University of Virginia Library

THE BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN.

1. Part the First.
THE BATTLE EVE.

I.—THE RED CROSS IN PHILADELPHIA.

Toll—toll—toll! The State House bell, that once rung the birth-day of
Freedom, now tolled its knell.

It was a sad day for Philadelphia, a sad day for the nation, when the
pomp of British banners and the gleam of British arms were in her streets
and along her avenues; when, as far as eye could reach, was seen the long
array of glaring red coats, with the sunbeams of a clear September day falling
on helm and cuirass, shining like burnished gold.

It was a sad and gloomy day for the nation, when the Congress was
forced to flee the old provincial town of William Penn, when the tories
paraded the streets with loud hurrahs, with the British lion waving overhead,
while the whigs hung their heads in shame and in despair.

True, the day was calm and bright overhead; true, the sky was clear,
and the nipping air of autumn gave freshness to the mind and bloom to the
cheek; true it was, the city was all alive with the glitter of processions,
and the passing to and fro of vast crowds of people; but the processions
were a dishonor to our soil, the crowds hurried to and fro to gaze upon the
living monuments of the defeat of Brandywine—the armed and arrogant
British legions thronging the streets of Philadelphia.

They came marching along in front of the old State House, on their way
to their barracks in the Northern Liberties. The scene was full of strange
and startling interest. The roofs of the State House arose clearly in the
autumn air, each peak and cornice, each gable-end and corner, shown in full
and distinct outline, with the trees of Independence Square towering greenly
in the rear of the fabric, while up into the clear sky arose the State House

steeple, with its solemn bell of independence, that but a year ago sent forth
the news of liberty to all the land, swinging a welcome to the British host—
a welcome that sounded like the funeral knell of new world freedom. The
columns of the army were passing in front of Independence Hall. Along
Chesnut street, as far as the eye could see, shone the glittering array of
sword and bayonet, with the bright sunshine falling over the stout forms of
the British troopers, mounted on gallant war steeds, and blazing with burnished
cuirass and polished helm, while banner and pennon waived gaily
overhead. There, treading the streets in all the flush of victory, were the
regiments of British infantry, with the one bold front of their crimson attire
flashing in the light, with their bayonets rising overhead like a forest of steel,
and with marks of Brandywine written on many a whiskered face and
burly chest.

And at their head, mounted on a gallant steed, with the lordlings of his
staff around him, rode a tall and athletic man, with a sinewy frame, and a
calm, placid face, wearing an even smile and quiet look, seen from beneath
the shadow of his plumed chapeau, while his gaudy attire of crimson, with
epaulettes of gold on either shoulder, announced Lord Cornwallis, the second
general of the invading army.

And as the General glanced around, fixing his eye proudly upon the
British banner, waving from the State House steeple, as his glance was met
by the windows of Independence Hall, decorated by the flags of the British
King, a proud gleam lit up his calm blue eye; and with the thought of
Brandywine, came a vision of the future, speaking eloquently of provinces
subjugated, rebels overthrown and liberties crushed.

And then peals of music, uttered by an hundred bands, filled the street,
and startled the silence of the State House avenues, swelling up to the
heavens with notes of joy, the roll of drum, the shriek of bugle, and the
clash of cymbal mingling in grand chorus. The banners waved more
proudly overhead, the spears, the bayonets, and helmets shone brighter in
the light, and between the peals of music the loud huzzas of the crowd
blackening the sidewalks, looking from the windows, and clinging to the
trees, broke gladly upon the air.

Toll—toll—toll—the solemn notes of independence bell heralded, with an
iron tongue, the entrance of the invaders into the city; the possession of
Philadelphia by the British.

It was a grand sight to see—the windows crowded with the forms of
beauty, waving scarfs in the air, aged matrons lifting little children on high,
who clapped their hands with glee, as they beheld the glimmer of arms and
the glitter of steel, the streets below all crimson with British uniform, all
music and all joy, the side walks blackened by crowds of servile tories who
shouted till their loyal throats were tired “Long life to King George—confusion
to Washington, and death to the rebels!”

They trooped through the streets of Philadelphia on the 26th of September,

1777; just fifteen days after the battle-day of Brandywine, they took
possession with all the pomp of victory; and as the shades of twilight sank
down over the town, they marched proudly into their barracks, in the
Northern Liberties.

II.—THE HAUNT OF THE REBEL.

And where was Washington?

Retreating from the forces of Sir William Howe, along the Schuylkill;
retreating with brave men under his command, men who had dared death in
a thousand shapes, and crimsoned their hands with the carnage of Brandywine;
retreating because his powder and ammunition were exhausted; because
his soldiers wanted the necessary apparel, while their hands grasped
muskets without lock or flint.

The man of the American army retreated, but his soul was firm. The
American Congress had deserted Philadelphia, but Washington did not
despair. The British occupied the surrounding country, their arms shone
on every hill; their banners toyed in every breeze; yet had George Washington
resolved to strike another blow for the freedom of this fair land.

The calm sunlight of an autumnal afternoon was falling over the quiet
valleys, the green plains, and the rich and rolling woodland of an undulating
tract of country, spreading from the broad bosom of the Delaware to the
hilly shores of the Schuylkill, about seven miles from Philadelphia.

The roofs of an ancient village, extending in one unbroken line along the
great northern road, arose grey and massive in the sunlight, as each corniced
gable and substantial chimney looked forth from the shelter of the surrounding
trees. There was an air of quaint and rustic beauty about this village.
Its plan was plain and simple, burdened with no intricate crossings of streets,
no labyrinthine pathways, no complicated arrangement of houses. The
fabrics of the village were all situated on the line of the great northern road,
reaching from the fifth mile stone to the eighth, while a line of smaller villages
extended this “Indian file of houses” to the tenth milestone from
the city.

The houses were all stamped with marks of the German origin of their
tenants. The high, sloping roof, the walls of dark grey stone, the porch
before the door, and the garden in the rear, blooming with all the freshness
of careful culture, marked the tenements of the village, while the heavy
gable-ends and the massive cornices of every roof, gave every house an appearance
of rustic antiquity.

Around the village, on either side, spread fertile farms, each cultivated
like a garden, varied by orchards heavy with golden fruit, fields burdened
with the massive shocks of corn, or whitened with the ripe buckwheat, or
embrowned by the upturning plough.

