SCENE. _The same_.
_1st Officer_. I cannot conceal it from you, Sir; there is but one
feeling about it, as far as I can judge, and I had some chances in my
brief journey--
_2nd Off_. Were you at head-quarters?
_1st Off_. Yes,--and every step of this retreating army only makes it
more desperate. I never knew any thing like the mad, unreasonable terror
this army inspires. Burgoyne and his Indians!--"_Burgoyne and the
Indians_"--there is not a girl on the banks of the Connecticut that does
not expect to see them by her father's door ere day-break. Colonel
Leslie, what were those men concealing so carefully as we approached
just now?--Did you mark them?
_2nd Off_. Yes. If I am not mistaken, it was the paper we were speaking of.
_1st Off_. Ay, ay,--I thought as much.
_2nd Off_. General Arnold, I am surprised you should do these honest men
the injustice to suppose that such an impudent, flimsy, bombastic tirade
as that same proclamation of Burgoyne's, should have a feather's weight
with any mother's son of them.
_Arnold_. A feather's, ay a feather's, just so; but when the scales are
turning, a feather counts too, and that is the predicament just now of
more minds than you think for, Colonel Leslie. A pretty dark horizon
around us just now, Sir,--another regiment goes off to-morrow, I hear.
Hey?
_Leslie_. Why, no. At least we hope not. We think we shall be able to
keep them yet, unless--that paper might work some mischief with them
perhaps, and it would be rather a fatal affair too, I mean in the way of
example.--These Green Mountain Boys----
_Arnold_. Colonel Leslie, Colonel Leslie, this army is melting away like
a snow-wreath. There's no denying it. Your General misses it. The news
of one brave battle would send the good blood to the fingers' ends from
ten thousand chilled hearts; no matter how fearful the odds; the better,
the better,--no matter how large the loss;--for every slain soldier, a
hundred better would stand on the field;----
_Leslie_. But then----
_Arnold_. By all that's holy, Sir, if I were head here, the red blood
should smoke on this grass ere to-morrow's sunset. I would have battle
here, though none but the birds of the air were left to carry the tale
to the nation. I tell you, Colonel Leslie, a war, whose resources are
only in the popular feeling, as now, and for months to come, this war's
must be; a war, at least, which depends wholly upon the _unselfishness_
of a people, as this war does, can be kept alive by excitement only. It
was wonderful enough indeed, to behold a whole people, the low and
comfort-loving too, in whose narrow lives that little world which the
sense builds round us, takes such space, forsaking the tangible good of
their merry firesides, for rags and wretchedness,--poverty that the
thought of the citizen beggar cannot reach,--the supperless night on the
frozen field; with the news perchance of a home in ashes, or a murdered
household, and, last of all, on some dismal day, the edge of the sword
or the sharp bullet ending all;--and all in defence of--what?--an
idea--an abstraction,--a thought:--I say this was wonderful enough, even
in the glow of the first excitement. But now that the Jersey winter is
fresh in men's memories, and Lexington and Bunker Hill are forgotten,
and all have found leisure and learning to count the cost; it were
expecting miracles indeed, to believe that this army could hold together
with a policy like this. Every step of this retreat, I say again, treads
out some lingering spark of enthusiasm. Own it yourself. Is not this
army dropping off by hundreds, and desertion too, increasing every hour,
thinning your own ranks and swelling your foes?--and that, too, at a
crisis--Colonel Leslie, retreat a little further, some fifty miles
further; let Burgoyne once set foot in Albany, and the business is
done,--we may roll up our pretty declaration as fast as we please, and
go home in peace.
_Leslie_. General Arnold, I have heard you to the end, though you have
spoken insultingly of councils in which I have had my share. Will you
look at this little clause in this paper, Sir. The excitement you speak
of will come ere long, and that at a rate less ruinous than this whole
army's loss. There's a line--there's a line, Sir, that will make null
and void, very soon, if not on the instant, all the evil of these golden
promises. There'll be excitement enough ere long; but better blood than
that shed in battle fields must flow to waken it.
_Arnold_. I hardly understand you, Sir. Is it this threat you point at?
_Leslie_. Can't you see?--They have let loose these hell-hounds upon us,
and butchery must be sent into our soft and innocent homes;--beings that
we have sheltered from the air of heaven, brows that have grown pale at
the breath of an ungentle word, must meet the red knife of the Indian
now. Oh God, this is war!
