Return of the fifty-fifth regiment to Europe—Privates sent to Pensacola.
THE fifty-fifth now left their calm abodes amidst their lakes and
forests, with the joy of children breaking up from their school; little
aware that they were bidding adieu to quiet, plenty, and freedom, and
utter strangers to the world into which they were about to plunge. They
all came down to Albany. Captain Mungo Campbell was charmed to find me
so familiar with his Milton; while I was equally charmed to find him a
favourite with aunt Schuyler, which was with me the criterion of merit.
Colonel Duncan, for such he was now, marched proudly at the head of his
pupils, whom he had carried up raw youths, but brought back with all the
manly and soldierly openness of manner and character that could be
wished, and with minds greatly improved. Meanwhile, madame’s counsels
had so much influence on my father, that he began seriously to think of
settling in America. To part with his beloved fifty-fifth was very
trying; yet his prospects of advantage in remaining among a people by
whom he was esteemed, and to whom he had really become attached, were
very flattering; for by the aid of aunt and the old inhabitants, and
friendly Indians, who were at her powerful bidding, he could expect to
get advantageously some lands which he, in common with other officers
who served in America, was entitled to. He having a right to apply for
the allotted quantity wherever he found it vacant, that is, in odd
unoccupied places, between different patents, which it required much
local knowledge of the country to discover, had greatly the advantage of
strangers; because he could get information of those secluded spots here
and there, that were truly valuable; whereas other officers belonging to
regiments disbanded in the country, either did not find it convenient to
go to the expense of taking out a patent, and surveying the lands, and
so sold their rights for a trifle to others; or else half a dozen went
together, and made a choice, generally an injudicious one, of some large
tract of ground, which would not have been so long unsolicited had it
been of real value. My father bought the rights of two young officers
who were in a hurry to go to Europe, and had not, perhaps, wherewithal
to go through the necessary forms used to appropriate a particular spot,
the expense of that process being considerable. Accordingly, he became a
consequential landholder, and had half his pay to boot.
The fifty-fifth were now preparing to embark for that home which they
regarded with enthusiasm; this extended to the lowest ranks, who were
absolutely home-sick. They had, too, from the highest to the lowest,
been enabled, from their unexpensive mode of living, to lay up some
money. Never was there a body of men more uncorrupted and more attached
to each other. Military men contract a love of variety in their
wandering manner of life, and always imagine they are to find some
enjoyment in the next quarters that they have not had in this; so that
the order for march is generally a joyful summons to the younger
officers at least. To these novices, who, when they thought the world of
variety, glory, and preferment was open before them, were ordered up
into the depth of unexplored forests, to be kept stationary for years
together, without even the amusement of a battle, it was sufficiently
disappointing. Yet afterwards I have been told that, in all the changes
to which this hapless regiment was subjected, they looked back on the
years spent on the lakes as the happiest of their lives.
My father parted with them with extreme regret, but he had passed the
rubicon—that is to say, taken out his patent, and stay he must. He went,
however, to New-York with them, and here a very unexpected scene opened.
Many of the soldiers who had saved little sums, had deposited them in my
father’s hands, and, when he gave every one his own at New-York, he had
great pleasure in seeing their exultation, and the purchases they were
making. When, all of a sudden, a thunderbolt burst among these poor
fellows, in the shape of an order to draft the greatest part of them to
Pensacola, to renew regiments who, placed on a bar of burning sand, with
a salt marsh before and a swamp behind, were lingering out a wretched
and precarious existence, daily cut short by disease in some new
instance. Words are very inadequate to give an idea of the horror that
pervaded this band of veterans. When this order was most unexpectedly
read at the head of the regiment, it was worse to most of them than a
sentence of immediate death. They were going to a dismal and detested
quarter, and they were going to become part of a regiment of no repute;
whom they themselves had held in the utmost contempt when they had
formerly served together. The officers were not a little affected by
this cruel order; to part with brave well-disciplined men, who, by their
singular good conduct, and by the habits of sharing with their officers
in the chase, and in their agricultural amusements, fishing parties, &c.
had acquired a kindly nearness to them, not usually subsisting between
those who command and they who must implicitly obey. What ties were
broken! what hopes were blasted by this fatal order! These sad exiles
embarked for Pensacola at the same time that their comrades set out for
Ireland. My father returned, sunk in the deepest sadness, which was
increased by our place of abode; for we had removed to the forsaken
fort, where there was no creature but ourselves and three or four
soldiers, who chose to stay in the country, and for whom my father had
procured their discharge.
I was, in the mean time, more intimate than ever at aunt Schuyler’s;
attracted not only by her kindness, but my admiration for Mrs. Cuyler,
and attachment for her lovely little girl. The husband of the former was
now returned from his West-India voyage, and they retired to a house of
their own, meaning to succeed to that business which the mayor, now
wealthy and infirm, was quitting. Cortlandt Schuyler, the general’s
brother, and his sprightly agreeable wife, were now, as well as the
couple formerly mentioned, frequent visitors at aunt’s, and made a very
pleasing addition to her familiar circle. I began to be considered as
almost a child of the family, and madame took much pains in instructing
me, hoping that I would continue attached to her, and knowing that my
parents were much flattered by her kindness, and fully conscious of the
advantages I derived from it. With her aid, my father’s plan of
proceeding was fully digested. He was to survey and locate his lands,
(that was the phrase used for such transactions,) and at leisure, (as
the price of lands was daily rising,) to let them out on lease. He was
to reserve a good farm for himself, but not to reside upon it till the
lands around it were cultivated, and so many settlers gone up as would
make the district, in a degree, civilized and populous; a change which
was like to take place very rapidly, as there were daily emigrations to
that neighbourhood, which was become a favourite rallying point, on
account of a flourishing and singularly well-conducted settlement which
I have already mentioned, under the auspices of Colonel Schuyler in this
quarter.
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