University of Virginia Library

XV—THE TULIP-POPLAR;
OR
THE POOR MEN HEROES OF THE REVOLUTION.

One fine morning in the fall of 1780, seven men went out by the roadside
to watch for robbers!

It was two days before the scene of the Breakfast table.

Four of these men concealed themselves in the bushes on the summit of a
high hill.

Three of their comrades sat down under a large poplar tree—some hundred
yards to the northward—for a pleasant game at cards.

These are plain sentences, telling simple facts, yet on these simple facts
hinged the destiny of George Washington, the Continental Army, and the
cause of freedom.

Let us go yonder into the hollow, where the highway, descending a hill,
crosses a gentle brook, ascends the opposite hill, and is lost to view among
the trees to the south. On either side of the road, darkens the foliage of
the forest trees, scarcely tinged by the breath of autumn.

This gentle brook, tossing and murmuring on its way, is surmounted by
a bridge of rade pine planks, defended on either side by a slender railing.

A dark-brown horse stands champing the bit and tossing his black mane
in the centre of the bridge, while his dismounted rider bends over yonder
railing, and gazes down into the brooklet with a vacant stare.

Let us look well upon that traveller. The manly form, enveloped in a
blue overcoat, the young brow, surmounted by a farmer's round hat, the
undercoat of a rich scarlet hue, with gold buttons and tinselled trinkets, the
well polished boots, all display the mingled costume of a yeoman and a
soldier.

His rich brown hair tosses aside from his brow: his dark hazel eye
grows glassy with thought: his cheek is white and red by turns. Now his
lip is compressed, and now it quivers. Look! He no longer leans upon
the railing, no longer gazes down into the dark waters, but pacing hurriedly
up and down the rustic bridge, displaying the elegance of his form, the
beauty of his manly face, to the light of day.

The sun is seen by intervals through the tops of these eastern trees; the
song of birds is in the woods; the air comes freighted with the rich odours
of fall. It is a beautiful morning. Light, feathery clouds floating overhead,
only serve to relieve the clear blue of the autumnal sky.

It is a beautiful morning, but the young traveller feels not the breeze,
cares not for the joyous beam. Nor do those wreaths of autumnal mist,

hanging in graceful festoons among the tall forest trees, arrest the glance of
his hazel eye.

He paces along the bridge. Now he lays his hand upon the mane of his
horse; now hastily buttons his overcoat, as if to conceal the undercoat of
claret, with its handsome gold buttons; and at last, pausing in the centre
of the bridge, he clasps his hands, and gazes absently upon the rough planks.

Well may that man that paces the bridge, thus clasping his hands, thus
stand like marble, with his dark hazel eyes glassy with thought.

For he is a Gambler.

He has matched his life against a glittering boon—the sword of a General.
The game he plays is—Treason—if he wins, an army is betrayed, a General
captured, a Continent lost. If he loses, he dies on the gallows, with
the rope about his neck, and the bandage over his eyes.

Was he not a bold Gambler?

He has been far into the enemy's country. Over the river, up the rocks,
and into the secret chamber. With the Traitor he has planned the Treason.
Now he is on his way home again to the city, where his General
awaits him, trembling with suspense.

Is that not a handsome boot on his right foot? I do not allude so much
to the heavy tops, nor to the polished surface, but to the glove-like nicety
with which it envelopes the manly leg. That boot contains the fortress of
West Point, the liberty of George Washington, the safety of the Continental
Army! An important boot, you will admit, and well adapted to create
fever in his mind who wears it.

One question is there before the mind of that young traveller: Can he
pass unmolested to the city of New York?

He has come far on his journey; he has passed through perils that
chilled his blood, and now thirty miles alone remain. But thirty miles of
neutral ground, ravaged by robbers from both armies, who plunder the
American because he is not a Briton, and rob the Briton because he is not
an American.

This is a thrilling question.

Those papers in his boot, once transferred to Sir Henry Clinton, this
young gentleman will be rewarded with a General's commission.

As this brilliant thought passes over his mind, there comes another
thought, sad, sweet, tender.

