even now, who believe that he is still living, hidden in obscurity
and seclusion, and ready to seize the first opportunity which chance
may afford him to resume his warfare on organized society. But this
is not likely. Whether he still lives, or whether he perished in the
bloody closing of the revolution, the mystery in which he purposely
enshrouded himself at the beginning of the struggle still hangs over
him, and there is no real ground for the expectation that it will be
ever lifted.
The revolution was at an end. For two months there was skirmishing
and occasionally a fierce contest that might almost be called a
battle between detachments of the allies and disintegrating bands of
socialists or dynamiters who had taken refuge in various fastnesses of
the land. It was six months before the last of the privateers which
they had fitted out to ravage commerce was captured, and the seas
were once more pronounced safe to trading vessels. But so far as any
organization or real strength was involved, the struggle at Gettysburg
had been conclusive. One by one the cities and forts of the whole country
were garrisoned by the allies. The land was put under martial law.
XVII.
FOREIGN OCCUPATION.