WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGEBy W. Bert Foster
WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGEBy W. Bert Foster
By W. Bert Foster
The story opens in the year 1777, during one of the most critical periods of the Revolution. Hadley Morris, our hero, is in the employ of Jonas Benson, the host of the Three Oaks, a well-known inn on the road between Philadelphia and New York. Like most of his neighbors, Hadley is an ardent sympathizer with the American cause. When, therefore, he is intrusted with a message to be forwarded to the American headquarters, the boy gives up, for the time, his duties at the Three Oaks and sets out for the army. Here he remains until after the fateful Battle of Brandywine. On the return journey he discovers a party of Tories who have concealed themselves in a woods in the neighborhood of his home. By approaching cautiously to the group around the fire, Hadley overhears their plan to attack his uncle for the sake of the gold which he is supposed to have concealed in his house. With the assistance of Colonel Knowles, who, although a British officer, seems to have taken a liking to Hadley, our hero successfully thwarts the Tory raid. No sooner is the uncle rescued, however, than he ungratefully shuts the door upon his nephew. Thereupon Hadley immediately returns to the American army and joins the forces under that dashing officer, “Mad Anthony” Wayne. In the disastrous night engagement at Paoli our hero is left upon the battlefield wounded.
The story opens in the year 1777, during one of the most critical periods of the Revolution. Hadley Morris, our hero, is in the employ of Jonas Benson, the host of the Three Oaks, a well-known inn on the road between Philadelphia and New York. Like most of his neighbors, Hadley is an ardent sympathizer with the American cause. When, therefore, he is intrusted with a message to be forwarded to the American headquarters, the boy gives up, for the time, his duties at the Three Oaks and sets out for the army. Here he remains until after the fateful Battle of Brandywine. On the return journey he discovers a party of Tories who have concealed themselves in a woods in the neighborhood of his home. By approaching cautiously to the group around the fire, Hadley overhears their plan to attack his uncle for the sake of the gold which he is supposed to have concealed in his house. With the assistance of Colonel Knowles, who, although a British officer, seems to have taken a liking to Hadley, our hero successfully thwarts the Tory raid. No sooner is the uncle rescued, however, than he ungratefully shuts the door upon his nephew. Thereupon Hadley immediately returns to the American army and joins the forces under that dashing officer, “Mad Anthony” Wayne. In the disastrous night engagement at Paoli our hero is left upon the battlefield wounded.
THE sun shining warmly upon his face through the rapidly-drying bushes which during the night had partly sheltered him, was Hadley’s first conscious feeling. Then he felt the dull pain in his leg where the spent ball had become imbedded, and he rolled over with a groan. The wood lay as peaceful and quiet under the rising sun as though such a thing as war did not exist. Here and there a branch had been splintered by a musket ball, or a bush had been trampled by the retreating Americans. But the rain had washed away all the brown spots from the grass and twigs, and the birds twittered gayly in the treetops, forgetting the disturbing conflict of the night.
The boy found, when he tried to rise, that his whole leg was numb and he could only drag it as he hobbled through the wood. To cover the few rods which lay between the place where he had slept and the road, occupied some minutes. The wound had bled freely, and now the blood was caked over it, and every movement of the limb caused much pain.
Where had his companions gone? When the company rolls were called that morning there would be no inquiry for him, for he was not a regularly recruited man. He had been but a hanger-on of the brigade which was so disastrously attacked during the night, and they would all forget him. Captain Prentice was far away, and Hadley had known nobody else well among Wayne’s troops. The fact of his loneliness, together with his wound and his hunger, fairly brought the tears to his eyes, great boy that he was. But many a soldier who has fought all day with his face to the enemy has wept childish tears when left at night, wounded and alone, on the battlefield.
However, one could not really despair on such a bright morning as this, and Hadley soon plucked up courage. He got out his pocket knife, found a sapling with a crotched top, cut it off the proper length, and used it for a crutch. With this, and dragging his useless musket behind him, he hobbled up the road in a direction which he knew must bring him to the American lines, and eventually to Philadelphia. But such traveling was slow and toilsome work, and he was trembling all the time for fear he would fall in with the British.
He had not been many minutes on the way, however, when a man stepped out of the brush beside the road and barred his way. Hadley was frightened at first; then he recognized the man and shouted with delight.
“Lafe Holdness! How ever did you come here?”
“Jefers-pelters!” exclaimed the Yankee scout. “I reckon I might better ask yeou that question, Had. An’ wounded, too! Was yeou with that brigade last night that got bamfoozled?”
“The British attacked us unexpectedly. Oh, Lafe! they charged right through our lines and bayonetted the men awful.”