The little sitting room yonder in England, where his fair-haired sister,
and his sister with the flowing dark tresses, are seated by the mother's
knee, talking of him, their absent brother! O, it is sweet to dream by
night, but sweeter far, to dream by day, with the eyes wide open. A beautiful
dream! That old familiar room, with oaken wainscot and antique
furniture; the mother, with her placid face, venerable with grey hair; the
fair girls now blushing and ripening into women!

He will return home; yes, they shall hear his manly step. They shall

look from the door, and instead of the untitled Cadet, behold the renowned
General. The thought fires his soul.

He gives his fears to the wind. For he is a brave man, but now he is
afraid, for he is doing a coward's work, and feels a coward's pangs.

He springs on his horse, and with Washington, West Point, and the Continental
Army in his right boot, he passes on his way.

Let us go up yonder hill before him. What is this we see?

Three men seated beneath a tree playing cards! Alone and magnificent
stands that Tulip-Poplar, its broad limbs extending at least forty feet from
the trunk, and that trunk six feet in diameter. Such a tree you may not
see in a life-time. A trunk, like the column of some Druid Temple, hewn
of granite rock, a shade like the shelter of some colossal war-tent. How the
broad green leaves toss to and fro to the impulse of the breeze!

It stands somewhat aside from the road, separated from the trees of
yonder wood.

While these men pass the cards and fill the air with the song and laugh,
let us draw near.

That small man, leaning forward, with the smile on his lips, is named
Williams. He is near forty years of age, as you can see by the intricate
wrinkles on his face. His costume, a plain farmer's dress, with belt and
powder horn. By his side, reclining on the ground, a man of large frame,
stalward arms, broad chest, also leans forward, his eyes fixed upon the game.
He is named Van Wert. His face, dogged and resolute in its expression,
gives you an idea of his character. The third, a tall, well-formed man of
some twenty years, with an intelligent countenance and dark eye, is dressed
in a faded British uniform. He is at once the most intelligent and soldier-like
man of the company. His name is Paulding.

Their rifles are laid against the trunk of the tulip-poplar. Here we have
them, intent upon their game, laughing in careless glee, now and then singing
a camp song, while the cards move briskly in their fingers.

All at once the party turned their faces to the north. The sound of
a horse's hoof struck on their ears.

“Here comes a stranger!” exclaimed Van Wert, with a marked Dutch
accent, “A fine, gentleman-like man. Hey, Paulding? Had not we better
stop him?”

Paulding sprang to his feet. He beheld our young traveller riding slowly
toward the tree. In a moment he was in the highway, intently regarding
the stranger, whom he surveyed with a meaning glance.

As his horse reached the poplar tree, Williams sprang forward and seized
the reins, while Paulding presented his rifle to the breast of the young man.

“Stand!” he exclaimed, in a deep, sonorous voice, “Which way?”

For a moment the stranger gazed in the face of the soldier, who stood
before him, clad in a British uniform. A shade of doubt, inquiry, fear
passed over his handsome face.

“Gentlemen,” said he, in a voice which struck their ears with its tones
of music, “I hope you belong to our party?”

“Which party?” ashed Paulding.

“The Lower Party!” returned the traveller.

A smile darted over Paulding's face.

“So do I,” said he, still keeping his rifle at the breast of the unknown.

`I am a British officer!” exclaimed the young man, rising proudly in his
stirrups, as he displayed a gold watch in his extended hand. “I trust that
you will know better than to detain me, when you learn that I am out of
the country on particular business.”

The three soldiers started. The athletic Van Wert advanced to the side
of Williams, and seized the other bridle rein. Paulding smiled grimly.

“Dismount!” he said, pointing the rifle at the very heart of the stranger,
who gazed from face to face with a look of wonder.

“My God!” said he, gaily, with a faint laugh, “I suppose I must do
anything to pass.”

He drew from his breast a paper, which he extended to Paulding. The
other soldiers look over their comrade's shoulder as he read it aloud:

“Now,” said the bearer of this passport, as he dismounted, “I hope you
will permit me to pass. You will risk a great deal by detaining me. General
Arnold will not lightly overlook my detention, I assure you!”

