Part the Fourth. THE FALL OF THE BANNER OF THE STARS.
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“What seest thou now, Gonzales?”
“I look from the oriel window—I see a forest of glittering steel, rising in the light, with the snow-flakes of waving
plumes flaunting with the sunbeams! Our men advance—the banner of the stars is borne aloft, onward and on it
sweeps, like a mighty bird; and now the foemen waver, they recoil—they—”
“They fly! Great God—they fly!”
“No—no!—oh, moment of horror!—the banner of the stars is lost!—the flag of blood-red hue rises in the light—
the foemen advance—I dare not look upon the scene—”
“Look again, good Gonzales—look, I beseech thee—what seest thou now?”
“I see a desolated field, strewn with dead carcases and broken arms—the banner of the stars is trampled in the
dust—all is lost, and yet not ALL!”
The form of the Chieftain rose through the
smoke and gloom of battle, in all its magnificence
of proportion, and majesty of bearing, as speeding
between two opposing fires, with a proud glance
over the battle-field, he retraced his path of death,
and rode fearlessly toward the American army.
He was now in front of Chew's House, he was
passing through the very sweep of the terrible
fires, belching from every window, the bullets
whistled around him, and on every hand was confusion,
and darkness, made more fearful by the
glare of musquetry, and the lightning-flash of cannon.
He is now in front of Chew's House! Another
moment and the Man of the Army may fall from
his steed riddled by a thousand bullets, a single
moment and his corse may be added to the heaps
of dead piled along the lawn in all the ghastliness
of death, another moment and the Continentals
may be without a leader, the British without
their most determined foe.
His form is enrapt in mist, he is lost to sight,
he again emerges into light, he passes the houses
and sweeps away toward the Continental army.
He passes the house, and as he speeds onward
toward the American lines, a proud gleam lights
up his eye, and a prouder smile wreaths his determined
lips. “The American army is yet safe,
they are in the path to victory”—he exclaims, as
he rejoins the officers of his staff, within the
American lines—“Had I but intelligence of Armsstrong
in the West—of Smallwood and Forman
in the East, with one bold effort, we might carry
the field!”
But no intelligeuce of Smallwood or Forman
came—Armstrong's movements were all unknown—
Stephens, who flanked the right wing of Greene,
was not heard from, nor could any one give information
concerning his position.
And as the battle draws to a crisis around Chew's
House, as the British and Americans are disputing
the possession of the lawn now flooded with blood,
let me for a moment turn aside from the path of
regular history, and notice some of the legends
of the battle field, brought down to our times by
the hoary survivors of the Revolution.
And while the battle swelled fiercest, while the
armies traversed that green lawn in the hurry of
contest, along the blood-stained sward, with calm
manner and even step, strode an unknown form,
passing unfearingly over the field, passing amid
smoke and mist and gloom, while the wounded
fell shrieking at his feet, and the faces of the dead
met his gaze on every side.
It was the form of an aged man, with grey hairs
streaming over his shoulders, an aged man with
a mild yet fearless countenance, with a tall and
impressive figure, clad neither in the glaring dress
of the Britisher, or the hunting-shirt of the Continental,
but in the plain attire of drab cloth, the
simple coat, vest with wide lappels, small clothes
and stockings, that mark the believers of the Quaker
faith.
He was a Friend. Who he was, or what was
his name, whence he came, or whither he went,
no one could tell, and tradition still remains silent.
But along that field, he was seen gliding amid
the heat and glare of battle. Shrieked the wounded
soldier for a cup of water, it was his hand that
brought it from the well, on the verge of Chew's
wall. Extended along the sward, with their
ghastly faces trembling with the spasmodic throe
of insupportable pain, the dying raised themselves
piteously on their trembling hands, and in broken
tones asked for relief, or in the wildness of delirium
spoke of their far-off homes, whispered a message
to their wives or little ones, or besought the blessing
of their grey-haired sires.
