And while the mist gathered thicker and darker
above, while the lurid columns of battle smoke
waved like a banner overhead, while all around
was dim and indistinct,—all objects rendered larger
and swelled to gigantic proportions by the action
of the fog,—along that green lawn arose the
sound of charging legions, and the blaze of musquetry
flashing from the windows of Chew's house,
gave a terrible light to the theatre of death.

Again, like a vast curtain, the mist uprose,—
again were seen armed men brandishing swords
aloft, or presenting fixed bayonets, or holding
the sure rifle in their unfailing grasp, or yet again
waving torches on high, all rushing madly forward,
still in regular columns, file after file, squadron
after squadron—a fierce array of battle and of
death.

It was a sight worth a score of peaceful years
to see! The dark and heavy pall of battle smoke
overhead, mingled with curling wreaths of snow-white
mist—the curtain of this theatre of death—
the mansion of dark, grey stone, rising massive
and ponderous from the lawn, each peak and corner,
each buttress and each angle, shown clearly
by the light of the musquet flash—the green lawn
spreading away from the house—the stage of the
dread theatre—crowded by bands of advancing
men, with arms glittering in the fearful light,
with fierce faces stamped with looks of vengeance,
sweeping forward with one steady step, their eyes
fixed upon the fatal house; while over their heads,
and among their ranks, swept and fell the leaden
bullets of their foes, hissing through the air with
the sound of serpents, or pattering on the sod like
a hailstorm of death.

And while a single brigade, with which was
Washington and Sullivan and Wayne, swept onward
toward the house, the other troops of the
central division, extending east and west along
the fields, were forced to remain inactive spectators
of this scene of death, while each man vainly endeavored
to pierce the gloom of the mist and smoke
and observe the course of the terrible fight.

Some thirty yards of green lawn now lay between
the forlorn hope of the advancing Americans
and Chew's house; all became suddenly still and
hushed, and the continentals could hear their own
foot tramp breaking upon the air with a deadened
sound, as they swept onward toward the mansion.

A moment of terrible stillness, and then a moment
of bloodshed and horror! Like the crash
of thunderbolts meeting in the zenith from distant
points of the heavens, the sound of musquetry
broke over the lawn, and from every window of
Chew's house, from the hall door, and from behind
the chimneys on the roof, rolled the dense columns
of musquet smoke; while on every side, overhead,
around, and beneath, the musquet flash of the
British glared like earth-riven lightning in the
faces of the Americans, and then the mist and
smoke came down like a pall, and for a moment
all was dark as midnight.

A wild yell broke along the American line, and
then the voice of Wayne rung out through the
darkness and the gloom—“Sweep forward under

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

the cover of the smoke—sweep forward and storm
the house!”

They came rushing on, the gallant band of rangers,
bearing torches in their hands—they came
rushing on, and their path lay over the mangled
bodies of the forlorn hope, scattered along the sod,
in all the ghastliness of wounds and death, and at
their backs advanced with measured step the firm
columns of the continental army, while the air
was heavy with the shriek of wounded men, and
burdened with cries of death.

On they swept, trampling over the faces of the
dead in the darkness and gloom, and then the terrible
words of command rung out upon the air—
“Advance and fire—advance and storm the
house!”

A volley of sheeted flame arose from the bosom
of the fog along the lawn, the thunder of the American
musquetry broke upon the air, and the balls
were heard pattering against the walls of the
house, and tearing splinters from the roof.

Another moment, and the pall of mist and battle
smoke is swept aside, revealing a scene that a
thousand words might not describe—a scene
whose hurry, and motion, and glare, and horror'
the pencil of the artist might in vain essay to
picture.

There were glittering bayonets thrust from the
windows of the house,—there were fierce faces,
with stout forms robed in crimson attire, thrust
from every casement,—there were bold men waving
torches on high, rushing around the house;
here a party were piling up combustible brushwood
and faggots, here a gallant band were affixing
their scaling ladder to a second story window,
yonder another gallant band were thundering
away at the hall door, with musquet and battle
axe; while along the whole sweep of the wide
lawn poured the fire of the continental host, with
a flash like lightning, yet with uncertain and ineffectual
aim.

The hand of the soldier with the band gathered
near the combustible pile under a window—the
hand of the soldier was extended with the blazing
torch, he was about to fire the heap of faggots,
when his shattered arm fell to his side, and a dead
comrade came toppling over his chest.