Paulding, with the paper in his hand, turned to his comrades, who, with
surprise in their faces, uttered some hurried words, inaudible to the stranger.

“You see, sir, I'd let you pass,” said Paulding, “but there's so many
bad people about, I'm afeerd you might be one of them. Besides, Mister
Anderson, how came you, a British officer, in possession of this pass from
an American General?”

For the first time the face of the stranger was clouded. His lip was
tightly compressed, as though he was collecting all the resources of his
mind.

“Why do you wear a British uniform?” he exclaimed, pointing to Paulding's
dress.

“Why you see, the tories and robbers belongin' to your army, would not
let me live a peaceable life until I enlisted under your king. I staid in New
York until I could escape, which I did one fine day, with this uniform on
my back. Here I am, on neutral ground, but an American to the backbone!”

“Come, Mister,” exclaimed Williams, “You may as well walk into the
bushes; we want to sarch you.”

Without a word, the stranger suffered them to lead him under the shade

of yonder wood. In a moment he stood on a mossy sod, with a leafy
canopy overhead. Around him, with suspicion, wonder, curiosity, stamped
on their faces, stood Paulding, Williams, and Van Wert.

He was calm, that unknown man; not a flush was on his face, not a
frown upon his brow. Yet his hazel eye glanced from face to face with a
look of deep anxiety.

They took the overcoat, the coat of claret hue, glittering with tinsel, the
nankin and flannel waistcoats, nay, the ruffled shirt itself, from his form,
and yet no evidence of his character in the shape of written or printed paper
met their eyes. At last his boots, his under-garments, all save his stockings,
were removed; yet still no paper, no sign of mystery or treason was
revealed.

He stood in that silent recess, with all the proud beauty of that form—
which, in its manliness of chest, grace of limb, elegance of outline, rivalled
the Apollo of the Sculptor's dream—laid bare to the light. His brown curls,
tossed to the impulse of the breeze, about his face and brow. His arms
were folded across his breast, as he gazed in the soldier's faces.

“Your stockings, if you please,” said Paulding, bending down at the
officer's feet. The stocking of the right foot was drawn, and lo! three
carefully folded papers, placed next the sole of the foot, were disclosed. In
a moment the other stocking, and three papers more.

The young man shook with a sudden tremor.

One burst of surprise echoed from the soldiers as they opened the papers.

The stranger had one hope! They were but rude men; they might not
be able to read the papers, but that hope was vain, for in a clear, bold voice,
Paulding gave their fatal secret to the air.

Artillery orders, showing how the garrison of West Point should be disposed
of in case of an alarm; an estimate of the force of the fortress; an
estimate of the number of men, requisite to man the works; a return of the
ordnance; remarks on the strength and weakness of the various works, a
report of a council of war lately at head quarters, concerning the campaign,
which Washington had sent to Arnold—such were the secrets of these
papers, all in the undisguised hand writing of Benedict Arnold.

It is in vain to picture the dismay which was stamped upon each soldier's
face, as word by word, they spelled out and guessed out the terrible treachery,
which, to their plain minds, seemed to hang over these letters.

The young man—now their prisoner—stood silent, but pale as death.
For a moment all his fortitude seemed to have forsaken him.

At last, laying his hands on Paulding's arms, he said, in tremulous tones

“Take my watch, my horse, my purse—all I have—only let me go!”

This was a terrible temptation for three poor men, who, living in a land
demoralized by war, where neither property nor life was safe for an hour,
had never, in all their lives, owned such a fine horse, elegant gold watch,
or purse of yellow guineas.

For a moment Paulding was silent, his manly face wore a hesitating look.

“Will you gif us any ting else?” said Van Wert, with a strong Dutch
accent.

“Yes, I will make each man of you rich for life,” repeated the young
man, his manner growing more urgent, while his face was agitated with
emotion.—“Lands—dry-goods—money, to enable you to live independent
of the world—anything you like, only let me go!”

Poor fellow! His tones were tremulous. He was only pleading not for
a free passage, but for life, and a—Generalship. A terribly distinct vision
of his mother and sisters flashed over his soul.

