CHAPTER XXII

DINNERS, DRESS, DANCES, HORSE-RACES

If the grave New Jersey Presbyterian tutor--who has given us so

faithful a picture of domestic life in the Northern Neck--saw fit to

burn his candles at night while he described the dresses, dinners,

and dances of his day, surely it is worth our while to pause in our

history to consider them.

The planter's daily life began betimes with an early breakfast. The

planter was an early riser. He had retired early. The myrtle-berry

candle--the costly spermaceti--were not brilliant enough to tempt

late hours. Often before daybreak in the winter, when the nights

were long, he might be found at his secretary arranging the work of

the day. Washington at Mount Vernon would light his own fire and

read by candle-light, then breakfast on tea and Indian-meal cakes at

eight o'clock. But to all rules he and his mother were exceptions!

The usual life of the planter admitted more luxury. His breakfast

was a good one! But first, having risen early, he mixed with his own

hands the great beaker of crushed ice, peach-brandy, and mint to be

sent around to all the rooms as an appetizer. Even the children

were admitted to this morning loving-cup. Virginians believed in it!

Luckily the breakfast is not left to a twentieth-century

imagination--which would probably suggest an orange, coffee, and

roll. The Rev. Andrew Burnaby, Vicar of Greenwich, London, had the

pleasure of eating a Virginia breakfast in 1759: "The ancient custom

of eating meat for breakfast still continues. At the top of the

table where the lady of the house presides, there is constantly tea

and coffee, but the rest of the table is garnished out with roasted

fowls, ham, venison, game and other dainties. There is scarcely a

Virginia lady who breakfasts without ham!"

Dinner at home or abroad was served not later than three, and

was preceded by at least one mint julep all around. At one home

dinner we read of four kinds of fish, "Sheeps-head, Bass, Perch,

Picked Crab: Ham, Mutton, vegetables, pudding, fruits, cheese, old

Madeira," which to be presentable must have crossed the ocean more

than once. A dinner included three courses,--soup, then the whole

dinner placed on the table at once, then dessert. Ducks were served

at the fish feasts. The delicious canvasback duck was by no means

so highly appreciated as it is now. They were left in comparative

peace to feed upon the tender wild celery of the Potomac marshes.

The diamond-backed terrapin was much too abundant to be considered

a dainty. To save the scarcer and costlier pork, terrapin was fed to

the negroes. Laws were enacted in Maryland forbidding the slaves'

rations to be exclusively of terrapin!

At one of General Washington's ceremonious dinners there was soup,

fish roasted and boiled, "gammon of bacon" and fowl. The middle of

the table was decorated with artificial flowers and small images.

The dessert was a pudding and apple pie, ice-cream, jellies, melons,

apples, peaches, nuts. This dinner was recorded as "a great dinner."

Today it would be considered "a good enough dinner, to be sure, but

not a dinner to _ask_ a man to!" Some of the receipts for these old

Virginia dinners have been preserved in the Randolph family--notably

the receipts for English plum pudding, and for the Christmas mince

pie.

Tables were richly furnished with burnished pewter and handsome

silver. So many articles of silver--bowls, cups, and salvers--were

imported from England that the thrifty planter was constrained

to import an engraver as well, in order that his arms and crests

might be engraved under his personal supervision. The china was,

of course, English or of English importation. We manufactured no

china, imported none from the East--probably none from France. Mary

Washington's china we know was blue and white. Knives were of fine

Sheffield steel, and served other uses than cutting. How else did

the colonial dames eat their peas? Surely not with the little steel

fork with two wide-apart prongs. This is a painful reflection,

but we must remember that a good many ladies whom the world has

admired--Helen of Troy, the Mother of the Gracchi, all of its

earth-born goddesses, in fact, until Queen Elizabeth--had to content

themselves at dinner with the utensils God had given them. They had

no forks at all--not even a chop-stick! Hence the early need for

napkins.

There was no lack of good napery in Mary Washington's time, but the

usage of napkins differed somewhat from the usage of to-day, at

least at General Washington's dinners.

The destruction of cattle by Tarleton's Red Dragoons caused almost

a famine of cream and butter, immediately after the war, so that

"trifle" and ice-cream were articles of prime luxury. To obtain

sufficient cream for the dish known variously as trifle, syllabub,

or floating island, it was sometimes necessary to save it until it

soured or grew rancid.

Mrs. Morris tells of such a misfortune at one of Washington's

state dinners. She did not hesitate to consign her own unswallowed

morsel to her napkin, but records with wicked glee that "poor Lady

Washington ate a whole plate-full without wincing."

At dinner much ceremony was observed. "I have fortunately learned

by heart all the ceremonies of the table, and will make no

mistakes," says the tutor exultantly, when he finds it necessary to

preside in the illness of the mistress and absence of the master.

Toasts were regularly drunk at dinner if there were guests--but

postponed to the evening bowl of "toddy" or punch when the family

was alone. No day passed without these toasts. "To the King and

Queen, the Governor of Virginia and his Lady, and success to

American Trade and Commerce." After these each person was called

upon by the master for his toast. "I gave the Lovely Laura," says

our tutor--Laura being the name in Cupid's court for Miss Betty

Beatty.

One might trace the changes in political feeling by these toasts.

At first, after the royal family and success to Virginia commerce,

only the respective favorites among the ladies. Presently we observe

that "The Sons of Liberty" have crept into the company to demand

a toast. Then an ominous toast follows the king and all the rest,

"_Wisdom_ and _Unity_ to the Conference now assembled." Then the

royal family, governor, and his lady are dropped altogether, and

the toast, praying for "Wisdom and Unity," takes their places.

The Prince de Broglie records the toasts at General Washington's

table,--"The United States of America, the King of France, the

Queen"; "Success with our Enemies and the Ladies"; "Success in War

and Love." After these, the Marquis de Lafayette and the military

heroes of the war. General Washington, when President, discontinued

this custom, contenting himself with grave bows, and "Your Health,

Sir; your Health, Madam," all around the table, until every one was

thus honored.

One can hardly repress a shudder at the accounts given by Robert

Maclay and others of the deadly dulness and formality of General

Washington's state dinners. He kept up this formal coldness to the

end. Free and easy manners came in with Mr. Jefferson and long

trousers. Fancy this incident occurring at General Washington's

table: "Here's to thy Absent Broad-brim Friend Hollingworth," from

Dolly Madison. "Here's to thy Absent Kerchief, Friend Dorothy," from

the Quaker.

At informal dinners among neighbors the company "sat until sunset,"

then coffee, and at nine o'clock supper,--artichokes, crabs,

oysters, strawberries and cream, the punch-bowl again. Record is

made of "Sudden Pains and Sickness at the Stomach at night."

The dancing class was held in succession at all the mansions

along the Potomac as far as Mount Vernon. Mr. Christian--stern

but elegant--taught minuets and country-dances, first politely

requesting each guest "to step a minuet." He does not hesitate to

rap two young misses across the shoulder for a fault, and to inform

"one young Fellow" that he has observed him "through the course

of the Dance," to be "insolent and wanton," and shall require him

to alter his manner or leave the school. Then, when candles are

lighted, having danced all day, Mr. Christian winds up with another

minuet and country-dance, and at seven is glad to retire. But

fun holds awhile longer. They all "play Button to get Pauns for

Redemption, and carry it on with sprightliness and Decency." The

tutor is in luck. "In the course of redeeming my Pauns I had several

Kisses of the Ladies." Then Colonel Philip Ludwell Lee arrives in

a travelling chariot from Williamsburg. "Four candles on the table

make the room luminous and Splendid." There is a fine supper with

four instructed waiters. After supper all gather around the fire and

"play 'break the Pope's neck'" until ten o'clock, and then to bed.

"Almost every lady wears a red cloak,"[10] says our tutor; "and when

they ride out they tye a red handkerchief over their Head and face,

so that when I first came to Virginia I was distressed whenever I

saw a Lady, for I thought she had a Tooth-Ach." At a five-days' ball

at Squire Lee's "the Ladies were dressed Gay and splendid, and when

Dancing their Skirts and Brocades rustled and trailed behind them.

For five days and nights they Danced minuets, reels, marches: Giggs

(an exaggerated dance resembling the _Trescone_ of Italy) and,

last of all, Country Dances to the Music of a French Horn and two

Violins, for," says the astonished tutor, "Blow high, Blow Low, the

Virginians are genuine blood--they will Dance or die!"

[10] "Journal of Philip Vickens Fithian," edited by John Rogers

Williams.

The plantation fiddler belonging, as did the barber, shoemaker,

and carpenter, to each establishment, seems to have sufficed for

Mr. Christian's class. At this the gentlemen were "drest in black,

superfine broadcloth, laced Ruffles, Black silk Stockings, buckles

at knee and instep. They wore powder on their Hair, or the short Wig

now in fashion."

The ladies, well, the principal ladies, must each sit for her own

portrait.

First, Mary Washington's granddaughter, "Miss Jenny Washington,[11]

about seventeen, not a handsome face, but neat in her Dress,

well-proportioned, and has an easy, winning Behaviour. She is not

forward to begin a conversation, yet when spoken to is extremely

affable without assuming any girlhood affectation or pretending to

be overcharged with Wit. She moves with propriety when she dances

a _Minuet_, and without any _Flirts_ or vulgar _Capers_ when She

dances a _Reel_ or _Country-Dance_. She plays well on Harpsichord

and Spinet, understands the principles of Musick and therefore

performs her Tunes in perfect time--a neglect of which always makes

music intolerable, but it is a fault almost universal in young

Ladies. She sings likewise to her instrument, has a strong, full

voice and a well-judging Ear. Most of the Virginia Girls think it

labour quite sufficient to thump the Keys of a Harpsichord," etc.

"Her Dress is rich and well-chosen, but not tawdry, nor yet too

plain. She appears to-day" (at the dancing class in the morning) "in

a chintz cotton gown with an elegant blue Stamp, a sky-blue silk

Quilt" (petticoat over which the gown opens), "a spotted apron. Her

Hair is a light Brown, it was craped up high with two Rolls at each

Side, and on the top a small cap of beautiful Gauze and rich lace,

with an artificial flower interwoven."

[11] Fithian's "Journal."

Very satisfactory indeed for Mary Washington's granddaughter, sister

of Bushrod Washington, afterwards judge of the Supreme Court.

[Illustration: Bushrod Washington.]

Next, Miss Betsy Lee: "She is a well-set maid of a proper Height,

neither high nor low. Her Aspect when she is sitting is masculine

and Dauntless: she sits very erect; places her feet with great

propriety, her Hands she lays carelessly in her lap and never moves

them but when she has occasion to adjust some article of her dress,

or to perform some exercise of her Fan. Her Eyes are exactly such as

_Homer_ attributes to the Goddess _Minerva_ and her arms resemble

those which the same Poet allows to _Juno_. Her Hair which was

a dark Brown was craped up very high and in it she had a Ribbon

interwoven with an artificial Flower. At each of her ears dangled

a brilliant jewel. She was pinched up rather too near in a long

pair of new-fashioned Stays, which I think are a nuisance both to

us and themselves--For the late importation of Stays, said to be

now most fashionable in London, are produced upwards so high that

we can have scarce any view at all of the Ladies' Snowy Bosoms; and

on the contrary they are extended downwards so low that Walking

must, I think, cause a disagreeable friction of some parts of the

Body. I imputed the Flush which was visible in her Face to her being

swathed up _Body and Soul and Limbs_ together. She wore a light

chintz gown with a blue stamp elegantly made which set well upon

her. She wore a blue Silk Quilt. Her dress was rich and fashionable

and her behaviour was such as I should expect to find in a Lady

whose education had been constructed with some care and skill."