_Arnold_. I understand you, Colonel Leslie. There was a crisis like this
in New Jersey last winter, I know, when our people were flocking to the
royal standard, as they are now, and a few fiendish outrages on the part
of the foe changed the whole current in our favor. It may be so now, but
meanwhile--
_Leslie_. Meanwhile, this army is the hope of the nation, and must be
preserved. We are wronged, Sir. Have we not done all that men could do?
What were twenty pitched battles to such an enemy, with a force like
ours, compared with the harm we have done them? Have we not kept them
loitering here among these hills, wasting the strength that was meant to
tell in the quivering fibres of men, on senseless trees and stones,
paralyzing them with famine, wearying them with unexciting, inglorious
toil, until, divided and dispirited, at last we can measure our power
with theirs, and fight, not in vain? Why, even now the division is
planning there, which will bring them to our feet. And what to us, Sir,
were the hazards of one bloody encounter, to the pitiful details of this
unhonored warfare?--We are wronged--we are wronged, Sir.
_Arnold_. There is some policy in the plan you speak of,--certainly,
there is excellent policy in it if one had the patience to follow it
out; but then you can't make Congress see it, or the people either; and
so, after all, your General is superseded. Well, well, at all events he
must abandon this policy now,--it's the only chance left for him.
_Leslie_. Why; howso?
_Arnold_. Or else, don't you see?--just at the point where the glory
appears, this eastern hero steps in, and receives it all; and the
laurels which he has been rearing so long, blow just in time to drop on
the brow of his rival.
_Leslie_. General Arnold,--excuse me, Sir--you do not understand the man
of whom you speak. There is a substance in the glory he aims at, to
which, all that you call by the name is as the mere shell and outermost
rind. Good Heavens! Do you think that, for the sake of his own
individual fame, the man would risk the fate of this great
enterprize?--What a mere fool's bauble, what an empty shell of honor,
would that be. If I thought he would--
_Arnold_. It might be well for you to lower your voice a little, Sir;
the gentleman of whom you are speaking is just at hand.
[_Other officers are seen emerging from the woods_.]
_3d Off_. Yes, if this rumor holds, Lieutenant Van Vechten, your post is
likely to become one of more honor than safety. Gentlemen--Ha!--General
Arnold! You are heartily welcome;--I have been seeking you, Sir. If this
news is any thing, the movement that was planned for Wednesday, we must
anticipate somewhat.
_Leslie_. News from the enemy, General?
_Gen. Schuyler_. Stay--those scouts must be coming in, Van Vechten. Why,
we can scarce call it news yet, I suppose; but if this countryman's tale
is true, Burgoyne himself, with his main corps, is encamping at this
moment at the Mills, scarce three miles above us.
_Arnold_. Ay, and good news too.
_Leslie_. But that cannot be, Sir--Alaska--
_Gen. Schuyler_. Alaska has broken faith with us if it is, and the army
have avoided the delay we had planned for them.--That may be.--This man
overheard their scouts in the woods just below us here.
_Arnold_. And if it is,--do you talk of retreat, General Schuyler? In
your power now it lies, with one hour's work perchance, to make those
lying enemies of yours in Congress eat the dust, to clear for ever your
blackened fame. Why, Heaven itself is interfering to do you right, and
throwing honor in your way as it were! Do you talk of retreat, Sir, now?
_Gen. Schuyler_. Heaven has other work on hand just now, than righting
the wrongs of such heroes as you and I, Sir. Colonel Arnold--I beg your
pardon, Sir, Congress has done you justice at last I see,--General
Arnold, you are right as to the consequence, yet, for all that, if this
news is true, I must order the retreat. My reputation I'll trust in
God's hands. My honor is in my own keeping.
[_Exeunt Schuyler, Leslie, and Van Vechten_.
_Arnold_. There's a smoke from that chimney; are those houses inhabited,
my boy?
_Boy_. Part of them, Sir. Some of our people went oft to-day. That white
house by the orchard--the old parsonage there? Ay, there are ladies
there Sir, but I heard Colonel Leslie saying this morning 'twas a sin
and a shame for them to stay another hour.
_Arnold_. Ay, Ay. I fancied the Colonel was not dealing in abstractions
just now.
[_Exeunt_.
* * * * *