University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
CHEW'S HOUSE.

“There is but one hope for us!” shouted Colonel
Musgrave, as his regiment rushed in full retreat toward
the British line. “One hope, Major Tracy!
If that fails, our forces will be defeated—Philadelphia
retaken—and the rebel cause triumphant!
We must make a fortress of Chew's House—yonder
mansion of stone—its walls are in some places
three feet thick, and we can hold the place for
hours! Away to Chew's House!”

Major Tracy, by his words and example, encouraged
the scattering regiment to press onward toward
the mansion, which stood retired from the
road at the distance of near two hundred yards.
It was, and is, a substantial edifice, built of the
most lasting stone, which will resist the tooth of
time for ages. It stands facing the road, with two
wings of stone supporting it in the rear, and toward
the north—at the time of the Romance—the edifice
presented a plain side of stone, only varied by two
deep-silled windows, which gave light to that part
of the mansion, one in the first and the other in the
second story. The roof descends with a gentle
slope, and the eves are defended by massive cornices,

which give an appearance of solidity and
strength to the building. In front of Chew's Mansion,
on the battle morn, lay a wide lawn, reaching
over two hundred yards to the main road of the village,
extending south the same distance, and spreading
toward the north, in an open field, of some four
hundred yards in extent.

This lawn was defended along the road by a wall
of stone, and a few trees were scattered here and
there over its surface, while an enclosure of sheds
and fences, for confining cattle, was pitched some
fifty yards to the north of the mansion, in direct
view of the northern windows.

In the north window of the second floor of the
mansion, Marian Waltham sat gazing through the
gloom and obscurity of the mist, upon the lawn that
encircled the edifice. Her fair bosom trembled
with indefinable terror as she listened to the increasing
tumult of battle, with her head inclined to
one side, her blue eyes brightening with interest,
and her lips parted with intense anxiety. This
terror the kind offices of the housekeeper of the
mansion, whose portly form was seated at her side,
in vain endeavored to dispel or assuage.

“La! Miss Waltham, what's the use of taking
on so!” exclaimed the housekeeper, giving the keys
at her girdle an important rattle. “As sure as my
name's Betty Fisher, and as sure as Mr. Chew's
family are all at Phildelphy, leaving me to take

care of this place, as sure as I've had to pervide for
Col. Musgrave, and all his rampaging red-coats, jist
so sure will you be as safe here, as though you
were in your own father's parlor, over on the Ridge
Road. And so a rascally rebel run off with you—
did he? The ragmuffin! Jist as you were a-goin'
to be married, too? How unpolite—”

Miss Betty Fisher's round and rubicand face assumed
an expression of intense curiosity, and her
voluminous figure moved closer to Miss Waltham's
side.

“How kind in Col. Musgrave to rescue you from
the rebels' clutches! I b'lieve my heart that old
Quaker was at the bottom of it all—I do! Jist to
think—goodness grashus! What's that—coming
from the fog—oh! Lud!”

Miss Waltham gazed with a hurried gesture
from the window, at the exclamation of the house-keeper,
and beheld, rushing from the depths of the
fog, which concealed all objects beyond thirty
paces in the vicinity of the mansion, a confused
band of British soldiers, some mounted, others on
foot, who ran with shouts and imprecations towards
the hall door which opened on the lawn. The
soldiers continued to pour along the lawn for the
space of several minutes, in the same irregular
stream, regardless of order or discipline; some of
their number were covered with blood; others had
their uniform soiled and torn; others were destitute

of arms, and the entire body presented all the appearances
that accompany defeat and dismay.

“There's Col. Musgrave!” screamed Betty
Fisher, “and there's Major Tracy all covered with
dust and blood, among the rumpaging troopers!
Oh! Lud! here's a purty how d'ye do—and in
Mr. Chew's house, too! Goodness grashus!”

Ere Marian had time to wonder at the appearance
of Major Tracy and Col. Musgrave, in the
plight in which she saw them, the room in which
she was seated was filled with British soldiers, and
Miss Betty Fisher hurried her fair charge away, to
an obscure corner of the mansion.

While the preparations for an obstinate defence
were progressing in every part of the mansion, the
American troops, in pursuit of the flying enemy,
arrived in full chase, along the Germantown Road,
in front of the field in which the edifice was
situated.