So much for Miss Lee. Now for the country beauty, Miss Aphia

Fauntleroy (afterwards married to Captain John Champe Carter of the

Revolution).

"Is the best dancer of the whole absolutely!--And the finest Girl!

Her head powdered as white as snow and craped in the newest taste.

She is the copy of the Goddess of Modesty--very handsome. She seemed

to be loved by all her Acquaintances and Admired by every Stranger."

"Miss Priscilla Carter is 16--small of her age, has a mild winning

Presence, a sweet obliging Temper, _never swears_ which is here

a distinguished virtue, dances finely, plays well on key'd

Instruments, is never without what seems to have been a common Gift

of Heaven to the _fair Sex_, the Copia Verborum, or readiness of

Expression." (This sweet-tempered fifteen-year-older, a pupil of the

Presbyterian tutor, was a young lady of spirit.) "Miss Prissy is

much offended! She retains her anger and seems peculiarly resentful,

refusing to walk over to the school. Indeed she is much affronted.

Monday afternoon by chance I tapp'd her on the Head and wholly

in Jest." Five days later the Diary records, "At last Prissy is

reconciled," having punished him sufficiently.

Next, Miss Hale, fourteen years old. "She is dressed in a white

Holland gown, quilt very fine, a Lawn Apron, has her hair craped

high, and upon it a Tuft of Ribbon for a cap. Once I saw her

standing. I rose immediately and begged her to accept my Chair.

She answered most kindly, 'Sir, I thank you,' and that was all I

could extract from this Wonder of her Sex for the two days of the

dance, and yet I seemed to have an equal Share in the Favours of her

Conversation."

Miss Sally Panton, lately come from England to teach Mr.

Turberville's daughters French and English, creates a sensation

because she is supposed to have brought with her the latest

London fashions. "Her stays are huge, giving her an enormous long

_Waist_. These stays are suited to come up to the upper part of her

shoulders, almost to her chin; and are swaithed round her as low as

they can possibly be, allowing her no liberty to walk at all. To be

sure this is a vastly _Modest_ Dress!" The stays are all right, but

"her _Head-Dress_ not to the liking of the Virginia Ladies" being

arranged low on the neck, of which they can, on no account approve.

"Nevertheless," quoth the tutor, "if her Principles of Religion and

her Moral Manner be unexceptionable _I_ shall think her Agreeable."

The last picture thrown on the canvas must be another Miss Lee. "A

tall, slim, genteel Girl thirteen years old. She is free from the

taciturnity of Miss Hale, yet by no means disagreeably forward. She

dances extremely well, and is just beginning to play on the Spinet.

She is drest in a neat shell Callico Gown, has very light hair done

up high with a feather, and her whole carriage is easy and graceful,

and free of formality and Haughtiness, the Common foible here."

For aught we know to the contrary this charming young lady was the

beauty who roused an anonymous poet to alliterative verse.

"May mild meridian moonbeams mantle me

With laughing, lisping Lucy Lightfoot Lee."

The ingenuous tutor is delightful. Not once does he interpret the

freezing manner, the haughtiness and formality of the maidens to any

dislike of himself. Perhaps it did not exist; his successor, also a

Presbyterian tutor, married one of them. But not so, I fancy, did

these ladies treat young Harry Lee--"our Light-horse Harry," the son

of the "Lowland Beauty"--when they met him at the Squire's ball; and

surely not thus would the young junior from Princeton College have

been impressed by them. One peep within the leaves of that Diary,--a

thing impossible to the veriest madcap in his school,--and all would

have been over for the Presbyterian tutor, albeit he and young

Harry had been college mates.

Two things were absolutely necessary in the etiquette of the

minuet,--the pointed foot must be so firm, so straight, that not a

crease or wrinkle appeared in the quilted petticoat, and, of course,

this quilt must be of a strength and richness: so rich, indeed, that

it would "stand alone," yielding not in dance and courtesy.

Evidently Miss Hale at fourteen, and Miss Lee at thirteen, were

already in society. In a few years, doubtless, they were all married

to Revolutionary officers, two or three, sometimes five, of them

falling in course of time to his lot, as was usual in that day of

short-lived women. As we have seen, Catherine Willis--afterwards

Princess Murat--married at thirteen.

[Illustration: Mary Ambler.]

The wife of Chief Justice Marshall, Mary Ambler, was only fourteen

years old when she attended the Dunmore ball and captured the

young Captain Marshall, who gave the only guinea he possessed to a

clergyman for marrying him soon after.

[Illustration: Chief Justice John Marshall.]

Arthur Lee said, "In Virginia a man is old at thirty and a woman at

twenty." A certain little Alice Lee, twelve years old, wrote this

remarkable letter from Stratford in 1772 to a kinsman in London.

(Doubtless Miss Alice was one of the dancers at Squire Lee's ball

two years later.)

"So you threaten me if I prove deficient in the deference I owe you

as a married man, with the power you have of forwarding or retarding

my success in the Matrimonial Way.[12] This would be a tremendous

threat indeed were I as fond of Matrimony as my young Mistress, as

you call her, but happily I am little more than twelve years old and

not so eager to tye a Knot which Death alone can Dissolve. And yet

I pretend not to ridicule the holy sacred institution, but have all

due reverence for that and the worthy people who have entered into

the Society, from good and generous motives. It is only those who

chuse to be married at all events that I think deserve raillery....

I never saw Westmoreland so dull. I was at Squire Lee's when your

letter came. He is the veriest Tramontane in nature; if ever he gets

married, if his wife civilizes him, she deserves to be canonized.

[12] "Lee of Virginia," Edited by Dr. Edward Jennings Lee.

"So you can't forbear a fling at femalities; believe me Curiosity is

as imputable to the Sons as the Daughters of Eve. Think you there

was ever a Lady more curious than our Cousin the Squire? He himself

is the greatest of all curiosities, but hang him, how came he to pop

twice in my head while I was writing to you!

"The Annapolis Races Commence the 6th of October. The American

Comp^y of Players are there and said to be amazingly improved. I

should like to see them, as I think Theatrical Entertainments a

rational amusement."

Clever little Mistress Alice! Twelve years old, and already

flirting with the sixty-year-old Squire Richard Lee Burgess from

Westmoreland, member of the Continental Congress, giver of five-day

balls; who yet found time to gather rosebuds, for he actually

married sixteen-year-old Sally Poythress after he was sixty-two

years old.

It is a great misfortune to us that our observant tutor was not

invited to Mount Vernon. Mr. Christian's class met at Mount Vernon,

also at "Gunston Hall"--the fine residence of the George Mason

who wrote the famous Declaration of Rights in 1776. Mrs. Martha

Washington's lovely daughter, Martha Custis, was then just thirteen

years old, and there is no doubt, not the least, that she wore

a blue silk quilt and had her hair "craped" (_crépé_) high and

interwoven with a feather. On the 18th of April, 1770, Washington

records, "Patsy Custis and Milly Posey went to Col. Mason's to the

Dancing School."

The discipline of children was stern. Their duties included the

courtesies of life as religiously as its business. "I have no

Stockings and I swear I won't go to the Dancing School," says

fifteen-year-old Bob, who is at the awkward age and dreads society.

"'Are Bob and Nancy gone to Mr. Turberville's?' said the Colonel

at Breakfast--'Nancy is gone, Sir, Bob stays at Home, he has no

shoes!' 'Poh--what nonsense,' says the Colonel. He sends the clerk

to the Plantation Store for a pair of Shoes. Bob he takes to his

Study and floggs severely for not having given seasonable notice,

and sends him instantly to the Dance" in a suitable and proper frame

of mind to enjoy himself!

Balls, fish feasts, christenings, cock-fights, horse-races and

_church-going_ filled the time as well as visiting and dancing.

Everybody went to church through all weathers. In winter the

churches were bitterly cold. No provision of any kind for heating

them was ever dreamed of. The church was one of the rallying places

for the neighborhood. "There are," says the tutor, "three grand

divisions of time at the church on Sundays; Viz: before Service

giving and receiving letters of business, reading Advertisements"

(affixed to the church-doors) "consulting about the price of

Tobacco, Grain, &c, and settling either the lineage, Age or

qualities of favourite Horses. 2. In the church at Service, prayers

read over in haste, a Sermon, seldom under and never over twenty

minutes, but always made up of sound morality, or deep-studied

Meta-physicks. 3. After Service is over, three quarters of an hour

spent in strolling round the church among the crowd in which time

invitations are given by gentlemen to go home with them to dinner."

The christenings were seasons of large family gatherings--the silver

christening bowl, like the punch-bowl, descending from generation to

generation.

There were no "poor whites"--the helpless, hopeless, anæmic race now

numerous in Virginia. There were well-instructed men and women in

the industrial classes who filled situations as visiting shoemakers,

weavers, or housekeepers. The Virginia woman in "The Golden Age"

had need of all the help she could get. She married while yet a

child--often less than fifteen years old. Her housekeeper was her

tower of strength. She helped generally throughout the family,

nursing the sick, caring for the children's comfort, and standing

sponsor for them in baptism.[13] A letter from one of these humble

retainers, a housekeeper at Stratford, somewhere about 1774, has

been preserved by which we perceive she represented the wife of

Governor Fauquier at a christening.

[13] "Lee of Virginia."

(Dated) "STRATFORD, September 27.

"TO MISS MARTHA CORBIN--_Dear Miss._ I gladly embrace this

oppertunity of writing to you to put you in mind there is such

a being as mySelfe. I did not think you two would have slited

me so. Your little cosen matilda was made a cristan the 25th of

September. The godmothers was mrs washington miss becy Tayloe

Miss Nancy Lawson Stod proxse for Miss Nelly Lee and I for

Mrs Fauquer, godfathers was col. Taloe Mr Robert Carter mrs

washington Col Frank Lee, the Esq: mr washington and your ant

Lee Dessers there Love to you I am your very humble servant

Elizabeth Jackson."

It is easy to understand why Miss Jackson should have dignified

all the Lees who employed her with large capitals, but why she

should thus have honored Miss Nancy Lawson above "mrs. washington"

we shall never know in this world, only, as everybody knows, no

married lady--even Mrs. John Augustine Washington, our Mary's

daughter-in-law--could possibly be as important as that most

worshipped of all creatures, a Virginia young lady.

As to the race-horses, we cannot begin to reckon their increased

importance. Janus and Yorick are among the immortals! So also should

be General Washington's horses,--Ajax, Blueskin, Valiant, and the

royal Arabian Magnolia. Nor should Silver-eye be forgotten, nor

the lordly Shakespeare, for whose service a groom was appropriated

to sleep near him at night in a specially built recess, that his

Lordship's faintest neigh might find response.

The men who settled the Northern Neck of Virginia were cavaliers

from "Merry England," with an inherited love of horse-racing, and,

indeed, all sporting. There was not a Roundhead among them! They

liked cards and dancing. Nobody could make them believe that the

devil hunted with the hounds and ran with the race-horses.