The village looked calm and peaceful in the sunlight, but its plain and

simple people went not forth to the field to work on that calm autumnal
afternoon. The oxen stood idly in the barn-yard, cropping the fragrant hay,
the teams stood unused by the farmer, and the flail was silent within the
barn. A sudden spell seemed to have come strangely down upon the
peaceful denizens of Germantown, and that spell was the shadow of the
British banner flung over her fields of white buckwheat, surmounting the
dream-like steeps of the Wissakikon, waving from Mount Airy, and floating
in the freshning breeze of Chesnut Hill.

Had you ascended Chesnut Hill on that calm autumnal afternoon, and
gazed over the tract of country opened to your view, your eye would have
beheld a strange and stirring sight.

Above your head the clear and boundless sky, its calm azure giving no
tokens of the strife of the morrow; declining in the west, the gorgeous sun
pouring his golden light over the land; his beams of welcome having no
omen of the battle-smoke and mist that shall cloud their light on the morrow
morn.

Gaze on the valley below. Germantown, with its dark grey tenements,
sweeps away to the south, in one unbroken line; farther on you behold the
glitter of steeples, and the roofs of a large city—they are the steeples and
roofs of Philadelphia. Yon belt of blue is the broad Delaware, and yon
dim, dark object beyond the city, blackening the bosom of the waters, is
Fort Mifflin, recently erected by General Washington.

Gaze over the fields of Germantown near the centre of the village. In
every field there is the gleam of arms, on every hill-top there waves a royal
banner, and over hill and plain, toward the Schuylkill on the one side, and
the Delaware on the other, sweep the white tents of the British army.

Now turn your gaze to the north, and to the northwest. The valley
opens before you, and fairer valley never smiled beneath the sun.

Away it sweeps to the northwest, an image of rustic beauty, here a rich
copse of green woodland, just tinged by autumn, there a brown field, yonder
the Wissahikon, marking its way of light, by a winding line of silver, in
one green spot a village peeping out from among the trees; a little farther
on, a farmer's dwelling with the massive barn and the dark grey hay-stack;
on every side life, and verdure, and cultivation, mingled and crowded together,
as though the hand of God, had flung his richest blessings over the
valley, and clothed the land in verdure and in beauty.

Yonder the valley sweeps away to the northwest; the sun shines over a
dense mass of woodland rolling away to the blue of the horizon. Mark
that woodland well, try and discern the outline of every tree, and count the
miles as you gaze upon the prospect.

The distance from Chesnut Hill, is sixteen weary miles, and under that
mass of woodland, beneath the shadows of those rolling forests, beside the
streams hidden from your eye, in distress and in want, in defeat and in
danger, rendevouz the bands of a desperate, though gallant army.

It is the Continental army, and they encamp on the banks of the Skippack.

Their encampment is sad and still, no peals of music break upon the
woodland air, no loud hurrahs, no shouts of arrogant victory. The morrow
has a different tale to tell, for by the first flush of the coming morn, a meteor
will burst over the British Hosts at Germantown, and fighting for life, for
liberty, will advance the starved soldiers of the Continental host.

III.—THE CAMP OF THE BRITISHER.

As the sun went down on the 3d of October, 1777, his last beams flung
a veil of golden light over the verdure of a green lawn, that extended from
the road near the head of Germantown, bounded along the village street by
a massive wall of stone, spreading north and south, over a quarter of a mile,
while toward the east, it swept in all its greenness and beauty, for the distance
of some two hundred yards.

A magnificent mansion arose towering on the air, a mansion built of grey
stone, with a steep roof, ornamented by heavy cornices, and varied massive
chimneys, with urns of brown stone, placed on pedestals of brick at each
corner of the building. This fabric was at once substantial, strikingly
adapted for defence in time of war, and neat and well-proportioned as regards
architectural beauty. The walls thick and massive, were well supplied
with windows, the hall door opened in the centre of the house, facing the
road, and the steps were decorated by two marble Lions placed on either
side, each holding an escutcheon in its grasp.

Here and there a green tree arose from the bosom of the lawn; in the
rear of the mansion were seen the brown-stone buildings of the barn, and to
the north the grounds were varied by the rustic enclosures of a cattle-pen.

This was the mansion of Chew's House, and that green lawn, spreading
bright and golden in the beams of the declining sun, was the Battle-Field
of Germantown.

One word with regard to the position of the British on the Eve of Battle.

The left wing of the British army extended from the centre of the village,
more than a mile below Chew's house, from a point near the old market
house, westward across the Wissahikon, and toward the Schuylkill. The
German chasseurs in their heavy uniform, the ponderous caps, defended by
bear-skin and steel, the massive sword, and the cumbrous ornaments of silver,
were stationed in the front and on the flank of the left wing.

The right wing swept away towards the Delaware, as far as the Old
York Road; each soldier well armed and accoutred, each dragoon supplied
with his stout war-steed, each cannon with its file of men, ready for action,
and every musket, with brilliant tube and glittering bayonet, prepared with
its man, for the keen chase of the rebel route, whenever the master of the
hounds might start the hunt.

This wing was defended in the front by a battalion of light infantry, and
the Queen's American Rangers, whose handsome accoutrements, uniform
of dark green, varied by ornaments of gold, and rifles mounted with silver,
gleamed gaily from amid the depths of the greenwood, presenting a brilliant
contrast to the course blue hunting shirt, the plain rifle, and uncouth woodsman's
knife that characterised the American Rifleman.

In a green field, situated near the Germantown road, a mile above Chew's
house, the banner of the 40th regiment floated above the tent of Col. Musgrave,
its brave commander, while the canvass dwellings of the soldiers were
scattered around the flag, intermingled with the tents of another battalion
of light infantry.

Such was the British position at Germantown—a picket at Allan's house,
Mount Airy, two miles above Chew's house—Col. Musgrave's command a
mile below Allen's house—the main body two miles below Chew's, somewhere
near the old market house—and this force was backed by four regiments
of British Grenadiers, stationed in the barracks in the Northern
Liberties, Philadelphia.

And this force, exceeding 18000 able-bodied regulars, the Patriot chieftian
had resolved to attack with 8000 Continental troops and 3000 militia, inferior
in arms, in clothing, and in everything but the justice of their cause, to
the proud soldiers of the British host.

