University of Virginia Library

DIALOGUE III.

Scene. The same.

1st Officer.

I cannot conceal it from you, Sir; there is
but one feeling about it, as far as I can judge, and I had
some chances in my brief journey—

2nd Off.

Were you at head-quarters?

1st Off.

Yes,—and every step of this retreating army
only makes it more desperate. I never knew any thing
like the mad, unreasonable terror this army inspires.
Burgoyne and his Indians!—“Burgoyne and the Indians!”—there
is not a girl on the banks of the Connecticut
that does not expect to see them by her father's
door ere day-break. Colonel Leslie, what were those
men concealing so carefully as we approached just now?
—Did you mark them?

2nd Off.

Yes. If I am not mistaken, it was the
paper we were speaking of.

1st Off.

Ay, ay,—I thought as much.

2nd Off.

General Arnold, I am surprised you should
do these honest men the injustice to suppose that such
an impudent, flimsy, bombastic tirade as that same proclamation
of Burgoyne's, should have a feather's weight
with any mother's son of them.

Arnold.

A feather's, ay a feather's, just so; but when
the scales are turning, a feather counts too, and that is
the predicament just now of more minds than you think
for, Colonel Leslie. A pretty dark horizon around us just
now, Sir,—another regiment goes off to-morrow, I hear.
Hey?

Leslie.

Why, no. At least we hope not. We think
we shall be able to keep them yet, unless—that paper
might work some mischief with them perhaps, and it
would be rather a fatal affair too, I mean in the way of
example.—These Green Mountain Boys—

Arnold.

Colonel Leslie, Colonel Leslie, this army is
melting away like a snow-wreath. There's no denying
it. Your General misses it. The news of one brave
battle would send the good blood to the fingers' ends
from ten thousand chilled hearts; no matter how fearful
the odds; the better, the better,—no matter how large
the loss;—for every slain soldier, a hundred better would
stand on the field;—

Leslie.

But then—

Arnold.

By all that's holy, Sir, if I were head here,
the red blood should smoke on this grass ere to-morrow's
sunset. I would have battle here, though none but the
birds of the air were left to carry the tale to the nation.
I tell you, Colonel Leslie, a war, whose resources are
only in the popular feeling, as now, and for months to
come, this war's must be; a war, at least, which depends
wholly upon the unselfishness of a people, as this war
does, can be kept alive by excitement only. It was
wonderful enough indeed, to behold a whole people, the
low and comfort-loving too, in whose narrow lives that
little world which the sense builds round us, takes such
space, forsaking the tangible good of their merry firesides,
for rags and wretchedness,—poverty that the thought of
the citizen beggar cannot reach,—the supperless night
on the frozen field; with the news perchance of a home
in ashes, or a murdered household, and, last of all, on some
dismal day, the edge of the sword or the sharp bullet
ending all;—and all in defence of—what?—an idea—an
abstraction,—a thought:—I say this was wonderful
enough, even in the glow of the first excitement. But
now that the Jersey winter is fresh in men's memories,
and Lexington and Bunker Hill are forgotten, and all
have found leisure and learning to count the cost; it
were expecting miracles indeed, to believe that this army
could hold together with a policy like this. Every step
of this retreat, I say again, treads out some lingering
spark of enthusiasm. Own it yourself. Is not this
army dropping off by hundreds, and desertion too,

increasing every hour, thinning your own ranks and
swelling your foes?—and that, too, at a crisis—Colonel
Leslie, retreat a little further, some fifty miles further;
let Burgoyne once set foot in Albany, and the business
is done,—we may roll up our pretty declaration as fast
as we please, and go home in peace.

Leslie.

General Arnold, I have heard you to the
end, though you have spoken insultingly of councils in
which I have had my share. Will you look at this little
clause in this paper, Sir. The excitement you speak of
will come ere long, and that at a rate less ruinous than
this whole army's loss. There's a line—there's a line,
Sir, that will make null and void, very soon, if not on
the instant, all the evil of these golden promises.
There'll be excitement enough ere long; but better blood
than that shed in battle fields must flow to waken it.

Arnold.

I hardly understand you, Sir. Is it this threat
you point at?

Leslie.

Can't you see?—They have let loose these
hell-hounds upon us, and butchery must be sent into our
soft and innocent homes;—beings that we have sheltered
from the air of heaven, brows that have grown pale at
the breath of an ungentle word, must meet the red knife
of the Indian now. Oh God, this is war!