The early Virginia historians wrote at length about the pedigrees

and qualities of horses and the skill of their riders. The old

court records have many quaint entries of disputes about "faire

starts," and citizens' depositions were taken to settle them; for

instance, "Richard Blande, aged 21 yeares Deposeth that in the Race

run between John Brodnax and Capt. William Soane now in tryall,

the horse belonging to Henry Randolph on w'ch Capt. Soane layed,

came after the Start _first_ between the Poles agreed on for their

comeing in," etc. William Randolph's task was more difficult. He

"Deposeth in ye race between Wm. Epes and Mr. Stephen Cocke," that

the latter "endeavoured to gett the other's path, but he did not

gett it at two or three jumps nor many more, upon w'ch he josselled

on Mr. Epes' path all most part of ye Race."

People took all these things very seriously, and they formed the

subjects of conversation until the time came for horse and rider to

distinguish themselves in a sterner field.

The horses bred in Virginia were small, fleet, and enduring,

varying little from the early English racers,--the immediate

descendants of the Arabian horses. There was a fine race-course at

Fredericksburg, and Mary Washington's relatives and friends appear

in the contests--her sister-in-law's husband, Roger Gregory, always

among the foremost. He ran a famous mare, Dimple; Mr. Spotswood,

Fearnaught,--a name reasonably to be expected from John Spotswood's

horse. Then there were Fashion, Eclipse, Selima, Ariel, Why Not?

(why, indeed?), and many more. Purses from ten to two hundred

guineas or pounds were the prizes; also "Saddles, Bridles, Cups and

Soop Ladles."

Lewis Willis, General Washington's first cousin, worked his farm

principally with blooded plough-horses. The dams of Maid of the

Oaks and Betsy Blue were plough-horses. Maid of the Oaks--the most

splendid creature ever seen--sold for £15,000 to pay, alas! a

security debt. For this astonishing statement I have as authority

Lewis Willis's son, Byrd Willis,--father of the Princess Murat

and brother of the Jack Willis so loved by everybody and by none

more than General Washington himself. These were splendid, jovial

fellows, full of anecdote and inexhaustible humor. Colonel Byrd

Willis left a diary of the good times of his day.

But, alas for all the good times, the little cloud no bigger than

a man's hand in 1766 was now darkening the Northern sky. The

_Gazette_, that had chronicled so many merry days, gave its columns

to a warning note (July 21, 1774) from "a Virginian," recommending

that Fredericksburg suspend its races and contribute purses to the

people of Boston; and, indeed, there was no more record of a race

before the Revolution.

The Presbyterian tutor, from whom we must now part, was a candidate

for the ministry, but saw much to admire and little to condemn

in the social life of the Virginians. He had been warned "that

Virginia is sickly--that the people there are profane, and exceeding

wicked. That there I shall read no Calvinistic Books, nor hear any

Presbyterian Sermons." He finds himself under no more nor stronger

temptations to any kind of vice--perhaps not so great--as at home,

"unless sometimes when I am solicited to dance I am forced to

blush" not because of its wickedness--Oh, no!--but "because of my

_Inability_! I Wish it had been a part of my Education to learn an

innocent and ornamental qualification for a person to appear even

decent in Company!"

This impartial observer of the times in which Mary Washington lived

sums up the Virginians thus: "The people are extremely hospitable

and Polite--universal characteristics of a gentleman in Virginia.

Some swear bitterly, but the practice seems to be generally

disapproved. I have heard that this Country is notorious for Gaming,

however this may be I have not seen a Pack of _Cards_, nor a _Die_

since I left home, nor gaming nor Betting of any kind except at

the Races. The _Northern Neck_ is a most delightful country--the

best people are remarkable for regularity and economy, civil and

polite and of the highest quality in Virginia--well acquainted

with the formality and ceremony which we find commonly in High

Life--sensible, judicious, much given to retirement and study,"

etc., at length, of which the above extract is a fair example.

Another tutor, one John Davis, presumably a Welshman, who spent,

and wrote of, "Four and a Half Years in America," described the

Virginians of George Washington's time and neighborhood and the

church he attended:--

"No people could exceed these men in politeness. On the piazza

of Mr. Thornton's tavern I found a party of gentlemen from the

neighboring plantations carousing over a bowl of toddy and smoking

cigars. On my ascending the steps to the piazza, every countenance

seemed to say, 'This man has a double claim to our attention, for

he is a stranger in the place.' In a moment room was made for me to

sit down; a new bowl was called for, and every one who addressed me

did it with a smile of conciliation. But no man questioned me whence

I had come, or whither I was going. A gentleman in every country is

the same--and if good breeding consists in sentiment, it was found

in the circle I had got into.

"The higher Virginians seem to venerate themselves as men! I am

persuaded there was not one in that company who would have felt

embarrassed at being admitted to the presence and conversation

of the greatest monarch on earth. There is a compound of virtue

and vice in every human character. No man was ever faultless; but

whatever may be advanced against Virginians, their good qualities

will ever outweigh their defects; and when the effervescence of

youth has abated, when reason reasserts her empire, there is no man

on earth who discovers more exalted sentiments, more contempt of

baseness, more love of justice, more sensibility of feeling, than

a Virginian.... I found at the taverns every luxury that money can

purchase; the richest viands covered the table, and ice cooled the

Madeira that had been thrice across the ocean. About eight miles

away was _Powheek_ (Pohick) church--a name it claims from a run

that flows near its walls. Hither I rode on Sundays and joined

the congregation of Parson Weems" [our friend of the hatchet and

cherry tree!] "a minister of the Episcopal persuasion, who was

cheerful in his mien that he might win men to religion. A Virginian

church-yard on a Sunday, resembles rather a race-course than a

sepulchral ground. The ladies come to it in coaches, and the men,

after dismounting from their horses, make them fast to the trees.

The steeples to Virginia churches were designed not for utility but

ornament; for the bell is always suspended to a tree a few yards

from the church. I was confounded on first entering the church-yard

at Powheek to hear 'Steed threaten steed with high and boastful

neigh,' nor was I less stunned with the rattling of wheels, the

cracking of whips, and the vociferations of the gentlemen to the

negroes who accompanied them. One half the congregation was composed

of white people, the other of negroes, and Parson Weems preached the

great doctrines of salvation as one who had experienced their power."

The Welsh tutor, Davis, and the American tutor and patriot, Fithian,

wrote thus of the Virginians of Mary Washington's day, as they saw

and knew them. Their horizon was limited to a few representative

families in one or two neighborhoods. But a great and good man of

the present generation--wise, truthful, candid--has thus recorded

his opinion of the Virginians of that period. Says John Fiske: "On

the whole it was a noble type of rural gentry that the Old Dominion

had to show. Manly simplicity, love of home and family, breezy

activity, disinterested public spirit, thorough wholesomeness and

integrity,--such were the features of the society whose consummate

flower was George Washington."

This section of Virginia could boast a society, more exclusive, if

possible, than that of the James River region. It was free from the

mixed and motley crowd which infested Williamsburg. Somewhat remote

from the commercial centre, the life was that of the landed gentry

in England; quieter, more conservative, more leisurely and elegant

than the society gathered in towns.

Thomson Mason of the Northern Neck, providing in his will for the

education of his sons, adds, "but I positively direct that neither

of my sons shall reside on the South Side of James River until

the age of twenty-one years, lest they should imbibe more exalted

notions of their own importance than I could wish any child of mine

to possess." Already there was a protest against a certain lofty

manner in vogue among the planters. Fashions that had lasted long

began to change.

With the passing of the century Virginia's picturesque Golden Age

passed, never to return in the history of this country.

Even while Washington lived and held his stately court,--powdered,

in full court-dress, sword at side, and no "hand-shake" for the

crowd at his levees,--even then the Golden Age, the age dominated by

English influence, had passed. England was no longer the authority

in manner and dress. The people wished none of her customs,

traditions, or principles. Naturally their hearts had turned to

the French. The emancipated Englishman cared no more for family

trees, still less for armorial bearings. When Bishop Meade travelled

through Virginia to cull material for his history of the old

families, he found them reluctant to acknowledge the possession of

a coat of arms or to confess a descent from English nobility. "They

seemed ashamed of it. Everybody became a 'Democrat,' a 'patriot,'

and in the abstract at least 'an advocate of the rights of man.'

Many families who were properly entitled to arms, lost the evidence

of it in the general neglect which blighted the tree of pedigree."

The manner in which Jefferson, in the opening of his autobiography,

almost sneers at armorial bearings reflects the feeling of Virginia

for many years after the Revolution.

Judge N. Beverley Tucker prefaces a family history with these words,

"At this day it is deemed arrogant to remember one's ancestors."

_Nous avons changé tout cela!_ At _this_ day it is suicidal to

forget them!

In presenting these pictures of social life in Virginia in the

eighteenth century, I have been careful to accept the testimony

only of those who were actually a part of it. It has become the

fashion to idealize that old society as something better than our

own. It had its charm of stateliness, of punctilious etiquette,

of cordial hospitality; its faults of pompous manner, of excess

and vanity, differing as conditions have changed, only in type and

expression, from similar blemishes in our own manners of to-day;

neither better nor worse, perhaps, as the years have passed. In all

that is understood by the word "society" we find many points of

resemblance, a family likeness, in fact, to metropolitan society in

the nineteenth century.

Has the reader ever sought an intelligent definition of the term

"society"?

"Society," says Noah Webster, "is specifically the more cultivated

portion of any community, in its social relations and influence;

those who give and receive formal entertainments mutually." This

sounds reasonable enough, but the literary world of to-day, if we

may credit some of its shining lights, takes exception at the word

"cultivated."

"Society," says Bishop Huntington, in his "Drawing-room Homily,"

"is something too formless for an institution, too irregular for

an organization, too vital for a machine, too heartless for a

fraternity, too lawless for a school. It is a state wherein all

realism is suppressed as brutal, all natural expression or frank

sign of true feeling as distasteful and startling. Its subjects are

more prostrate than the slaves of the East before the Padishah! The

individual finds everything decided for him. Provided he imitates

copies, and repeats his models, he knows all that he need know, and

has entered into salvation."

Evidently, neither now, nor in the Arcadian days of Virginia's

Golden Age, has society seen fit to adopt the motto inscribed on

the palace gates of the young Alexander Severus, "Let none enter

here save the pure in heart." One, than whom none knows it better,

has declared it to be to-day "a garden of flowers where 'sweets

compacted lie.' But underneath the roses lurks a subtle and venomous

serpent whose poison already threatens the fair and beloved of the

land."

These eminent satirists are part of the society they condemn. They

know it well. And yet we would fain find comfort in the summing

up of another who also knew it well. "Society," says Emerson, "is

something too good for banning, too bad for blessing. In attempting

to settle its character, we are reminded of a tradition in pagan

mythology. 'I overheard Jove,' said Silenus, 'talking of destroying

the earth. He said he had failed; they were all rogues and vixens

going from bad to worse. Minerva said she hoped not; they were only

ridiculous little creatures with this odd circumstance,--if you

called them bad, they would appear so; if good, they would appear

good,--and there was no one person among them which would not puzzle

her owl--much more all Olympus--to know whether it was fundamentally

good or bad.'"