Night came down upon Germantown. The long shadows of the old
houses were flung across the village road, and along the fields; the moon
was up in the clear heavens, the dark grey roofs were tinted with silver,
and glimpses of moonlight were flung around the massive barns of the village,
yet its peaceful denizens had not yet retired to rest, after their good old German
fashion, at early candle-light.

There was a strange fear upon the minds of the villagers. Each porch
contained its little circle; the hoary grandsire, who had suffered the bright-cheeked
grandchild to glide from his knee, while he leaned forward, with
animated gesture, conversing with his son in a low whisper—the blooming
mother, the blue-eyed maiden, and the ruddy-cheeked, flaxen-haired boy, all
sharing the interest of the scene, and having but one topic of discourse—the
terror of war.

Could we go back to that quiet autumnal night on the 3d of October, in
the Year of the “Three Sevens,” and stroll along the village street of Germantown,
we would find much to interest the ear and attract the eye.

We would leave Chew's house behind us, and stroll along the village
street. We would note the old time costumes of the villagers, the men clad
in coarse linsey wolsey, voluminous vests with wide lappels, breeches of
buckskin, stockings and buckled shoes, while the head was defended by the
`skimming dish hat;' we would admire the picturesque costume of the dames
and damsels of Germantown, here and there a young lady of “quality”
mincing her way in all the glory of high-heeled shoes, intricate head-dress,

and fine silk gown, all hooped and frilled; there a stately dame in frock of
calico, newly bought and high-priced; but most would we admire the blushing
damsel of the village, her full round cheeks peeping from beneath the
kerchief thrown lightly around her rich brown locks, her blue eyes glancing
mischievously hither and thither, her bust, full rounded and swelling with
youth and health, enclosed in the tight bodice, while the rustic petticoat of
brown linsey wolsey, short enough to disclose a neat ancle and a little foot,
would possess more attractions for our eyes, than the frock of calico or
gown of silk.

We would stroll along the street of the village, and listen to the conversation
of the villagers. Every tongue speaks of war, the old man whispers
the word as his grey hairs wave in the moonlight, the mother murmurs the
syllable of terror as the babe seeks the shelter of her bosom, the boy gaily
shouts the word, as he brandishes the rusted fowling piece in the air, and
the village beau, seated beside his sweetheart, mutters that word as the
thought of the British ravis her flashes over his mind.

Strolling from Chew's House, we would pass the Bringhursts, seated
on their porch, the Helligs, the Peters, the Unrods just opposite the old
Grave Yard, and the Lippards, and the Johnsons, below the grave yard,
at the opposite corners of the lane leading back to the township line; we
would stroll by the mansion of the Keysers, near the Mennonist grave yard;
further down we would pass the Knoors, the Haines, the Pastorius', the
Hergesimers, the Engles, the Cookes, the Conrads, the Schæffers, and
the hundred other families of Germantown, descendants of old German stock,
as seated on the porch in front of the mansion, each family circle discussed
the terrible topic of war, bloodshed, battle, and death.

Nor would we forget the various old time families, bearing the names of
Nice—Moyer—Bowman—Weaver—Bockius—Forrest—Billmeyer—Leibert—Matthias.
These names may not figure brilliantly in history, but
their's was the heraldry of an honest life.

And at every step, we would meet a British soldier, strutting by in his
coat of crimson, on every side we would behold the gleam of British arms,
and our ears would be saluted by the roll of British drums, beating the tattoo,
and the signal cannon, announcing the hour of repose.

And as midnight gathered over the roofs of the town, as the baying of the
watchdog broke upon our ears, mingled with the challenge of the sentinel,
we would stroll over the lawn of Chew's House, note the grass growing
greenly and freshly, heavy with dew, and then gazing upon the heavens, our
hearts would ask the question, whether no omen of blood in the skies,
heralded the door and the death of the morrow?

Oh, there is something of horror in the anticipation of a certain death,
when we know as surely as we know our own existence, that a coming
battle will send scores of souls shrieking to their last account, when the
green lawn, now silvered by the moonlight, will be soddened with blood,

when the ancient mansion, now rising in the midnight air, like an emblem
of rural ease, with its chimneys and its roof sleeping in the moonbeams, will
be a scene of terrible contest with sword, and ball, and bayonet; when the
roof will smoke with the lodged cannon ball, when the windows will send
their volumes of flame across the lawn, when all around will be mist and
gloom, grappling foemen, heaps of dying mingled with the dead, charging
legions, and recoiling squadrons.

IV.—THE NIGHT-MARCH.

And as the sun went down, on that calm day of autumn, shooting his
level beams thro' the wilds of the rivulet of the Skippack, there gathered
within the woods, and along the shores of that stream, a gallant and desperate
army, with every steed ready for the march, with the columns marshalled
for the journey of death, every man with his knapsack on his shoulder,
and musket in his grasp, while the broad banner of the Continental
Host drooped heavily over head, its folds rent and torn by the fight of
Brandywine, waving solemnly in the twilight.[1]

The tents were struck, the camp fires where had been prepared the hasty
supper of the soldier, were still burning; the neighing of steeds, and the suppressed
rattle of arms, rang thro' the grove startling the night-bird of the
Skippack, when the uncertain light of a decaying flame, glowing around the
stump of a giant oak, revealed a scene of strange interest.

The flame-light fell upon the features of a gallant band of heroes, circling
round the fire, each with his war cloak, drooping over his shoulder, half
concealing the uniform of blue and buff; each with sword by his side, chapeau
in hand, ready to spring upon his war-steed neighing in the grove hard
by, at a moments warning, while every eye was fixed upon the face of the
chieftain who stood in their midst.

By the soul of Mad Anthony it was a sight that would have stirred a
man's blood to look upon—that sight of the gallant chieftains of a gallant
band, clustering round the camp fire, in the last and most solemn council of
war, ere they spurred their steeds forward in the march of death.

