| | 1 | Author: | Simms
William Gilmore
1806-1870 | Add | | | Title: | Eutaw  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | It is surely an early hour for the whip-poor-will to begin
her monotonous plainings, sitting on her accustomed hawthorn,
just on the edge of the swamp. The sun has hardly dropped
from sight behind the great pine-thickets. His crimson and
orange robes still flaunt and flicker in the western heavens;
gleams from his great red eyes still purple the tree-tops; and
you may still see a cheerful light hanging in the brave, free
atmosphere; while gray shapes, like so many half-hooded friars,
glide away through the long pine-avenues, inviting you, as it
would seem, to follow, while they steal away slowly from pursuit
into the deeper thickets of the swamp. “My child, my dear Bertha: To you alone can I look for
the rescue of your brother and myself. We are in the power of
an enemy, who requires your hand in marriage for the safety of
my own and my son's life. We have forfeited the security of
British law. My own offences are such that, delivered to the
commandant of Charleston, as I am threatened, my death — an
ignominious death — must follow. Your brother is a captive
also, charged with murdering the king's soldiers without a warrant.
He is suffering in health by his unavoidable confinement.
He can not long live in the condition in which he is kept; and
his release and mine are made to depend entirely on you. Let
me implore you, my child, to come to our succor, and to save us.
Become the wife of Captain Inglehardt, and suffer us once more
to see the light of heaven, and enjoy the freedom of earth.
Come, my beloved child, to our rescue; and, in making the
sacrifice of your choice, to my own, receive the blessings of
your fond, but fettered father. [P. S.] You will readily conceive
our exigency, when I tell you that my wrists and feet are
even now in manacles of iron, and have been so from the first
day of my captivity. For a time, indeed, your brother Henry
was held in similar fetters.” “Sorry, my dear colonel, to cut short your roving commission;
doubly sorry that it has not yet resulted as you could
wish. But we can spare you from the main action of the drama
no longer. We are now, I think, approaching the denouément,
and require all our heroes on the stage. Stewart is in rapid
march downward — a little too strong for us yet, particularly
with the reinforcements which he will get from the lower posts.
We hear of these in motion from several quarters, as many as a
thousand or twelve hundred men. These, in addition to his
estimated strength at present of twenty-three hundred, will give
heavy odds against us, unless our mounted men come out much
more numerously than usual. Greene is on the march, somewhat
recruited, but very little strengthened. Congress has done
nothing — can or will do nothing — not even give us arms and
ammunition! Three hundred of our people are still without
serviceable weapons of any kind, and seven hundred without
jackets or breeches. It is really lucky that we have hot
weather. We must make up in zeal what we lack in men and
munitions, and only fight the harder from having but little
means with which to fight at all! That, my dear Sinclair, is a
new philosophy for the management of armies, but it is one
that will not seem altogether silly in the estimation of the true
patriot. At all events, it is about the best that I can give to
you, who know how to fight so well on short commons; and it
affords the only hope upon which I have fed (very like fasting)
for a long season! Once more, then, my dear Sinclair, let me
regret the necessity which requires that you rejoin your brigade,
and defer, for a brief season, the painfully interesting personal
enterprises upon which you are engaged. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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