CHAPTER VIIWASHINGTON SPEAKS A NAME WHICH NAMES THE REPUBLIC
When Washington was at Cambridge his headquarters were at the Craigie House, now known as the “home of Longfellow,” as that poet of the world’s heart lived and wrote there for nearly a generation. Go to Cambridge, my young people who visit Boston, and you may see the past of the Revolutionary days there, if you will close your eyes to the present. The old tree is there under which Washington took command of the army; a memorial stone with an inscription marks the place. The old buildings of Harvard College are there much as they were in Washington’s days. The Episcopal church where Washington worshiped still stands, and one may sit down in the pew that the general-in-chief occupied as in the Old North Church, Boston.
The tree under which Washington took command of the army is decayed and is rapidly falling away. It was once a magnificent elm, and Washington caused a lookout to be made in the top, which overlooked Boston and the British defenses. We can easily imagine him with his glass, hidden among the green boughs of this lofty and bowery tree, watching the movements of the enemy.Such an incident of the Revolution would seem to invite a national picture like one of young John Trumbull’s.
Washington held his councils of war at the Craigie House. It was doubtless from there that he sent his courier flying to Jonathan Trumbull for help. His message was that the army must have food.
It was then that the Connecticut Governor called together the Committee of Public Safety and sent his men of the secret service into the farm-ways of Connecticut and gathered cattle and stores from the farms, and forwarded the supplies on their way to Boston, and Dennis O’Hay went with them.
Boston was to be evacuated. Where were the British going? What was next to be done?
Washington called a council of his generals, and they deliberated the question of the hour.
The help that had given strength to the army investing Boston during the siege had come from Connecticut; the great heart-beat of Jonathan Trumbull had sent the British fleet out on the sea and away from Castle William (now the water-park of South Boston).
What should be done next? Officer after officer gave his views, without conclusion. The Brighton meadows, afterward made famous by the pen of Longfellow, glimmered in the light of early spring over which the happy wings of birds were rising in song. The great trees rustled in the spring winds. The officers paced the floor. What was to be done next? The officers waited for Washington to speak.
He had deliberated, but was not sure as to the wisest course to pursue.
He lifted his face at last, and said:
“We will have to consultBrother Jonathan.”
The name had been used before in the army, but not in this official way at a council.
It was at this council, or one like this, that he began to impress the worth of the judgment of the Connecticut Governor upon his generals.
Washington had unconsciously named the republic.
The Connecticut Governor’s home name began to rise to fame.
These officers repeated it to others.
Dennis O’Hay heard it. He was told that Washington had spoken it, probably at a council in the Craigie House, possibly at some out-of-door consultation. However this may be, the word had passed from the lips of the man of destiny.
“Cracky,” said Dennis, using the Yankee term of resolution, “and I will fly back to Connecticut, I will, on the wings of me horse, and I will, and tell the Governor of that, and I will, and all the people on the green, and I will, and set the children to clapping their hands, and the birds all a-singing in the green tree-tops, and I will.”
Dennis leaped on his horse as with wings. He slapped the horse’s neck with his bridle-rein and flew down the turnpike to Norwich, and did not so much as stop to rest at the Plainfield Tavern. That horse had the swiftness of wings, and Dennis seemed to be a kind of centaur.
The people saw him coming, and swung their hats, but only to say, “Who passed with the wind?”
The people of the cedars saw him coming up the hill and gathered on the green to ask:
“What is it, Dennis?”
“Great news! Great news!”
It was a day at the brightening of spring among the cedars. The people of the country around had heard of Dennis’s return and they gathered upon the green, which was growing green. The buds on the trees were swelling, the blue air was brightening, and nature was budding and seemed everywhere to be singing in the songs of birds.
All the world was full of joy, as the people gathered that day on the green. The Governor came out of his war office to hear Dennis speak; the schools were there, and William Williams, afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, honored the occasion with his presence.
Williams stood beside the Whig Governor under the glowing trees.
Dennis came out on the green, full of honorable pride.
His first words were characteristic:
“Oh, all ye people, all of the cedars, you well may gather together—now. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, for it is good news that I bring to ye all. Boston has fallen; it has tumbled into our hands, and Castle William has gone down into the sea, to the Britisher, and the same will never play Yankee Doodle there any more.
