The old man's grey hairs are waving in the
breeze, and his extended hand grasps a broken
bayonet, which he raises on high with a maniac
gesture.

The soldier and the veteran he bears upon his
shoulders, are clad in the blue hunting shirt, torn
and tattered and stained with blood, it is true, but
still you can recognize the uniform of the Revolution.

The tottering soldier nears the group, he lays
the aged veteran down by the roadside, and then
looks around with a ghastly face and a rolling eye.
There is blood dripping from his attire, his face is
begrimed with powder, and spotted with crimson
drops. He glances wildly around, and then kneeling
on the sod he takes the hands of the aged man
in his own, and raises his head upon his knee.

The battle, the battle, how goes the battle?

The group cluster round as they shriek the
question.

The young Continental makes no reply, but
gazing upon the face of the dying veteran, wipes
the beaded drops of blood from his forehead.

“Comrade,” shrieks the veteran, “raise me on
my feet, and wipe the blood from my eyes. I
would see him once again!”

He is raised upon his feet, the blood is wiped
from his eyes.

“I see—I see—it is he—it is Washington!
Yonder—yonder—I see his sword—and Antony
Wayne,—raise me higher, comrade,—all is getting
dark—I would see—Mad Antony!”

Did you ever see a picture that made your heart
throb and your eyes grow blind with tears?

Here is one.

The roadside, the group clustered in front of
Allen's House, which rises massive and solemn in
the background. The young soldier, all weak and
trembling from loss of blood, raising the grey-haired
veteran in his arms, placing his face toward
Germantown, while the wrinkled features light up
with a sudden gleam, and waving his broken bayonet
before his eyes, he looks toward the sence of
the late fight.

The bystanders, spectators of this scene. The
matron gazing anxiously upon the old man's face,
her eyes swimming in tears, the ruddy-cheeked boy
holding one hand of the dying veteran, the youthful
maiden, all blossom and innocence, standing
slightly apart, with the ancient man in peasant's
attire, gazing vacantly around as he grasps her
arm.

“Lift me, comrade—higher, higher—I see him
I see Mad Antony! Wipe the blood from my
eyes, comrade, for it darkens my sight—it is dark,
it is dark!”

And the young soldier held in his arms a lifeless
corse. The old veteran was dead. He had
fought his last fight, fired his last shot, shouted
the name of Mad Antony for the last time, and
yet his withered hand clenched, with the tightness
of death, the broken bayonet.

The battle, the battle, how goes the battle?

As the thrilling question again rung in his ears
the young Continental turned to the group, smiled
ghastily and then flung his wounded arm to the
south.

“Lost!” he shrieked, and rushed on his way
like one bereft of his senses. He had not gone
ten steps, when he bit the dust of the roadside, and
lay extended in the face of day a lifeless corse.

The eyes of the group were now fixed upon the
valley below.

Tramp, tramp, echoed the sound of hoofs, and
then a steed, caparisoned in battle array, came
sweeping up the hill, with his wounded rider
hanging helpless and faint by the saddle-bow.—
Then came another steed, speeding up the hill,
with bloodshot eye and quivering nostril, while
his rider fell dying to the earth, shouting his wild
hurrah as he fell.

Then came baggage wagons, then bodies of
flying troops in continental attire turned the bend
of the road in the valley below, and like a flash the
hillside of Mount Airy was all alive with disordered
masses of armed men, rushing onward with
hurried steps and broken arms.

Another moment! The whole array of the
continental army comes sweeping round the bend
of the road, file after file, rank after rank, and now
a column breaks into sight.

Alone the whole column, no vision meets the
eyes of the group, but the spectacle of broken arms,
tarnished array, men wearied with toil and thirst,
fainting with wounds, and tottering with the loss
of blood.

On and on, along the ascent of the hill they
rush, some looking hastily around with their pallid
faces stained with blood, some holding their shattered
arms high over head, others aiding their
wounded comrades as they hurry on in the current
of the retreat, while waving in the air, the
blue banner of the continental host, with its array

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

of thirteen stars, droops heavily from the flagstaff,
as its torn folds come sweeping into light.

And from file to file, with a wild movement and
a reckless air, rode a tall and muscular soldier clad
in the uniform of a general officer, his sword waving
aloft and his voice heard above the hurry and
confusion of the retreat—

“Turn, comrades, turn and face the Britisher—
turn, and the day is ours!”

Mad Antony cried in vain! The panic had gone
like a lightning flash through the army, and every
man hurried on, without a thought save the
thought of retreat, without a motive save the escape
from the fatal field of Chew's House.