A soldier near the hall door had been foremost
among that gallant band, the barricades were torn
away, all obstructions well nigh cleared, and he
raised his battle axe to hew the door in fragments,
when the axe fell with a clanging sound upon the
threshold stone, and his comrades caught his falling
body in their arms, while his severed jaw
hung loosely on his breast.

The party who rushed forward in the endeavor
to scale the window! The ladder was fixed—
across the trench dug around Chew's house it was
fixed—the hands of two sturdy continentals held
it firm, and a file of desperate men, headed by a
stalwart backwoodsman, in rough blue shirt and
fur cap, with buck-tail plume, began the ascent of
death.

The foot of the backwoodsman touched the second
round of the scaling ladder, when he sprang
wildly in the air, over the heads of his comrades,
and fell dead in the narrow trench, with a death
shriek that rang in the ears of all who heard it
for life. A musquet ball had penetrated his skull,
and the red torrent was already streaming over
his forehead, and along his swarthy features.

The Americans again rushed forward to the
house, but it was like rushing into the embrace of
death; again they scaled the windows, again were
they driven back, while the dead bodies of their
comrades littered the trench; again they strode
boldly up to the hall door, and again did soldier
after soldier crimson the threshold stone with his
blood.

And while the battle swelled fiercest, and the
flame flashing from the windows of Chew's house
was answered by the volley of the continental
brigade, two sounds came sweeping along the air,
one from the south, and the other from the northwest.
They were the sounds of marching men—
the tread of hurrying legions.

On the summit of a gentle knoll, surrounded by
the officers of his staff, Washington had watched
the progress of the fight around Chew's mansion,
not more than two hundred yards distant.

With his calm and impenetrable face, wearing
an unmoved expression, he had seen the continentals
disappear in the folds of the fog, he had seen
file after file marching on their way of death, he
had heard the roar of contest, the shrieks of the
wounded and the yells of the dying had startled his
ear, but not a muscle of his countenance moved
not a feature trembled.

But when those mingling sounds of marching
men came pealing on his ear, he inclined slightly
to one side of his steed and then to the other, as
if in the effort to catch the slightest sound, his

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

lips were fixedly compressed and his eye flashed
and flashed again, until it seemed turning to a
thing of living flame.

The sounds grew near, and nearer! A horseman
approached from the direction of Germantown,
his steed was well nigh exhausted and the
rider swayed heavily to and fro in the saddle.
The horse came thundering up the knoll, and a
man with a ghastly face, spotted with blood, leaned
from the saddles and shrieked forth, as he panted
for breath—

“General—they are in motion—they are
marching through Germantown—Kniphausen,
Agnew, and Grey, they will be on you in a moment,
and—Cornwallis—Cornwallis is sweeping
from Philadelphia.”

The word had not passed his lips, when he fell
from his steed a ghastly corpse.

Another messenger stood by the side of Washington—
his steed was also exhausted, and his face
was covered with dust, but not with blood. He
panted for breath as he shrieked forth an exclamation
of joy:—

“Greene is marching from the northwest—attracted
by the fire in this quarter, he has deviated
from his path, and will be with you in a moment!”

And as he spoke, the forms of a vast body of
men began to move, dim and indistinctly, from
the folds of the fog on the northwest, and then
the glare of crimson was seen appearing from the
bosom of the mist on the south, as a long column
of red coated soldiers, began to break slowly on
the vision of Washington and his men.

Turn we for a moment to Germantown.

The first glimpse of day, flung a grey and solemn
light over the tenements of Germantown, when
the sound of distant thunder, aroused the startled
inhabitants from their beds, and sent them hurriedly
into the street, where they crowded in small
groups, each one asking his neighbor for the explanation
of this sudden alarm, and each one inclining
his ear to the north, listening intently to
those faint yet terrible sounds, thundering along
the northern horizon.

The crowded moments of that eventful morn,
wore slowly on, and ere the day was yet light,
the streets of Germantown were all in motion,
crowds of anxious men were hurrying hither and
thither, mothers stood on the rustic porch, gather
ing their babes in a closer embrace, and old men,
risen in haste from their beds, clasped their
withered hands and lifted their eyes to heaven in
muttered prayer, as their ears were startled by
the sounds of omen pealing from the north.

