XIX.—ANTHONY WAYNE AT BRANDYWINE.
On a cold winter's day—far back in the olden time—in front of a rude
stone school-house, that arose from among an orchard, whose leafless
branches stood out against the clear blue sky, a crowd of school boys
might have been seen hurrying to and fro, in all the excitement of battle.
Their cheeks glowed crimson with the fever of the fight, as armed with
little globes of snow, they raised their battle shout, they met in conflict,
now rallying here, now retreating yonder, one party defending the entrenchments
of ice and snow, while another band came on, the forlorn hope of
the mimic fray.
It was true, the weapons that they hurled, the fort, which was at once
the object of attack and defence, were all of frozen snow, yet the conflict
was carried on with an energy and skill worthy of many a bloodier fight.
You see the fort, rising before the dark school-house wall, a mound of
ice, over a waste of snow, its summit lined with the brave defenders,
while the forlorn hope of the enemy come rushing to the conflict, resolved
to force the entrenchments and put the conquered soldiers to the sword.
Not sword of steel, but a formidable blade carved with a pen-knife from a
branch of oak or hickory.
The hearty shouts of the combatants, ring out upon the air, their cheeks
flush, their eyes fire; the contest deepens and the crisis of the fight is near.
You see that boy, not more than ten years old, standing erect upon the
fortress wall, his hazel eyes rolling like sparks of fire, in his ruddy face,
while his curly hair, white with snowy fragments, is blown around his brow,
by the winter wind?
He is the Master Spirit of the scene.
He urges his comrades with his merry shout, now bending to gather new
balls of snow, now hurling them in the face of the enemy, while his chest
heaves, expands, his nostrils quiver, his lips curl with the excitement of
the hour.
It was he that raised this fort, and leading his comrades from their books,
marshalled them in battle array.
It is he, that retreating behind the wall, lures the enemy to the attack,
and then suddenly starting into view, with flushed cheeks and sparkling
eyes, shouts the word of command, and pours confusion in their ranks.
Backed by his comrades, he springs from the fort—again that shout—one
charge more and the day is ours! Not a moment does he allow the enemy
to recover their broken ranks, but piles the snow upon their heads, and
sends the battle home. The air is thick with bombs of snow; a frosty
shower whitens their cheeks, and dangles in glittering gems from their
waving hair.
Still that hearty shout, still that brave boy in front, still his little hands
are raised, wielding the missiles of the fight, as with his chest heaving and
one foot advanced, he stands upon the frozen snow, and shouts his comrades
to the charge.
The enemy break, they scatter, they fly!
The boy with the clear eye of hazel, the curling hair of chesnut brown,
is victor of the field.
You may smile at this contest, laugh at the gloom of the gruff school-master's
visage, projecting from yonder window, and yet the day will come,
when the enraged Pedagogue will hear this boy's name rung in the lips of
the nation, as the hero of an hundred bloody battles! The day is coming,
when that little hand will yield an iron sword, while the hazel eye, flaming
from a face bathed in sweat and blood, will, with frenzied joy, survey the
mists, the glare, the hurrying ranks, the awful panorama of no mimic fight.
Time passed on, and the people of the good old county of Chester often
noted, a stripling, with his gun on his shoulder, wandering through the
woods of Brandywine, or sitting beside these still waters, holding the fishing
rod, from the brow of a projecting rock, his bare feet dipping in the waves,
as his hazel eye shone with visions of the future.
Time passed on, and there came a day, when this boy, grown to manhood,
stood on the summit of a mound that rose from the meadows of the
Brandywine.
It was in the early morning time, when the light of the stars was scarcely
paled by the glow of the autumnal dawn.
Looking from the height of the fortified knoll, defended by a deep ditch
and grim with cannon, General Wayne awaited the approach of the enemy.
Beneath him spread the valley, gleaming with American arms; yonder
rippled the stream, so soon to be purpled in its every wave, with the life-drops
of human hearts. On the opposite shore of the Brandywine, arose
wooded steeps, to wering abruptly from the bed of the rivulet, crowned from
the ripple to the sky with forest trees.