Then came Pulaski and his veterans, their costumes
of white extending along the road, in glaring
relief against the background of blue-shirted continentals;
then came the columns of Sullivan, the
division of Greene, and then huddled together in
a confused crowd came the disordered bands of
the army, who had broken their ranks, and were
marching beside the baggage wains loaded to the
very sides with wounded and dying.

It was a sad and ghastly spectacle to see that
train of death-cars, rolling heavily on, with the
carcases of the wounded hanging over their sides,
with broken arms and limbs protruding from their
confines, with pallid faces upturned to the sky,
while amid the hurry and motion of the retreat,
piteous moans, fierce cries, and convulsive deathshrieks
broke terribly on the air.

Yon gallant officer leaning from his steed, yon
gallant officer, with the bared forehead, the disordered
dress, the ruffle spotted with blood, the
coat torn by sword thrusts, and dripping with the
crimson current flowing from the heart, while an
aid-de-camp riding by his side supports his fainting
form on his steed, urging the noble animal
forward in the path of the retreat.

It is the brave General Nash. He has fought
his last fight, led his gallant North Carolinians on
to the field for the last time, his heart is fluttering
with the trembling pulsation of death, and his eyes
swimming in the dimness of coming dissolution.

In the rear, casting fierce glances toward Germantown,
rides the tall form of Washington, with
Pickering and Hamilton and Marshall clustering
round their chieftain, while the sound of the re
treating legions is heard far in the distance, along
the heights of Chesnut Hill.

Washington reaches the summit of Mount Airy,
he beholds his gallant though unfortunate army
sweeping far ahead, he reins his steed for a moment
on the height of the mount and looks
toward the field of Germantown!

One long look toward the scene of the hard
fought fight, one quick and fearful memory of the
unburied dead, one half-smothered exclamation of
anguish, and the chieftain's steed springs forward,
and thus progresses the retreat of Germantown.

In the town the scene is wild and varied. The
mist has not yet arisen, the startled inhabitants
have not crept from their places of concealment,
and through the village ride scattered bands and
regiments of the British army. Here a party of
gaudily-clad German troopers of Walbeck break
on your eye, yonder the solemn and ponderous
Hessian in his heavy accoutrements crosses your
path, here a company of plaid-kilted Highlanders
came marching on, with claymore and bag-pipe,
and yonder, far in the distance sweep the troopers
of Anspack, in their costume of midnight darkness,
relieved by ornaments of gold, with the skull
and cross-bones engraven on each sable cap.

In the centre of the village extended a level
piece of ground, surrounded by dwelling houses,
stretching from the eastern side of the road, with
the market-house, a massive and picturesque structure,
arising on one side, while the German Reformed
Church, with its venerable front and steeple,
arose on the other.

The gallant Captain Lee, of the Partizan Rangers,
had penetrated thus far into the town, in
common with many other companies of the army,
but soon all others retreated, and he was left alone
in the heart of the British army, while the continentals
were retreating over Mount Airy and
Chesnut Hill.

Lee had pursued a Hanoverian troop as far as
the market-house, when he suddenly perceived the
red-coated soldiers of Cornwallis breaking from
the gloom of the mist on the south, while a body
of troopers came rushing from the school-house
lane on one side, and another corps came thundering
from the church lane on the opposite side.

Lee was surrounded. The sable-coated troopers
whom he had been pursuing, now turned on their
pursuers,and escape seemed impossible. The brave

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

Partizan turned to his men. Each swarthy face
gleamed with delight—each sunburnt hand flung
aloft the battle-dented sword. The confusion and
havoc of the day had left the Partizan but forty
troopers, but every manly form was marked by
wide shoulders, muscular chest, and lofty bearing;
and their uniform of green, their caps of fur, with
buck-tail plume, gave a striking and effective appearance
to the band.

“Comrades, now for a chase!” shouted Lee,
glancing gaily over his men. “Let us give these
scare-crow hirelings a chase! Up the Germantown
road, advance, boys—forward!”

And as they galloped along the Germantown
road, riding gallantly four abreast, in all a warrior's
port and pride, the Hanoverians, now two
hundred strong, came thundering in their rear,
each dark-coated trooper leaning over the neck of
his steed, with sword upraised, and with fierce
battle shout cehoing from lip to lip.