It was the Quaker, the unknown and mysterious Friend who was seen unarmed save with the Faith
of God, undefended save by the Armor of Heaven
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kneeling on the sod, whispering words of comfort
to the dying, and pointing with his uplifted hand
to a home beyond the skies, where battle nor
wrong nor death ever came.
Around Chew's House and over the lawn he
sped on his message of mercy. There was fear
and terror around him, the earth beneath his measured
footsteps trembled, and the air was heavy
with death, but he trembled not, nor quailed, nor
turned back from his errand of mercy.
Now seen in the thickest of the fight, the soldiers
rushing on their paths of blood, started back
as they beheld his mild and peaceful figure. Some
deemed him a thing of air, some more superstitious,
thought they beheld a spirit, not one offered to
molest or harm the Messenger of Peace.
It was a sight worth all the ages of controversial
Divinity to see, this plain Quaker going forth with
the faith of that Saviour, whose name has ever
been most foully blasphemed by those who called
themselves his friends, going forth with the faith
of Jesus in his heart, speaking comfort to the dying,
binding up the gashes of the wounded, or yet
again striding boldly into the fight and rescuing
with his own unarmed hands the prostrate soldier
from the attack of his conquering foe.
Blessings on his name, the humble Quaker, for
this deed which sanctifies humanity, and makes
us dream of men of mortal mould raised up to the
majesty of Gods. His name is not written down,
his history is all unknown, but when the broad
books of the unknown world are bared to the eyes
of a congregated universe, then will that name
shine brighter and lighten up with a holier gleam
than the name of any Controversial Divine or
loud-mouthed hireling that ever disgraced Christianity
or blasphemed the name of Jesus.
Within Chew's House this was the scene:
Every room crowded with soldiers in their
glaring crimson attire, the old hall thronged by
armed men, all stained with blood and begrimed
with battle smoke, the stair-way trembling beneath
the tread of soldiers bearing ammunition to the
upper rooms, while every board of the floor, every
step of the stair-case bore its ghastly burden of
dying and dead, the air was pestilent with the
smell of powder, the walls trembled beneath the
shock of battle, and thick volumes of smoke rolling
from the lower rooms, wound through the doors,
into the old hall, and up the stairway, enveloping
all objects in a pall of gloom, that now shifted
aside, and again came down upon the forms of the
Britishers like dark night.
Let us ascend the stairway. Tread carefully,
or your foot will trample on the face of that dead
soldier; ascend the staircase with a cautious step,
or you will lose your way in the battle smoke.
The house trembles to its foundation, one volley
of musquetry after another breaks on your
ear, and all around is noise and confusion; nothing
seen but armed men hurrying to and fro,
nothing heard but the thunder of the fight.
We gain the top of the stairway—we have
mounted over the piles of dead—we pass along
the entry—we enter the room on the right, tacing
toward the lawn.
A scene of startling interest opens to our sight.
At each window are arranged files of men, who,
with faces all blood stained and begrimed, are
sending their musquet shots along the lawn; at
each window the floor is stained with a pool of
blood, and the bodies of the dead are dragged
away by the strong hands of their comrades, who
fill their places almost as soon as they receive
their death wound. The walls are rent by cannon
balls, and torn by bullets, and the very air seems
ringing with the carnival shouts of old Death, rejoicing
in the midst of demons.
Near a window in this room clustered a gallant
band of British officers, who gave the word to the
men, directed the dead to be taken from the floor,
or gazed out upon the lawn in the endeavor to
pierce the gloom of the contest.
Some were young and handsome officers, others
were veterans who had mowed their way through
many a fight, and all were begrimed with the
blood and smoke of battle. Their gaudy coats were
rent, the epaulette was torn from one shoulder by
the bullet, the plume from the helm of another
and a third fell in his comrades' arms, as he received
the ball in his heart.
While they stood gazing from the window, a
singular incident occurred.
A young officer, standing in the midst of his
comrades, felt something drop from the ceiling,
and trickle down his cheek.
The fight was fierce and bloody in the attic
overhead. They could hear the cannon balls tearing
shingles from the roof—they could hear the
low, deep groans of the dying.