Wayne stood on the summit of the knoll, his face flushed with deep
anxiety. He was about to fight, not like La Fayette, for a strange people
of a far land, not like Pulaski, as an Exile and a Wanderer, nor yet like
Washington, the leader of a People. No! Surrounded by the memories
of childhood, his foot upon his native soil, his chest swelling with the air
that came rich and fragrant over the orchards of his native valley, he had
buckled on the sword to fight for that soil, he stood prepared to spend his
blood in defence of that valley.
By his side stood his gallant roan, caparisoned for the battle.
Tradition tells us, that it was a noble steed, with small head, broad chest
and tapering limbs. When he rushed into the fight, it was with neck arched,
eye rolling in fire, and dark mane quivering on the battle breeze. But when
his master's shout rung on the air, sounding the charge which mowed the
foemen down like stubble before the flame, then the gallant roan uttered his
battle neigh and went through the smoke and into the fire like a bomb shell,
hurled from the mortar along the darkened sky.
Wayne stood with his hand resting on his sword hilt. In stature, not
more than an inch above the middle heigth, in form displaying a hardy
energy, an iron vigor in every outline, was clad in a blue coat faced with
buff, and falling open on his broad chest. There was a belt of dark leather
over his breast, military boots on his limbs, a plain chapeau, surmounted by
a plume of mingled red and white, surmounted his brow.
Beneath that plume you might behold the broad forehead, the aquiline
nose, the clear, deep hazel eyes. It was the face of a warrior, nurtured
from boyhood to love the blaze of cannon, and hail the clang of contending
swords, as the bridegroom hails the marriage music.
Surrounded by his brave men, Wayne looked upon the opposite steeps,
and looked for the bayonets of the foe.
At last they came. By the first gleam of morning light, he saw the
Hessian soldiers, burly in form, loaded with ornaments and armed to the
teeth, emerge from the shadows of the trees. Their heavy accoutrements,
their lofty caps, bushy with fur, their well-filled knapsacks, were all clearly
perceptible in the morning light. And the same sun that shone over their
bayonets, revealed not only the British banner, waving slowly in the morning
air, but the flags of Hesse and Anspach fluttering above their hordes of
slaves.
Wayne beheld them come, and spoke to the cannoniers, arrayed in their
faded uniform of blue and buff.
In a moment, those cannon at his feet uttered a volume of smoke, that
rolled in folds of gloomy grandeur, high upward into the azure heavens.
He spoke to the Riflemen, in their rude hunting shirts of blue, with the
powder horn and knife at their sides.
He saw them rush from the embankment, he beheld them overspread the
meadow. Here, the steel cap of Porterfield, with its bucktail plume, there,
the short sword of Maxwell, gleaming over the heads of his men. Bending
from the fortified knoll, Wayne watched their career, with an interest
that fired his eye with deeper light.
Over the meadow, into the trees,—a solitary rifle shot yelled on the air,
a solitary death-groan shrieked into the clear heavens.
The battle had begun.
Then crash on crash, peal on peal, the bands of Maxwell and Porterfield
poured their balls into the faces of the Hessian foe.
Wayne beheld them glide among the trees, he saw the enemy recoil in
the midst of the waters, he heard their cries, but did not hear the shouts of
his Riflemen. For these Riflemen, in the hour of battle, scarcely ever
spoke a word with their lips. When they had a message to send, it spoke
out from the tubes of their rifles. And these rifles always spoke to the heart!
For the first time, that blue sky was clouded by the smoke of conflict.
For the first time, the groans of Christians hewn down by Christians, yelled
on the air. For the first time, the Brandywine was stained with blood of
the white man; for the first time, dead men, borne onward by its waves,
with their faces to the light, looked up with glassy eyes and glided on!
Wayne beheld it all!
While the Hessian cannon answered to his own, while the fire from this
knoll was answered by the blaze yonder, Wayne bent forward, laid his
hand on the neck of his steed and watched the current of the fight.
He was about to spring on his steed and rush into the conflict, when he
saw his Riflemen come out from the woods again, their arms dimmed, their
faces dabbled with blood. They had driven the Hessians back step by step,
foot by foot they had hurled them back upon the opposite shore, and now
while the water dripped from their attire, silently lined the banks, awaiting
the next onset of the foe.
The morning passed away, and the enemy did not resume their attack.