The man with the form of majesty, and that calm, impenetrable face,
lighted by the hidden fire of soul, bursting forth ever and again in the glance
of his eye! Had you listened to the murmurs of the dying on the field of
Brandywine you would have heard the name, that has long since become a
sound of prayer and blessing on the tongues of nations—the name of Washington.
And by his side was Greene, his fine countenance wearing a
shade of serious thought; and there listlessly thrusting his glittering sword
in the embers of the decaying fire, with his fierce eyes fixed upon the earth,
while his mustachioed lip gave a stern expression to his face, was the man

of Poland and the Patriot of Brandywine, Pulaski, whom it were tautology
to call the brave; there was the towering form of Sullivan, there was
Conway, with his fine face and expressive features, there was Armstrong
and Nash and Maxwell and Stirling and Stephens, all brave men and
true, side by side with the gallant Smallwood of Maryland, and the stalwart
Forman of Jersey.

And there with his muscular chest, clad in the close buttoned blue coat,
with his fatigue cloak thrown over his left shoulder, with his hand resting
on the hilt of his sword, was the hero of Chadd's Ford, the Commander of
the Massacred of Paoli, the future avenger of Stony Point, Anthony Wayne,
whom the soldiers loved in their delight to name Mad Anthony; shouting
that name in the hour of the charge and in the moment of death like a watch-word
of terror to the British Army.

Clustered around their Chief, were the aids-de-camp of Washington, John
Marshall, afterwards Chief Justice of the States, Alexander Hamilton,
gifted, gallant, and brave, Washington's counsellor in the hour of peril, his
bosom friend and confidant, all standing in the same circle with Pickering
and Lee, the Captain of the Partizan Band, with his slight form and swarthy
face, who was on that eventful night detailed for duty near the Commander-in-chief.

And as they stood there clustered round the person of Washington, in a
mild yet decided voice, the chieftain spoke to them of the plan of the contemplated
surprise and battle.

It was his object to take the British by surprise. He intended for the
accomplishment of this object, to attack them at once on the front of the
centre; and on the front, flank and rear of each wing. This plan of operation
would force the American commander to extend the continental army
over a surface of from five to seven miles.

In order to make this plan of attack effective, it would be necessary for
the American army to seperate near Skippack, and advance to Germantown
in four divisions, marching along as many roads.

General Armstrong with the Pennsylvania militia, 3000 strong, was to
march down the Manatawny road (now Ridge road,) and traversing the
shores of the Schuylkill, until the beautiful Wissahikon poured into its
bosom, he was to turn the left flank of the enemy at Vandurings (now Robinson's
Mill,) and then advance eastward, along the bye roads, until two
miles distance between this mill and the Germantown market-house were
accomplished.

Meanwhile the Militia of Maryland and New Jersey, were to take up
their line of march some seven or eight miles to the eastward of Armstrong's
position, and over three miles distance from Germantown. They were to
march down the Old York Road, turn the right flank of the enemy, and
attack it in the rear, also entering the town at the market-house, which was
the central point of operation for all the divisions.

Between Germantown and Old York Road, at the distance of near two
miles from the village, extends a road, called Limekiln road. The divisions
of Greene and Stephens flanked by McDougal's Brigade were to take a
circuit by this road, and attack the front of the enemy's right wing. They
also were to enter the town by the market-house.

The main body, with which was Washington, Wayne, and Sullivan, were
to advance toward Germantown by the Great Northern Road, entering the
town by way of Chesnut Hill, some four miles distant from the Market-house.

A column of this body was led on by Sullivan, another by Wayne, and
Convay's Brigade flanked the entire division.

While these four divisions advanced, the division of Lord Stirling, combined
with the brigades of Maxwell and Nash were to form a corps de
reserve.

The reader, and the student of American History, has now the plan of
battle spread out before him. In order to take in the full particulars of this
magnificent plan of battle, it may be necessary to remember the exact nature
of the ground around Germantown.

In some places plain and level, in others broken by ravines, rendered intricate
by woods, tangled by thickets, or traversed by streams, it was in its
most accessible points, and most favorable aspects, broken by enclosures,
difficult fences, massive stone walls, or other boundary marks of land, rendering
the operation of calvary at all times hazardous, and often impassible.

In the vicinage of the town, for near a mile on either side, the land spread
greenly away, in level fields, still broken by enclosures, and then came thick
woods, steep hills and dark ravines.

The base line of operations was the country around Skippack Creek,
from which point, Washington, like a mighty giant, spread forth the four
arms of his force, clutching the enemy in front, on his wings and on the
rear, all at the same moment.

It was a magnificent plan of battle, and success already seemed to hover
round the American banner, followed by a defeat of the British, as terrible
as that of Yorktown, when the red-coat heroes of Germantown struck their
own Lion from his rock.

As Washington went over the details of battle, each brave officer and
scarred chieftain leaned forward, taking in every word, with absorbing interest,
and then receiving the orders of his commander, with the utmost
attention and consideration.

All was now planned, everything was ready for the march, each General
mounted on his war-steed, rode to the head of his division, and with a low
solemn peal of music, the night-march of Germantown commenced.

And through the solemn hours of that night, along the whole valley, on
every side, was heard the half suppressed sound of marching legions, mingled
with the low muttered word of command, the clank of arms and the
neighing of war-steeds—all dim and indistinct, yet terrible to hear.—The

farmer sleeping on his humble couch, rushed to the window of his rustic
mansion at the sound, and while his wife stood beside him, all tremor and
affright, and his little ones clung to his knees, he saw with a mingled look
of surprise and fear, the forms of an armed band, some on horse and some
on foot, sweeping through his green fields, as the dim moonbeams gleaming
through the gathering mist and gloom, shone over glittering arms, and dusky
banners, all gliding past, like phantoms of the Spectre Land.

2. Part the Second.
THE BATTLE MORN.

I.—THE DAYBREAK WATCH.

Along the porch of an ancient mansion, surmounting the height of Mount
Airy, strode the sentinel of the British picket, his tall form looming like the
figure of a giant in the gathering mist, while the musquet on his shoulder
was grasped by a hand red with American blood.

He strode slowly along the porch, keeping his lonely watch; now turning
to gaze at the dark shadow of the mansion towering above him, now
fixing his eye along the Germantown road, as it wound down the hill, on its
northward course; and again he gazed upon the landscape around him,
wrapt in a gathering mist, which chilled his blood, and rendered all objects
around him dim and indistinct.