Another drop fell from the ceiling—another and
another.
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“It is blood!” cried his comrades, and a laugh
went round the group.
Drop after drop fell from the ceiling; and in a
moment a thin liquid stream came trickling down,
and pattered upon the blood-stained floor.
The young officer reached forth his hand, he
held it extended beneath the falling stream: he
applied it to his lips.
“Not blood, but wine!” he shouted. “Good
old Madeira wine!”
The group gathered round the young officer in
wonder. It was wine—good old wine—that was
dripping from the ceiling. In a few moments the
young officer, rushing through the gloom and confusion
of the stairway, had ransacked the attic,
and discovered under the eaves of the roof, between
the rafters and the floor, some three dozen bottles
of old Madeira wine, placed there for safe-keeping
some score of years before the battle. These bottles
were soon drawn from their resting-place, and
the eyes of the group in the room below were presently
astonished by the vision of the ancient bottles,
all hung with cobwebs, and with the sealed
corks covered with dust.
In a moment the necks were struck off some
half-dozen bottles, and while the fire poured from
the window along the lawn, while cries, and
shrieks, and groans, broke on the air; while the
smoke came rolling in the window, now in folds
of midnight blackness, and now turned to lurid
red by the glare of cannon; while the terror and
gloom of battle arose around them, the group of
officers poured the wine in an ancient goblet, discovered
in a closet of the mansion,—they filled it
brimming full with wine, and drank a royal health
to the good King George!
They drank and drank again, until their eyes
sparkled, and their lips grew wild with loyal
words, and their thirst for blood—the blood of the
rebels—was excited to madness. Again and again
were the soldiers shot down at the window, again
were their places filled, and again and again the
goblet went round from lip to lip, and the old
wine was poured forth like water, in healths to
the good King George!
And as they drank, one by one, the soldiers
were swept away from the windows, until at the
last the officers stood exposed to the blaze of the
American fire, flashing from the green lawn.
“Health to King George—Death to the rebels!”
The shout arose from the lips of a grey-haired
veteran, and he fell to the floor, a mangled corse.
The arm that raised the goblet was shattered at
the elbow by one musket ball, as another penetrated
his brain.
The goblet was seized by another hand, and the
revel grew loud and wild. The sparkling wine
was poured forth like water, healths were drank,
hurrahs were shouted, and—another officer measured
his length on the floor. He had received
his ball of death.
There was something of ludicrous horror in the
scene.
Those sounds of revel and bacchanalian uproar,
breaking on the air, amid the intervals—the short
and terrible intervals of battle—those faces flushed
by wine, and agitated by all the madness of the
moment, turned from one side to another, each lip
wearing a ghastly smile, each eye glaring from its
socket, while each voice echoed the drunken shout
and the fierce hurrah.
Another officer fell wounded, and another, and
yet another. The young officer who had first discovered
the wine alone remained.
He glanced round upon his wounded and dying
comrades, he looked vacantly in the faces of the
dead, he gazed around upon the terror and confusion
of the scene, and then he seized the goblet,
filled it brimming-full with wine, and raised it to
his lips.
His lip touched the edge of the goblet, his face
was reflected in the quivering wavelets of the
wine, his eyes rolled wildly to and fro, and then
a musket shot pealed through the window. The
officer glared around with a terrible glance, and
then the warm blood, spouting from the wound
between his eyebrows, fell drop by drop into the
goblet, and mingled with the wavelets of the ruby
wine.
And then there was a wild shout, and a heavy
body toppled to the floor; and so ended the debauch
of death.
Let us for a moment notice the movements of
the divisions of Washington's army, and then return
to the principal battle ground at Chew's
house.
The movements of the divisions of Smallwood
and Forman are, to this day, enveloped in mystery.
They came in view of the enemy, but the
density of the mist prevented them from effectually
engaging with the British.