“Oh, but you should have seen him, as your brothers and I did—General Washington. He looked as though he had been born to lead the world. And what did he call our Governor—now, that is what I am bursting to tell you—what did he call our Governor?”
“The first patriot in America,” answered a merry farmer.
“Not that, now, but something better than that. Hear ye, open the mouths of your ears, now, and prepare to shout; all shout. He called—so the officers all say—he called him what you call him now. Colonel? No, no; not that. Judge? No, no; not that. Governor? No, no; not that. He called him what the heroes here who ran from the fields with their guns call him; what the good wives all call him; what the old men call him; what the children call him; what the dogs, cats, and all the birds call him; no, no; not that, but all nature here catches the spirit of what we called him. He called himBrother Jonathan! Shout, boys! Shout, girls! Shout, old men! Shout all! The world will call him that some day. My soul prophesies that. Shout, shout, shout! with the rising sun over the cedars—all shout for the long life and happiness ofBrother Jonathan!”
Lebanon shouted, and birds flew up from the trees and clapped their wings, and the modest old Governor said:
“I love the soul of the man who delights to bring the people good news. I wrote to Washington, when he took command of the army at Cambridge, these words:
“‘Be strong and very courageous. May the God ofthe armies of Israel shower down his blessings upon you; may he give you wisdom and fortitude; may he cover your head in the day of battle, and convince our enemies of their mistake in attempting to deprive us of our liberties.’ And, my neighbors, what did he answer me? He wrote to me, saying: ‘My confidence is in Almighty God.’ So we are brothers. And my neighbor Dennis brings good tidings of joy out of his great heart. His heart is ours. What will we do for such a man as Dennis O’Hay?”
“Make him an ensign, the ensign of the alarm-post,” said one.
So Dennis O’Hay became known as Ensign Dennis O’Hay.
The Governor saw that in Dennis he had a messenger to send out on horses with wings, to bring back to Lebanon green the tidings of the events of the war.
The old Governor turned aside when the shouting was over.
“Dennis?”
“Your Honor?”
“You have been by the cabin of old Wetmore, the wood-chopper of the lane.”
“Yes, your Honor.”
“Well, I am afraid that the old man is a Tory. You have heard how he turned tall Peter, his nephew, out of doors? He said to the boy: ‘Out you go!’ The boy came to me; my mind is taken up by the correspondences, so I made him my clerk. I want you to put your arms around him—for me.”
“Why did the old man say to the boy that?”
“The boy rejoiced over the Concord fight—you see! Put your arms around him. I want you two should be friends.”
“I will put my arms around him, for your sake and for the sake of Dennis O’Hay. He shall be my heart’s own.”
Peter had found friends—hearts.
He used to think of his old uncle as he slept under the cedars out of doors, on guard after his duties in the store, amid the fireflies, the night animals and birds.
He would seem to hear the old wood-chopper counting:
“One—
“Two—
“Three!”
He would wonder if the old man were counting for him, or if that which was counted would go to the King. If the patriots won their cause, the counted gold, if such it were, could not go to the King. What were the old man’s thoughts and purposes when he counted nights?
At the corner of the Trumbull house, overlooking the hills and roads in the country of the cedars, was a passageway that connected with the high roof. From this passageway the approach of an enemy could be signaled by a guard, and there was no point in the movements of the army more important than this.
Governor Trumbull became recognized as a power that stood behind the American armies. Lebanon of the cedars was the secret capital of the colonies. Here gathered the reserves of the war.
The common enemy everywhere began to plot againstthe iron Governor. Spies continued to come to Lebanon in many disguises and went away.
The people of Lebanon warned the Governor against these plots and spies, but he believed in Providence; that some good angel of protection attended him. When they told him that his life was in constant peril, he would say, like one who commanded hosts invisible, that “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.”
Dennis was in terror when he came to see the Governor’s danger. He had a bed in the garret, or “cockloft,” overlooking the cedars. From his room he watched the roads that led up to the hill.
One day some men of mystery came to the war office on horseback. Dennis saw them coming, from the garret or upper room. He hastened to the Governor at the war office, and gave the alarm. The men had their story, but Dennis saw that they were spies, and thought that they intended to return again.