But whether or no society be fundamentally good or bad, its doings

have been in all ages interesting. Max O'Rell declares that the

upper ten thousand are alike all over the world; that the million

only--as affording original types--are interesting. He is wrong. The

world cares more for the fortunate few than for the ordinary mass

of mankind. Why do we find in every journal of the day long columns

filled with the comings and goings, the up-risings and down-sittings

of our wealthy classes? Why do readers never complain of the

monotonous round of their travels? People prick up their ears and

listen whenever the word "society" is uttered, although fully aware

that half we read is invented to meet the hunger of the multitude

for society news.

Everybody wants a glimpse of that gallant vessel bearing the elect

so gayly down the stream of time,--the stream so full of bitter

waters to many. They are more interesting, these voyagers in the

painted pleasure boat, than the poor man who shades his eyes with

his rough hand to gaze as they pass. They are even more interesting

than the crowd running along to cheer, or swimming in the wake for

the possible chance of being taken on board. There they go!--the

happy hundreds--a "merry chanter" at the prow, a merry crew in the

rigging; music, song, the flash of jewels, the perfume of flowers

mingling with everyday sights, and sounds of everyday life.

We may assure ourselves that it is possible to be happy on board

some other vessel, with a better pilot, and bound for a better port,

but life is serious on that vessel. We like to be amused, and are

keenly interested in those gayer voyagers.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE LITTLE CLOUD

It seems to have been hard for England to take her American colonies

seriously. "The gentlemen of the opposition on the other side of

the water" were regarded as inferiors, or, at best, troublesome

children, to be dealt with accordingly, and taught to know--and

keep--their places.

As early as 1766 a "Planter" on the banks of the Potomac addressed

a letter to "The Merchants of London," and printed in the London

_Public Ledger_, in which he says: "The epithets of 'parent and

child' have been so long applied to Great Britain and her colonies

that individuals have adopted them, and we rarely see anything from

your side of the water free from the authenticated style of a master

to a schoolboy. He seems to say, 'We have, with infinite difficulty

and fatigue, got you excused this time; pray be a good boy for the

future; do what your papa and mamma bid you, and hasten to return

them your most grateful acknowledgments for condescending to let you

keep what is your own. If you are a naughty boy, and turn obstinate,

and don't mind what your papa and mamma say to you, and pretend to

judge for yourself when you are not arrived at years of discretion

or capable of distinguishing between good and evil, then everybody

will hate you; your parents and masters will be obliged to whip you

severely, and their friends will blame _them_.' See what you have

brought this child to! If he had been well scourged at first for

opposing your absolute will and pleasure and daring to think he had

any such thing as property of his own, he would not have had the

impudence to repeat the crime."

The first word of resistance to the enforcement of the Stamp Act

came from the Northern Neck of Virginia. At Leeds, Richard Henry

Lee, born in the same county and same year with George Washington,

wrote a set of resolutions which were unanimously adopted by one

hundred and fifteen of the most influential of his neighbors. No

Virginian could be legally tried but by his peers. No Virginian (for

were they not all British subjects?) could be taxed but by consent

of a parliament in which he is represented by persons chosen by the

people. "Any person using the stamp paper was an abandoned wretch,

lost to virtue and public good!" They bound themselves to resist and

punish such persons; and at the utmost risk of lives and fortunes to

protect any and every citizen who should suffer persecution because

of adherence to these resolutions.

This was in 1766. The defiant paper was signed by Mary Washington's

three sons,--Samuel, Charles, and John Augustine,--also by Dr.

Mortimer, her family physician. The Stamp Act was soon repealed, and

the stir and excitement naturally subsided. Several years later a

tax on tea, glass, and paper awakened it again. Even then there was

no apprehension of danger. Nobody dreamed of final separation from

England. The little cloud had been no bigger than a man's hand; it

was resting on the distant horizon and would give trouble to nobody.

In 1766 the odious Stamp Act was repealed. In 1767 a new and more

oppressive duty was laid on glass, paper, and tea. England, in the

next year, drew back again and repealed this later tax, excepting

only the tax on tea, "for," said Lord North, "a total repeal cannot

be thought of until America lies prostrate at our feet."

Virginia retaliated by her non-importation resolutions, binding

herself to import nothing from England until the obnoxious impost

should be repealed. Every known article of luxury in living or dress

was specified in her proscribed list, except--oh, wise and prudent

burgesses!--"women's bonnets and hats, sewing silk and netting silk!"

The resolutions were signed by 170 Virginians, including George

Washington, Spencer Ball, Samuel Eskridge, and the Lees, Tayloes,

Corbins, Carters, and others of Mary Washington's family, friends,

and neighbors in the Northern Neck. The firmest spirit pervaded the

assembly. At its close, the _Gazette_ goes on to say, "the whole

company walked in procession from the Capitol to the Raleigh Tavern,

where loyal and patriotic toasts were drunk--the King, the Queen

and Royal family, the Governor of Virginia, the Duke of Richmond,

Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, British Liberty in

America." Warming up after half a score of glasses, somebody gave,

"May the Efforts of Virginia, joined with her Sister Colonies in

the Cause of Liberty, be crowned with Success;" and then, warmer

still, and jealously fearful of discourtesy to the government it had

just defied (for a gentleman must be polite on his own soil) this

toast was enthusiastically presented and applauded, "May the Rose

flourish, the Thistle grow, and the Harp be tuned to the cause of

American Liberty!"

A fine "schoolboy" this, loving liberty, loving fun, too much in

love with happiness to bear malice!

It was not long before the schoolboy had a fine chance for a frolic.

Ships laden with tea appeared in Boston harbor. A party disguised as

American Indians boarded the ships and threw the cargo overboard.

This was more than any indulgent parent could be expected to stand.

The schoolboy must be shut up in a closet, and the key turned on

him. The port of Boston was ordered by Act of Parliament to be

closed!

And now Richard Henry Lee's "Committee of Correspondence and

Communication with the Sister Colonies" came into active service. Of

course the governor had dissolved the assembly that adopted it. He

was too late! From the moment of its adoption expresses were flying

from Massachusetts to Virginia, back and forth, with details of

every step in the progress of events. William Lee wrote from London

that "this inter-colonial consultation had struck a greater panic in

the ministers than all that had taken place since the Stamp Act."

The expresses travelled fast. Not for nothing had the Virginians

bred fleet horses and trained fearless riders! It was said of those

riders that "they must almost have flown," so promptly did the pulse

in Virginia respond to the heart-throb in Massachusetts.

The news from Boston was overwhelming. Not only was the port to be

closed as punishment--the thumb-screw drew still closer. Parliament

passed an "Act whereby the People of Boston shall have no power of

trying any Soldier or Person for committing any crime: all such

offenders to be sent Home for legal Tryal." 14 Geo. III, c. 39.

The Virginia leaders were not surprised. The little cloud, no bigger

than a man's hand in 1766, had never disappeared altogether. For ten

years the storm had been gathering. The sky was now overcast, the

thunder was heard, the tempest was at hand. With a keen realization

of all that resistance implied, some of them hesitated. Many of

them were descendants of the royalists who had come over after the

execution of Charles the First. They knew what revolution meant! The

halter and the scaffold were still vivid in their traditions.

When the news came of the Act of Parliament closing the port, the

House of Burgesses was in session. They ordained "a day of solemn

fasting, humiliation and prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine

interposition for averting a heavy calamity which threatens the

civil rights of America."

Every man, one would think, has a right to humble himself, abstain

from food, and pray God for help in time of trouble. Not so thought

his Excellency, Governor Dunmore. Summoning the Honorable--the House

of Burgesses--to his Council Chamber, he spoke to them thus: "Mr.

Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses, I have in my hand

a paper published by order of your House conceived in such terms

as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament of Great

Britain, which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you, and you

are dissolved accordingly."

So, then, the guardians of the colony were to be sent home to do

their fasting and praying in private, and perchance repent or hold

their tongues, at least.

But just here the unexpected happened. While the Virginians were

growing more and more hostile to Lord Dunmore and treating him with

ill-disguised contempt, his family arrived at Williamsburg,--the

Right Honorable, the Countess of Dunmore, Lord Fincastle, and the

Ladies Catherine, Augusta, and Susan Murray.

[Illustration: Lord Dunmore.]

Here was a pretty state of things,--distinguished strangers arriving

on Virginia soil and Virginia on the eve of a political earthquake.

However, there was but one way out of the difficulty,--hospitality

and hostility both claiming the hour, hostility must step aside

for a while. There was time for all things. There must be an

illumination of course; and if the ladies smiled as they entered

Williamsburg in their chariot drawn by six white horses, they must

receive acclamations in return.

They did smile. They made a most agreeable impression. The _Virginia

Gazette_ declared next day that the arrival of the countess gave

inexpressible pleasure, that she was a very elegant woman, that her

daughters were "fine, sprightly girls," and that "goodness of heart

flashed from them in every look."

Before they turned into the great palace gates they had won all

hearts. They were the guests of the colony. Already a herald had

published a Court Etiquette, whose leaflets were in the hands of the

pretty Jacqueline and Ambler girls. The finishing touch of courtly

grace and usage was to be given to the high-born Virginia beauties.

True, there was small time now to study court etiquette, but

a little delay could not matter much. Whether it did or no,

hospitality was the prime, sacred, delightful duty of the hour.

Accordingly, the gentlemen of the House of Burgesses caused the

_Gazette_ to announce a "Ball at the Capital to Welcome Lady

Dunmore and her Family to Virginia." The Apollo, which still echoed

Henry's eloquence and Washington's appeal for Boston, was hastily

made ready; and the men who had been most bitter in the morning in

their denunciation of the Port Bill bowed low in the evening to

the Countess of Dunmore, and led her and her daughters with grave

courtesy through the stately figures of the minuet.

Presently it is all over. The last note dies upon the strings,

the lights burn low in the coming dawn, parting words are

whispered,--"_adieu_" not "_au revoir_,"--and the hands that had

touched with refined finger-tips harden themselves for the gauntlet

and the sword. No matter, now her ladyship has been suitably

welcomed, how soon she runs away with her pretty daughters from the

guns and finds refuge on the _Fowey_! The sooner the better, in fact.

But before that could happen Lady Dunmore had time to become

immensely popular in Williamsburg. The _Gazette_ was forever

printing verses in her praise. The burgesses were welcomed to the

handsome "palace" of their governor,--the palace of which they

were so proud, with its "imposing cupola, lit at night on public

occasions, its ample green lawn in front, its artificial lakes,

gardens and terraces." Lady Dunmore gave an afternoon reception on

Queen Charlotte's birthday when her youngest child was christened

_Virginia_ in compliment to the Old Dominion. Everybody was invited

at night to join the royal party in a splendid ball in honor of the

Queen's birthday.

"The Mimic Court at Williamsburg was exerting all its powers to

please, but the patriots were not to be turned aside." They could

draw the velvet glove over the gauntlet to pleasure a lady, but the

gauntlet was there, nevertheless, and the gauntlet was of steel.

We are impressed in reading of all this, with the punctilious

etiquette of Williamsburg society which forbade the intrusion of

politics into the social life. Lord Dunmore had been regarded with

suspicion and distrust from the moment of his arrival in 1772. He

was perfectly aware of the feeling of the First Assembly which met

under his administration. Colonel Washington was a member of that

assembly, and had been present--and active--at the consultations

on public affairs held in the old Raleigh tavern. Yet, but for the

death of Miss Custis, he would have been Dunmore's companion when he

journeyed to Western Virginia to purchase land.

