II.—HOW THE LEGIONS CAME BACK FROM THE BATTLE.
Tramp, tramp, echoed the sound of hoofs, and then a steed, caparisoned
in battle array, came sweeping up the hill, with his wounded rider hanging
helpless and faint by the saddle-bow.—Then came another steed, speeding
up the hill, with bloodshot eye and quivering nostril, while his rider fell
dying to the earth, shouting his wild hurrah as he fell.
Then came baggage wagons, then bodies of flying troops in continental
attire, turned to the bend of the road in the valley below, and like a flash the
hillside of Mount Airy was all alive with disordered masses of armed men,
rushing onward with hurried steps and broken arms.
Another moment! The whole array of the continental army comes
sweeping round the bend of the road, file after file, rank after rank, and
now, a column breaks into sight.
Alone the whole column, no vision meets the eyes of the group, but the
spectacle of broken arms, tarnished array, men wearied with toil and thirst,
fainting with wounds, and tottering with the loss of blood.
On and on, along the ascent of the hill they rush, some looking hastily
around with their pallid faces stained with blood, some holding their shattered
arms high overhead, others aiding their wounded comrades as they
hurry on in the current of the retreat, while waving in the air, the blue
banner of the continental host, with its array of thirteen stars, droops
heavily from the flagstaff, as its torn folds come sweeping into light.
And from file to file, with a wild movement and a reckless air, rode a tall
and muscular soldier, clad in the uniform of a general officer, his sword
waving aloft, and his voice heard above the hurry and confusion of the
retreat—
“Turn, comrades, turn, and face the Britisher—turn, and the day is ours!”
Mad Anthony cried in vain! The panic had gone like a lightning flash
through the army, and every man hurried on, without a thought, save the
thought of retreat; without a motion, save the escape from the fatal field
of Chew's House.
Then came Pulaski and his veterans, their costumes of white extending
along the road, in glaring relief against the background of blue-shirted continentals;
then came the columns of Sullivan, the division of Greene, and
then huddled together in a confused crowd, came the disordered bands of
the army, who had broken their ranks, and were marching beside the baggage
wains loaded to the very sides with wounded and dying.
It was a sad and ghastly spectacle to see that train of death-cars, rolling
heavily on, with the carcases of the wounded hanging over their sides, with
broken arms and limbs protruding from their confines, with pallid faces upturned
to the sky, while amid the hurry and motion of the retreat, piteous
moans, fierce cries, and convulsive death-shrieks broke terribly on the air.
Yon gallant officer leaning from his steed, yon gallant officer, with the
bared forehead, the disordered dress, the ruffle spotted with blood, the coat
torn by sword thrusts, and dripping with the crimson current flowing from
the heart, while an aid-de-camp riding by his side supports his fainting form
on his steed, urging the noble animal forward in the path of the retreat.
It is the brave General Nash. He has fought his last fight, led his gallant
North Carolinians on to the field for the last time, his heart is fluttering
with the trembling pulsation of death, and his eyes swimming in the dimness
of coming dissolution.
In the rear, casting fierce glances toward Germantown, rides the tall form
of Washington, with Pickering and Hamilton and Marshall, clustering round
their chieftain, while the sound of the retreating legions is heard far in the
distance, along the heights of Chesnut Hill.
Washington reaches the summit of Mount Airy, he beholds his gallant
though unfortunate army sweeping far ahead, he reins his steed for a moment
on the height of the mount, and looks toward the field of Germantown!
One long look toward the scene of the hard fought fight, one quick and
fearful memory of the unburied dead, one half-smothered exclamation of
anguish, and the chieftain's steed springs forward, and thus progresses the
retreat of Germantown.
In the town the scene is wild and varied. The mist has not yet arisen,
the startled inhabitants have not crept from their places of concealment, and
through the village ride scattered bands and regiments of the British army.
Here a party of gaudily-clad German troopers of Walbeck break on your
eye, yonder the solemn and ponderous Hessian in his heavy accoutrements
crosses your path, here a company of plaid-kilted Highlanders came marching
on, with claymore and bagpipe, and yonder, far in the distance sweep
the troopers of Anspack, in their costume of midnight darkness, relieved by
ornaments of gold, with the skull and cross-bones engraven on each sable cap.