The British leaders were yet asleep, the soldiers
of the camp, it is true, had risen hastily from
their couches, and along the entire line of the
British encampment, ran a vague yet terrible rumor
of coming battle and of sudden death, yet the
generals in command slept soundly in their beds,
visited, it may be, with pleasant dreams of massacred
rebels, fancy pictures of the night of Paoli,
mingled with a graphic sketch of the head of
Washington adorning one of the gates of London,
while the grim visage of mad Anthony Wayne
figured on another.

The footstep of a booted soldier rang along the
village street, near the market-house, in the centre
of the village, and presently a tall grenadier strode
up the stone steps of an ancient mansion, spoke a
hurried word to the sentinel at the door, and then
hastily entered the house. In a moment he stood
beside the couch of General Grey, he roused him
with a rude shake of his vigorous hands, and the
startled Britisher sprang up as hastily in his bed
as though he had been dreaming a dream of the
terrible night of Paoli.

“Your Excellency—the Rebels are upon us!”
cried the grenadier—“they have driven in our
outposts, they surround us on every side—”

“We must fight it out—away to Kniphausen—
away to Agnew—”

“They are already in the field, and the men are
about advancing to Chew's House.”

But a moment elapsed, and the British general
with his attire flung hastily over his person, rode
to the head of his command, and while Kniphausen,
gay with the laurels of Brandywine, rode
from rank to rank, speaking encouragement to his
soldiers in his broken dialect, the British army
moved forward over the fields and along the
solitary streets of Germantown towards Chew's
House.

The brilliant front of the British extended in
a flashing array of crimson, over the fields, along
the streets, and through the wreaths of mist on
every side shone the glitter of bayonets, on every
hand was heard the terrible tramp of 16,000 men

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

sweeping onward, toward the field of battle, their
swords eager for American blood.

As the column under command of General
Agnew swept through the village street, every
man noted the strange silence that seemed to have
come down upon the village like a spell. The
houses were all carefully closed, as though they
had not been inhabited for years, the windows
were barricaded, and the earthquake tramp of the
vast body of soldiers was the only sound that disturbed
the silence of the town.

Not a single inhabitant was seen. Some had
fled wildly to the fields, others had hastened with
the strange and fearful curiocity of our nature to
the very verge of the battle of Chew's House, and
in the cellars of the houses gathered many a wild
and affrighted group, mothers holding their little
children to their breasts, old men whose eyes were
vacant with enfeebled intellect asking wildly the
cause of all this alarm, while many a fair-cheeked
maiden turned pale with horror, as the thunder of
the cannon seemed to shake the very earth.

A singular legend is told in relation to General
Agnew. Tradition states, that on that eventful
morn, as he led the troops onward through the
town, a singular change was noted in his appearance.
His cheeks were pale as death, his compressed
lip trembled with a nervous movement, and
his eyes glared hither and thither with a strange
wild glance.

He turned to the aid-de-camp at his side, and
said with a ghastly smile, that this day's work
would be his last on earth, that this battle-field
would be the last he should fight, that it became
him to look well at the gallant array of war,
and share in the thickest of the fight, for in war
and in fight should his hand this day strike its last
and dying blow.

And tradition states that as his column neared
the Mœnisht grave-yard,[3] a man of strange and
wild aspect, clad in the skins of wild beasts, with
scarred face and unshaven beard, came leaping
over the grave-yard wall, and asked a soldier of
the British column, with an idiotic smile, whether
that gallant officer, riding at the head of the men,
was the brave General Grey, who had so nobly
routed the rebels at Paoli?

The soldier replied with a peevish oath that
yonder officer was General Grey, and he pointed
to General Agnew as he spoke.

The strange man said never a word, but smiled
with a satisfied look, and sprang over the grave-yard
wall, and as he sprang, a bullet whistled past
the ear of General Agnew, and a thin column of
blue smoke wound upward from the grave-vard
wall.

The General turned and smiled. His officers
would have searched the grave-yard for the author
of the shot, but a sound broke on their ears from
the road above, and presently the clatter of hoofs
and the clamor of swords came thundering through
the mist.

eaf246.n3

[3] Adjoining the dwelling of Mr. Samuel Keyser,
about three-fourths of a mile below Chew's House.

And in a moment the voice of Sullivan was
heard—“Charge—upon the Britishers—charge
them home!”

And the steeds of the American cavalry came
thundering on, sweeping down the hill with one
wild movement, rushing into the very centre of
the enemy's column, each trooper unhorsing his
man, while a thousand fierce shouts mingled in
wild chorus, and the infantry advanced with fixed
bayonets, speeding steadily onward until they had
driven back their foes with the force of their solid
charge.