Their arms gleamed far over the hills, their banners waved on every side,
between the leaves of the forest oaks, and yet they dared not cross the
Brandywine again. Five thousand strong, they held their position in silence,
planted their cannon, arrayed their columns, and silently prepared the
destruction of the Rebel Foe.
The morning passed. Shaken by a thousand conflicting emotions,
Washington hurried along the eastern heights of Brandywine, his grey
horse, now seen among the trees of Brenton's Ford, now darting through
the battle-smoke of Chadd's Ford, now halting beside the gallant roan of
Anthony Wayne. He knew not, whether the attack of Kniphausen was a
mere feint; at one moment he anticipated the approach of the British in
full force, eighteen thousand strong, across the Brandywine, at another,
turning his eye away from the waters of the stream, he awaited the gleam
of Cornwallis' arms, from the northern woods.
Wayne and Washington stood on the summit of the fortified knoll, talking
long and earnestly together. The same expression of suspense and
anxiety animated the lineaments of each warrior face.
The morning passed away.
Meanwhile, pausing on their arms, the Americans awaited the renewal
of the attack, but they waited for hours in vain. It was not made when
eleven o'clock came, and the sun was rising towards his noonday height;
and Sullivan looked anxiously and eagerly from the heights were he was
stationed, for the appearance of the enemy at Brinton's Ford, but they came
not; nor could his scouts give him any intelligence of the movements of
Howe or Cornwallis.
General Kniphausen, he well knew, had made the attempt to cross at
Chadd's Ford, and had been nobly and gallantly repulsed; but the larger
divisions of the enemy—where were they? What was their plan of operations?
Where would Howe appear, or in what quarter would Cornwallis
commence the attack?
All was wrapt in mystery to the minds of Washington, Wayne and the
leader of his right wing. This silence of Howe and Cornwallis they feared
had something of omen—dark and fearful omen—of defeat and dismay, for
its explanation.
Eleven o'clock came, and Washington, with Sullivan by his side, stood
gazing from an elevated knoll, about half-way between Brinton's and Chadd's
Ford.
A horseman was observed riding up the hill-side at the top of his horse's
speed. His attire seemed to be that of a substantial yeoman, his coat hung
on his arm, his hat was extended in his upraised hand; his dress was disordered,
his face covered with dust, and, as he rode up the hill-side, he sank
the spurs in the flanks of his horse, whose eye glared wildly, while the
dust and foam on his limbs showed that he had borne his master long and
far.
In a moment the horseman flung himself from his horse, and rushed to
the side of Washington. In hurried words he told his story, his manner
was warm, urgent even to agony. He was a farmer—his name was Chaytor—he
lived some miles northward of Kennet's Square—early on that
morning he had been aroused by the tread of armed men and the tramp of
war steeds.
He looked from his window, and beheld the British army passing northward—General
Howe and Lord Cornwallis were with them.
He believed it to be the intention of the enemy to make the passage of
the Brandywine at Trimble's Ford and Jeffrey's Ford, some miles above
the forks of the river—to occupy the high hills to the northward of Birmingham
meeting-house, and thus having the entire right wing of the Continental
forces laid open to his attack, Howe thought he might accomplish
an easy victory.
This was the story of the farmer, and Washington would have given it
credence, were it not for one fearful doubt that darkened over his mind.
The surrounding country swarmed with tories—might not this be a tory
spy in disguise? He discredited the story of the farmer, though he enforced
its truth by an appeal to an oath, and even continued to utter it, with
tears in his eyes, yet still under the influence of this fearful suspicion,
Washington refused his credence to the story of Farmer Chaytor. This
mistake lost the battle of the Brandywine.
Soon after this incident, Sullivan received information by the hands of
Lieutenant Colonel Ross, that the enemy had just passed the forks of the
Brandywine, some two or three miles above the Fork, five thousand strong,
and provided with sixteen or eighteen field pieces.
No sooner was this information transmitted to Washington, than he
ordered Sullivan to advance towards the Forks, and attack this division of
the enemy. But as Sullivan is about to undertake this movement, fresh
scouts come in, and report no intelligence of the British army whatever in
the quarter named. The movement was postponed; and while Sullivan
was thus shifting from one opinion to another, while Washington, with
Wayne, was expecting the attack at Chadd's Ford, through this unfortunate
contradiction of conflicting intelligence, the enemy was allowed to take a
secure and powerful position, some three miles north-east of Brinton's
Ford, and some four miles from Chadd's Ford.