All around was vague and shadowy. The mist, with its white wreaths

and snowy columns, came sweeping up on every side, from the bosom of
the Wissahikon, from the depths of a thousand brooklets, over hill and over
valley, circled that dense and gathering exhalation; covering the woods with
its ghastly pall, rolling over the plains, and winding upward around the
height of Mount Airy, enveloping the cottages opposite the sentinel, in its
folds of gloom, and confining the view to a space of twenty paces from the
porch, where he kept his solitary watch—to him, a watch of death.

It is now daybreak, and a strange sound meets that soldier's ear. It is
now daybreak, and his comrades sleep within the walls of Allen's house, and
a strange, low, murmuring noise, heard from a great distance, causes him to
incline his ear with attention, and to listen with hushed breath and parted lips.

He listens. The night wore on. The blood-red moon was there in the
sky, looking out from the mist, like a funeral torch shining through a shroud.

The Sentinel bent his head down upon the porch, and with that musquet,
red with the carnage of Brandywine, in his hand, he listens. It is a distant
sound—very distant; like the rush of waters, or the moaning of the young
August storm, bursting into life amid the ravines of the far-off mountains.
It swells on the ear—it spreads to the east and to the west: it strikes the
sentinel's heart with a strange fear, and he shoulders his musquet with a
firmer grasp; and now a merry smile wreathes his lips.

That sound—it is the rush of waters: the Wissahikon has flooded its
banks, and is pouring its torrents over the meadows, while it rolls onward
towards the Schuylkill. The sentinel smiles at his discovery, and resumes
his measured stride. He is right—and yet not altogether right. A stream
has burst its banks, but not the Wissahikon. A stream of vengeance—dark,
wild, and terrible, vexed by passion, aroused by revenge, boiling and seething
from its unfathomable deeps—is flowing from the north, and on its bosom
are borne men with strong arms and stout hearts, swelling the turbulence of
the waters; while the gleam of sword and bayonet flashes over the dark
waves.

The day is breaking—sadly and slowly breaking, along the veil of mist,
that whitens over the face of nature like a Shroud of Death for millions.
The sentinel leans idly upon the bannisters of the porch, relaxes the grasp
of his musquet, inclines his head to one side, and no longer looks upon the
face of nature covered by mist. He sleeps. The sound not long ago far
off, is now near and mighty in its volume, the tramp of steeds startles the
silence of the road, suppressed tones are heard, and there is a noise like the
moving of legions.

II.—THE FIRST CORSE OF GERMANTOWN.

And yet he sleeps—he dreams! Shall we guess his dream? That home,
hidden away yonder in the shadows of an English dell—he is approaching
its threshhold.

Yes, down the old path by the mill—he sees his native cottage—his aged
father stands in the door—his sister, whom he left a young girl, now grown
into a blooming woman, beckons him on. He reaches her side—presses
her lips, and in that kiss hushes her welcome—“Brother, have you come
at last!”

But, ah! That horrid sound crashing through his dream!

He wakes,—wakes there on the porch of the old mansion—he sees that
rifle-blaze flashing through the mist—he feels the death-shot, and then falls
dead to wake in Eternity.

That rifle-blaze, flashing through the mist, is the first shot of the Battle-day
of Germantown.

And that dead man, flung along the porch in all the ghastliness of sudden
death—cold and stiff there, while his Sister awakes from her sinless sleep
to pray for him, three thousand miles away—is the first dead man of that
day of horror!

And could we wander yonder, up through the mists of this fearful morning,
even to the Throne of Heaven, we might behold the Prayer of the Sister,
the Soul of the Brother, meet face to face before Almighty God.

And now listen to that sound, thundering yonder to the North, and now
stand here on the porch of Allen's house, and see the Legions come!

They break from the folds of the mist, the Men of Brandywine—foot-soldiers
and troopers come thundering up the hill.

The blood-red moon, shining from yonder sky, like a funeral torch through
a shroud, now glares upon the advancing legions—over the musquets glittering
in long lines, over the war-horses, over the drawn swords, over the
flags rent with bullet and bayonet, over the broad Banner of Stars.

Allen's house is surrounded. The soldiers of the picket guard rush wildly
from their beds, from the scene of their late carousal by the fire, they rush
and seize their arms—but in vain! A blaze streams in every window,
soldier after soldier falls heavily to the floor, the picket guard are with the
Dead Sentinel. Allen's house is secured, and the hunt is up!

God of Battles, what a scene! The whole road, farther than the eye
could see, farther than the ear could hear, crowded by armed men, hurrying
over Chesnut Hill, hurrying along the valley between Chesnut Hill and
Mount Airy, sweeping up the hill of Allen's house, rushing onward in one
dense column, with the tall form of Sullivan at their head, while the war
shout of Anthony Wayne is borne along by the morning breeze. There,
riding from rank to rank, speeding from battalion to battalion, from column
to column, a form of majesty sweeps by, mounted on a steed of iron grey,
waving encouragement to the men, while every lip repeats the whisper, and
every heart beats at the sound, echoed like a word of magic along the lines—
“There he rides—how grandly his form towers in the mist; it's Washington—it's
Washington!” and the whole army take up the sound—“It is
Washington!”

Allen's house was passed, and now the path of the central body of the
army lay along the descent of the road from Mount Airy, for the space of a
mile, until the quarters of Colonel Musgrave's regiment were reached.

The descent was like the path of a hurricane. The light of the breaking
day, streaming dimly through mist and gloom, fell over the forms of the
patriot band as they swept down the hill, every man with his musquet ready
for the charge, every trooper with his sword drawn, every eye fixed upon
the shroud of mist in front of their path, in the vain effort to gaze upon the
position of the advance post of the enemy a mile below, every heart throbbing
wildly with the excitement of the coming contest, and all prepared for
the keen encounter,—the fight, hand to hand, foot to foot, the charge of
death, and the sweeping hail of the iron cannon ball and the leaden bullet.

How it would have made your heart throb, and beat and throb again, to
have stood on that hill of Mount Airy, and looked upon the legions as they
rushed by.

Sullivan's men have passed, they are down the hill, and you see them
below,—rank after rank disappearing in the pall of the enveloping mist.

Here they come—a band brave and true, a band with scarred faces and
sunburnt visages, with rusted musquets and tattered apparel, yet with true
hearts and stout hands. These are the men of Paoli!