Dennis had gained the confidence of the Governor and of the good man’s family perfectly now. He had become a shadow of the Governor, as it were.
After these mysterious men went away, the Governor called Dennis into his war office, and said:
“Dennis, you know a tremendous secret, and you warned me against these men. Why do you suspect them?”
“Because a conniving man carries an air of suspicion about him, your Honor. I can see it; I have second sight; some folks have, your Honor.”
“Dennis, you may be right. A pure heart sees clear, and you are an honest man, else there are none. Why do you think these men came? What was their hidden motive?”
“To find out where you hid your powder, your Honor. They are powder finders. In powder lies the hope of the cause, Governor. I have a thing on my mind, if I have a mind.”
“Well, Dennis, what have you on your mind?”
“There must be a military alarm-post in the cedars. It must be connected with hiding-places all along the way from Putnam to Norwich. And it is a man that you can trust that you must set in charge of the same alarm-post. As you said, I do know a tremendous secret.”
“You are a man that I can trust, Dennis; if not, who?”
“Your Honor,” said Dennis, bowing.
“Your heart is as true to liberty as that of Washington himself. To be true-hearted is the greatest thing in the world; hearts are more than rank.”
“Your Honor,” said Dennis, bowing again lower, “I would rather hear you say that than be a king.”
“Good, Dennis. Samuel Adams replied to the agent of General Gage who said to him, ‘It is time for you to make your peace with the King,’ and who then offered him bribes: ‘I trust that I have long ago made my peace with the King of kings, and no power on earth shall make me recreant to my duties to my country.’”
“Samuel Adams is a glorious man, your Honor, and has a heart true to your own. I would die for liberty,and be willing to be forgotten for the cause. What matters what becomes of Dennis O’Hay—but the cause, the cause!”
“Then, Dennis, you are the one of all others to take charge of the alarm-post that you propose to establish permanently.” Many are willing to die in a cause that would not be willing to be forgotten, the old man thought, and walked about with his hands behind him.
“Forgotten, Dennis, what is it to be forgotten? The winds of the desert blow over the Persepolis, but where is the Persepolis? Babylon, where are thy sixty miles of walls, and the chariots that rolled on their lofty ways? Gone with the wind. Egypt, where are all the kings that raised thy pyramids? Gone with the wind. Solomon, where is thy throne of the gold and gems of the Ind? Gone with the wind. We all shall be forgotten, or only live in the good that we do. I like that word which you spoke, willing to beforgottenfor the welfare of mankind. Dennis, I would be willing to be forgotten. I live for the cause. I seek neither money nor fame, but only to do the will of the everlasting God, to which I surrender all. To live for good influence is the whole of life. Soul value is everything. How will you establish the alarm-post?”
“I will watch the roads from the top of the second stairs as I have done before. I will have trusty men in the cedars who will set up signal lights at night. One of these men shall live in the rocks so that he may guard the place where the powder is stored. He shall ride a swift horse, and set up fire-signals at night. The secretshall be known to but few, if you will trust it to me to pick my men. And Peter—nimble Peter—your trusty clerk—who was sent out—he shall be my heart’s own.”
“I leave it all to you, Dennis. Establish the alarm-post. Select you hidden men. As for me, I believe like the men in the camp of the Hebrews, in helpers invisible. An angel stayed the hand of Abraham, and went before the tribes on their march out of Egypt, and led the feet of Abraham’s servant to find Rebecca; and when the young king was afraid to encounter so great a host, the prophet opened his spiritual eyes, and lo! the mountain was full of chariots and horsemen. The angel of Providence protects me; I know it, I feel it; it is my mission to reenforce the American army when it is in straits. Faith walks with the heavens, and I live by faith.”
Dennis went out. He felt free, like one commissioned by a higher power. Yes, he did know a tremendous secret. He knew where the powder was hidden.
When he had come to share with the Governor the secrets of collecting saltpeter and powder, he learned all the ways of this secret service. There must be found a place where this powder could be hidden, so as to be safely guarded. It was a necessity.
Lebanon abounded in rocky hills in which were caves. These caves could be guarded, and yet they would not be secure against spies. Dennis began to put his Irish wits at work to devise a way to protect a storage of powder against spies.