He dined with Lord Dunmore a few days before the couriers brought

news of the Act of Parliament closing the port at Boston. Nobody was

more resolute than he in denunciation of that act, and in support of

the resolutions of "sympathy for our distressed fellow-subjects of

Boston." At that moment his pocket held an accepted invitation to

dine with the governor. He did so dine, spent the evening with him,

probably the night, too, for he breakfasted with him the next day at

his farm. Two of Lord Dunmore's sons were students at William and

Mary College. To all outward appearance everything was going well

and smoothly among good friends and neighbors.

[Illustration: Robert Carter of Nomini Hall.]

The fast was appointed for the first day of June, 1774. The port

was to be closed on the fourth. On that day Washington wrote in

his diary, "Fasted all day and went to Church." George Mason, of

"Gunston Hall," in the Northern Neck wrote home, "Please tell my

dear little family that I desire my three eldest sons and my two

eldest daughters may attend church in mourning." His friend and

neighbor, Robert Carter, ordered differently. "No one must go from

hence to church or observe this fast at all." Not yet were all the

colonists prepared to follow Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Mason,

and Lee in defiance to the British Crown!

The fast was generally observed. The governor, it appears, had

no power to prevent it. The time had not yet come when Virginia

patriots, to avoid his interference, must hold their conferences

in old St. John's Church at Richmond. At Williamsburg a sermon was

preached from the text, "Help, Lord! for the godly man ceaseth, for

the faithful fail from among the children of men."

The tea was sealed up and destroyed, and money and provisions

ordered to be sent to Boston. The counties were canvassed for these,

and they were immediately forwarded.

The Virginia women entered with enthusiasm into all schemes for

sending help to their "distressed fellow-subjects in Boston," and

applauded Colonel Washington when he declared that "he was ready to

raise one thousand men, subsist them at his own expense and march at

their head to Massachusetts."

The colonial dames packed away in lavender-scented chests all their

imported finery, their "quilts" and brocades, and clothed themselves

in homespun or in mourning, destroying or sealing up their precious

stock of tea, and regarding with unfriendly eyes a certain dame who

continued to indulge in the proscribed luxury. It seems hard, poor

lady, that she should come down in history as the only one who thus

transgressed, "who continued to sip her tea in her closet after it

was banished from every table," and that even her name and lineage

should be given by an irreverent historian! This was no other than

Kate Spotswood, she of the fawn and blue satin gown and the silver

hair, now Mrs. Bernard Moore!

Even the master of "Nomini Hall" proscribed the tea long before he

ceased, for he _did_ cease at last, to toast "his Gracious Majesty,

the King." "Something," says our old friend, the tutor, "in our

palace this Evening very merry happened. Mrs. Carter made a dish of

Tea! At Coffee she sent me a dish--I and the Colonel both ignorant.

He smelt, sipt, look'd! At last with great gravity he asks, '_What's

this?_' 'Do you ask, Sir?' 'Poh!' and out he throws it, _splash!_ a

sacrifice to Vulcan."

It seems the tea was restored to favor, at least in the army, only

three years later. The colonists were then expressing themselves in

sterner language! An island was found somewhere near headquarters in

June, 1778. Here the officers invited their friends in the afternoon

to drink tea, and because the island was so beautiful and enchanting

they honored it with the name of "Paphos." There "Lady Stirling,

Lady Kilty, and Miss Brown, met his Excellency's lady, an agreeable,

well-disposed, excellent woman. The prospect of an alliance in

Europe had cheered every heart, and cheerfulness enlightened every

countenance." Was it the "alliance" or the dearly loved beverage

of which they had been so long deprived? Thenceforward and until

to-day the afternoon tea has been an institution, linked with the

history of our country. It came back on the island of Paphos, and

it came to stay! We hear of it once again in the annals of the

Revolution. The Marquis de Chastellux tells us of another afternoon

tea! "I left Mr. Samuel Adams with regret, and terminated my day by

a visit to Colonel Bland. He is a tall, handsome man who has been a

good soldier, but at present serves his country and serves it well

in Congress. I was invited to drink tea, that is, attend a sort of

Assembly: pretty much like the _conversazioni_ of Italy; for tea

here is the substitute for the _rinfresca_. Mr. Arthur Lee, M. de La

Fayette, M. de Noualles, M. de Dames, etc: were of the party." In

those days men could be found at an afternoon tea!

CHAPTER II

THE STORM

The stirring events which marked every month in the next two years

are known to every reader of American history: the steady injustice

and oppression of the governor, his attempt to disarm the colonists

by removing the powder of the colony from "The old Powder-horn,"

the quaint old building at Williamsburg, now cherished by the

association for the preservation of Virginia antiquities, the arming

of the Virginians headed by Patrick Henry to reclaim it, the flight

of poor Lady Dunmore and her pretty daughters to the protecting

guns of the _Fowey_, finally, the flight of the governor himself,

followed by the curses of the people,--how he trained his guns on

Norfolk, giving Virginia her first experience of the horrors of war,

how he hung about the coast to the terror of the country people,

and finally announced his intention of sailing up the Potomac and

capturing Mrs. Washington!

When the powder was stolen by Governor Dunmore, seven hundred

citizens, calling themselves the Friends of Liberty, armed and met

in Fredericksburg, ready to march to Williamsburg, and reclaim it

by force. They were led by Hugh Mercer, Mary Washington's friend

and neighbor. George Washington and George Mason prevailed upon them

to wait until Dunmore made restitution.

These were days of fearful trial to Mary Washington. Hitherto, on

her quiet farm on the banks of the Rappahannock, she had known

little of all the stir and excitement. Of the little that she heard

she disapproved. She was a loyal subject of the king and a devoted

churchwoman. All her early prejudices, traditions, ideas of duty,

close ties of kindred, bound her to the mother country and the

Church of England. That these should be resisted by her own family,

her four sons, and the Mercers, Travers, and Gregorys, was an

overwhelming disaster, to which she found it hard to be resigned.

When war was declared and she learned that her son was to lead the

rebellious army, her anguish was expressed in the most vehement

language. "Grandma Knox" strove in vain to console her. "Oh, is

there to be more fighting, more bloodshed? Surely it will all

end in the halter," exclaimed the devoted mother. So bitter were

her feelings at this moment, that when General Washington rode

to Fredericksburg to induce her to remove into the town, he was

doubtful in what manner she would receive him. He thought it prudent

to pause at the little inn, "The Indian Queen," and reconnoitre.

That a member of the family should "put up at a tavern" wasq

so tremendous an event that no one dared mention it to his

mother. Observing an air of mystery in the faces of her

servants, she demanded an explanation. "Tell George to come home

instantly--instantly!" she exclaimed; and straining him to her

bosom, she again commended him to God, and again gave him, with her

blessing, to his country.

On the 15th of June, 1775, he was elected commander-in-chief of the

American forces, and crossed the threshold of his mother's home, and

his own beloved Mount Vernon, on the right bank of the Potomac, to

return no more until the war should end. He was in his saddle, on

his way to Boston on horseback, when he was met by the news of the

battle of Bunker Hill. On the second of July he entered Boston amid

the acclamations of the people and the thunder of cannon, and the

next day assumed command of the American forces.

The anguish of his mother was shared by the wife, left alone at

Mount Vernon. She wrote to a relative who censured the folly of

Washington's position: "I foresee consequences, dark days, domestic

happiness suspended, eternal separation on earth possible. But my

mind is made up. My heart is in the cause. George is right; he is

always right!"

"Escorted," says Washington Irving, "by a troop of light-horse, and

a cavalcade of citizens, he proceeded to the headquarters provided

for him at Cambridge, three miles distant. As he entered the

confines of his camp, the shouts of the multitude and the thundering

of artillery, gave note to the enemy beleaguered in Boston of his

arrival."

[Illustration: Abigail Adams.]

He was already the idol of the hour! As he rode along the lines,

all travel-soiled and dusty, he found favor in every heart. The

soldiers adored him--the women as well. The elegant and accomplished

wife of John Adams, destined to be the first American lady to make

her courtesy to King George after it was all over, wrote to her

husband: "Dignity, ease and complacency, the gentleman and the

soldier, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and

feature of his face. Those lines of Dryden instantly occurred to

me:--

"'Mark his majestic fabric! He's a temple

Sacred by birth and built by hands divine;

His soul's the Deity that lodges there;

Nor is the pile unworthy of the God!'"

What said the "Godlike" hero to all this? Simply that he trusted

that Divine Providence, which wisely orders the affairs of men,

would enable him to discharge his duty with fidelity and success. A

year later he wrote, "When I took command of the army I abhorred the

idea of independence, but I am now fully satisfied that nothing else

will save us."

Dunmore was still in the Virginia waters. He did not leave until

the following year, in fact, his burning of Norfolk occurred six

months after General Washington left Virginia. It was constantly

expected that he would appear upon the Rappahannock and Potomac

rivers; and Colonel George Mason, having moved his own family to a

place of safety, recommended to Mrs. Martha Washington, who was at

Mount Vernon, to leave the neighborhood also. He wrote to General

Washington a little later: "Dunmore has come and gone, and left us

untouched except by some alarms. I sent my family many miles back

into the country, and advised Mrs. Washington to do likewise as

a prudential movement. At first she said, 'No, I will not desert

my post,' but she finally did so with reluctance, rode only a few

miles, and, plucky little woman as she is, stayed away only one

night." During the summer of 1776, Dunmore started again to ascend

the Potomac to lay waste "Gunston Hall" and Mount Vernon and capture

Mrs. Washington. The county militia harassed him on his way, but he

probably would have achieved his purpose but for a dreadful storm

that threatened the safety of the ship. But when thunder and storm

reached him through the cannon-balls of Andrew Lewis, one of which

passed through his flag-ship and smashed his china, "Good God!" said

Lord Dunmore, "has it come to this?" and weighing anchor, he betook

himself to England, having injured as far as possible the colony he

was commissioned to protect.

CHAPTER III

MARY WASHINGTON IN THE HOUR OF PERIL

Mary Washington was kept in a state of perpetual anxiety and alarm.

She was left unprotected by her nearest friends and relatives. Her

son was gone, returning for no brief visits to his old home. Her

grandson, George Lewis, was on his uncle's staff. Her sons were

enlisted, all her grandsons. The Spotswood boys were at the front.

Her good neighbor, Hugh Mercer, was a general in the army; her near

relative, Colonel Burgess Ball, had raised and equipped a regiment,

and was maintaining it at his own expense. "All Europe was amazed

when out of the forests and fields of the remote colonies of the

Atlantic coast, from north to south, there stepped forth at the

drum beat of Revolution heroes, scholars, statesmen, soldiers, and

chieftains who overcame its master spirits in debate and foiled its

ablest commanders in the field of combat."

Others of her neighbors and relations were already at the front.

In many houses father and sons had gone; in almost every home the

first-born was a soldier. She had only with her the women of her

kindred and the good and faithful Dr. Charles Mortimer,--the loyal

American though English born,--the able, generous physician. At his

own expense he equipped and maintained a hospital in which Mary

Washington and his little Maria probably felt a deep and common

interest.

Her old age was not to be the ideal age so passionately desired

by the old, of quiet serenity, "honor, obedience, and troops of

friends." The latter she had, with the added pang of keen anxiety

for their safety and welfare. She was called upon to surrender all

she held sacred or dear,--her king, her church, her glorious son,

her kindred, her loved country home. She gave up all resignedly,

uncomplainingly.

