III.—THE REVEL OF DEATH.
Within Chew's house this was the scene:
Every room crowded with soldiers in their glaring crimson attire, the old
hall thronged by armed men, all stained with blood and begrimed with battle
smoke, the stair-way trembling beneath the tread of soldiers bearing ammunition
to the upper rooms, while every board of the floor, every step of the
stair-case bore its ghastly burden of dying and dead. The air was pestilent
with the smell of powder, the walls trembled with the shock of battle; thick
volumes of smoke rolling from the lower rooms, wound through the doors,
into the old hall, and up the stairway, enveloping all objects in a pall of
gloom, that now shifted aside, and again came down upon the forms of the
British soldiers like dark night.
Let us ascend the stairway. Tread carefully, or your foot will trample
on the face of that dead soldier; ascend the staircase with a cautious step,
or you will lose your way in the battle smoke.
The house trembles to its foundation, one volley of musquetry after
another breaks on your ear, and all around is noise and confusion; nothing
seen but armed men hurrying to and fro, nothing heard but the thunder of
the fight.
We gain the top of the stairway—we have mounted over the piles of
dead—we pass along the entry—we enter the room on the right, facing toward
the lawn.
A scene of startling interest opens to our sight. At each window are
arranged files of men, who, with faces all blood stained and begrimed, are
sending their musquet shots along the lawn; at each window the floor is
stained with a pool of blood, and the bodies of the dead are dragged away
by the strong hands of their comrades, who fill their places almost as soon
as they receive their death wound. The walls are rent by cannon balls,
and torn by bullets, and the very air seems ringing with the carnival shouts
of old Death, rejoicing in the midst of demons.
Near a window in this room clustered a gallant band of British officers,
who gave the word to the men, directed the dead to be taken from the floor,
or gazed out upon the lawn in the endeavor to pierce the gloom of the
contest.
Some were young and handsome officers, others were veterans who had
mowed their way through many a fight, and all were begrimed with the
blood and smoke of battle. Their gaudy coats were rent, the epaulette was
torn from one shoulder by the bullet, the plume from the helm of another,
and a third fell in his comrades' arms, as he received the ball in his heart.
While they stood gazing from the window, a singular incident occurred.
A young officer, standing in the midst of his comrades, felt something
drop from the ceiling, and trickle down his cheek.
The fight was fierce and bloody in the attic overhead. They could hear
the cannon balls tearing shingles from the roof—they could hear the low,
deep groans of the dying.
Another drop fell from the ceiling—another and another.
“It is blood!” cried his comrades, and a laugh went round the group.
Drop after drop fell from the ceiling; and in a moment a thin liquid
stream came trickling down, and pattered upon the blood-stained floor.
The young officer reached forth his hand, he held it extended beneath the
falling stream: he applied it to his lips.
“Not blood, but wine!” he shouted. “Good old Madeira wine!”
The group gathered round the young officer in wonder. It was wine—
good old wine—that was dripping from the ceiling. In a few moments the
young officer, rushing through the gloom and confusion of the stairway, had
ransacked the attic, and discovered under the eaves of the roof, between the
rafters and the floor, some three dozen bottles of old Madeira wine, placed
there for safe-keeping some score of years before the battle. These bottles
were soon drawn from their resting-place, and the eyes of the group in the
room below were presently astonished by the vision of the ancient bottles,
all hung with cobwebs, their sealed corks covered with dust.
In a moment the necks were struck off some half-dozen bottles, and while
the fire poured from the window along the lawn, while cries and shrieks,
and groans, broke on the air; while the smoke came rolling in the window,
now in folds of midnight blackness, and now turned to lurid red by the
glare of cannon; while the terror and gloom of battle arose around them,
the group of officers poured the wine in an ancient goblet, discovered in a
closet of the mansion,—they filled it brimming full with wine, and drank a
royal health to the good King George!
They drank and drank again, until their eyes sparkled, and their lips
grew wild with loyal words, and their thirst for blood—the blood of the
rebels—was excited to madness. Again and again were the soldiers shot
down at the window, again were their places filled, and once more the goblet
went round from lip to lip, and the old wine was poured forth like water,
in healths to the good King George!
And as they drank, one by one, the soldiers were swept away from the
windows, until at the last the officers stood exposed to the blaze of the
American fire, flashing from the green lawn.
“Health to King George—Death to the rebels!”
The shout arose from the lips of a grey-haired veteran, and he fell to the
floor, a mangled corse. The arm that raised the goblet was shattered at
the elbow by one musket ball, as another penetrated his brain.
The goblet was seized by another hand, and the revel grew loud and
wild. The sparkling wine was poured forth like water, healths were drank,
hurrahs were shouted, and—another officer measured his length on the floor.
He had received his ball of death.
There was something of ludicrous horror in the scene.
Those sounds of revel and bacchanalian uproar, breaking on the air, amid
the intervals—the short and terrible intervals of battle—those faces flushed
by wine, and agitated by all the madness of the moment, turned from one
side to another, every lip wearing a ghastly smile, every eye glaring from
its socket, while every voice echoed the drunken shout and the fierce
hurrah.
Another officer fell wounded, and another, and yet another. The young
officer who had first discovered the wine alone remained.
Even in this moment of horror, we cannot turn our eyes away, from his
young countenance, with its hazel eyes and thickly clustered hair!
He glanced round upon his wounded and dying comrades, he looked
vacantly in the faces of the dead, he gazed upon the terror and confusion
of the scene, and then he seized the goblet, filled it brimming-full with wine,
and raised it to his lips.
His lip touched the edge of the goblet, his face was reflected in the
quivering wavelets of the wine, his eyes rolled wildly to and fro, and then
a musket shot pealed through the window. The officer glared around with
a maddened glance, and then the warm blood, spouting from the wound
between his eyebrows, fell drop by drop into the goblet, and mingled with
the wavelets of the ruby wine.
And then there was a wild shout; a heavy body toppled to the floor;
and the young soldier with a curse on his lips went drunken to his God.
Let us for a moment notice the movements of the divisions of Washington's
army, and then return to the principal battle ground at Chew's house.
The movements of the divisions of Smallwood and Forman are, to this
day, enveloped in mystery. They came in view of the enemy, but the
density of the mist, prevented them from effectually engaging with the
British.
Armstrong came marching down the Manatawny road, until the quiet
Wissahikon dawned on the eyes of his men; but after this moment, his
march is also wrapt in mystery.—Some reports state that he actually
engaged with the Hessian division of the enemy, others state that the alarm
of the American retreating from Chew's house reached his ear, as the vanguard
of his command entered Germantown, near the market-house, and
commenced firing upon the chasseurs who flanked the left wing of the
British army.
However this may be, yet tradition has brought down to our times a terrible
legend connected with the retreat of Armstrong's division. The
theatre of this legend was the quiet Wissahikon, and this is the story of
ancient tradition.