Only twenty paces lay between the Rangers and
their foes. The monotonous sound of the pattering
hoof, the clank of the scabbard against the
soldier's booted leg, the deep, hard breathing of
the horses, urged by boot and spur to their utmost
speed, the fierce looks of the Hanoverians, their
bending figures, their dress of deep black, with relief
of gold, the ponderous caps, ornamented with
the fearful insignia of skull and cross-bone, the
Rangers sweeping gallantly in front, square, and
compact in their solid column, each manly form
in costume of green and gold, disclosed in the
light, in all its muscular ability and imposing proportions,
as they moved forward with the same
quick impulse, all combined, form a scene of
strange and varying interest, peculiar to those
times of Revolutionary peril and bloodshed.

The chase became exciting. The advance
company of sable coated troopers gained on Lee's
gallant band at every step, and at every step they
left their comrades further in the rear.

Lee's men spurred their steeds merrily forward,
ringing their boisterous shouts tauntingly upon
the air, while their exasperated foes replied with
curses and execrations.

And all along through the streets of Germantown
lay the scene of this exciting chase, the clatter
of the horses' hoofs a wake the echoes of the ancient
house, bringing the frightened denizens suddenly
to the doors and windows, and the pursuers
and pursued began to near the hill of the Menno
nist grave-yard, while the peril of Lee became
more imminent and apparent. The Hanoverians
were at the horses' heels of the Rangers—they
were gaining upon them at every step; in a moment
they would be surrounded and cut to pieces.

Lee glanced over his shoulder. He saw his
danger at a glance; they were now riding up the
hill, the advance company of the enemy were in
his rear, the main division were some hundred
yards behind. In a moment the quick word of
command rung from his lips, and at the instant,
as the whole corps attained the summit of the hill,
his men wheeled suddenly round, faced the pursuing
enemy, and came thundering upon their
ranks like an earth-riven thunderbolt!

Another moment! and the discomfitted Hanoverians
lay scattered and bleeding along the roadside;
here a steed was thrown back upon his
haunches, crushing its rider as it fell; here was a
trooper clinging with the grasp of death to his
horse's neck; yonder reared another horse without
its rider, and the ground was littered with the
overthrown and wounded troopers.

They swept over the black-coated troopers like
a thunderbolt, and in another instant the gallant
Rangers wheeled about, returning in their charge
of terror with the fleetness of the wind, each man
sabreing an enemy as he rode, and then, with a wild
hurrah, they regained the summit of the hill.

Lee drew his trooper's cap from his head, his
men did the same, and then, with their eyes fixed
upon the main body of the enemy advancing along
the foot of the hill, the gallant Rangers sent up a
wild hurrah of triumph, waving their caps above
their heads, and brandishing their swords.

The enemy returned a yell of execration, but
ere they reached the summit of the hill, Lee's
company were some hundred yards ahead, and all
pursuit was vain. The Rangers rode fearlessly
forward, and, ere an half-hour was passed, regained
the columns of the retreating army.

It was sunset upon the field of battle—solemn
and quiet sunset. The rich, golden light fell over
the grassy lawn, over the venerable fabric of
Chew's house, and over the trees scattered along
the field, turning their autumnal foliage to quivering
gold.

The scene was full of the spirit of desolation,
steeped in death, and crimsoned in blood. The

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

green lawn—with the soil turned up by the cannon
wheels, by the tramp of war steeds, by the
rush of the foemen—was all heaped with ghastly
piles of dead, whose cold upturned faces shone
with a terrible lustre in the last beams of the declining
sun.

There were senseless carcasses, with the arms
rent from the shattered body, with the eyes scooped
from the hollow sockets, with foreheads severed
by the sword thrust, with hair dabbled in blood,
with sunken jaws fallen on the gory chest; there
was all the horror, all the bloodshed, all the butchery
of war, without a single gleam of its romance
or chivalry.

Here a plaid-kilted Highlander, a dark-coated
Hanoverian, were huddled together in the ghastliness
of sudden death; each with that fearful red
wound denting the forehead, each with that same
repulsive expression of convulsive pain, while their
unclosed eyes, cold, dead, and lustreless, glared on
the blue heavens with the glare of death.

Yonder, at the foot of a giant elm, a continental,
strong armed and stout, sunk down in the grasp
of death. His head is sunken on his breast, his
white hair all blood-bedabbled, his blue hunting
shirt is spotted with clotted drops of purple. The
sunburnt hand extended, grasps the unfailing rifle—
the old warrior is merry even in death, for his
lip wears a cold and unmoving smile.