It was after this triumph over her prejudices, this complete

surrender to conviction of duty that her character blossomed into

perfect beauty. A great calmness possessed her soul and shone in her

face, a dignified resignation differing altogether from dumb despair.

While her son was leading the troops of his country she was busily

engaged in the industries of domestic life,--sorting the fleece and

mingling it with shredded silk to make long hose for her son, the

general; weaving substantial fabrics in the great cumbrous looms;

learning cunning secrets of herbs and leaves to dye the cloth for

garments; preparing balsams and lotions for the sick and needy. Her

hands were never idle. Gathering her apron into a spacious pocket,

she walked about with the woollen knitting for her son's soldiers.

She became, it is true, somewhat more silent, more reserved. The

lines of the face lost all hint of humor. She was too sad for that,

but never peevish or complaining. Descendants of her old neighbors

acknowledged that "Mrs. Washington was somewhat stern," but add

that she and her daughter, Mrs. Lewis, possessed withal a lofty

graciousness of manner peculiarly their own. General Washington had

this manner, commanding deference and confidence, and forbidding

familiarity or the smallest liberty; although it is certain that

neither he nor his mother were conscious of the impression made upon

others.

Her daughter, Betty Lewis, lived at "Kenmore," the elegant mansion

near Fredericksburg, and entreated her to come to her "to be taken

care of," but she said, "My wants are few in this life, and I feel

perfectly competent to take care of myself." She elected a home of

her own very near "Kenmore," preferring to be independent. Thence

she was driven every day by "old Stephen" in her phaeton to her farm

across the river, whence she brought seeds and cuttings for her town

garden and a jug of water from the spring out of which her husband

and children had drunk. Old Stephen witnessed with glee her method

of dealing with her overseer. The latter ventured one day to depart

from her instructions, and she called him to account.

"Madam," said the agent, "in my judgment the work has been done to

better advantage than if I had followed your instructions."

"And pray, sir, who gave you the right to exercise any judgment in

the matter?" she asked; "I command you, sir! There is nothing left

for you but to obey."

Fredericksburg was in the direct line of communication between

Williamsburg and the headquarters of the army. Couriers were

perpetually passing to and fro, and many were the respectful letters

"honored madam" received from the great commander.

With the coming of these couriers came repeated tidings of loss and

defeat. She heard about the battle of Long Island, the long days

and nights in the saddle; of the defeat at White Plains; of how the

militia quitted and went home; of the Princeton victory, where her

loved neighbor, Hugh Mercer, died in her grandson's arms; of the

heavy loss at Brandywine and Germantown, where her near neighbor,

the son of plucky John Spotswood, fell dangerously wounded into

the hands of the enemy; of the misery at Valley Forge; of Howe's

occupation of Philadelphia; of General Gates's great victory at

Saratoga--perhaps of the cabal against her son, when the victorious

general was preferred by some to him. Perhaps her son may have

written, or some of Morgan's borderers written to their friends, of

their march from the Shenandoah to Boston with "Liberty or Death"

embroidered in white letters on their hunting-shirts; how General

Washington had met them as he was riding along his lines; how Morgan

had saluted with the words, "_From the right bank of the Potomac,

General!_" how the great commander had leaped from his horse, and

with tears in his eyes shook hands with each one of them.

"The night was dark and he was far from home!"

Or, perhaps, those watching, waiting women on the Rappahannock heard

of how the Virginian, George Rogers Clarke, had begged powder and

men, and gone out to shut and guard the back door of the country;

how they had waded in freezing water, fasting five days and nights,

holding their muskets above their heads as they struggled on; how,

finally, ready as they were to give up, a little drummer-boy had

mounted the shoulders of a tall soldier, and beat the vigorous

"Charge," rallying and inspiring their fainting spirits. Or, it

may be, that some messenger among the fleet couriers had come from

Wheeling, Virginia, and could tell of Elizabeth Zane, the brave

young girl, who volunteered to cross a plain under Indian fire, and

bring a keg of powder from a house in town to save the stockade in

which her people were hiding; how she ran across the plain, found

and fetched the powder, and saved the day.

"These noble legends," says Esten Cooke, "are the true glories of

American history; the race lives in them and is best illustrated by

them. It was a very great race, and faced peril without shrinking,

down to the very boys and girls; and what the long years of the

future will remember is this heroic phase, not the treaties and

protocols of American history." It was the _spirit_ behind our

little army that compelled events and carried it triumphantly to the

glorious result.

It is said that Mary Washington never tolerated an expression of

complaint or despair during these trying times. She would rebuke

it by saying, "The mothers and wives of brave men must be brave

women." Mr. Custis says that, "Directly in the way of the news, as

it passed from North to South, one courier would bring intelligence

of success to our arms; another, 'swiftly coursing at his heels,'

the saddening reverse of disaster and defeat. While thus ebbed and

flowed the fortunes of our cause, the mother, trusting to the wisdom

and protection of Divine Providence, preserved the even tenor of

her life, affording an example to those matrons whose sons were

alike engaged in the arduous contest; and showing that unavailing

anxieties, however belonging to nature, were unworthy of mothers

whose sons were combating for the inestimable rights of man and the

freedom and happiness of the world.

"During the war the mother set a most valuable example in the

management of her domestic concerns, carrying her own keys,

bustling in her household affairs, providing for her family, and

living and moving in all the pride of independence. She was not

actuated by that ambition for show which pervades lesser minds; and

the peculiar plainness and dignity of her manners became in no wise

altered, when the sun of glory arose upon her house. There are some

of the aged inhabitants of Fredericksburg who well remember the

matron as seated in an old-fashioned open chaise; she was in the

habit of visiting, almost daily, her little farm in the vicinity of

the town. When there she would ride about her fields, giving her

orders, and seeing that they were obeyed.

"Hers was a familiar form in Fredericksburg during the Revolution,

and its people showed her every respect as she walked the streets

leaning on her cane. Devout and worshipful she appeared every

Sabbath at church at the appointed hour; and while the armies under

her son were struggling for our freedom, the knitting needles were

busily plied, and from her home went forth her modest contributions

of supplies for him and his soldiers."

Her biographers love to dwell upon her preternatural serenity. This

serenity did not serve for dark hours only. She was not surprised

when the tide turned, and the waves of triumph were borne to her

feet. When her neighbors thronged her with plaudits and praise

of her noble son--their idol and hers--she restrained their

extravagant words, saying quietly: "George seems to have deserved

well of his country, but we must not praise him too much. George has

not forgotten his duty!"

When the news reached Fredericksburg of the victories of Trenton

and Princeton (in that ten days' campaign which Frederick the Great

called the most brilliant in the annals of war) friends gathered

around her with congratulations upon the great achievements of her

son. She received them with calmness, observed that it was most

pleasurable news, and that George appeared to have deserved well of

his country for such signal services, and continued, in reply to the

congratulating patriots (most of whom held letters in their hands,

from which they read extracts), "but, my good sirs, here is too much

flattery--still George will not forget the lessons I early taught

him; he will not forget himself, though he is the subject of so much

praise."

Among the traditions which still linger around Fredericksburg is one

illustrating her perfect calmness, trust, and self-control. George

Kiger, the courier, having at a time of great anxiety ridden hard

to deliver a packet to her from headquarters, was dismayed to see

her drop it unread into one of her unfathomable pockets, simply

remarking, "It is all right--I am well assured of that." Bursting

with curiosity, and mindful of the crowd which had assembled at

her gate to hear the news, Kiger suggested: "There may have been

a battle. The neighbors would like to know." Thereupon she fished

up the packet, glanced over it, and announced, "There has been a

victory!" adding, in the fulness of her heart, "George generally

carries through whatever he undertakes."

In relating this we are reminded of the despatch once handed to

General Washington while he was sitting for his portrait. He read

it apparently unmoved and in silence. It announced the surrender of

Burgoyne's army!

As the long years passed heavily away she had need of more than

her own strong nature to sustain her. She must seek for strength

not her own. "She was always pious," says Mr. Custis, "but in her

latter days her devotions were performed in private. She was in the

habit of repairing every day to a secluded spot, formed by rocks

and trees, near her dwelling, where, abstracted from the world and

worldly things, she communed with her Creator, in humiliation and

prayer."

This favorite resort of hers, sometimes called "Oratory Rock," was

a spot on Colonel Lewis's estate, sheltered by climbing vines from

observation. Oratory Rock was a knoll on the "Kenmore" grounds which

during her life overlooked the Rappahannock. The river has since

forsaken its bed there, and flows in another channel. It was to

this spot, made lovely by shade trees and flowing vines, that she

repaired daily for meditation and prayer, returning home soothed and

strengthened. She often expressed her gratitude for these serene

hours, and desired that she might be buried upon the spot, where she

had received such consolation.

[Illustration: Oratory Rock.]

And who can tell what heavenly messengers visited this great spirit

and ministered unto her? At her feet flowed the Rappahannock, over

which her son when a lad had thrown a stone. She could remember how

his heart had swelled with pride,--that heart now breaking at the

falling away of friends, the desertion of soldiers, the disasters

on the Hudson and Long Island. Who can doubt that the tears of the

great commander fell upon his mother's heart! Her life had been one

of anxiety, trouble, and strife. It was now almost over! She knew of

the end, only that for her it was near! It was then that whispered

words may have floated on the mists of the gathering twilight: "In

the world ye shall have tribulations! Fear not! I have overcome the

world."

CHAPTER IV

OLD REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS

Whenever the women of the Revolution appear upon the pages of

history or romance they are invested with extraordinary virtues.

Our traditions are only of maidens who forsook morning lessons

on the harpsichord, and afternoon tea, and embroidery, to knit

stockings and make plain garments; of Abigail Adams, who "sought

wool and flax and worked willingly with her own hands," of Lady

Washington, dignified and domestic, presenting gloves of her own

knitting, finished and unfinished, as souvenirs of morning visits,

of the angelic ministrations of the women of Massachusetts and New

Jersey. "Fairer always are the old moons of Villon, than the moons

of to-day!" Chesterfield says human nature is the same all the world

over. Woman nature assuredly is!

Letter-writing in the eighteenth century was difficult; the

transmission of letters after they were written uncertain. One

letter received from London was addressed in the fullest faith of

finding its destination to "Major George Washington, At the Falls

of the Rappahannock _or elsewhere in Virginia_." Of course, the

fate of these letters was doubtful. They were liable to be lost

or forgotten. They might be intercepted by the enemy. Hence the

stilted style of many of the Revolutionary letters, the liberal use

of initials to indicate proper names, the guarded hints, obscure

innuendoes and vague allusions which characterize them. Letters

were written on coarse paper, the sheet folded over to leave space

for the address, tied across with a string, and sealed with wax or

a small red wafer. There were no envelopes, no blotting-paper, no

pens except those of home manufacture from the goose-quill. Two

months was a reasonable length of time to allow for the delivery of

letters. To the captain of some passing sloop they were generally

confided, or to the pocket of some friend journeying at leisure from

neighborhood to neighborhood. When received they were treasured, and

packed away in old chests or the secret drawers of old secretaries,

thence to arise to accuse or defend, or entertain the curious in

future generations.