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Armstrong came marching down the Manatawny
road, until the quiet Wissahikon dawned
in the eyes of his men; but after this moment,
his march is also enwrapt in mystery.—
Some reports say that he actually engaged with
the Hessian division of the enemy, others state
that the alarm of the Americans retreating from
Chew's house reached his ear, as the vanguard of
his command entered Germantown, near the market-house,
and commenced firing upon the chasseurs
who flanked the left wing of the British
army.
However this may be, yet tradition has brought
down to our times a terrible legend connected with
the retreat of Armstrong's division. The theatre
of this legend was the quiet Wissahikon, and this
is the story of ancient tradition.
It is a poem of everlasting beauty and a dream
of magnificence—the world-hidden, wood-embowered
Wissahikon. Its pure waters break forever
in ripples of silver around the base of colossal
rocks, or sweep murmuringly on, over beds of pebbled
flints, or spread into calm and mirror-like
lakes, with shores of verdure, surmounted by green
hills, rolling away in waves of forest trees, or
spreading quietly in the fierce light of the summer
sun, with the tired cattle grouped beneath the lofty
oaks.
It is a poem of beauty—where the breeze
mourns its requiem through the tall pines; where
the silver waters send up their voices of joy; where
calmness, and quiet, and intense solitude awe the
soul, and fill the heart with bright thoughts and
golden dreams, woven in the luxury of the summer
hour.
From the moment your eyes first drink in the
gladness of its waters, as they pour into the
Schuylkill, seven miles from Philadelphia, until
you behold it winding its thread of silver along
the meadows of Whitemarsh, many miles above,
it is all beauty, all dream, all magnificence.
It breaks on your eye, pouring into the Schuylkill,
a calm lake, with an ancient and picturesque
mill[4] in the foreground; a calm lake, buried in the
depths of towering steeps, that rise almost perpendicularly
on either side, casting a shadow of gloom
over the water, while each steep is green with
brushwood, each rocky cleft magnificent with the
towering oak, the sombre pine, or the leafy chesnut.
This glen is passed; then come quiet hilly shores,
sloping away to the south in pleasant undulations,
while on the north arise frowning steeps, and then
your mind is awed by tremendous hills on either
side, creating one immense solitude; rugged steeps—
all precipice and perpendicular rock—covered
and crowded with giant pines, and then come calm
and rippleless lakes, shadowy glens, deep ravines
and twilight dells of strange and dreamy beauty.
There is, in sooth, a stamp of strange and dreamy
beauty impressed upon every ripple of the Wissahikon,
every grassy bank extending greenly along
its waters, on every forest-tree towering beside its
shores.
On the calm summer's day, when the sun is declining
in the broad west, you may look from the
height of some grey, rugged steep, down upon the
depths of the world-hidden waters. Wild legends
wander across your fancy as you gaze; every scene
around you seems but the fitting location for a wild
and dreamy tradition, every rock bears its old time
story, every nook of the wild wood has its tale of
the ancient days. The waters, deep, calm, and
well-like, buried amidst overhanging hills, have a
a strange and mysterious clearness. The long
shadows of the hills, broken by golden belts of
sunshine, clothe the waters in sable and gold, in
glitter and in shadow. All around is quiet and
still; silence seems to have assumed a positive existence
amid these vallies of romance and of
dreams.
eaf246.n4[4] Formerly Vanduring's, now Robinson's mill.
It was along the borders of this quiet stream,
that an ancient fabric arose, towering through the
verdure of the trees, with its tottering chimneys
enveloped in folds of mist. The walls were severed
by many a fissure, the windows were crumbling
to decay, and the halls of the ancient mansion
were silent as the tomb.
It was wearing toward noon, when a body of
soldiers, wearing the blue hunting-shirt and fur
cap with bucktail plume, came rushing from the
woods on the opposite side of the rivulet, came
rushing through the waters of the lovely stream,
and hurried with hasty steps toward the deserted
house.
In a moment they had entered its tottering
doorway, and disappeared within its aged walls.
Another instant, and a body of soldiers broke from
the woods on the opposite side of the stream, clad
in the Hessian costume, with ponderous bearskin
caps, heavy accoutrements, and massive muskets.