The tall, nimble boy who had been in the service of William Williams came first into Dennis’s mind andheart. Mr. Williams, for whom the boy had kept sheep, was a graduate of Harvard College, and had been a member of the Committee of Correspondence for the Union and Safety of the Colonies. This man had written several pamphlets to awaken the spirit of the colonies to resist aggression, and the nimble boy to whom we have referred, now the clerk, had listened at doors to the reading of these pamphlets, and drank in the spirit of them until he had become so full of patriotic feeling that he thought of little but the cause.
Dennis’s intuitive eye fixed itself upon this boy for secret service.
“Peter Nimble,” said Dennis to the young farmhand one day, as the latter was resting under the trees after the planting of pumpkin-seeds among the corn, while the sheep grazed, “I have come over here to have a secret talk with you. I have long had my eye on you. You are full of the new fire; you see things quick; you have long legs, and you are all brain, heart, and legs. You are just the lad I want.”
“For what, Dennis?”
“For the secret service. Will you promise me never to tell what I am about to tell you now?”
“Never, Dennis.”
“Though the sky fall?”
“Though the sky fall, and the earth cave in, and the waters cover the land. Never, Dennis, if it be for the cause.”
“It is for the cause, Peter. Hark ye, boy. We must store powder here. Powder is the life of the war.We must store it in a cave, and we must have some one to guard the cave, and to give an alarm if spies shall come.”
“I can run,” said Peter.
“Yes, Peter, you can run, and run the right way, too. You will never turn your heels against the country. You can outrun all the boys. But it is not for your heels that I come to you. I want a guard with nimble thoughts as well as legs. You could run to me quickly by day, as on feet of air, but it is for the night that I want you; for a curious service, a queer service.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Hold a window before your face, with a light in the window, and stand back by the roadside in the cedars.”
“That would be a strange thing for me to do, Dennis. How would that help the cause?”
“You know all the people of the town. You would know a stranger to be a stranger. Now, no stranger can pass down the turnpike at night without a passport. If he does, he is an enemy or a spy.
“You are to stand behind the lighted window at night back in the cedars, some distance from the road. If you see a stranger coming down the road at night, or hear him, you are to leave the window and light on a post and demand his passport. The window and light at a distance will look like a house. If the traveler have no passport, you must ask him to follow you at a distance toward the light in the window. Hear: ‘at a distance.’
“Then you are to take the window and the light and move up the hill, by the brook ways, so that I can see the light at the alarm-post. Then you may put out the light, and run for the war office: run like the wind. That will detain the spy, should he be one, and we will be warned and thwart his design. Do you see?”
“I see, but am I to be stationed near a cave where the powder is hidden?”
“No—tish, tish—but at a place that would turn a night traveler from the place where the powder is concealed. You yourself are not to know, or to seek to know, where the powder is hidden. No, no—tish, tish. If you were to be overpowered, you must be able to say that you do not know where the saltpeter is. Tish, tish!”
“That is a strange service, Dennis, but I will do as you say. I will watch by the window in the heat and cold, in the rain and snow, and I will never desert my post.”
“That you will, my boy. The true heart never deserts its post. You may save an army by this strange service. You are no longer to be Peter Nimble, but a window in the cedars. Ah, Peter, Peter, not in vain did the old man send you out. Boy, the Governor likes you, and you are my heart’s own!”
“But I will have to give up my place in the store?”
“I will talk with the Governor about that.”
One day Dennis O’Hay stood by the high window, looking down the turnpike road. A horseman seemed to leap on his flying steed into the way. Dennis ran downthe stairs to give an alarm, and found the Governor in the great room, thinking as always.
“A man is coming on horseback, riding like mad. He looks like a general.”
“Spencer—I am expecting him—I sent for him. Sit down; your presence may make a clearer atmosphere.”
Dennis did not comprehend the Governor, but his curiosity was excited, and he sat down by the stairway.
A horse dashed up to the door. A man in uniform knocked, and entered with little ceremony.
“Governor, I am dishonored. Let me say at once that I am about to resign my commission in the army.”
“You have been superseded by General Putnam.”
“Yes; I who offered my life and all in the north in the service of my country, have been superseded. Congress little esteems such service as mine. Governor, I am undone.”
“General Spencer, Congress is seeking to place the best leaders in the field. It has done so now. It has not dishonored you; it honors you; it wants your service under Putnam.”