We have seen the battle which ensued, and gone through its varies phases
of ferocity and chivalry.
While Washington with his Generals, Sullivan, Greene, and La-Fayette
was doing immortal deeds in the valley of the Quaker Temple, alone on the
heights of Chadd's Ford, stood Anthony Wayne, breasting the overwhelming
force of the Hessian army, with his little band of heroes.
With a thousand half-armed Continentals, he opposed five thousand hirelings,
prepared in every respect for the game of war, their cannon glooming
in every steep, their bayonets gleaming on every hill.
It was at four o'clock, that the valley of the Brandywine near Chadd's
Ford, presented a spectacle worthy of the brightest days of chivalry.
At first looking from the steep where Wayne watched the fight, his hand
laid on the neck of his steed, you behold nothing but vast clouds of smoke
rolling like the folds of an immense curtain over the valley. Through
these clouds, streamed every instant great masses of flame. Then long and
arrowy flashes of light, quivered through their folds. Now they wore the
blackness of midnight, in a moment they were changed into masses of
snow.
And as they swayed to and fro, you might behold a strange meeting
which took place in the lap of the valley. Pouring from the woods above
the stream, the Hessian hordes in their varied and picturesque costume,
came swarming over the field. As they advanced, the cannon above their
heads on the western hills, belched volumes of fire and death, and lighted
them on their way. As they came on, their musquets poured volley after
volley, into the faces of the foe. Their wild battle-shout was heard, in the
din of conflict. Altogether the war of cannon, the sharp clang of musquetry,
the clouds now rolling here, now floating yonder, the bayonets gleaming
like scattered points of flame, far along the field, presented a scene at once
wild and beautiful.
And there in the centre of the valley, under the very eye of Wayne, a
band of men, some clad in plain farmer's attire, some in the hunting shirt
of the backwoodsman, stood undismayed while the Hessians swarmed on
every side. No shout broke from their sturdy ranks. Silently loading
their rifles, they stood as though rooted to the sod, every one selecting a
broad chest for his target, as he raised his piece to the shoulder.
The sod beneath was slippery with blood. The faces of dead men
glared horribly all around. The convulsed forms of wounded soldiers—
whose arms had been torn off at the shoulder, whose eyes had been darkened
forever, whose skulls had been crushed from the crown to the brow—
were beneath their feet.
And yet they fought on. They did not shout, but waiting patiently until
they might almost touch the bayonets of the Hessians, they poured the
blaze of rifles in their faces. And every time that blaze lighted up the
cloud, a new heap of dead men littered the field.
Still the Hessians advanced. Sold by their King to Murder, at so much
per day, very brutes in human shape whose business it was to Kill, they
trampled the dead bodies of their own comrades into the sod, uttered their
yell and plunged into the ranks of the Continental soldiers.
In vain the gleam of their bayonets which shone so beautiful, in vain their
hoarse shout, which echoed afar like the howl of savage beasts, mangling
their prey, in vain their elegantly arranged columns, displayed in the most
approved style of European warfare!
The American riflemen met them breast to breast, and sent their bullets
home. Their faces darkened by powder, spotted with blood, their uncouth
attire fluttering in rags, they did not move one inch, but in stern silence only
broken by the report of their rifles, these Continental heroes met the onset
of the foe.
Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds, and lighted up the theatre of
battle.
Almost at the same moment a venerable mansion rising among the woods
on yonder shore of the Brandywine, ascended to the sky, in a whirling
cloud of smoke and flame. Blown up by the explosion of powder, it shot
a long column of fire and blackness into the sky, and then its fragments
strewed the battle-field, mingled with the mangled wrecks of human forms.
Anthony Wayne, resting his hand on the neck of his steed, beheld it all.
He quivered in every nerve with the excitement of the combat, and yet
pressing his lip between his teeth, awaited the moment when his sword
should flash from the scabbard, his roan war-horse dash like a thunderbolt
into the storm of battle.
That moment came at last. It was when the bloody contest had rolled
over the valley for an hour and more, that the crisis came.