They crossed the stream, and rushed into the
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house in pursuit of the flying continentals. They
searched the rooms on the first floor; they hurried
along the tottering timbers, but not a single Continental
was to be seen. They rushed up the crumbling
stairway with loud shouts and boisterous oaths,
and reached the rooms of the second story. Every
door was flung hastily aside, every closet was broken
open, the boards were even torn from the
floor, every nook was searched, every corner ransacked,
and yet no vision of a blue shirted backwoodsman,
met the eye of the eager Hessians. All
was silent as death. Their own footfalls were returned
in a thousand echoes, their own shouts
alone disturbed the silence of the house, but no
sound nor sight, could be obtained of the fleeing
Continentals. Every room was now searched,
save the garret, and the Hessians, some twenty
men, able bodied and stout, were about rushing
up the stairway of the attic in pursuit of the ten
Continental soldiers, when the attention of one of
their number was arrested by a singular spectacle.
The Hessian soldier beheld through a
crumbling window frame, the figure of a woman,
standing on the height of an abrupt steep, overhanging
the opposite side of the stream. She
waved her hands to the soldier, shouted and waved
her hands again. He heeded her not, but rushed
up the stairway after his companions.
The shout of that unknown woman was the
warning of death.
While the Hessians were busily engaged in
searching the attic, while their shouts and execrations
awoke the echoes of the roof, while they
were thrusting sword and bayonet into the dark
corners of the apartment, that shout of the woman
on the rock arose, echoing over the stream again
and again.
The Hessians rushed to the window, they suddenly
remembered that they had neglected to
search the cellar, and looking far below, they beheld
thin wreaths of light blue smoke, winding
upward from the cellar window.
A fearful suspicion crept over the minds of the
soldiers.
Thay rushed from the attic, in a moment they
might reach the lower floor and escape. With
that feeling of strange terror creeping round each
heart and paling every face they rushed tremblingly
on, they gained the second floor, their footsteps already
resounded along the stairway when the floor
trembled beneath their feet, a horrid combination
of sounds assailed their ears, and the walls rocked
to and fro like a drunken bacchanal.
Another moment! And along that green wood
rang a fearful sound, louder and more terrible than
thunder, shaking the very earth with an earthquake
motion, while the fragments of the ancient
fabric arose blackening into the heavens, mingled
with human bodies, torn and scattered into innumerable
pieces, and the air was filled with a dense
smoke, that hung over the forest, in one thick and
blackening pall.
In a few moments the scene was clear, but the
ancient house had disappeared as if by magic,
while the shouts of the Continental soldiers were
heard in the woods far beyond the scene.
The house had been used by the British as a
temporary depot of powder. When the American
Continentals rushed into the cellar, they beheld
the kegs standing in one corner, they piled up
combustible matter in its vicinity and then made
their escape from the house by a subterranean
passage known only to themselves. They emerged
into open air some hundred yards beyond, and
beheld the result of this signal vengeance on their
foes.
Again we return to the field of Chew's House.
Washington determined to make one last and
desperate effort. The Corps de Reserve under
Stirling, and Maxwell, and Nash, came thundering
along the field; each sword unsheathed, every
bayonet firm; every man eager and ready for the
encounter.
It was now near 9 o'clock in the morning.—
The enemy still retained Chew's House. The division
under Greene, the main body commanded
by Wayne, by Sullivan and Conway, composed
the American force engaged in actual contest.—
To this force was now added the Corps de Reserve,
under Lord Stirling, Generals Maxwell and Nash.
The British force, under command of General
Howe, who had arrived on the field soon after the
onslaught at Chew's House, were led to battle by
Kniphausen, Agnew, Grant and Grey, who now
rode from troop to troop, from rank to rank, hurrying
the men around toward the main point of
the fight.
There was a pause in the horror of the battle.