“I reckon. It’s war, boy—you ain’t playin’.” Meanwhile the man had assisted Hadley to a seat on the bank and with his own knife calmly ripped up the leg of Hadley’s trousers. “Why, boy, you’ve got a ball in there—as sure as ye live!”
“It hurts pretty bad, Lafe,” Hadley admitted, wincing when the scout touched the leg which was now inflamed about the wound.
There was a rill nearby, and to this the scout hurried and brought water back in his cap. With the boy’s handkerchief he washed the dry blood away and then, by skilful pressure of his fingers, found the exact location of the imbedded bullet. “Oh, this ain’t so bad,” he said, cheerfully. “We’ll fix it all right in no time. But ye musn’t do much walking for some days to come. Yeou can ride, though, and I’ve got a hoss nearby. First of all, I must git the ball aout and wash the hole. Ye see, Had, the ball lies right under the skin on the back of the leg—so. D’ye see?”
“I can feel it all right,” groaned Hadley.
“Well, it’s a pity it didn’t go way through. Howsomever, if you’ll keep a stiff upper lip for a minute, I’ll get the critter aout. ’Twon’t hurt much ter speak of. Swabbin’ aout the hole, though, ’ll likely make ye jump.”
He opened the knife again and, before Hadley could object, had made a quick incision over the ball and the lead pellet dropped out into his hand. The boy did not have a chance to cry out, it was done so quickly. “So much for so much,” said Lafe, in a business-like tone. “Nothin’ like sarvin’ yer ’prenticeship ter all sorts of trades. I ain’t no slouch of a surgeon, I calkerlate. Now, lemme git an alder twig.”
He obtained the twig in question, brought more water, and then proceeded, after having removed the pith from the heart of the twig, to blow the cool water into the wound. Hadley cried out at this and begged him to desist, but Lafe said: “Come, Had, yeou can stand a little pain now for the sake of being all right by and by, can’t yeou? It’s better to be sure than sorry. P’r’aps there warn’t no cloth nor nothin’ got inter that wound, but ye can’t tell. One thing, there warn’t no artery cut or ye’d bled ter death lyin’ under them bushes all night. I ’spect many a poor chap did die in yander after the retreat. Anthony Wayne’ll have ter answer for that. They say he’s goin’ ter be court-martialed.”
Having cleaned the wound, Holdness bound it up tightly with strips torn from the boy’s cotton shirt, and then brought up the horse which he had hidden hard by. He helped the boy into the saddle and walked beside him until they were through the American picket lines. The wounded had been sent on to Philadelphia, for there were few conveniences for field hospitals. “Yeou take that hoss and ride inter Philadelphy, Had,” said Holdness. “Leave it at the Queen and take yourself to this house”—he gave the wounded lad a brief note scrawled on a bit of dirty paper—“and the folks there’ll look out for ye till the laig’s well. I’ll git another hoss somewhere else that’ll do jest as well. Yeou can’t go clean back to Jarsey with your laig in that shape.”
It was a hard journey for the wounded youth, and before he crossed the Schuylkill and followed Chestnut Street down into the heart of the town, he was well-nigh spent. He fairly fell off the horse in front of the Indian Queen Tavern, and the hostler had to help him to the address which Holdness had given him. Here the good man and his wife—Quaker folk were they, who greatly abhorred the bloodshed of the war, yet were stanch supporters of the American cause—took the boy in and cared for him as though he was their own son. For a night and a day he kept to his bed; but he could not stand it any longer than that. The surgeon who was called to attend him declared the wound had been treated very well indeed by the scout, and that it was healing nicely; so what does Master Hadley do but hobble downstairs to the breakfast table on the second morning, determined no longer to cause the good Quakeress, Mistress Pye, the extra trouble of sending his breakfast up to him.
He was anxious to learn the news, too. Affairs were moving swiftly these days in Philadelphia. The uncertainty of what the next day might bring forth forced shops to close and almost all business to cease. The Whigs were leaving by hundreds; even the men who held authoritative places in the council of the town had departed, fearful of what might happen when the redcoats marched in. And that Washington could keep them out for long, after the several reverses the American troops had sustained, was not to be believed.
A sense of portending calamity hung over the city like an invisible cloud. A third of the houses were shut and empty. Many of the others were occupied solely by servants or slaves, the families having flown to the eastward. Hadley did not get outside the door of the Pye house that day, for he was watched too closely. But early on the morning of the 26th the whole street was aroused by the swift dash of a horseman over the cobbles; and a cry followed the flying messenger:
“The British are coming!”