Herbert Tracy with his men, placed, together
with the Partizan Legion of the brave Lee, near
the person of the Commander-in-Chief, swept on
in the very van of the pursuit. When the American
forces were called to a sudden halt, in front of
the mansion, so thick were the clouds of dust, and
the smoke of battle that rolled over their heads, and
so dense was the fog that enveloped their line of
march, that when the young captain gazed around
him, all objects beyond the vicinity of his own men,

were wrapt in obscurity. The stately form of
Washington, surrounded by his staff, was visible,
however, amid all the mist and gloom, as an aid-de-camp
came galloping up, and gave information
of the lodgment of Col. Musgrave with six companies
of infantry in Chew's mansion.

“Shall we press onward,” exclaimed Washington
turning to the brave men around him, “in pursuit
of the main body of the enemy who are flying
before us, or shall we halt and dislodge the party
of Col. Musgrave, who have thrown themselves into
the mansion?”

“Halt! by all means,” cried General Knox, “it
is against every rule of warfare to leave a fortress,
possessed by an enemy, in the rear.”

“What!” exclaimed Col. Pickering, “Shall we
call this a fort, and lose the very moment of success?”

“Let us press onward!” cried Wayne, who at
that moment rode up to the side of Washington,
with his sword dripping with blood. “Let us press
onward! Onward, and follow up the rout of the
enemy, while our troops are flushed with success!
Onward, and with another blow the day is ours!”

“Onward!” exclaimed Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton.
“This is the very crisis of the action.
While we attack the house, the enemy will rally,
and we shall see the laurel of victory plucked rom
our brows in the very moment of triumph!”

“Onward, and over them!” cried Captain Tracy.
“Now the day is our own—in ten minutes we may
flee from the very field of triumph with the British
pressing on in our rear!”

The cry was echoed by all the junior members
of the staff, but their opinion was overruled by that
of the veteran Knox, who, supported by other
senior officers, advised an immediate attack upon
the house.

The roar of a steady fire of musquetry pouring
from every window, from every nook and cranny
of Chew's House, now came rolling through the
fog, and scattered death and confusion through the
American troops, who rushed into the very jaws
of the enemy's artillery.

Chew's House became the centre of the fiercely
contested fight. Greene's column to the east were
engaged hand to hand with the forces of the enemy
in that quarter; Armstrong was thundering away
into the ranks of the foe westward of the house,
and every moment decreased the distance between
the various wings of the opposing armies aad the
centre of the battle.

The American artillery was arrayed on the opposite
side of the Germantown Road, at the distance
of two hundred yards from the house, with the
mouths of the cannon so arrayed, that the balls
would strike the north-west corner of the mansion.

The thunder of the cannon opened full on the

house, but the aim of the gunners was rendered uncertain
by the pressure of the fog; and the American
infantry were about to advance and attempt
to carry the temporary fortress by storm, when it
was determined to send a flag of truce and summon
Col. Musgrave to surrender.

A young and gallant officer, of Lee's Partizan
Legion, was selected from among the throng who
offered to bear the flag. Assuming the snow-white
emblem of peace, held sacred by all nations, the
brave soldier approached the house, and was within
twenty paces of the hall door, when a blaze of
flame issued from a window, and the young officer
measured his grave upon the sod, while the flag of
truce was stained with the warm blood of his
heart.

A yell of horror broke from the American army
at this ghastly spectacle, and the attack upon the
house was renewed with a keen desire on the part
of each soldier to avenge the young officer, and as
each column marched up to the mansion, the name
of the murdered man accompanied each peal of
musquetry and swelled high above the thunder of
the cannon.

The plan of the attack on Chew's house forced
nearly one-half of the central body to stand by and
witness the slaughter of their comrades before their
very eyes, without being able to raise a hand in
their defence.

Taking advantage of this inactivity, General
Grey wheeled the front of the left wing of the
British army from his position east of Germantown,
into the centre of the fight, and supported by the
fourth brigade under General Agnew, opposed a
successful and terrible resistance to the success of
the American arms. The fire of the British musquetry,
enveloping the field in one continual sheet
of flame, was answered by the American fire flashing
like forked lightning at quick intervals, and
from the depths of the fog, arose the sound of host
charging against host, the roar of the cannon, the
cries, the shrieks, the groans of the wounded and
dying, mingling with the voices of the different
commanders, urging their men on to their various
posts in the scene of conflict, but amid all the wild
uproar of the battle, the deep muttered shouts of
the Black Rangers broke upon the air, and their
sable uniform gleamed through the white wreaths
of smoke, as they thundered along the field in the
thickest of the fight, accompanying the deadly
fire with the war cry, “This for Dennis McDermott!”
and each mortal stroke of the short, straight
sword, with the shout—“This for the trumpeter
boy!”

