University of Virginia Library

58. CHAPTER LVIII.

The victory was won. In the last assault, Campbell had reached
the crest of the mountain, and the loyalists had given ground with
decisive indications of defeat. Ferguson, in the hopeless effort to
rally his soldiers, had flung himself into their van, but a bullet at
this instant reached his heart; he fell from his seat, and his white
horse, which had been conspicuous in the crowd of battle, bounded
wildly through the ranks of the Whigs, and made his way down
the mountain side.

Campbell passed onward, driving the royalists before him. For
a moment the discomfited bands hoped to join their comrades in
the rear, and, by a united effort, to effect a retreat: but the parties
led by Sevier and Cleveland, cheered by the shouts of their victorious
companions, urged their attacks with new vigor, and won
the hill in time to intercept the fugitives. All hopes of escape
being thus at an end, a white flag was displayed in token of submission;
and the remnant of Ferguson's late proud and boastful
army, now amounting to between eight and nine hundred men,
surrendered to the assailants.

It has scarcely ever happened that a battle has been fought, in
which the combatants met with keener individual exasperation
than in this. The mortal hatred which embittered the feelings of
Whig and Tory along this border, here vented itself in the eagerness
of conflict, and gave the impulse to every blow that was struck
—rendering the fight, from beginning to end, relentless, vindictive,
and bloody. The remembrance of the thousand cruelties practised
by the royalists during the brief Tory dominion to which my narrative
has been confined, was fresh in the minds of the stern and
hardy men of the mountains, who had pursued their foe with such

fierce animosity to this his last stage. Every one had some wrong
to tell, and burned with an unquenchable rage of revenge. It was,
therefore, with a yell of triumph that they saw the symbol of
submission raised aloft by the enemy; and for a space, the forest
rang with their loud and reiterated huzzas.

Many brave men fell on either side. Upon the slopes of the
mountain and on its summit, the bodies of the dead and dying lay
scattered amongst the rocks, and the feeble groans of the wounded
mingled with the fierce tones of exultation from the living. The
Whigs sustained a grievous loss in Colonel Williams, who had
been struck down in the moment of victory. He was young,
ardent, and brave; and his many soldier-like virtues, combined
with a generous and amiable temper, had rendered him a cherished
favorite with the army. His death served still more to increase the
exacerbation of the conquerors against the conquered.

The sun was yet an hour high when the battle was done. The
Whigs were formed in two lines on the ridge of the mountain;
and the prisoners, more numerous than their captors, having laid
down their arms, were drawn up in detached columns on the
intervening ground. There were many sullen and angry glances
exchanged, during this period of suspense, between victors and
vanquished; and it was with a fearful rankling of inward wrath,
that many of the Whigs detected, in the columns of the prisoners,
some of their bitterest persecutors.

This spirit was partially suppressed in the busy occupation that
followed. Preparations were directed to be made for the night-quarters
of the army; and the whole host was, accordingly, ordered
to march to the valley. The surgeons of each party were already
fully employed in their vocation. The bodies of the wounded were
strewed around; and, for the protection of such as were not in a
condition to be moved, shelters were made of the boughs of trees,
and fires kindled to guard them from the early frost of the season.
All the rest retired slowly to the appointed encampment.

Whilst Campbell was intent upon these cares, a messenger came
to summon him to a scene of unexpected interest. He was
informed that a gentleman, not attached to the army, had been
dangerously wounded in the fight, and now lay at the further
extremity of the mountain ridge. It was added that he earnestly

desired an interview with the commanding officer. Campbell lost
no time in attending to the request.

Upon repairing to the spot, his attention was drawn to a stranger
who lay upon the ground. His wan and haggard cheek, and restless
eye, showed that he suffered acute pain; and the blood upon
his cloak, which had been spread beneath him, indicated the
wound to have been received in the side. A private soldier of the
British army was his only attendant. To Campbell's solicitous
and kind inquiry, he announced himself, in a voice that was
almost over-mastered by his bodily anguish, to be Philip Lindsay,
of Virginia.

“You behold,” he said, “an unhappy father in pursuit of his
children.” Then, after a pause, he continued, “My daughter
Mildred, I have been told, is near me: I would see her, and quickly.”

“God have mercy on us!” exclaimed Campbell, “is this the
father of the lady who has sought my protection? Wounded too,
and badly, I fear! Where is Major Butler, who was lately
prisoner with Ferguson?” he said, addressing the attendant—“Go,
go, sir,” he added, speaking to the same person, “bring me the
first surgeon you can find, and direct some three or four men from
the ranks to come to your aid. Lose no time.”