A New York paper, published about seventy years ago, tells the

history of some of these old letters, as follows:[14] "In one of

the thirty apartments of the old colonial home of the Bland family,

'Cawsons,' a large party were assembled at dinner with the master of

the house, a bachelor, and not a member of the Bland family, when a

servant entered and informed him that the house was on fire!

[14] "Bland Papers," edited by Charles Campbell.

"He received the information with great coolness and composure,

ordered that the fire should be extinguished, and requested his

guests not to disturb themselves, that 'the servants would attend to

it.'

"For a time the wine continued to circulate, and it appears that

the fire did also, for with less ceremony than their host it soon

drove the party out of doors. In the confusion books and papers

were thrust into boxes and barrels, or into anything that presented

itself, and carried off into a neighboring barn.

"The person who owned the place at the time of the fire has been

dead many years, and the accidental discovery, very recently, of

the papers was made in the following manner. A gentleman who had

lived on an adjoining farm was called upon one morning by a poor

negro who requested him to purchase a basket of eggs. The basket was

lined with manuscripts which proved upon closer inspection to be

original letters of importance from General Washington, the Marquis

La Fayette and others, addressed to Colonel Theodoric Bland, and

written during the Revolution."

There was one letter, alas! written to the wife of a Virginia

officer whom we should be loth to judge by her friends. It throws a

sinister light upon one phase of the social life in the time of Mary

Washington, and shows us women who could trifle, dress, dance, and

flirt with the enemies of their country in the darkest hour of their

country's peril, fiddling when Rome was burning.

[Illustration: Sir William Howe.]

Sir William Howe entered Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777, and

found "many to welcome him."[15] Philadelphia was a charming old

town with substantial colonial mansions surrounded by grounds of

great beauty. September roses were blooming in those old-fashioned

yards and gardens, and the gracious young beauties were quite

willing to gather them for the British officers. The officers, when

winter set in, were glad to give them all back in ball and concert,

play and assembly. It was a light-hearted, happy time! Why should

they not enjoy it? Why, indeed! Nobody would bleed the more freely

or starve or freeze to death the sooner!

[15] Irving's "Life of Washington."

One of the letters in the egg-basket was written by a lady who

elected to live in Philadelphia during the occupation of that city

by Sir William Howe. It was addressed to the wife of an officer

at the front. We cannot profane our fair, patriotic pages, but

the original is accentuated by oaths quite worthy of Queen Bess.

The ladies mentioned in the letter were wives and daughters of

officers in the field. The writer tells some very, very questionable

gossip to her "dear Patsy," and then proceeds: ... "You see I am

obeying your commands and writing a folio--My God! If this should

fall into your husband's hands I should die! for heaven's sake,

my dear Patsy, don't expose me to him. Your own saucy epistle

leads me into this scrape. Mrs. Beekman is still in the City. They

were very ungenteelly treated, being turned out of their house to

accommodate Lord Howe; they were then moved into the street where

my mother lives. Mr. & Mrs. G. are at their house in Chestnut

Street. Notwithstanding the gratification of their wishes was

completed in the arrival of the British Army, they received the

usual disappointment. Miss Roche did not marry 'S'--by all accounts

he is a vile fellow--so tell M. he may have hopes. Miss ---- is

not shackled, tho' she has many bleeding hearts at her feet." (The

owners of the bleeding hearts were British officers.) "Her vivacity

makes her admired, though saucy! One of her saucy _bon mots_ I

cannot omit. Sir William Howe, in a large company one evening,

snatched a piece of narrow riband from her the moment she entered

the ball room." (Here, alas, a covetous rat made a _bonne bouche_

of the _bon mot_--perhaps it is as well!) "Little Poll Redmond

still continues as violent a patriot as ever, and sings 'War and

Washington' and 'Burgoyne's Defeat' for the British officers, and

with a particular emphasis and saucy countenance warbles forth

'Cooped up in a Town.' You have no idea of the gay winter here;

and likewise the censure thrown on the poor girls for not scorning

these pleasures. You, my friend, have liberality of sentiment and

can make proper allowance for young people deprived of the gaieties

and amusements of life; with Plays, concerts, Balls, Assemblies in

rotation courting their presence. Politics is never introduced. The

Whig ladies are treated with the same politeness as the Tory ladies.

I myself have been prevailed on to partake of the amusements, and I

am, in raillery, styled 'rebel,' and all the Whig news is kept from

me. I had the 'draught of the bill' and Lord North's letter. I have

met a great Hessian Yager Colonel," etc., through endless gossip of

which the above is the only admissible sample!

It is unpleasant to observe that this letter was written in the

winter of 1777-1778--the winter that young Bartholomew Yates, a

lieutenant in a Virginia regiment, fell into the hands of the

enemy, and died in captivity from wounds _inflicted, after his

surrender, by the Hessians_--possibly at the order of my lady's

"great Hessian Yager Colonel," who was, according to her narrative,

admitted to her society and confiding to her the secrets of

the enemy. At that moment many American prisoners,--among them

young John Spotswood,--desperately wounded, were in Philadelphia

inhumanly treated, dying from wanton neglect; and General Washington

indignantly threatening retaliation in his letters to Sir William

Howe. "The English officers were received in the best society with

more than toleration, and they soon became extremely popular. The

winter was long remembered in Philadelphia for its gayety and

its charm. There were no signs of that genuine dislike which had

been abundantly displayed in Boston." It appears the ladies of

Philadelphia ignored the well-known character of Sir William Howe.

Also that the courtly Sir William, when he found a house that suited

him, knew how to make the terms for it.[16] He took the mansion

of a rich old loyalist Quaker, John Pemberton (in the absence of

the latter), and used also the elegant carriage of the Quaker for

his parties of pleasure. When the latter returned home he found his

property much injured, and claimed indemnity. Sir William curtly

refused. "Thee had better take care!" said John Pemberton. "Thee

has done great damage to my house, and thee has suffered thy wicked

women to ride in my carriage, and my wife will not use it since.

Thee must pay me for the injury or I will go to thy master" (the

King) "and lay my complaint before him."

[16] "History of the Valley of Virginia," Kercheval, p. 128.

Sir William did take care! He paid the money.

That most unfortunate of men, Major André, devised in honor of

Sir William Howe the splendid festival of the Mischianza during

the occupation of Philadelphia. Our gay correspondent received an

invitation with "the Howe arms and motto _vive vale_. The device was

a setting sun with 'He shines as he sets, to rise again.' We went to

Pool's bridge in carriages--thence boats, barges and galleys bore us

to ships of the fleet--all gay with the colors of all nations and

every country, and amid them, waving with grace and elegance, our

own _Stars and Stripes_!" "The entertainment comprised a regatta,

a ball, and a great display of fireworks, with innumerable emblems

and exhibitions of loyalty to England. It brought together one of

the most brilliant assemblages of the youth, beauty and fashion

of Philadelphia, and it was long remembered that Major André was

most prominent in organizing the entertainment, and that the most

prominent of the Philadelphia beauties who adorned it was Miss

Shippen, soon after to become the wife of Benedict Arnold."

[Illustration: Major André.]

The tournament was between the "Knights of the Ladies of the Blended

Rose and the Ladies of the Burning Mountain," the latter presumably

the daughters of the country about to be consumed!

The gayety was at its height when the army was encamped just

across the Schuylkill at Valley Forge--when the winter was one of

extraordinary rigor. During that winter the army was often without

bread, often entirely without meat. "Few men" had "more than one

shirt, many only the moiety of one, and some none at all." Men were

confined in hospitals or farmers' houses for want of shoes. In

camp there were on a single day 2,898 men unfit for duty because

they were "barefoot and otherwise naked." In December the men built

fires and sat up all night because there were no blankets to cover

them. When a march was necessary their way could be traced by their

bleeding feet. In three weeks of this time the army at Valley Forge

lost, in its overflowing hospitals, hundreds, some say thousands,

of men. Just across the river American women were bandying idle

compliments with the British and Hessian officers, living on

delicacies of their providing, dancing at midnight routs and noonday

festivals. Here, at Valley Forge, Martha Washington was passing

among the sick with deeds and words of cheer, and the aged mother

praying in solitude on the banks of the Rappahannock!

Of the lady, to whom the Philadelphia letter was addressed, we

must, perforce, form doubtful conclusions. That she possessed a

personality which found immediate favor in the eyes of men, there

is not the least doubt. No man could send her an ordinary message

of courtesy unadorned by expressions of gallantry. Alexander

Hamilton writes of Mrs. Bland to her husband so warmly that he

is constrained to explain, "I write in the style _d'amitie_, not

_d'amour_, as might have been imagined." Says Arthur Lee, "Lay me at

the feet of Mrs. Bland," prudently adding, "and in the bosom of your

friendship."

Stephen Higginson of Boston eclipses them all, and dilates upon

"the rapturous delight of _one fond kiss_ from sun to sun," which

it appears she had promised him; doubting, however, his "capacity

for enjoyments so excessive and for so long a time." Her own colonel

shows himself to be very tender and gentle to his wife. He preserved

all her letters. The poor lady had the smallpox, that dreadful

scourge of the time, but she had not the greatness of soul to keep

from the soldier in the field the knowledge of her disaster. She

drives him wild with her indefinite complainings, her vague hints.

He begs her to spare him this torture. "You say you have been too

ill until to-day to see yourself in the glass. You cannot know what

doubts I have had, what altercations in my own mind whether you

went to the glass or the glass came to you!" She pines for the stir

and excitement of the camp. He entreats her to feel benevolence

and interest in the stay-at-home people. But my lady is subtle;

all her trouble is forsooth for his sake--and he believes her. He

entreats her to spare him her repining _at his absence_, and says,

"Remember 'tis for you, for my country, for my honor, that I endure

this separation, the dangers and the hardships of war; remember that

America cannot be free, and therefore cannot be happy, without the

virtue of her sons and the heroism of her daughters."

We observe the lady gains her point. She joins the Court of Madam

Washington in camp. We observe further, as confirmation of our

estimate of her charms, that she did not long remain a widow after

her husband's early death. She became Mrs. Blodgett, and again

Mrs. Curran. Having refused to give John Randolph of Roanoke the

papers and family portraits belonging to her first husband, he wrote

bitterly of her, always as "the romantic Mrs. Bland-Blodgett-Curran."

With these volatile letters were others lining the ample

egg-basket,--the originals of some of the most celebrated letters of

Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Randolph, Richard Henry Lee,

on the grave issues of the hour, and all addressed to Colonel Bland.

A very important letter was from Arthur Lee, a pure, incorruptible

patriot, who could not understand how a public servant living on a

small salary could grow rich.

He was ambassador at the French court with Franklin. He left his

countrymen in great straits for money, clothing, and provisions. He

found their representatives abroad living in affluence. He wrote

home, Dec. 13, 1778, "they have made immense private fortunes for

themselves and their dependents. Mr. D. (Silas Deane) is generally

understood to have made £60,000 sterling while he was commissioner;

his clerk, from being penniless, keeps his house and carriage.

Dr. Franklin's nephew, Mr. Williams, from being clerk in a sugar

bakehouse in London, is become a capital merchant here, loading a

number of ships on his own account, while gentlemen of the first

fortunes in America cannot get remittances or credit for their

subsistence.

[Illustration: Arthur Lee.]

"These things are notorious, and there are no visible sources of

this property but the public money and State secrets to trade upon.