“Under! You may well say under. Would you, with a record like mine, serveunderany man?”
“I would. My only thought is for the good of the people and the success of the cause. I have given up making money, for the cause. I have given up seeking position of popularity, for the cause. I am seeking to be neither a general, nor a congressman, nor a diplomat, for the cause. Whatever a man be or have, his influenceis all that he is. I would do anything that would tend to make my influence powerful for the cause. I have snuffed out ambition, for the cause.”
General Spencer dropped his hands on his knees.
“Governor Trumbull, what would you have me do?”
“Serve your country under Putnam—as Congress wills—and never hinder the cause by any personal consideration. Be the cause.”
“Governor, I will; for your sake, I will. I see my way clear. I was not myself when I came—I am myself now.”
“Not for my sake, General, but for the cause!”
Dennis had seen the Governor’s soul. Giant that he was, tears ran down his face. He went out into the open air.
It was evening at Lebanon. He looked up to the hills and saw the clerk, who had again become a shepherd-boy, there in the dusk guiding the sheep to sheltered pastures among the savins.
Dennis was lonesome for companionship. He was but a common laborer, with no family or fortune, nothing but his honest soul.
He longed to talk with one like himself. He walked up the hills, and hailed the shepherd-boy, who had become a guard in the new secret service.
“Nimble,” he said, “you believe in the Governor, don’t you? I do, more and more.”
“’Fore the Lord, I do,” said the shepherd in an awesome tone.
“I have just seen the soul of that man. He is more of a god than a man. But, Nimble, Nimble, my heart’s own boy, he is surrounded more and more by spies, and think of it, wagons of powder are coming here and going away. What havoc a spy could make!
“Boy, my heart goes out to that man. I would die for him. So would you. I am going to act as a guard for him, not only openly—I do that now—but secretly. You will act with me.”
“Yes, yes, Dennis. But what more can I do?”
“Keep your eyes open on the hills against surprise, and guard the magazines.”
“That I am doing, but where are the magazines?”
“Where are the magazines?”
“Oh, boy, boy, do not seek to know. Tish, tish! Have an eye on the covered ways that are still. You watch nights bythe window?”
“Yes, and I can watch days.”
The sheep lay down in the sheltered ways of the high hill, and the two talked together as brothers. They had become a part of the cause.
And Dennis found in his heart a new and unexpected delight. It was when he said to the shepherd-boy of the green cedars, as he did almost daily, “You are my heart’s own; we serve one cause, and look for nothing more!”
So these two patriots became to Brother Jonathan “helpers invisible.”
The Governor now hurried levies. Lebanon was a scene of excitement. Connecticut forgot her own perils, for the greater need.
Dennis was ordered away with the men. He was to drive a powder-wagon. The young shepherd was to leave for a time his place as a watchman and to go with him.
In the midst of these preparations a beautiful, anxious face flitted to and fro. It was that of Madam Trumbull.
“You must not go,” said she to Dennis. “We need you here.”
“Who?”
“I—spies swarm; the Governor is all of the time in peril. I can trust your heart.”
“He must go,” said the Governor. “The powder-wagon needs him more than I do. I shall be guarded. I can hear the wings; the rocks of Lebanon are not firmer than my faith. Powder is the battle. Go, Dennis, go. Our powder told at Bunker Hill; they will need it again.”
Dennis and the shepherd-boy went, guarding the powder.
“Good-by, Governor,” said Dennis. “We leave the heavens behind us still.”
What a time that was! Every Whig forgot his own self and interests in the cause. No one looked for any pay for anything. The cattle, the sheep, the corn and grain, all belonged to the cause. Everything followed the suggestion of the great Governor’s heart.
Tories and spies came to Lebanon with plots in their hearts, but they went away again. Ships down the river landed men, who came to Lebanon with evil intents; but they looked at the Governor from the tavern window, as he crossed the green, and went away again.
The school for the training of Indian missionaries, that had been founded in Lebanon and that had trained Occum, who became the marvelous Indian preacher, had been removed to a log-house college on the upper Connecticut now, where it was to become Dartmouth College. But Indians still came to the green, and heard the cannon thunder with wonder.
The Governor’s house, the alarm-post, was to become the head of a long line of signal-stations.