The Americans rested on their arms, the troopers
reined in their steeds in sight of Chew's House,
and amid the bodies of the dead. The Continental
ranks were terribly thinned by the desolating
fire from the house, every file was diminished,
and in some instances, whole companies were
swept away. The British were fresh in vigor,
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and ably armed and equipped. They impatiently
rushed forward, eager to steep their arms elbow
deep in American blood.
And amid the folds of mist and battle-smoke,
while the whole field resembled some fearful phantasmagoria
of fancy, with its shadowy figures flitting
to and fro, while the echo of the cannon, the
rattle of the musketry, and the shrieks of the
wounded yet rung on the soldiers' ears, they eagerly
awaited the signal for the re-commencement of
the fight.
The signal rang along the lines! In an instant
the cannons opened their fire on Chew's house, the
troopers came thundering on in their hurricane
charge, and all around were charging legions, armed
bodies of men hurrying toward the house, heaps
of the wounded strown over the sod; while that
terrible cry which had for three long hours gone
shrieking up to heaven from that lawn, now rose
above the tumult of battle—the quick, piercing cry
of the strong man, smitten suddenly down by his
death-wound.
The American soldiers fought like men who
fight for everything that man needs for sustenance,
or holds dear in honor, or sacred in religion. Step
by step the veteran continentals drove the Britishers
over the field, trampling over the faces of their
dead comrades in the very action; step by step
were they driven back in their turn, musquets
were clubbed in the madness of the strife, and the
cry for “quarter,” fell on deafened ears.
Then it was that the chieftains of the American
host displayed acts of preternatural daring and
superhuman courage!
In the thickest of the fight, where swords flashed
most fiercely, where death-groans shrieked most
terribly upon the air, where the steeds of contending
squadrons rushed madly against each other in
the wild encounter of the charge, there might you
see mad Anthony Wayne: his imposing form towering
over the heads of the combatants, his eye
blazing with excitement, and his sword, all red
with blood, rising and falling like a mighty hammer
in the hands of a giant blacksmith.
How gallantly the warrior-drover rides! How
keen is the glance of his eye, how unfearing the
waving of his sword, as foe after foe fall shrieking
from their steeds! On and on, without fear, without
a thought save his country's honor and the
vengeance of Paoli—on and on he rides, and as
he speeds, his shout rings out clear and lustily
upon the air—
“On, comrades, on—and Remember Paoli!”
“Forwarts, brüdern, forwarts!”
Ha! The gallant Pulaski! How like a king he
rides at the head of his unfearing band, how firmly
he sits in his stirrups, how gallantly he beckons
his men onward, how like a sunbeam playing on
glittering ice, his sword flits to and fro, along the
darkened air!
Like one solid battle-bolt, his gallant band speed
onward, carrying terror and confusion into the
very centre of Kniphausen's columns, leaving a
line of ghastly dead in their rear, and driving the
discomfitted Hessians before them, while the wellknown
battle-shout of Pulaski halloos these war-hounds
on to the slaughter.
“Forwarts—brudern—forwarts!”
And there he rides, known to all the men as
their commander, seen by every eye in the intervals
of the battle-smoke, hailed by a thousand
voices; in wild excitement and in terrible anxiety
he rides, cheering the soldiers with his deep-toned
voice, while his eye is fixed upon the varied aspects
of the fight.
A calm and mild-faced man, leading on a column
of Continentals rides up to his side, and is pushing
forward into the terror of the mist-hidden mellay
when the voice of Washington rings in his ear—
“Greene—why is Stephens not here? Why
does he delay his division?”
“General, we have no intelligence of his movements.
He has not yet appeared upon the field—”
Washington's lip quivered. A thousand worlds
seemed pent up in his heart, and for once in
his entire life, his agitation was visible and apparent.
He raised his clenched hand on high and as Napoleon
cursed Grouchy at Waterloo, in after times,
so Washington at Germantown cursed Stephens,
from his very heart of hearts. The glittering game
of battle was being played around him. Stephens
alone was wanting to strike terror into the ranks
of the enemy around Chew's House, the crisis had
come and—Stephens was not there, one of the
most important divisions of the army was useless.