The people ran out of their houses, never waiting for their breakfasts. Was the news true? Had the redcoats eluded the thin line of Americans that so long had stayed their advance upon the town? Soon the truth was confirmed. Congress had adjourned to Lancaster. Howe had made a feint of marching on Reading, and when the Americans were thrown forward to protect that town the British had turned aside and were now within sight. They had surprised and overpowered a small detachment left to guard the approach to Philadelphia, and—the city was lost! His Excellency was then at Skippack Creek with the bulk of his army, and the city could hope for no help from him.
Hadley, hobbling on a crutch, but too anxious and excited to remain longer indoors, soon reached Second Street. From Callowhill to Chestnut it was filled with old men and children. Scarcely a youth of his own age was to be seen, for the young men had gone into the army. It was a quiet, but a terribly anxious crowd, and questions which went unanswered were whispered from man to man. Will the redcoats really march in to-day? Will the helpless folk left in the city be treated as a conquered people? Why had Congress, spurred on by hot-heads, sanctioned this war at all? Many who had been enthusiastic in the cause were lukewarm now. The occupation of the town might mean the loss of their homes and the scattering of those whom they loved.
Here and there a Tory strutted, unable to hide his delight at the turn affairs had taken. Several times little disturbances, occasioned by the overbearing manners of this gentry arose, but as a whole the crowds were solemn and gloomy. At eleven o’clock a squadron of dragoons appeared and galloped along the street, scattering the crowd to right and left; but it closed in again as soon as they were through, for far down the thoroughfare sounded the first strains of martial music. Then something glittered in the sunshine, and the people murmured and stepped out into the roadway the better to see the head of the approaching army of their conquerors.
A wave of red—steadily advancing—and tipped with a line of flashing steel bayonets was finally descried. In perfect unison the famous grenadiers came into view, their pointed red caps, fronted with silver, their white leather leggings, and short scarlet coats, trimmed with blue, making an impressive display. Hadley, who had seen the nondescript farmer soldiery of the American army, sighed at this parade. How could General Washington expect to beat such men as these? And then the boy remembered how he had seen the same farmers standing off the trained British hosts at Brandywine, and later at the Warren Tavern, and he took heart. Training and dress, and food, and good looks were not everything. Every man on the American side was fighting for his hearth, for his wife, for his children, and for everything he loved best on earth.
Behind the grenadiers rode a group of officers, the first a stout man, with gray hair and a pleasant countenance, despite the squint in his eye. A whisper went through the silent crowd and reached Hadley’s ear: “’Tis Lord Cornwallis!” Then there was a louder murmur—in some cases threatening in tone. Behind the officers rode a party of Tories hated by every patriot in Philadelphia—the two Allens, Tench Coxe, Enoch Story, Joe Galloway. Never would they have dared return but under the protection of British muskets.
Then followed the Fourth, Fortieth and Fifty-fifth regiments—all in scarlet. Then Hadley saw a uniform he knew well—would never forget, indeed. He saw it when Wayne held the tide of Knyphausen’s ranks back at Chadd’s Ford. Breeches of yellow leather, leggings of black, dark blue coats, and tall, pointed hats of brass completed the uniform of the hireling soldiery which, against their own desires and the desires of their countrymen, had been sent across the ocean by their prince to fight for the English king. A faint hiss rose from the crowd of spectators as the Hessians, with their fierce mustaches and scowling looks marched by.
Then there were more grenadiers, cavalry, artillery, and wagons containing provisions and the officers’ tents. The windows rattled to the rumbling wheels and the women cowered behind the drawn blinds, peering out upon the ranks that, at the command of a ruler across the sea who cared nothing for these colonies but what could be made out of them, had come to shoot down and to enslave their own flesh and blood.
Hadley could not get around very briskly; but he learned where some of the various regiments were quartered. The artillery was in the State House yard. Those wounded Continentals, who had lain in the long banqueting hall on the second floor of the State House, and who could not get away or be moved by their friends, would now learn what a British prison pen was like. Hadley shuddered to think how he had so nearly escaped a like fate, and was fearful still that something might happen to reveal to the enemy that he, too, had taken up arms against the king. The Forty-second Highlanders were drawn up in Chestnut Street below Third; the Fifteenth regiment was on High Street. When ranks were broken in the afternoon the streets all over town were full of red or blue-coated figures.
Hadley hobbled back to the shelter of the Pye homestead and learned from the good Quaker where some of the officers had been quartered. Cornwallis was just around the corner on Second Street at Neighbor Reeves’s house; Knyphausen was at Henry Lisle’s, while the younger officers, including Lord Rawden, were scattered among the better houses of the town. A young Captain André (later Major André) was quartered in Dr. Franklin’s old house. The British had really come into the hot-bed of the “rebels” and had made themselves much at home.