“But, Mister,” exclaimed Williams, “How are we to know that you'll
keep your word?”

“I will stay here until you go into the city and return!” was the response
of the prisoner.

Paulding was yet silent, with a shade of gloom on his brow, while Van
Wert and Williams looked in one another's face. The prisoner, with agony
quivering in every feature, awaited their reply.

“Dress yourself,” muttered Paulding, in a rough voice.

“Then you consent,you will let me go?” eagerly exclaimed the diguised
officer.

Paulding made no reply.

Slowly he resumed his apparel.

He then looked around, as if to read his doom in the faces of these
rude men.

For they were rude men. It was an awful time of fear, doubt, murder,
that era of 1780. No man could trust his neighbor. This thirty miles of
neutral ground was as much under the control of law as the Desert of Arabia.
These men had felt the hand of British wrong; they had been robbed,
ill-treated, trampled under foot by British power.

Here was a chance to make them all rich men. The young man's words
were fair. He would remain a prisoner until they had tested his truth, by
going to New York. They knew that some strange mystery hung about
his path; they guessed that his escape would bring danger to Washington.
But more than this, they could neither know nor guess.

Admit, as some have urged, that these men were robbers, who came out
this fine morning of September, to try their fortune on the highway, and
the case becomes more difficult. If poor men, they would scarcely refuse
his offer; if robbers, they would at once take watch, and horse, and gold,
and bid him go!

For some moments deep silence prevailed.

“Will you accept my offer, gentlemen?”

Paulding turned and faced him.

“No!” said he, in a voice which chilled the young man's blood; “If

you were to offer me ten thousand guineas I could not—I would not, let
you go!”

The prisoner said not a word, but his face grew paler.

They went slowly forth from the wood, and stood once more beneath the
Tulip Poplar.

The young stranger looked upon his horse, which was to bear him away
a prisoner, and his heart thrilled with a pang like death.

At this moment, turning to the west, he beheld a sight which chilled his
blood. The British ship Vulture,—which he had missed near West
Point, by some accident never yet explained—rode there, upon the calm
Hudson, within a mile from the spot where he stood. Escape, safety,
honor, so near, and yet he was a prisoner.

Once more he turned, once more in piercing tones, with hurried gestures,
he besought them to take all; he promised them fortune, only that
he might depart.

But still that stern answer:

“For ten thousand guineas we would not let you go!”

The sun was up in the heavens. The breeze tossed the magnificent
limbs of the Tulip-Poplar. Grouped under its shadow were the captors
and their prisoner. Here, the manly Paulding, with an expression of pity
stealing over his face; there, Williams, his countenance expressing a dull,
apathetic wonder; farther on, Van Wert, his form raising above his comrades,
while his arms were folded across his breast. The cards were littered
over the grass, but each man grasped his rifle.

O, silken people, in fine robes, who read your perfumed volumes, detailing
the virtues of the rich and great, can you see no virtue under those rude
waistcoats, no greatness in those peasant faces? It has been my task again
and again, to portray the grandeur of a Washington, the chivalry of Lafayette,
the glorious deeds of Wayne; but here, in these half-robber, half-soldier
forms, methinks is found a Self-denial, that will match the brightest
of them all. Honor to Washington, and Lafayette, and Wayne, and
honor to Paulding, Williams, and Van Wert, the Poor Men Heroes of
the Revolution.

They stood grouped under the Tulip-Poplar; but their prisoner?

He laid his arms upon his horse's neck, and hid his face on its dark
mane.

Long ago the bones of that young traveller crumbled to dust, in a felon's
grave, beneath a gibbet's foot.

Long ago, on a stormy night, the lightnings of God descended upon the
Tulip-Poplar, and rent its trunk to the roots, and scattered its branches to
the air.

