CHAPTER XIV.
Behind the ramparts of Fort Schuyler, near the present site of the town of Rome, an officer in the uniform of a Continental colonel, was standing in the twilight, looking out over the beleaguering camp of St. Leger, with his Tories and Indians, at the siege batteries. The increasing gloom alone made the situation tenable, for all day long the Indian riflemen had been lying down outside the fort, behind stumps and logs, picking off every one who ventured to show his head above the rampart.
The position of the fort had been growing more desperate daily, for its defenses were but slight at the best of times, and St. Leger’s artillery had been battering at them steadily ever since the siege first began, three weeks before. Provisions were growing scarce, and the Indian scouts, constantly creeping closer to the fort, rendered a sortie for forage impossible.
Colonel Gansevoort, the American leader, looked anxious and gloomy. Before his men and the enemy he kept up appearances nobly, but now that he was alone, the desolate nature of his position rushed on his mind with overpowering force, and compelled a feeling of almost despair.
Two weeks before, the column sent to his relief under General Herkimer, had been repulsed and almost annihilated, at the desperate battle of Oriskany, and since that time not a word had reached him from the outer world, save through the threatening dispatches of his foes.
All round the fort stretched the silent, primeval forest, for Fort Schuyler was then at the extreme bounds of civilization. Out of those woods came nothing but the whoop of the beleaguering savage, the spiteful crack of the rifle-shot, and the booming report of the brass howitzers.
There was not a ray of hope apparent to tell the Americans whether they were not vainly persisting in a struggle which could have but one termination, torture and death at the stake from the merciless allies of the English General.
As Gansevoort was thus looking from the low log parapet, at the twinkling circle of English fires, he was surprised to hear a low voice from the ditch of the bastion on which he stood, calling him by name. Starting, he hastily asked:
“Who’s there!”
“A friend,” replied the low voice, “with news from Schuyler. Come down to the sallyport, for I must away when I have given my news.”
Without a moment’s hesitation the colonel left the rampart, and hastened down to the sallyport spoken of by the other. This was a low heavy door on the inner side of the ditch, approached by an underground passage, and protected by the fire of two faces of the fort, and the colonel emerged from this, finding himself confronted by a figure of great hight, but thin and attenuated as a specter. This figure was wrapped in a long, flowing cloak, and its face was hidden by a broad, shadowy hat.
Under any circumstances, it is probable that Gansevoort would have felt some distrust of the other, but as it was, he was too eager to hear the news to be particular about how it came.
“The news, quick, man, what is it?” he whispered. “Good or bad?”
“Good,” answered the stranger, in the same low tone. “Read this letter.”
As he spoke, he extended both arms, the shadowy cloakhanging from them, so as to conceal what passed from the view of any lurking besieger. Gansevoort then noticed, for the first time, that the other bore, at his belt, a small dark-lantern. He eagerly grasped the letter which the stranger extended to him, and beheld the well-known bold clerkly hand of General Schuyler. Quickly he ran it over.
[2]“Stillwater, August 15th, 1777.“Dear Colonel: A body of troops left this place yesterday, and others are following to raise the siege of Fort Schuyler. Everybody here believes you will defend it to the last, and I strictly enjoin you so to do. General Burgoyne is at Fort Edward—our army at Stillwater—great reinforcements coming from the eastward, and we trust all will be well and the enemy repulsed.“Yours faithfully,“Ph. Schuyler.“Colonel Gansevoort,“Com’d’g Post at Fort Schuyler,“By Capt. Erastus Benedict, A. D. C.”
[2]“Stillwater, August 15th, 1777.
“Dear Colonel: A body of troops left this place yesterday, and others are following to raise the siege of Fort Schuyler. Everybody here believes you will defend it to the last, and I strictly enjoin you so to do. General Burgoyne is at Fort Edward—our army at Stillwater—great reinforcements coming from the eastward, and we trust all will be well and the enemy repulsed.