The soldier went instantly upon the errand, and soon returned
with the desired assistance. Lindsay's wound had been already
staunched, and all that remained to be done was to put him in
some place of shelter and comfort. A cottage at the foot of the
mountain was pointed out by Campbell; a litter was constructed,
and the sick man was borne upon the shoulders of four attendants
to the designated spot. Meantime, Campbell rode off to communicate
the discovery he had made to Mildred and her brother.

Lindsay's story, since we last parted from him, may be briefly
told. He and Tyrrel had journeyed into the low country of
Virginia, to meet the friends of the royal government. These had
wavered, and were not to be brought together. A delay ensued,
during which Tyrrel had prevailed upon Lindsay to extend his
journey into North Carolina; whence, after an ineffectual effort
to bring the Tory party to some decisive step, they both returned
to the Dove Cote, having been nearly three weeks absent.

Upon their arrival, the afflicting intelligence met Lindsay of the

departure of Mildred and her brother for the seat of war.
Mildred's letter was delivered to him; and its contents almost
struck him dumb. It related the story of Arthur Butler's misfortunes,
and announced, that, for nearly a year past, Mildred had
been the wedded wife of the captive officer. The marriage had been
solemnized in the preceding autumn, in a hasty moment, as Butler
travelled south to join the army. The only witnesses were Mistress
Dimock, under whose roof it had occurred, Henry Lindsay, and
the clergyman. The motives that induced this marriage were
explained: both Mildred and Arthur hoped, by this irremediable
step, to reconcile Lindsay to the event, and to turn his mind from
its unhappy broodings: the increased exasperation of his feelings,
during the succeeding period, prevented the disclosure which
Mildred had again and again essayed to make. The recent
dangers which had beset Arthur Butler, had determined her to
fly to his rescue. As his wife she felt it to be her duty, and
she had, accordingly, resolved to encounter the peril of the
journey.

For a day or two after the perusal of this letter, Lindsay fell
into a deep melancholy. His presentiments seemed to have been
fatally realized, and his hopes suddenly destroyed. From this
despondency, Tyrrel's assiduous artifice aroused him. He proposed
to Lindsay the pursuit of his children, in the hope of thus luring
him into Cornwallis's camp, and connecting him with the fortunes
of the war. The chances of life, he reasoned, were against Butler, if
indeed, as Tyrrel had ground to hope, that officer were not already
the victim of the snares that had been laid for him.

Upon this advice, Lindsay had set out for Cornwallis's head-quarters,
where he arrived within a week after the interview of
Mildred and Henry with the British chief.

Whilst he delayed here, he received the tidings that his
daughter had abandoned her homeward journey, and turned aside
in quest of Butler. This determined him to continue his pursuit.
Tyrrel still accompanied him; and the two travellers having
arrived at the moment of the attack upon King's mountain,
Lindsay was persuaded by his companion to make the rash
adventure which, we have already seen, had been the cause of his
present misfortune.

It is not my purpose to attempt a description of the scene in
the cottage, where Arthur Butler and his wife, and Henry, first
saw Lindsay stretched upon a rude pallet, and suffering the
anguish of a dangerous wound. It is sufficient to say that, in the
midst of the deep grief of the bystanders, Lindsay was composed
and tranquil, like one who thought it vain to struggle with fate.
“I have foreseen this day, and felt its coming,” he muttered, in a
low and brooken voice; “it has happened as it was ordained. I have
unwisely struggled against my doom. There, take it,” he added,
as he stretched forth his hand to Butler, and in tones scarcely audible
breathed out, “God bless you, my children! I forgive you.”

During the night fever ensued, and with it came delirium. The
patient acquired strength from his disease, and raved wildly, in a
strain familiar to his waking superstition. The same vision of fate
and destiny haunted his imagination; and he almost frightened
his daughter from beside his couch, with the fervid eloquence of
his madness.

The cottage was situated near half a mile from the encampment
of the army. Towards daylight, Lindsay had sunk into a
slumber, and the attendant surgeon began to entertain hopes that
the patient might successfully struggle with his malady. Mildred
and Mary Musgrove kept watch in the apartment, whilst Butler,
with Horse Shoe Robinson and Allen Musgrove, remained anxiously
awake in the adjoining room. Henry Lindsay, wearied
with the toils of the preceding day, and old Isaac the negro, not
so much from the provocation of previous labor as from constitutional
torpor, lay stretched in deep sleep upon the floor.