And there, riding in their midst, as though his steed and himself were but
one animal—so well he backs that steed, so like is the battle-fever of
horse, with the waving mane and glaring eye, to the wild rage that stamps
the warrior's face—there in the midst of the Men of Paoli, rides their
leader—Mad Anthony Wayne!

And then his voice—how it rings out upon the morning air, rising above
the clatter of arms and the tramp of steeds, rising in a mighty shout—“On,
boys, on! In a moment we'll have them. On, comrades, on—and remember
Paoli!”

And then comes the band with the gallant Frenchman at their head; the
brave Conway, brave though unfortunate, also rushing wildly on, in the train
of the hunt. Your eye sickens as you gaze over file after file of brave men,
with mean apparel and meaner arms, some half clad, others well nigh bare-foot,
yet treading gaily over the flinty ground; some with fragments of a
coat on their backs, others without covering for their heads, all marked by
wounds, all thinned by hunger and disease, yet every man of them is firm,
every hand is true, as it clutches the musquet with an eager grasp.

Ha! That gallant band who come trooping on, spurring their stout steeds,
with wide haunches and chests of iron, hastily forward, that band with every
face seemed by scars, and darkened by the thick mustachio, every eye
gleaming beneath a knit brow, every swarthy hand raising the iron sword on
high. They wear the look of foreigners, the manner of men trained to fight
in the exterminating wars of Europe.

And their leader is tall and well-proportioned, with a dark-hued face,

marked by a compressed lip, rendered fierce by the overhanging mustachio;
his brow is shaded by the trooper's plume, and his hand grasps the trooper's
sword. He speaks to his men in a foreign tongue, he reminds them of the
well-fought field on the plain of Poland, he whispers a quick, terrible memento
of Brandywine and Paoli, and the clear word rings from his lips:

“Forwarts,—brudern,—forwarts!”

It is the band of Pulaski sweeping past, eager for the hunt of death, and
as they spur their steeds forward, a terrible confusion arises far ahead.

There is flashing of strange fires through the folds of mist, lifting the
snow-white pall for a moment—there is rolling of musquetry, rattling like
the thunderbolt ere it strikes—there is the tramp of hurrying legions, the
far-off shout of the charging continentals, and the yells and shouts of the
surprised foemen.

Sullivan is upon the camp of the enemy, upon them with the terror of
ball and bayonet. They rush from their camp, they form hastily across the
road, in front of their baggage, each red-coated trooper seeks his steed, each
footman grasps his musquet, and the loud voice of Musgrave, echoing wildly
along the line of crimson attire and flashing bayonets, is heard above all other
sounds,—“Form—lads, form—fall in there—to your arms, lads, to your
arms.—Form, comrades, form!”

In vain his shouting, in vain the haste of his men rushing from their beds,
into the very path of the advancing continentals! The men of Sullivan are
upon them! They sweep on with one bold front—the forms of the troopers,
mounted on their war-steeds, looming through the mist, as with sword
upraised, and battle-shout pealing to the skies, they lead on the charge of
death!

A moment of terror, a moment made an age by suspense! The troopers
meet, mid-way in their charge, horse to horse, sword mingled with sword,
eye glaring in eye, they meet. The ground quivers with an earthquake
shock. Steeds recoil on their haunches, the British strew the road-side,
flooding the dust with their blood, and the music of battle, the fierce music
of dying groans and cries of death, rises up with the fog, startling the very
heavens with its discord!

The hunt is up!

“On—boys—on”—rings the voice of Mad Anthony—“on—comrades—
on—and Remember Paoli!”

“Charge!” sounds the voice of Washington, shrieking along the line,
like the voice of a mighty spirit—“upon them—over them!” Conway
re-echoes the sound, Sullivan has already made the air ring with his shout,
and now Pulaski takes up the cry—“Forwarts—brudern—Forwarts!”

The hunt is up!

The British face the bayonets of the advancing Americans, but in vain!
Each bold backwoodsman sends his volley of death along the British line,
and then clubbing his musquet, rushes wildly forward, beating the red-coat

to the sod with a blow that cannot be stayed. The British troopers rush
forward in the charge, but ere half the distance between them and the Amercan
host is measured, Mad Anthony comes thundering on, with his Legion
of Iron, and as his war-shout swells on the air, the red-coats are driven back
by the hurricane force of his charge, the ground is strewn with the dying,
and the red hoofs of the horse trample madly over the faces of the dead.

Wayne charges, Pulaski charges, Conway brings up his men, and Washington
is there, in front of the battle, his sword gleaming like a meteor
through the gloom.

The fire of the infantry, spreading a sheeted flame thro' the folds of the
mist, lights up the scene. The never-ceasing clang of sword against sword,
the low muttered shriek of the fallen, vainly trying to stop the flow of
blood, the wild yell of the soldier, gazing madly round as he receives his
death wound, the shout of the charge, and the involuntary cry of `quarter,'
all furnish a music most dread and horrible, as tho' an infernal band were
urging on the work of slaughter, with their notes of fiendish mockery.

That flash of musquetry! What a light it gives the scene! Above,
clouds of white mist and lurid smoke; around, all hurry, and tramp, and
motion; faces darkened by all the passions of a demon, glaring madly in the
light, blood red hands upraised, foemen grappling in contest, swords rising
and falling, circling and glittering, the forms of the wounded, with their faces
buried in the earth, the ghastly dead, all heaped up in positions of ludicrous
mockery of death, along the roadside!

That flash of musquetry!

The form of Washington is in the centre of the fight, the battle-glare
lighting up his face of majesty; the stalwart form of Wayne is seen riding
hither and thither, waving a dripping sword in his good right hand; the
figure of Pulaski, dark as the form of an earth-riven spirit of some German
story, breaks on your eye, as enveloped in mist, he seems rushing every
where at the same moment, fighting in all points of the contest, hurrying his
men onward, and driving the affrighted British before him with the terror
of his charge.

And Col. Musgrave—where is he?

He shouts the charge to his men, he hurries hither and thither, he shouts
till he is hoarse, he fights till his person is red with the blood of his own
men, slain before his very eyes, but all in vain!

He shouts the word of retreat along his line—“Away, my men, away to
Chew's House—away!”

The retreat commences, and then indeed, the hunt of death is up in good
earnest.