“Yours faithfully,
“Ph. Schuyler.
“Colonel Gansevoort,
“Com’d’g Post at Fort Schuyler,
“By Capt. Erastus Benedict, A. D. C.”
For a moment Gansevoort’s feelings overcome him. The revulsion from anxiety to hope was so great that he nearly choked, in his efforts to suppress emotion. Then he turned to the tall stranger, seized his hand and shook it earnestly.
“God in heaven bless you, captain,” he said, with trembling voice. “You have saved a soldier from disgrace, and America from destruction. We were nearly spent. Defend it to the last? Ay Captain Benedict, I will do it now with tenfold the vigor I did. God bless the General for his confidence in me, and all the brave fellows with him.”
The stranger’s hand, long, cold, and bony, lay passively in the grasp of the colonel, till the latter had finished. Then he said, quietly:
“You mistake. I am not Captain Benedict. He is dead.”
“Who are you, then?” asked the American, starting.
“A friend to the cause. Let that suffice,” said the stranger in his deep, hollow voice, dropping his cloak so as to conceal his lantern. “I found Benedict in the hands of the Mohawks, dead and scalped. I killed them and brought his letter. Now farewell. Whatever you see to-night do not wonder. It bodes no ill, save to the enemy.”
He turned and vanished in the thick darkness that hadnow fallen over fort and forest, and Gansevoort slowly and thoughtfully left the spot and re-entered the fort.
A few minutes later, he was reading aloud to his officers the welcome letter of Schuyler, and gladness diffused itself in every heart.
The star that rose in the east at sunset was high in the zenith over the besiegers’ camp, and the Indians were slumbering around their camp-fires, while the nodding picket sentry hardly kept awake on his post, when the loud blast of a horn echoed through the silent arches of the forest, followed by a chorus of yells and cries that roused every one in an instant.
Bewildered and half-awake, Tory and Indian scrambled up to their feet, and the English General rushed out of his tent, half-dressed, to know the meaning of the outcry.
Two Indians, yelling as they ran, were coming in from the outposts at headlong speed, and their cries seemed to spread a panic among all the neighboring savages, for wherever they were heard, Mohawk and Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora, alike joined the swelling mob that came rushing through the camp.
“The rebels! the rebels are coming! Run! Run!” was the cry that was speedily taken up, by white and red alike, when they heard the alarm more plainly.
Although not a foeman was to be seen, there were sounds of a trampling in the woods, the snapping of sticks and an occasional shout in the distance, which gave color to the panic.
In vain St. Leger and Sir John Johnson rushed to and fro, trying to arrest the causeless rout. The tumult was too great for their voices to be heard. The Indians, from the very first, commenced a retreaten masse, as if by previous concert; then one regiment of rangers gave way and scattered through the woods, despite the cries of their officers, going to the rear at a run, shouting, “The rebels are coming!”
In less than ten minutes from the first blast of the horn, the two English leaders were left almost alone, and when the glare of torches in the distance, with the sightof armed men on horseback, showed them that an enemy was indeed approaching, they found that they had not sufficient following to resist a squadron of dragoons. Utterly amazed and demoralized, the two Englishmen were fain to follow the example of their followers, and hastily mounting their horses, galloped away to join the rout.
Meanwhile the trampling came nearer and nearer, and soon, out of the woods rode Adrian Schuyler, at the center of a long, scattered skirmish line of American Rangers, in the white frocks of Morgan’s Rifles, every man bearing a torch of pitch pine.
They advanced warily, but boldly, only to find the enemy’s camp deserted, the idle artillery silent in the batteries, the ground strewed with forsaken weapons and stores.
Adrian rode up to the bastion on whose summit stood the amazed garrison, and waved his torch in salute, crying:
“Gentlemen, you are saved. We are the advance of the relief column under General Arnold. Burgoyne has lost all his cavalry at Bennington, and lies at Stillwater, surrounded by our men. Hurrah for Independence!”
The cheer was given with a will.