Such was the state of things when, near sunrise, a distant
murmur reached the ears of those who were awake in the cottage.
These sounds attracted the notice of Horse Shoe, who immediately
afterwards stole out of the apartment and repaired to the camp.
During his walk thither the uproar became more distinct, and
shouts were heard from a crowd of soldiers who were discovered
in a confused and agitated mass in the valley, at some distance
from the encampment. The sergeant hastened to this spot, and,
upon his arrival, was struck with the shocking sight of the bodies
of some eight or ten of the Tory prisoners suspended to the limbs
of a large tree.

The repose of the night had not allayed the thirst of revenge
amongst the Whigs. On the contrary, the opportunity of conference
and deliberation had only given a more fatal certainty to
their purpose. The recent executions which had been permitted in
Cornwallis's camp, after the battle of Camden, no less than the
atrocities lately practised by some of the Tories who were now
amongst the captured, suggested the idea of a signal retribution.
The obnoxious individuals were dragged forth from their ranks
at early dawn, and summary punishment was inflicted by the
excited soldiery in the manner which we have described, in
spite of all remonstrance or command.

This dreadful work was still in progress when Horse Shoe
arrived. The crowd were, at that moment, forcing along to the
spot of execution a trembling wretch, whose gaunt form, crouching
beneath the hands that held him, and pitiful supplications for
mercy, announced him to the sergeant as an old acquaintance.
The unfortunate man had caught a glance of Robinson, and,
almost frantic with despair, sprang with a tiger's leap from the
grasp of those who held him, and, in an instant, threw his arms
around the sergeant's neck, where he clung with the hold of
a drowning man.

“Oh save me, save me, Horse Shoe Robinson!” he exclaimed
wildly. “Friend Horse Shoe, save me!”

“I am no friend of yours, Wat Adair,” said Robinson, sternly.

“Speak for me—Galbraith—speak, for old acquaintance sake!”

“Hold!” said Robinson to the crowd who had gathered round
to pluck the fugitive from his present refuge. “One word, friends!
stand back, I have somewhat to say in this matter.”

“He gave Butler into Hugh Habershaw's hands,” cried out
some of the crowd.

“He took the price of blood, and sold Butler's life for money—
he shall die!” shouted others.

“No words!” exclaimed many, “but up with him!”

“Mr. Robinson,” screamed Adair, with tears starting from his
eyes, “only hear me! I was forced to take sides against Major
Butler. The Tories would have burnt down my house; they suspected
me,—I was obliged,—Mike Lynch was witness,—mercy, mercy!”
and here the frightened culprit cried loud and bitterly.

“Friends,” said Horse Shoe calmly to the multitude, “there is
better game to hunt than this mountain-cat. Let me have my
way.”

“None has a better right than Horse Shoe Robinson,” said a
speaker from the group, “to say what ought to be done to Wat
Adair. Speak out, Horse Shoe!”

“Speak! We leave it to you,” shouted some of the leaders:
and instantly the crowd fell back and formed a circle round Horse
Shoe and Adair.

“I give you your choice,” said the sergeant, addressing the
captive, “for though your iniquities, Wat Adair, desarve that you
should have been the first that was strung up to yonder tree, yet
you shall have your choice, to tell us fully and truly, without
holding back name of high or low, who put you on to ambush
Major Arthur Butler's life at Grindall's Ford. Tell us that, to our
satisfaction, and answer all other questions besides that we may ax
you, and you shall have your life, taking, howsever, one hundred
lashes to the back of it.”

“I will confess all, before God, truly,” cried Adair with eagerness.
“James Curry told me of your coming, and gave me and
Mike Lynch money to help Hugh Habershaw.”

“James Curry had a master in the business,” said Robinson:
“His name?”

Adair hesitated for an instant and stammered out “Captain St.
Jermyn.”

“He was at your house? Speak it, man, or think of the
rope!”

“He was there,” said Adair.

“By my soul! Wat Adair, if you do not come out with the
whole truth,” said Robinson, with angry earnestness, “I take back
my promise. Tell me all you know.”

“Curry acted by the captain's directions,” continued the woodsman,
“he was well paid for it, as he told me, and would have got
more, if a quarrel amongst Habershaw's people hadn't stopped
them from taking Major Butler's life. So I have heard from the
men myself.”

“Well, sir?”

“That's all,” replied Adair.

“Do you know nothing about the court-martial?” asked
Robinson.

“Nothing, except that as the Major wasn't killed at the Ford,
it was thought best to have a trial, wherein James Curry and
Hugh Habershaw, as I was told, had agreed to swear against the
Major's life.”

“And were paid for it?”

“It was upon a consideration, in course,” replied Adair.

“And Captain St. Jermyn contrived this?”

“It was said,” answered Adair, “that the captain left it all to
Curry, and rather seemed to take Major Butler's side himself at
the trial. He didn't want to be known in the business!”

“Where is this Captain St. Jermyn?” demanded many voices.