Like a dark thunder cloud, emitting fire and
flame from every point, the Rangers swept through
the foe in one firm phalanx, making a lane of dead
wherever they passed, and leaving the wounded
and the dying scattered in heaps in their rear.

The Americans fought, each man of them, as
though the issue of the fight depended upon his
separate hand and blow; they fought gallantly;
they fought desperately; they fought undismayed
by the heaps of dead that piled each step of ground
on which they trod; but they fought against hope.
The thick and gloomy mist still hung over the field
like a shroud for their dead, and with its evil omen
blasted every prospect of success.

The fog threw the Americans on the left into inextricable
confusion, and they turned their arms
against each other. Many a brave Continental
soldier, leveled his musket, through the mist, at
what he supposed a foe, and found himself the
murderer of a friend.

The brave Col. Matthews, of Green's formidable
column, passed to the east of Chew's house, and
drove the British before him like a tornado; on
every side they fled before the terror of his arms;
and his regiment was soon swelled by the addition
of three hundred prisoners. Returning to the
main body in the heat and glow of triumph, he fell
in with a body of friends—as he thought—and
found himself a prisoner in the heart of the British
army.

Herbert Tracy and his Rangers came galloping
up to the side of Washington in the thickest of the
fight, prepared for any effort that might retrieve
the fatal mistake of the halt at Chew's house.

Never had Herbert seen the Commander-in-Chief,
moved by such deep and powerful emotion as stirred
through every fibre of his commanding frame when
moment after moment, he leaned to one side of his
steed, and received the reports of disaster and partial
defeat, from aid-de-camp after aid-de-camp,
who were hastening, some from Armstrong's brigade,
some from the the command of Generals
Smallwood and Forman, others from the column of
Greene, and all bearing testimony of the fatal effects,
of the want of co-operation and consolidation
caused by the halt at Chew's house.

Washington glanced around upon the scene of
confusion and death. His face, usually so calm
and mild in its aspect, was moved in every lineament
by an expression stern as it was strange to
those features so full of manly wisdom and dignity.
His eye flashed, and his brow gathered a frown,
such as had never before marked his countenance;
his lips were compressed, and his tall figure, raised
to its full height, with an utter recklessness of self
preservation that appeared to possess him in that
moment of agony, when he saw defeat hovering
over the American arms.

“Follow me, who lists,” he exclaimed, putting
spurs to his steed—“We may even yet discover
some vulnerable point around the fatal house.”

He rode directly in the fire of the enemy, toward
the northern wall of Chew's mansion, and in

his train, fired by a generous emulation to share
the danger of the noble man, rode the gallant Hamilton,
the brave Pickering, and the daring Lee, side
by side with Herbert Tracy, who surrendered his
men, for the time, to the command of Harry Heft,
and rushed on with Washington and his staff into
the very jaws of the British cannon.

Ere they were aware, the party found themselves
riding within twenty paces of the northern
wall of the mansion, with a deadly and incesssant
fire of musquetry pouring from the upper window,
and the bullets from the opposing armies sweeping
by their heads like hail, while the sod at their
horses' feet was furrowed by cannon balls.

The danger was imminent, and nothing but interposition
of a Higher Power could have saved the
life of Washington in that dread moment. The
officers of his staff with one voice besought him to
fly, but, unheeding their exclamations, Washington
rode directly along the northern wall of the mansion,
and noted that the shutters of the lower window
were closed, and that it was barricaded half
way up by a heap of loose timber and brushwood
piled upon the ground, while the muzzle of the
British guns poured a constant shower of balls
through loop-holes cut into the shutters.

Having noted this fact,[1] the Commander-in-Chief

turned his horse to the American lines, and, followed
by his gallant band, rode forward, exposed to
the fire of the contending armies, when mistaking
their way in the fog, they presently found themselves
entangled amid the sheds and enclosures of
the cattle-pen, fifty paces from the mansion, with
bullets peeling splinters from the timbers every
instant, and cannon balls scattering dust and sand
into their faces as they struck the earth on every
side.