And now the gallant Stirling, the brave Nash,
and the laurelled Maxwell, came riding on, at the
head of the corps de reserve, every man with his
sword and bayonet, yet unstained with blood, eager
to join the current of the fight.
Nash—the brave General of the North Carolina
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Division, was rushing into the midst of the mellay
with his men, leading them on to deeds of courage
and renown, when he received his death wound
and fell insensible in the arms of one of his aids-de-camp.
The mist gathering thicker and denser over the
battle field, caused a terrible mistake on the part
of the American divisions. They charged against
their own friends, shot down their own comrades,
and even bayonetted the very soldiers who had
shared their mess, ere they discovered the fatal
mistake. The mist and battle-smoke rendered all
objects dim and indistinct—the event of this battle
will show, that it was no vain fancy of the
author, which induced him to name this mist of
Germantown—the Shroud of Death. It proved a
shroud of death, in good sooth, for hundreds
who laid down their lives on the sod of the battle
field.
The gallant Colonel Matthews, at the head of a
Virginia regiment, penetrated into the centre of
the town, driving the British before him at pleasure,
and after this glorious effort, he was returning
to the American lines with some 300 prisoners,
when he encountered a body of troops in the
mist, whom he supposed to be Continentals. He
rode unfearingly into their midst, and found himself
a prisoner in the heart of the British army!
The mist had foiled his gallant effort, himself
and his men were captives to the fortune of war,
and his prisoners were recaptured.
Now it was that Washington beheld his soldiers
shrink and give way on every side! On every hand
they began to waver, from line to line, from column
to column ran terrible rumors of the approach
of Cornwallis, with a reinforcement of Grenadiers,
and the American soldiers were struck
with despair.
They had fought while there was hope, they
had paved their way to victory with heaps of
ghastly dead, they had fought against superior
discipline, superior force, superior fortune, but the
fearful mist, that overhung the battle field, blasted
all their hopes, and along the American columns
rang one fearful word, that struck like a
knell of death on the heart of Washington—“retreat”—
“RETREAT!”
It was all in vain that the American chieftain
threw himself in the way of the retreating ranks
and besought them to stand firm—for the sake of
their honor, for the sake of their country, for the
sake of their God.
It was all in vain! In vain was it that Pulaski
threw his troopers in the path chosen by the fugitives;
in vain did he wave his sword on high, and
beseech them in his broken dialect, with a flushed
cheek and a maddening eye, implore them, to turn
and face the well-nigh conquered foe! It was in
vain!
In vain did Mad Anthony Wayne, the hero of
Pennsylvania, ride from rank to rank, and with
his towering form raised to its full height, hold
his hand aloft, and in the familiar tones of brotherly
intimacy, beckon the soldiers once again
to the field of battle.
All was in vain!
And while Chew's house still belched forth its
fires of death, while all through Germantown were
marching men, hot-foot from Philadelphia, while
over the fatal lawn rushed hurried bands of the
Continentals, seeking for their comrades among
the dead, Washington gazed to the north and beheld
the columns of Continentals, their array all
thinned and scattered, their numbers diminished,
taking their way along the northern road, calmly
it is true, and in remarkable order, but still in the
order of a retreat, though the enemy showed no
disposition to annoy or pursue them.
And while his heart swelled to bursting, and
his lip was pressed between his teeth in anguish,
Washington bowed his head to the mane of his
gallant “grey” and veiled his face in his hands, and
then his muscular chest throbbed as though a
mighty tempest were pent up within its confines.
In a moment he raised his face. All was calm
and immoveable, all traces of emotion had passed
away from the stern and commanding features, like
the waves rolling from the rock.
He whispered a few brief words to his aids-decamp,
and then raising his form proudly in the
stirrups, he rode along the Continental columns,
while with a confused and half-suppressed murmuring
sound, the Retreat of Germantown commenced.
-- --
Lippard, George, 1822-1854 [1843], The battle-day of Germantown (A. H. Diller, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf246].
