THE SACK OF CHESTNUT NECK
“Alas! poor country,
Almost afraid to know thyself.” —Shakespeare.
“But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.” —Southey.
The British, being thus masters of the field, proceeded to their work of
destruction. Their wounded had first to be removed indeed, and their
dead buried; but as there were few of the former and still fewer of the
latter—the chief defence having been by Major Gordon’s band—little
time was occupied in this duty.
The sun was still an hour high, therefore, when the first torch was
applied to the store-houses and dwellings. Very soon the whole number
were in flames, with all their valuable contents. The combustible
character of the edifices, for they were built altogether of wood, and
the inflammable materials collected within the warehouses, rendered the
heat rapidly so intense that the troops were compelled to withdraw to
some distance, where they stood for a while watching the scene of ruin,
giving an occasional hurrah whenever a roof fell in. No other persons
were in sight, except a few women who watched, afar off, from the edge
of the wood, the destruction of their humble houses, and the total loss
of their scanty, but hard-earned household goods.
There had been comparatively little breeze when the first torch was
applied; but before long the wind was roaring around the burning
edifices, in almost a gale. Swiftly the various store-houses succumbed
to the conflagration. One, which had been overlooked when the others
were fired, and to which no torch had been applied, resisted for some
time the contagion, standing up black and weather-beaten in the centre
of the burning circle, like some dark rock at sea amid the angry surges.
The shingled roof could be seen smoking for a long while, though without
any sign of fire within; but at last it flashed all at once into flames,
as when a train is touched; and, quick as thought, the whole was in a
blaze. Directly after, forked tongues of fire shot out from under the
eaves, and though they were gone in a moment, they reappeared almost
instantaneously. Next, the fire showed itself at the windows, and then
between the clap-boards; until finally it burst out from the door-way,
and curling upwards, covered the whole edifice to the very top.
The conflagration had now swept over nearly the entire settlement,
sparing only a few dwellings, which either stood too far off to be
reached by the fire, or were too inconsiderable to call down the
vengeance of the invaders. Thick masses of pitchy-black smoke rose in
puffs, and collecting overhead, afforded a canopy, impervious to the
sunshine, against which the lurid reflection from below shone with a
dull red glare. The leaves of the chestnuts, close by, were blackened
and shrivelled up by the heat; and at one time it seemed as if the old
trees would actually burst into a blaze. The spectacle had an almost
human interest added to it, by a few tamed pigeons, who, having been
harbored in the loft of the last store-house, were now seen flying
wildly to and fro, refusing to leave the vicinity of their old home,
circling around and around, crossing and re-crossing, until they dropped
one by one into the conflagration. It was pitiful, amid the cheers of
the British and the deep roar of the flames, to hear occasionally the
flapping of their wings as they ventured near to a spectator, only
however to fly immediately from their human enemy back to their burning
homes.
To increase the terror of the scene, the dismantled ships, which had
been fired soon after the warehouses, speedily began to irradiate the
river. The flames mastered the vessels even more rapidly than they had
the buildings. The fire, once fairly started, shot up the masts, till it
soared above the round-top, licking up whatever bits of rigging had been
left, and rising, like the pointed spire of a Gothic cathedral,
needle-like into the sky. A thousand tongues of fire, hissing and
flashing, came and went; and then, darting into light, again hissed and
flashed once more for a moment or two, in as many different points;
after which an unbroken sheet of flame wrapped the entire vessels above
the bulwarks from sight. Continually bits of fire, whirling off from one
ship, alighted on another; while millions of sparks rose in showers and
floated to leeward, in startling relief against the deep sable canopy,
which now covered the sky above both sea and land. Up the river, at a
cable’s length from the burning fleet, the smoke had settled down upon
the stream like a fog, obscuring the sun, and rendering the outlines of
sky and water undistinguishable. Occasionally fragments of wood, swept
away by the tide, were seen drifting into the gloom, like meteors of
unknown and terrible aspect floating through the darkness of space.
By nightfall most of the warehouses were reduced to heaps of smouldering
ruins, glowing all over with fiery chinks as lava when it is half
cooled. Every few moments, however, one of these heaps would belch
upward a huge column of bituminous-looking smoke, after which flames
would leap out at the spot and the conflagration renew itself there for
a while. The air was heavy, almost choking, and impregnated with a
pungent, stifling odour indescribable.
The hulls of the vessels, however, continued to burn brightly, though
the masts and rigging, where such had been left standing, had long since
disappeared in charred fragments that strewed the decks or dropped
sullenly into the stream. The wind, no longer nourished by the powerful
conflagration, which compels currents of air to its centre as into the
mouth of a furnace, had now almost entirely died away. What little was
left, drew up the stream; and in that direction, as we have seen, the
smoke lay packed close on the water, and reaching across the river,
excluded from sight both shores towards the west. But the northern bank,
opposite the Neck, was still dimly visible through the twilight; while,
down the river, the prospect was comparatively clear. It had a strange
and weird effect to see the stars, that shone so clear and lustrous on
the eastern horizon, grow dim and ghostly through the smoke overhead,
and then gradually vanish in the west, devoured by the pitchy darkness
that lay in wait there like a second chaos.
The British, though they had accomplished their purpose, showed no
disposition however to retire. The few Americans, who hovered in the
neighboring woods, and stole occasionally to the edge of the fields to
make observations, noticed that picquets were posted as if it was the
intention to remain for the night. The two or three houses, which had
been spared in the otherwise general conflagration, were hastily
prepared for the accommodation of the principal royal officers; the
cattle which had been brought in for the use of the Americans, and had
become part of the spoils of victory, were slaughtered for the
conquerors; and a succession of camp fires, lighted to cook the food of
the soldiers, soon twinkled, like a continuous chain of beacons, along
the whole extent of the British line. As the evening wore on, sounds of
merriment rose from the encampment, and floated dimly to the woods where
the ejected women and children cowered in darkness and terror. Snatches
of lewd songs; ballads coarsely ridiculing the Americans; oaths of
blasphemous exultation over their fallen foes; shouts of drunken
laughter; boasts of how many rebels had been killed that day; all these,
and other noises as horrible, were wafted to the ears of the weeping
mothers, who clasped their houseless babes as they crouched on the cold
earth. Or the ribald songs and rejoicings were heard, with half
smothered oaths, by the fathers who were forced to look on all this, yet
were impotent to redress it.
Towards midnight, however, the reveling in the British bivouac ceased.
The camp-fires died down; the songs were hushed; the merriment gave way
to sleep; and the low hum, which by day always attends any large body of
men, was distinguishable no longer. The royal force lay in profound
repose. The conflagration had exhausted itself long before, even among
the shipping, only a few skeleton-like hulls burning redly, here and
there, through the now ashen-gray smoke. A deep silence brooded over the
scene, broken only by the breeze soughing gently through the trees, the
tide lapping against the shore as it came lazily in, or the wail of a
solitary whip-poor-will, which, slowly sailing in the obscure distance,
seemed to be the spirit of some slaughtered patriot come back to bewail
his ravaged life, the dishonor to his country’s flag, and the fresh
perils which the morrow would probably bring forth.
But, notwithstanding this stillness, it was evident that the British
slept on their arms, and that, at the slightest intimation of an attack,
they would be up in a moment and ready for the foe. The dark forms of
the sentries could be seen constantly going the rounds, and the warning
cry of “all’s well” periodically passed around the bivouac.