And Paulding, Williams, and Van Wert, are also gone, but their names

are remembered forevermore. Let us look for a moment at the class to
which they belonged, let us take one of these humble men and paint the
picture of a Poor Man Hero,—

—He crouches beside the trunk of the giant oak, on the wild wood
side. He sweeps the overhanging leaves aside with his brawny hand—the
light falls suddenly over his swarthy and sunburnt face, over his fur cap,
with its bucktail plume, over the blue hunting shirt, over his forest moccasins,
and huntsman's attire. He raises the glittering rifle to his eye, that
keen, grey eye, looking from beneath the bushy eyebrow, and fixed upon
the distant foeman—he raises his rifle, he aims at the star on the heart—he
fires. The wood rings with the sound—the Britisher has taken the measure
of his grave.

And thus speeding along from tree to rock, from the fence to the secure
ambush of the buck wheat field—speeding along with his stealthy footsteps,
and his keen eye ever on the watch, the bold rifleman heeds not the battle
raging in the valley below; he cares not for the noise, the roar of cannon,
the mechanical march of the drilled columns; he cares for naught but his
own true rifle, that bears a death in every ball—that shrieks a death-knell
at every fire. A free man was the old rifleman. His home was the wild
wood, his companions the beasts of the ravine, and the birds of the cliff;
his friend, true and unfailing, was his rifle, and his joy was to wander
along the lonely pathway of the wilderness, to track the Indian to his
camp-fire, the panther to his lair.

A free man was the old rifleman. At the close of the day's hard chase,
what king so happy as he? He seats himself on the green sward, at the
foot of the ancient oak, in the depths of the eternal woods, while the setting
sunbeams fling their lines of gold athward the mossy carpet, and between
the quivering leaves of the twilight foliage.

He rears the booth of forest branches, with its walls and roof of leaves,
he spreads his couch of buffalo robes, and then gathering the limbs of decayed
trees, he lights his fire, and the rosy gleam flares over the darkening
woods, a sign of home built in the wilderness.

The victim of the day's chase, the gallant deer, is then dragged to the fire-side,
divested of his skin, and anon the savory steak smokes in the blaze,
and the tree hermit of the woods, the free old backwoodsman, rubs his bony
hands with glee, and chuckles with all a hunter's delight.

Such were the men that thronged the woods and peopled the solitudes
of this, our glorious land of the New World, in the year of grace, Seventy-Six,—in
the year of freedom—One. To this class belong the captors of
Andre, who refused a fortune, rather than aid the enemy of Washington.
Such were the men whom the British were sent to conquer: such were
the men who knew nothing of pretty uniforms, mechanical drills, or regular
lines of march, whom the stout red-coats were to annihilate.

The huntsman's frock of blue was not very handsome, his rough leggings

were not quite as pretty as the grenadier's well polished boots, his cap of
fur was a shapeless thing altogether, and yet he had two things that sometimes
troubled his enemies not a little—a sure rifle and a keen eye.

Let us be just to their memories. While we honor Paulding, Williams,
and Van Wert, let us remember that ten thousand such as these, rest unknown,
unnamed, beneath the graves of the Past, while the grass grows
more beautiful above, moistened with their blood, the unhonored Poor Men
Heroes of the Revolution.[3]

It now becomes our task to examine the contents of the letter which
Arnold received at the Breakfast table.

Andre, when captured, was taken to the nearest military post at North
Castle, where Colonel Jamison was stationed with a regiment of dragoons.
This brave officer was utterly confounded by the revelations of the papers,
which had been concealed in the boot of the Conspirator. He could not
imagine, that a General so renowned as Arnold was a Traitor. His confusion
may be imagined when it is known, that the letter perused by the
traitor at the breakfast table, was a hasty note from Jamison, announcing the
capture of a man named Anderson, who “had a passport signed in your
name and papers of a very dangerous tendency.”

At the same time, he announced that he had sent these dangerous papers
to Washington.—You have seen the agitation of the American General,
when after two day's delay, he received these documents at Robinson's
House.—The honest blunder of Jamison saved the Traitor's neck.

Next comes the question—Was Arnold's wife a Partner in the work of
Treason? Again let us question the shadows of the past for an answer.
Was her fate, in any manner, connected with the destiny of John Andre?
Let these scenes, which break upon us from the theatre of the Revolution,
solve the question,