And along that solitary street of Germantown
swelled the din and terror of battle, there grappled
with the fierce grasp of vengeance and of death
the columns of contending foemen, there rode
the troopers of the opposite armies, their swords
mingling, their horses meeting breast to breast
in the terrible shock of this fierce tournament;
there shrieked the wounded and dying, while
above the heads of the combatants waved the
white folds of mist, mingled with the murky battle
smoke.

Sullivan charged bravely, Wayne came nobly
to his rescue, Pulaski scattered confusion into
the ranks of the enemy, and the Americans had
been masters of the field were it not for a fresh
disaster at Chew's House, combined with the mistakes
of the various bodies of the Continentals, who
were unable to discern friend from foe in the
density of the fog.

Meanwhile the contest thickened around Chew's

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

house; the division of Greene, united with the central
body of the American army, were engaged
with the left wing of the British army, under
Kniphausen, Grant, and Grey, while Sullivan led
forward into the town a portion of the advance
column of his division.

Tradition has brought down to our times a fearful
account of the carnage and bloodshed of the
fight around Chew's house at this moment, when
the British army to the south and the Americans
to the north, advanced in the terrible charge, under
the cover of the mist and gloom.

It was like fighting in the dark. The Americans
advanced column after column, they drove
back the British columns with a line of bristling
bayonets, while the fire of the backwoodsmen rattled
a death hail over the field; but it was all in
vain! That gloomy miset hung over their heads,
concealing their foes from sight, or investing the
forms of their friends with a doubtful gloom, that
caused them to be mistaken for Britishers in the
fierce mellay; all was dim, undefined and indistinct.

It was at this moment that a fierce resolution
came over the mind of Washington. All around
him was mist and gloom, he saw his men disappear
within the fog, toward Chew's house, but he
knew not whether their charge was greeted with
success or defeat; he heard the tread of hurrying
legions, the thunder of the cannon, the rattle of
the musketry broke on his ear, mingled with the
shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying;
and all the terrible panorama of a battle field,
the smoke, the gloom and the mist, passed vividly
before his eyes, but still he knew not the cause of
the impregnability of Chew's house. He determined
to advance toward the house, and examine
its position in person. He turned to the officers
of his staff—“Follow me who lists!” he cried,
and in a moment, his steed of iron grey was careering
over the sod, littered with ghastly corses,
while the air overhead was alive with the music
of bullets, and the earth beneath was flung against
the war-steed's flanks by the cannon ball.

Followed by Hamilton, by Pickering, by
Marshall, and by Lee, of the gallant legion, Wash
ington rode forward, and speeding between the
fires of the opposing armies, approached the
house.

The scene was awful, At each step a dead man,
with a ghastly face turned upward, little pools of
blood crimsoning the lawn, torn fragments of attire
scattered over the sod, on every side hurrying
bodies of marching foemen, while, terrible and
unremitting, the fire flashing from the windows of
Chew's House, throws a lurid glare over the fearful
scene.

Washington dashed over the lawn, he approached
the house, and every man of his train held his
breath. Bullets were whistling over their heads,
cannon balls playing round their horses' feet, yet
their leader kept on his way of terror. A single
glance at the house, with its vollies of flame flashing
from every window, and he turned to the
north, to regain the American lines, but the fog
and smoke gathered round him, and he found his
horse entangled amid the enclosures of the cattle-pen
to the north of the mansion.

“Leap your horses”—cried Washington to the
brave men around him—“Leap your horses and
save yourselves!” And in a moment, amid the
mist and gloom, his officers leaped the northern
enclosure of the cattle-pen, and rode forward to
the American line, scarcely able to discover their
path, in the dense gloom that gathered around
them. They reached the American lines, and to
their horror, discovered that Washington was not
among them. He had not leaped the fence of the
cattle-pen, because with the feeling of a true veteran,
he was afraid of injuring his gallant steed,
by this leap in the dark.

While the officers of the staff were speeding to
the American line, Washington turned his steed
to the south, he determined to repass the house,
strike to the north east, and then facing the fires
of both armies, regain the Continental army.

He rose proudly in the stirrups, he placed
his hand gently on the neck of his steed, he glaneed
proudly around him, and then the noble horse
sprang forward with a sudden leap, and the mist
rising for a moment disclosed the form of Washington,
to the vision of the opposing armies.