Arnold.

I understand you, Colonel Leslie. There
was a crisis like this in New Jersey last winter, I know,
when our people were flocking to the royal standard, as

they are now, and a few fiendish outrages on the part of
the foe changed the whole current in our favor. It may
be so now, but meanwhile—

Leslie.

Meanwhile, this army is the hope of the
nation, and must be preserved. We are wronged, Sir.
Have we not done all that men could do? What were
twenty pitched battles to such an enemy, with a force
like ours, compared with the harm we have done them?
Have we not kept them loitering here among these hills,
wasting the strength that was meant to tell in the quivering
fibres of men, on senseless trees and stones,
paralyzing them with famine, wearying them with unexciting,
inglorious toil, until, divided and dispirited, at
last we can measure our power with theirs, and fight,
not in vain? Why, even now the division is planning
there, which will bring them to our feet. And what to
us, Sir, were the hazards of one bloody encounter, to
the pitiful details of this unhonored warfare?—We are
wronged—we are wronged, Sir.

Arnold.

There is some policy in the plan you speak
of,—certainly, there is excellent policy in it if one had
the patience to follow it out; but then you can't make
Congress see it, or the people either; and so, after all,
your General is superseded. Well, well, at all events he
must abandon this policy now,—it's the only chance left
for him.

Leslie.

Why; howso?

Arnold.

Or else, don't you see?—just at the point
where the glory appears, this eastern hero steps in,
and receives it all; and the laurels which he has been
rearing so long, blow just in time to drop on the brow of
his rival.

Leslie.

General Arnold,—excuse me, Sir—you do
not understand the man of whom you speak. There
is a substance in the glory he aims at, to which,
all that you call by the name is as the mere shell
and outermost rind. Good Heavens! Do you think
that, for the sake of his own individual fame, the
man would risk the fate of this great enterprize?—What
a mere fool's bauble, what an empty shell of honor,
would that be. If I thought he would—

Arnold.

It might be well for you to lower your voice
a little, Sir; the gentleman of whom you are speaking is
just at hand.

[Other officers are seen emerging from the woods.]

3d Off.

Yes, if this rumor holds, Lieutenant Van
Vechten, your post is likely to become one of more honor
than safety. Gentlemen—Ha!—General Arnold! You
are heartily welcome;—I have been seeking you, Sir.
If this news is any thing, the movement that was planned
for Wednesday, we must anticipate somewhat.

Leslie.

News from the enemy, General?

Gen. Schuyler.

Stay—those scouts must be coming

in, Van Vechten. Why, we can scarce call it news yet, I
suppose; but if this countryman's tale is true, Burgoyne
himself, with his main corps, is encamping at this moment
at the Mills, scarce three miles above us.

Arnold.

Ay, and good news too.

Leslie.

But that cannot be, Sir—Alaska—

Gen. Schuyler.

Alaska has broken faith with us if it is,
and the army have avoided the delay we had planned
for them.—That may be.—This man overheard their
scouts in the woods just below us here.

Arnold.

And if it is,—do you talk of retreat, General
Schuyler? In your power now it lies, with one hour's
work perchance, to make those lying enemies of yours
in Congress eat the dust, to clear for ever your blackened
fame. Why, Heaven itself is interfering to do you right,
and throwing honor in your way as it were! Do you talk
of retreat, Sir, now?

Gen. Schuyler.

Heaven has other work on hand just
now, than righting the wrongs of such heroes as you and I,
Sir. Colonel Arnold—I beg your pardon, Sir, Congress
has done you justice at last I see,—General Arnold, you
are right as to the consequence, yet, for all that, if this
news is true, I must order the retreat. My reputation
I'll trust in God's hands. My honor is in my own keeping.

[Exeunt Schuyler, Leslie, and Van Vechten.

Arnold.

There's a smoke from that chimney; are
those houses inhabited, my boy?

Boy.

Part of them, Sir. Some of our people went off
to-day. That white house by the orchard—the old parsonage
there? Ay, there are ladies there Sir, but I heard
Colonel Leslie saying this morning 'twas a sin and a
shame for them to stay another hour.

Arnold.

Ay, Ay. I fancied the Colonel was not dealing
in abstractions just now.

[Exeunt.