“Save yourselves, gentlemen!” shouted Washington,
and every member of the staff leaped his horse
over the enclosure of boards, some three feet in
height, and galloped northward toward the American
lines, expecting Washington and Herbert Tracy
to follow their example.

“Leap, Captain Tracy, leap your horse and save
yourself!” shouted Washington, as a bullet lodged
in the pommell of his saddle.

“Not till you are safe!” replied Tracy, facing
the storm of battle with as much calmness and self-possession
as though he were but breasting the career
of a summer shower.

“I cannot endanger the limbs of this noble horse
by leaping yon fence,” exclaimed Washington.
“He has borne me safe in too many a hard fought
fight to think of it. Captain Tracy save yourself
as best you may—I will take the path in front of
the house where the fog is raised by the enemy's
fire!”

And ere Tracy could reply, Washington put
spurs to his steed, who sprang through the gateway
of the cattle-pen toward Chew's mansion, and leaping
over the intervening ground with the speed of
an arrow, bore the Commander-in-Chief toward the
house.

Herbert leaned to one side of his steed, and held
his breath. Another moment, and Washington
would be in the midst of the fire, pouring from the
windows in front of the mansion. Another moment
and his form would fall to the earth riddled
by an hundred bullets!

“He shall not fall alone by the Heaven above
us!” shouted the young Ranger, giving his steed the
rein, and galloping across the lawn toward the
house—“There! there! He is in front of the
house—he is down! no! He passes! He passes as
I live—safe—safe and unscathed! Huzza! Away
Night-hawks!”

As Herbert followed in the footsteps of Washington,
swept through the blaze of musquetry in
front of the mansion, and taking a sudden circuit,
disappeared in the fog toward the Germantown
Road, as he gave his steed the rein, and rode over
the bodies of the dying and the dead, that littered
every foot of earth, the shrill and piercing sound
of a female voice in an agony of fear broke upon
the air from a small circular window in the northern
wing in the rear of the building, and the face

of a fair maiden, with eyes dimmed with tears, and
a lip quivering with terror, was thrust out into the
light, while with clasped hands and heaving bosom,
Marian sent up a prayer to Heaven for the safety
of her lover.

“Oh! Heaven he is lost!” she exclaimed, as
Herbert disappeared in front of the house, “he
falls—he falls from his horse—they have killed
him—murderers that they are! Nay, nay,” she continued,
as Herbert re-appeared on his way to the
main road over the lawn—“He is saved! Heaven
be thanked! He is saved!”

“Here's a purty how d'ye do in Mr. Chew's
house,” exclaimed a familiar voice, and Miss Betty
Fisher entered the small and dimly-lighted apartment
with large drops of perspiration pouring down
her round fat cheeks, her apron usually so neat and
prim all torn into tatters, and her cap, soiled with
soot and dust, suspended by a single thread to her
hair. “Here's a purty how d'ye do, in Mr.
Chew's house! I raley wish some folks 'ud stay
at hom, and take care of their own duds. Oh, lud,
such a fright as I've had!”

Miss Waltham used all her efforts to calm the
agitated state of Miss Betty Fisher's mind, but in
vain.

“Jist to think of it! I jist run down stairs to
take a look a'ter the furnitur', and I'd got to the
first landing, when what should I see—oh, goodness

grashus! there was Sergeant Thompson, sich a nice-portly
man, a-laying at the foot o' the stairs, all his
elegant ruffles kivered with blood, and all the furniture
cracked to pieces, the mahogany tables split
into bits, the carpets torn up—oh, lud, look there
—look out o' the window, Miss Waltham—there's
the ribbles (rebels) a-comin' to fire the house! Oh!
now we'll be burnt up, and Mr. Chew's house will
be turned into a bake oven.”

Marian look from the window, and beheld twelve
forms in dark attire emerging from the cover of the
fog toward the house at a quick running pace, and
at a second glance she recognized in the foremost
figure the person of Herbert Tracy, brandishing his
rifle, and leading his men into the very blaze of the
British musquetry.

The maiden took not another glance at the scene,
but seized by a wild impulse of fear with the idea
of her lover's safety uppermost in her mind, she
rushed from the apartment, and scarce knowing
whither she went, passed down the stairway, entered
an open door, and in a moment stood by the
side of Major Tracy, who, begrimed with dust and
soot, was directing the fire of the soldiers from the
windows of the northern parlor on the ground floor,
toward which Herbert, unconscious of the vicinity
of his father or his betrothed, was fearlessly approaching.