Look yonder along the summit of the western hills, where the Hessian
banner darkens through the trees! Look yonder and behold that gallant
company of warriors wind slowly down the hill, their swords, their helmets,
their plumes, brightening in the glow of the setting sun. Four hundred
strong, all attired in midnight black, relieved by gold, each helmet bearing
the ominous skull and cross bones emblazoned on its front, the dragoons of
Anspach came to battle.
At their head mounted on a snow-white steed, whose uplifted head and
quivering nostrils denote the fever of the strife, rides a man of warrior presence,
his steel helmet shadowed beneath a mass of dark plumes, his broad
chest clad in a rich uniform, black as the raven's wing, glittering with stars
and epaulettes of gold. It is Kniphausen, the General of the Hessian horde,
riding at the head of veteran troopers, the bravest assassins of his hireling
band.
In their rude faces, darkened by the heavy mustachio and beard, cut and
hacked by scars, you read no gleam of pity. The cry of “Quarter!” falls
unheeded on the ears of men like these. No matter how just or infamous
the cause, their business is war, their pastime butchery. Unfurling the
black flag of their Prince—you see the Skull and Cross bones glittering in
the sun—they descend the hill, dash through the stream, and pour the
avalanche of their charge upon the Continental host.
Wayne saw them come, and glanced for a moment on their formidable
array. Then turning he beheld the steeds of some two hundred troopers,
scattered through the orchard at his back, the swords of their riders touching
the ripe fruit which hung from the bending boughs.
Wayne silently removed his plumed chapeau, and took from the hands
of a soldier at his side, his trooper's helmet, faced with steel and adorned
with a single bucktail plume.
Then vaulting in the saddle, he unsheathed his sword, and turning to the
troopers shouted in his deep, indignant tones, the simple battle-word—
“Come on!”
He plunged from the embankment, and ere his gallant roan had reached
the base of the knoll, forth from the orchard trees burst that band of tried
soldiers, and with their swords steadily gleaming, thundered in one solid
mass down into the whirlpool of the fight.
Their banner, a White Horse painted on a blue field, and surrounded
with Thirteen Stars, fluttered out upon the breeze; that single peal of the
trumpet sounding the charge, shrieked far along the meadow.
Right through the battle Kniphausen crashes on, the swords of his men
describing fiery circles in the air, the riflemen fall back, cut by their steel,
crushed by their horses hoofs, panic stricken by their Hessian hurrah.
But courage, brave yeomen! Wayne is coming; his banner is on the
breeze, his sword rises above his head, a glittering point of flame amid that
sea of rolling clouds.
The soldiers who remained on the embarkment, beheld a strange and
stirring sight.
Anthony Wayne, at the head of two hundred brave troopers, dashing
toward the centre of the meadow, from the east—the Hessian Kniphausen,
at the same moment advancing to the same point from the west. Between
the Generals lay heaps of dead and dying; around them, the riflemen and
Yagers, these in the hunting shirt, the others in a gaudy dress of green,
waged a desperate and bloody contest.
Wayne turned his head over his shoulder, and waved his sword—“Come
on!” the deep words rung through his clenched teeth.
They knew his voice, knew the glare of his battle eye, knew that uplifted
arm, and dented sword!
Never has Kniphausen, crashing on, in the full current of impetuous
slaughter, beheld the trooper at his side, fall dead on the neck of his steed,
the marks of the rifle-ball oozing from his brow, he also looked up and beheld
the coming of Mad Anthony Wayne!
It cannot be said that Wayne fought after the most approved style of
European tactics.
But there was an honest sincerity about his manner of fighting, an unpretending
zeal in the method of his charge, when riding the enemy down,
he wrote his name upon their faces with his sword, that taught them to
respect the hardy son of Chester.
“Upon them!” he shouted, and at once his two hundred troopers went
into the heart of the Hessian column. They did not move very slowly
you will observe, nor advance in scattered order, but four abreast, a solid
bolt of horses, men and steel, they burst upon the foe, just as you have
seen a rock hurled from an enormous height, crush the trees in the valley
beneath.
The banner of the White Horse and Stars, mingled with the Black Flag
of Anspach—a cloud of men, horses and swords, whirled like the last effort
of a thunderstorm along the valley. In a moment, you can see nothing,
but the points of swords, gleaming from the confusion of the conflict.