"They will force me one day or other to bring the proof of these

things before Congress and the public; when I am sure they will shed

some of their borrowed plumes."

Letters from the French officers, Lafayette, Fleury, De Francey,

speak of "_des lauriers que vous avez gagné à la defense de votre

patrie_," etc. One from Lafayette's own hand illustrates the

excellence of the marquis's English, perhaps quite as good as the

American colonel's French:--

"DEAR SIR: I make myself the pleasure of writing to you; and

wishing you an agreeable sejour at home. If you find there a

horse distinguished by his figure as well as his qualities for

what you think I can desire of him, I shall be obliged to you to

send him to me; Provided he would not be wicked for others or

troublesome to me; as otherwise they are not so dear at equal

beauties and qualities. Being so fine as I wish him, he must be

verry dear. I beg your pardon for this commission and I am, with

great affection

"Your most obedient servant,

"LA FAYETTE.

"P.S. We have not any other interesting news in camp but that a

vessel is arrived in Portsmouth from France with fifty pieces of

cannon and five thousand arms."

Rather an important item to follow an order for a horse.

How "verry dear" the marquis's fine horse was likely to be we can

gather from a letter written by the good old gentleman at "Cawsons,"

from which we have news of some old friends among the race-horses:

"I have a new coach which stands me in fourteen thousand and odd

pounds of the present money. I have sold the horse 'Aristotle'

at a profit and bought for your use the high-bred horse,

'Janus-and-Silver-eye,' which cost me one hundred and twenty pounds."

Another French officer who preferred his own English to Colonel

Bland's French was Colonel Armand. He complains that "Congress have

passed a resolve that have _hurted me in my hart and reputation_. I

have not practise the way of making friend to me in congress, for I

thought such way below the charactere of an honest man, and now God

know but I shall trayed to justify myself by myself." Another letter

exhibits Washington's stern ideas of honorable warfare, contrasting

sharply with some well-remembered methods in later days.

"I am informed that the liberty I granted the light dragoons to

impress horses has been horridly abused and perverted into a

plundering scheme. I intended nothing more than that the horses

belonging to the disaffected, in the neighborhood of the British

Army, should be taken for the use of the dismounted dragoons and

regularly reported to the quarter-master general that an account

might be kept of the number of persons from whom they were taken

in order to future settlement. You are to make known to your whole

corps that they are not to meddle with the horses or other property

of any inhabitants whatever; for they may be assured, as far as it

depends upon me, that _military execution_ will attend all caught in

the like practice hereafter."

Other letters relate to General Washington's famous order against

gaming, he being certain that "gentlemen"--that word so dear to the

colonial Virginian--"can find amusement without application to this

vile resource attended with so many evil consequences." In vain did

one John Hawkins complain of loss because of his erection "for the

amusement of gentlemen," of four large houses of entertainment with

billiard-tables. It was decided that billiards, as "a game where

wagers were laid" were included in the order.

These letters were written in times "well fitted to winnow the chaff

from the grain." While Washington wrote of the falling away of the

officers, and the desertion of thousands of men, he also paid more

than one noble tribute to the brave and true men who remained with

him. "Naked and starving as they are," he said, "we cannot enough

admire their incomparable patience and fidelity."

Upon Colonel Bland's election to the First Congress, General

Washington wrote him a most eloquent letter in behalf of an

appropriation for the payment of the army. The original of this

grand letter was found in the egg-basket collection.

"This army is of near eight years standing, six of which they have

spent in the field, without any other shelter from the inclemency

of the seasons than tents or such houses as they could build for

themselves without expense to the public. They have encountered

cold, hunger and nakedness. They have fought many battles and bled

freely. They have done this without pay." This superb tribute to the

men whose blood flows in the veins of the Sons and Daughters of the

American Revolution, concludes with an earnest appeal to Congress

for harmony. The jealousies already evident between the states

filled his heart with anguish. He continues, "Unless our Union can

be fixed upon this basis--the removal of the local prejudices which

intrude upon and embarrass that great line of policy which alone can

make us a free, happy and powerful people--unless our Union can be

fixed on such a basis as to accomplish these, certain am I _that we

have toiled, bled and spent our treasure to very little purpose_."

With this eloquent utterance we conclude our extracts from the

half-burned letters, with which the poor negro's egg-basket was

lined.

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE-GROUND

In Virginia, about to become the battle-ground of the Revolution,

the condition of affairs was gloomy, humiliating, apparently

almost desperate. After a war of five years the state was still

unfortified, unarmed, unprepared. Her strength, her money, her sons

had been sent to fight her battles in the North. She had entered

the war already loaded with debt from the Indian and French wars,

and further depleted through her patriotic non-importation policy.

Navigable rivers ran, at intervals of a few miles, from her interior

to the coast. An invading fleet had but to sail up these rivers, to

lay waste the entire country, and end all by a single, well-directed

blow.

Virginia was slow to appreciate the necessity of an armed naval

force. She never desired to meet her enemy at sea. One of her sons

declared in Congress, "I deem it no sacrifice of dignity to say to

the Leviathan of the deep, 'We cannot contend with you in your own

element, but if you come within our limits we will shed our last

drop of blood in their defence,'" adding "What! Shall the great

mammoth of the American forests leave his native element, and

plunge into the water in a mad contest with a shark? Let him stay

on shore and not be excited by the muscles and periwinkles on the

strand to venture on the perils of the deep. Why take to water where

he can neither fight or swim?"

But in 1775 the Convention of Virginia directed the Committee of

Safety to procure armed vessels for the better defence of the

colony.[17] About seventy vessels were placed in service, built at

the Chickahominy Navy-yard, South Quay, and Hampton near Norfolk.

George Mason, for the Committee of Safety, built two galleys and

a fine battle ship, _The American Congress_, to carry fourteen

guns and ninety-six marines. The vessels were to serve separately

for the defence of the coast, but there was great difficulty in

obtaining sailors to man them. Among the seamen were faithful

negroes who purchased their freedom by serving through the war.

These ships sometimes captured sloops laden with supplies for

the officers of the invading army. Luxuries intended for British

officers found their way to rebel tables. The planters lacked many

essential articles,--food, clothing, medicines,--but they had a

pineapple now and then. They sent out their own tobacco in ships

which often never returned, and in time most of the Virginia ships

were either destroyed or captured. Then it was that John Paul Jones

obtained a commission from Congress to "harass the enemies of the

Commonwealth," and swept the seas.

[17] Campbell's "History of Virginia."

In January, 1781, Virginia was invaded by the enemy. Tarleton's

cavalry carried the torch and sword throughout the whole James

River region, burned houses, carried off horses, cutting the

throats of those too young for service. They made a dash to the

mountains and captured seven members of the assembly, then in

session at Charlottesville, announcing an intention to go as far as

Fredericksburg and Mount Vernon. In May, Tarleton was confidently

expected at Fredericksburg. The planters abandoned their homes

and removed their families from place to place for safety. The

homestead was totally destroyed or pillaged, china pounded up,

servants carried off, and every animal stolen or slaughtered. "Were

it possible," said one old citizen, "I should remove my family to

some other country, for nothing can compensate for the sufferings

and alarms they daily experience. Scarce do they remain one week

in a place, before they are obliged to abandon their shelter and

seek an asylum from the bounty of others." The state was swept as

by a tornado--growing crops destroyed, plantations laid waste. The

destruction of property was estimated at thirteen million sterling.

So dearly did the peaceful citizens of Virginia purchase freedom for

their descendants!

Among the stories of this prince of raiders still told at Virginia

firesides, is one of a day when he made a clean sweep of everything

portable on an old lady's plantation. Standing calmly in her

doorway, she watched the rifling of her poultry-yard. One cowardly

and aged Muscovy drake basely abandoned his harem and hid in a

hedge. The old dame espied him just as Tarleton and his staff rode

off. "Here, you Jim," she called to a negro lad; "catch that old

duck and ride for your life after that general. Tell him he forgot

one lean old duck, and I send it to him with my compliments." "What

did he say?" she asked the boy on his return. "He jes put dat old

Muscovy in he wallet, an' he say he much obliged."

The raids of the enemy along the navigable waters of Virginia

became incessant. Gunboats would ascend the rivers, to the terror

of all who dwelt on their banks. One of these went up the Pamunkey

at night, and was kept from landing by a handful of men who

fired, ran on ahead and fired again, and so on until the captain,

believing himself to be in the midst of a large force on shore, and

uncertain as to the possibility of return, hoisted a white flag

in the moonlight and surrendered! Then the captain on shore (John

Otey, with only twenty men) was, indeed, in a dilemma! Waiting

until the moon went down, he ordered the crew ashore, forbade any

to speak, took their arms and marched them through the darkness to

headquarters!

A schooner on April 9, 1781, ascended the Potomac as far as

Alexandria, landing at every house on the way, burning, destroying,

stealing, loudly declaring their errand to "burn out the traitors,

George Washington and George Mason."

On the 12th six armed vessels ascended the river, and the counties

of Stafford, Prince William, and Fairfax became the "scene of war."

Fifty miles from Fredericksburg, Cornwallis was encamped with his

main body of the British army. Twenty miles from Fredericksburg,

Lafayette was protecting, with his small force, the homes of the

mother, wife, and sister of the commander-in-chief. "Before this

letter reaches you," warned Colonel Bannister, "the enemy will have

penetrated to Fredericksburg."

To be brave and serene became the high duty of the commander's

family. They must present an example of fortitude and courage. This

was the obligation laid upon them by their position. Nor did they

demand, because of this position, anything more than the protection

accorded to all. No sentries or guards were posted around their

dwellings, no force detailed for their special protection. When

Mary Washington's daughter expressed alarm, her mother reminded her

that "the sister of the commanding General must be an example of

fortitude and faith." Even the general himself could not repress a

cry of anguish when he heard of the desolation of his native state.

"Would to God," he said, "would to God the country could rise as

one man and extirpate Cornwallis and his whole band!"

The general's family held their posts in calm silence, expressing

no excitement or alarm. Tarleton's cavalry--mounted on Virginia's

race-horses--were dashing all over the country, and liable at any

moment to appear wherever it pleased him. For Mary Washington there

was no security, no peace, save in the sanctuary of her own bosom.

Virginia was the battle-ground, convulsed through her borders with

alarms! Finally, General Washington could bear it no longer. Despite

her remonstrance he removed his mother to the county of Frederick,

in the interior of the state, where she remained for a short time to

escape the Red Dragoons of the dreaded Tarleton.

"As for our present distresses," he wrote to George Mason, "they are

so great and complicated that it is scarcely within the powers of

description to give an adequate idea of them. We are without money

and have been so for a long time; without provision and forage,

without clothing, and shortly shall be (in a manner) without men. In

a word; we have lived upon expedients till we can live no longer."

The eventful year of 1781--destined to bring so great a deliverance

to the country--brought infinite sorrow to Mary Washington and her

daughter. The good man and pure patriot, Fielding Lewis, died in

January. Always too frail in health to bear arms, he had sent his

sons to the front, advanced £7000 for the manufacture of arms, and

so impoverished himself by advances of money to the colony that he

was unable to pay his taxes (Calendar State Papers, Vol. i, p. 503;

Henings Statutes, Vol. ix, p. 71).

In the same year Samuel Washington died at his home, "Harewood," in

Jefferson County. The family bond was close in Mary Washington's

household and no one was dearer than her son Samuel!