This interrogatory was followed by the rush of the party towards
the quarter in which the prisoners were assembled, and, after a
lapse of time which seemed incredibly short for the performance
of the deed, the unhappy victim of this tumultuary wrath was seen
struggling in the agonies of death, as he hung from one of the
boughs of the same tree which had supplied the means of the
other executions.

By this time Butler and Henry Lindsay, attracted by the shouts
that reached them at the cottage, had arrived at the scene of
these dreadful events. Wat Adair was, at this moment, undergoing
the punishment for which his first sentence was commuted.
The lashes were inflicted by a sturdy arm upon his uncovered
back; and it was remarkable that the wretch who but lately had
sunk, with the most slavish fear, under the threat of death, now
bore his stripes with a fortitude that seemed to disdain complaint or
even the confession of pain. Butler and Henry hurried with a
natural disgust from this spectacle, and soon found themselves
near the spot where the lifeless forms of the victims of military
vengeance were suspended from the tree.

“Gracious Heaven!” exclaimed Butler, “is not that St. Jermyn?
What has he done to provoke this doom?”

“It is Tyrrel!” ejaculated Henry. “Major Butler, it is Tyrrel!
That face, black and horrible as it is to look at, I would know it
among a thousand!”

“Indeed!” said Butler, gazing with a melancholy earnestness

upon the scene, and speaking scarce above his breath, “is it so?
Tyrrel and St. Jermyn the same person! This is a strange
mystery.”

Robinson, at this moment, approached, and, in answer to
Butler's questions, told the whole story of the commotions that
had just agitated the camp.

“St. Jermyn was not with Ferguson,” said Butler, when the
sergeant had finished his narrative. “How came he here to-day?”

“First or last,” replied Robinson, “it is my observation, Major,
that these schemers and contrivers against others' lives are sure to
come to account. The devil put it into this St. Jermyn's head
to make Ferguson a visit. He came yesterday with Mr. Lindsay,
and got the poor gentleman his hurt. James Curry has done
working for him now, Major. Master and man have travelled
one road.”

The scene was now closed. The business of the day called the
troops to other labors. Campbell felt the necessity of an immediate
retreat with his prisoners to the mountains, and his
earliest orders directed the army to prepare for the march.

When Butler returned to the cottage, he found himself surrounded
by a mournful group. The malady of Lindsay had unexpectedly
taken a fatal turn. Mildred and Henry were seated
by the couch of their father, watching in mute anguish the last
ebbings of life. The dying man was composed and apparently
free from pain, and the few words he spoke were of forgiveness
and resignation.

In the midst of their sorrow and silence, the inmates of the
dwelling had their attention awakened by the military music of
the retiring army. These cheerful sounds vividly contrasted with
the grief of the mourners, and told of the professional indifference
of soldiers to the calamities of war. By degrees, the martial tones
became more faint, as the troops receded up the valley; and
before they were quite lost to the ear, Campbell and Shelby
appeared at the door of the cottage to explain the urgency of their
present departure, and to take a sad farewell of their friends.

Stephen Foster, with Harry Winter and a party of the Rangers,
remained behind to await the movements of Butler. Horse Shoe

Robinson, Allen Musgrove, and his daughter, were in constant
attendance.

Here ends my story.

In a lonely thicket, close upon the margin of the little brook
which waters the valley on the eastern side of King's mountain,
the traveller of the present day may be shown an almost obliterated
mound, and hard by he will see the fragment of a rude
tombstone, on which is carved the letters P. L. This vestige
marks the spot where the remains of Philip Lindsay were laid,
until the restoration of peace allowed them to be transported to
the Dove Cote.

There, also, in a happier day, Arthur Butler and Mildred took
up their abode; and notwithstanding the fatal presentiment in
regard to the fortunes of his house which had thrown so dark
a color upon the life of Philip Lindsay, lived long enough after
the revolution to see grow up around them a prosperous and
estimable family.

Mary Musgrove, too, attended Mildred, and attained an advanced,
and I hope a happy old age, at the Dove Cote.

Wat Adair, I have heard it said in Carolina, died a year after the
battle of King's mountain, of a horrible distemper, supposed to have
been produced by the bite of a rabid wolf. I would fain believe,
for the sake of poetical justice, that this was true.

Another item of intelligence, to be found in the history of the
war, may have some reference to our tale. I find that, in the
summer of 1781, Colonel Butler was engaged in the pursuit of
Cornwallis in his retreat from Albemarle towards Williamsburgh:
my inquiries do not enable me to say, with precision, whether it
was our friend Arthur Butler who had met this promotion. His
sufferings in the cause certainly deserved such a reward.