A little farther on a peasant boy bites the sod,
with his sunburnt face half buried in the bloodsoddened
earth, his rustic attire of linsey tinted by
the last beams of the declining sun; one arm convulsively
gathered under his head, the long brown
hair all stiffened with blood, while the other grasps
the well-used fowling piece, with which he rushed
to the field, fought bravely, and died like a hero.
The fowling piece is with him in death; the fowling
piece—companion of many a boyish ramble
beside the Wissahikon, many a hunting excursion
on the wild and dreamy hills that frown
around that rivulet—is now beside him, but the
hand that encloses its stock, is colder than the iron
of its rusted tube.

Let us hie over the field, with a soft and solemn
footstep, for our path is yet stamped with the recent
footsteps of death, and the ghosts of the heroes
are thronging in the invisible air of the fight.

Chew's house is silent and still. The shattered
windows, the broken hall door, the splintered roof,
the battered chimneys, and the walls of the house
stained with blood: all are silent, yet terrible
proofs of the havoc and ruin of the fight.

Silence is within Chew's house. No deathshriek,
no groan of agony, no voice shrieking to
the uplifted sword to spare and pity, breaks upon
the air. All is still and solemn, and the eye of
human vision may not pierce the gloom of the unknown,
and behold the ghosts of the slain crowding
before the throne of God.

The sun is setting over Chew's lawn and house,
the soldiers of the British army have deserted the
place, and as the last beams of day quiver over the
field, death—terrible and fearful death—broods
over the scene, in all its ghastliness and horror.

Along the solitary streets of Germantown, as
the sun went down, rang the echo of horses' hoofs,
and the form of the rider of a gallant war steed
was seen, disclosed in the last beams of the dying
day, as he took his way along the village road.

The horseman was tall, well-formed, and muscular
in proportion; his hair was slightly touched
with the frost of age, and his eye was wild and
wandering in its glance. The compressed lip,
the hollow cheek, the flashing eye, all told a story
of powerful, through suppressed emotion, stirring
the warrior's heart to bitter thoughts and gloomy
memories.

It was General Agnew, of the British army: he
had fought bravely in the fight of Chew's house,
though the presentiment sat heavy on his soul; he
had fought bravely, escaped without a wound, and
now was riding alone, along the solitary street,
toward the Mœnist grave-yard.

There was an expression on his commanding
face that it would have chilled your heart to see.
It was an expression which stamped his features
with a look of doom and fate, which revealed the
inward throbbings of his soul, as the dark presentiment
of the morning moved over its shadowy
depths.

He may have been thinking of his home, away
in the fair valleys of England—of the blooming
daughter, the bright-eyed boy, or the matronly
wife; and then a thought of the terrible wrong involved
in the British cause may have crossed his
soul, for the carnage of Chew's lawn had been
most fearful, and it is not well to slay hundreds of
living beings like ourselves, for the shadow of a
right.

He reached the point where the road sweeps

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

down the hill, in front of the grave-yard, and as
he rode slowly down the ascent, his attention was
arrested by a singular spectacle.

The head of a man, grey-bearded and grey-haired,
was thrust above the grave-yard wall, and
a fierce, malignant eye met the gaze of General
Agnew. It was the strange old man who, in the
morning, had asked whether “that was General
Grey?” pointing to the person of Agnew as he
spoke, and being answered, by mistake or design,
in the affirmative, fired a rifle at the officer from
the shelter of the wall.

No sooner had the wild face rose above the wall
than it suddenly disappeared, and, scarce noting
the circumstance, the General reined his steed for
a moment, on the descent of the hill, and gazed
toward the western sky, where the setting sun was
sinking behind a rainbow-hued pile of clouds, all
brilliant with a thousand contrasted lights.

The last beams of the sun trembled over the
high forehead of General Agnew, as, with his back
turned to the grave-yard wall, he gazed upon the
prospect, and his eye lit up with a sudden brilliancy,
when the quick and piercing report of a rifle
broke on the air, and echoed around the scene.

A small cloud of light blue smoke wound upward
from the grave-yard wall, a ghastly smile overspread
the face of Agnew, he looked wildly round
for a single instant, and then fell heavily ts the
dust of the road-side—a lifeless corse.

His gallant steed of ebon darkness of skin, lowered
his proud crest, and thrust his nostrils in his
master's face, his large eyes dilating, as he snuffed
the scent of blood upon the air; and at the very
instant, that same wild and ghastly face was
thrust above the stones of the grave-yard wall, and
a shriek of triumph, wilder and ghastlier than the
face, arose shrieking above the graves.

That rifle shot, pealing from the grave-yard
wall, was the LAST SHOT of the battle-day of Germantown;
and that corse flung along the roadside,
with those cold eyes glaring on the blue sunset
sky, with the death-wound near the heart, was
the LAST DEAD MAN of that day of horror.