The British wheel down the Germantown road, they turn their backs to
their foes, they flee wildly toward Germantown, leaving their dead and
dying in their wake, man and horse, they flee, some scattering their arms by
the roadside, others weakened by loss of blood, feebly endeavoring to join

the retreat, and then falling dead in the path of the pursuers, who with one
bold front, with one firm step rush after the British in their flight, ride down
the fleeing ranks, and scatter death along the hurrying columns.

The fever of bloodshed grows hotter, the chase grows fearful in interest,
the hounds who so often have worried down the starved Americans, are
now hunted in their turn.

And in the very van of pursuit, his tall form seen by every soldier, rode
George Washington, his mind strained to a pitch of agony, as the crisis of
the contest approached, and by his side rode Mad Anthony Wayne, now
Mad Anthony indeed, for his whole appearance was changed, his eye
seemed turned to a thing of living flame, his face was begrimed with
powder, his sword was red with blood, and his battle-shout rung fiercer on
the air—

“Over them boys—upon them—over them, and Remember Paoli!”

“Now Wayne, now”—shouted Washington—“one charge more and we
have them!”

“Forwarts—brüdern—forwarts!” shouted Pulaski, as his iron band came
thundering on—“Forwarts—for Washington—Forwarts!”

The British leader wheeled his steed for a moment, and gazed upon his
pursuers. All around was bloodshed, gloom, and death; mist and smoke
above; flame around, and mangled corses below.—With one hoarse shout,
he again bade his men make for Chew's House, and again the dying scattered
along the path looked up, and beheld the British sweeping madly
down the road.

The vanguard of the pursuers had gained the upper end of Chew's wall,
when the remnant of the British force disappeared in the fog; file after file
of the crimson-coated British were lost to sight in the mist, and in the very
heat and flush of the chase, the American army was brought to a halt in
front of Chew's wall, each soldier falling back on his comrade with a sudden
movement, while the officers gazed on each other's faces in vain inquiry
for the cause of this unexpected delay.

The fog gathered in dense folds over the heads of the soldiers, thicker
and more dense it gathered every instant; the enemy was lost to sight in
the direction of Chew's lawn, and a fearful pause of silence, from the din
and tumult of bloodshed, ensued for a single moment.

Bending from his steed in front of the gate that led into Chew's lawn,
Washington gazed round upon the faces of his staff, who circled him on
every side, with every horse recoiling on his haunches from the sudden effect
of the halt.

Washington was about to speak as he leaned from his steed, with his
sword half lowered in the misty air, he was about to speak, and ask the
meaning of this sudden disappearance of the British, when a lurid flash
lifted up the fog from the lawn, and the thunder of musquetry boomed along

the air, echoing among the nooks and corners of the ancient houses on the
opposite side of the street.

Another moment, and a soldier with face all crimsoned with blood and
darkened by battle smoke, rushed thro' the group clustering around the horse
of Washington, and in a hurried voice announced that the remnant of the
British Regiment had thrown themselves into the substantial stone mansion
on the left, and seemed determined to make good, a desperate defence.

“What say you, gentlemen”—cried Washington—“shall we press onward
into the town, and attack the main body of the enemy at once, or shall
we first drive the enemy from their strong hold, at this mansion on our left?”

The answer of Wayne was short and to the point. “Onward!”—he
shouted, and his sword rose in the air, all dripping with blood—“Onward
into the town—our soldiers are warmed with the chase—onward, and with
another blow, we have them!”

And the gallant Hamilton, the brave Pickering, the gifted Marshall, echoed
the cry—“Onward—” while the hoarse shout of Pulaski rang out in the
air—“Forwarts—brüdern—Forwarts!”

“It is against every rule of military science—” exclaimed General Knox,
whose opinion in council was ever valuable with Washington—“It is
against every rule of military science, to leave a fortified stronghold in the
rear of an advancing army. Let us first reduce the mansion on our left,
and then move forward into the centre of the town!”

There was another moment of solemn council; the older officers of the
staff united in opinion with Knox, and with one quick anxious glance
around the scene of fog and mist, Washington gave the orders to storm the
house.

And at the word, while a steady volume of flame was flashing from Chew's
House, every window pouring forth its blaze, glaring over the wreath of
mist, the continentals, horse and foot, formed across the road, to the north
of the house, eager for the signal which would bid them advance into the
very jaws of death.

The artillery were ranged some three hundred yards from the mansion—
their cannon being placed on a slight elevation, and pointed at the north-west
corner of the house. This was one of the grand mistakes of the battle, occasioned
by the density of the fog. Had the cannon been placed in a
proper position, the house would have been reduced ere the first warm flush
of pursuit was cold on the cheeks of the soldiers.

But the fog gathered thicker and more densely around, the soldiers
moved like men moving in the dark, and all was vague, dim, undefined and
uncertain.

All was ready for the storm. Here were men with firebrands, ready to
rush forward under the cover of the first volley of musquetry and fire the
house; here were long lines of soldiers grasping their guns with a quick
nervous movement, one foot advanced in the act of springing forward;

yonder were the cannoniers, their pieces loaded, the linstock in the hand
of one soldier, while another stood ready with the next charge of ammunition;
on every side was intense suspense and expectation, and heard above
all other sounds, the rattle of the British musquetry rose like thunder over
Chew's lawn, and seen the brightest of all other sights, the light of the
British guns, streamed red and lurid over the field, giving a strange brilliancy
to the wreaths of mist above, and columns of armed men below.

III.—THE FLAG OF TRUCE.

Tradition states that at this moment, when every thing was ready for
the storm of death, an expression of the most intense thought passed over
the impenetrable countenance of Washington. Every line of his features
was marked by thought, his lip was sternly compressed, and his eye
gathered a strange fire.

He turned to the east, and bent one long anxious look over the white
folds of mist, as though he would pierce the fog with his glance, and gaze
upon the advancing columns of Greene and Stephen. He inclined his head
to one side of his steed, and listened for the tramp of their war-horses, but
in vain. He turned towards Germantown; all was silent in that direction,
the main body of the enemy were not yet in motion.

And then in a calm voice, he asked for an officer who would consent to
bear a flag of truce to the enemy. A young and gallant officer of Lee's
Rangers, sprang from his horse, his name Lieut. Smith; he assumed the
snow-white flag, held sacred by all nations, and with a single glance at the
Continental array, he advanced to Chew's House.