Then, troopers bending over the mane of their steeds, their good swords
quivering together, ere the fatal blow—horses themselves, fired with the
fury of the hour, tearing each other's necks with their teeth—wounded
men, plunging from their saddles to the sod—the banners of the foemen
waving over all!
It was in the centre of that whirling fight, that Kniphausen and Wayne,
cutting their way with their swords, silently confronted each other. The
dark figure on the white steed drew near and nearer to the form, attired in
blue and buff, and mounted on a roan war-horse. Each man beheld his
foe, and their eyes met in a look, as searching as it was momentary.
The appearance of Wayne indicated violent emotion. His lip compressed
between his teeth, his hazel eye firing beneath the frontlet of his cap, he
grasped his sword, and for one moment looked around.
It was a hideous spectacle that met his eye. The Continentals scattering
over the meadow, in broken array; the ground heaped with the bodies
of the dead; the Brandywine, ghastly with the forces of the slain, thrown
into light by its crimson waves.
That look seemed to make the blood within him, boil like molten lead.
For raising himself in his stirrips, he called to his brother knights—to Marshall
of Virginia, to Proctor of the Land of Penn, to the heroic riflemen,
Maxwell and Porterfield—he shouted, the day was not yet lost, and then,
with one impulse, himself and his horse, charged Kniphausen home.
No human arm might stand the fury of that charge. In a moment
Kniphausen found himself alone in the midst of his enemies, the sword of
Wayne, glaring near and nearer to his heart, the faces of the Continentals
darkening round.
He appealed to his men, but in vain. To drive them back on the rivulet,
to hurl them, horses and men together, into the red embrace of the waves,
to cut the banner staff, and trail their banner in the mire, to sabre them by
tens and twenties, as they strove to recover their battle order—this was a
brilliant thing to do, but right brilliantly it was done, by Mad Anthony and
his men.
That sight thrilled like electric fire along the field. In a moment the
Continentals rallied; the riflemen advanced; the artillery began to play,
the air thundered once more with the battle shout!
Reining his roan war-horse on the banks of the Brandywine, his sword
in sober truth dripping with blood, Anthony Wayne, his face quivering with
the intoxication of the battle, shouted to his soldiers, cheered them to the
charge, saw them whirl the whole Hessian force into the stream.
How brilliantly the fire of hope and glory, lit up the hazel eye of
Wayne!
At the instant, while the Hessian army in all its varied costume thronged
the bed of the rivulet and scattered in dismay along the western shore, while
Kniphausen mad with chagrin, hurried from rank to rank, cursing the men
who would not fight, while Marshall and Proctor, Maxwell and Porterfield
were hurrying their forces to the charge, the sun shone out from the western
sky and lighted up the Brandywine, the valley, the forces of the living
and the crushed countenances of the dead.
The sudden gush of sunlight bathed the brow of Anthony Wayne, as
thrilling to his inmost heart, he waved his sword, and once more sounded
the charge.
At the very moment, in the very flush of his triumph, a strange sound
from the east growled on the ears of the General. It was the tramp of
the right wing under Washington, Sullivan and Greene, retreating from the
field of the Quaker Temple. Wayne saw their broken array, and knew
that the field, not the day was lost.
His sword sank slowly to his side, with his face to the foe, he pointed
the way to old Chester; he uttered the deep words of command.
“The soldiers of the right wing have been forced to retreat before superior
numbers—we will protect their retreat!”
With surprise, indeed with awe, Kniphausen beheld the victorious band,
who had just hurled his forces back upon the stream, slowly form in the
order of retreat, their swords and banners gleaming in the sun.
And as the Continental forces slowly wound along the eastern hills—as
Kniphausen proceeded to occupy the ground which they had deserted—a
solitary warrior, the last of the rebel army, reined his steed on the knoll of
Chadd's Ford, and with his blood-stained face glowing in the sunshine
looked back upon the field, and in one glance surveyed its soil, transformed
into bloody mire, its river floating with dead, its overlooking hills glittering
with Hessian steel!
That one look, accompanied by a quivering of the lip, a heaving of his
broad chest, the last gaze over, and the roan war-horse turned away, bearing
from the field of Brandywine its own hero, Mad Anthony Wayne!
From the rising to the setting of the sun, he had maintained the fight;
on the hills of his childhood, he had worked out his boyhood's dream, and
wrote his name on the column of ages, with his battle sword.[2]