In a moment he was lost to sight amid the folds of the fog, and his way
lay over the green lawn for some two hundred yards. All was still and
silent around him. Tradition states that the fire from the house ceased for
a moment, while Musgrave's band were silently maturing their plan of desperate
defence. The young soldier advanced along his lonely path, speeding
through the bosom of the fog, all objects lost to his sight, save the green
verdure of the sod, yet uncrimsoned by blood, and here and there the trunk
of a giant tree looming blackly through the mist.

The outline of a noble mansion began to dawn on his eye, first the sloping
roof, then the massive chimneys, then the front of the edifice, and then
its windows, all crowded with soldiers in their crimson attire, whiskered
face appearing above face, with grisly musquet and glittering bayonet, thrust
out upon the air, while with fierce glances, the hirelings looked forth into
the bosom of that fearful mist, which still like a death-shroud for millions,
hung over the lawn, and over the chimneys of the house.

The young officer came steadily on, and now he stood some thirty paces
from the house, waving his white flag on high, and then with an even step
he advanced toward the hall door. He advanced, but he never reached

that hall door. He was within the scope of the British soldiers' vision,
they could have almost touched him with an extended flag staff, when the
loud word of command rang through the house, a volley of fire blazed from
every window, and the whole American army saw the fog lifted from the
surface of the lawn, like a vast curtain from the scenes of a magnificent
theatre.

Slowly and heavily that curtain uprose, and a hail storm of bullets
whistled across the plain, when the soldiers of the Continental host looked
for their messenger of peace.

They beheld a gallant form in front of the mansion. He seemed making
an effort to advance, and then he tottered to and fro, and his white flag disappeared
for a moment; and the next instant he fell down like a heavy
weight upon the sod, and a hand trembling with the pulse of death was
raised above his head, waving a white flag in the air. That flag was
stained with blood: it was the warm blood flowing from the young Virginian's
heart.

Along the whole American line there rang one wild yell of horror. Old
men raised their musquets on high, while the tears gathered in their eyes;
the young soldiers all moved forward with one sudden step; a wild light
blazed in the eye of Washington; Wayne waved his dripping sword on
high; Pulaski raised his proud form in the stirrups, and gave one meaning
glance to his men; and then, through every rank and file, through every
column and solid square, rang the terrible words of command, and high
above all other sounds was heard the voice of Washington—

“Charge, for your country and for vengeance—CHARGE!”

3. Part the Third.
CHEW'S HOUSE.

Revolutionary Song.

I.—THE FORLORN HOPE.

And while the mist gathered thicker and darker above, while the lurid
columns of battle smoke waved like a banner overhead, while all around
was dim and indistinct,—all objects rendered larger and swelled to gigantic

proportions by the action of the fog,—along that green lawn arose the
sound of charging legions, and the blaze of musquetry flashing from the
windows of Chew's house, gave a terrible light to the theatre of death.

Again, like a vast curtain, the mist uprose,—again were seen armed men
brandishing swords aloft, or presenting fixed bayonets, or holding the sure
rifle in their unfailing grasp, or yet again waving torches on high, all rushing
madly forward, still in regular columns, file after file, squadron after squadron—a
fierce array of battle and of death.

It was a sight worth a score of peaceful years to see! The dark and
heavy pall of battle smoke overhead, mingled with curling wreaths of snow-white
mist—the curtain of this theatre of death—the mansion of dark, grey
stone, rising massive and ponderous from the lawn, each peak and corner,
each buttress and each angle, shown clearly by the light of the musquet
flash—the green lawn spreading away from the house—the stage of the
dread theatre—crowded by bands of advancing men, with arms glittering in
the fearful light, with fierce faces stamped with looks of vengeance, sweeping
forward with one steady step, their eyes fixed upon the fatal honse;
while over their heads, and among their ranks, swept and fell the leaden
bullets of their foes, hissing through the air with the sound of serpents, or
pattering on the sod like a hailstorm of death.

And while a single brigade, with which was Washington and Sullivan
and Wayne, swept onward toward the house, the other troops of the central
division, extending east and west along the fields, were forced to remain
inactive spectators of this scene of death, while each man vainly endeavored
to pierce the gloom of the mist and smoke, and observe the course of the
darkening fight.

Some thirty yards of green lawn now lay between the forlorn hope of
the advancing Americans and Chew's house; all became suddenly still and
hushed, and the continentals could hear their own foot tramp breaking upon
the air with a deadened sound, as they swept onward toward the mansion.

A moment of terrible stillness, and then a moment of bloodshed and horror!
Like the crash of thunderbolts meeting in the zenith from distant
points of the heavens, the sound of musquetry broke over the lawn, and
from every window of Chew's house, from the hall door, and from behind
the chimneys on the roof, rolled the dense columns of musquet smoke;
while on every side, overhead, around, and beneath, the musquet flash of
the British glared like earth-riven lightning in the faces of the Americans,
and then the mist and smoke came down like a pall, and for a moment all
was dark as midnight.

A wild yell broke along the American line, and then the voice of Wayne
rung out through the darkness and the gloom—“Sweep forward under the
cover of the smoke—sweep forward and storm the house!”

They came rushing on, the gallant band of rangers, bearing torches in
their hands—they came rushing on, and their path lay over the mangled

bodies of the forlorn hope, scattered along the sod, in all the ghastliness of
wounds and death, and at their backs advanced with measured step the firm
columns of the continental army, while the air was heavy with the shriek
of wounded men, and burdened with cries of agony.

On they swept, trampling over the face of the dead in the darkness and
gloom, and then the terrible words of command rung out upon the air—
“Advance and fire—advance and storm the house!”

A volley of sheeted flame arose from the bosom of the fog along the
lawn, the thunder of the American musquetry broke upon the air, and the
balls were heard pattering against the walls of the house, and tearing splinters
from the roof.

Another moment, and the pall of mist and battle smoke is swept aside,
revealing a scene that a thousand words might not describe—a scene whose
hurry, and motion, and glare, and horror, the pencil of the artist might in
vain essay to picture.

There were glittering bayonets thrust from the windows of the house,—
there were fierce faces, with stout forms robed in crimson attire, thrust from
every casement,—there were bold men waving torches on high, rushing
around the house; here a party were piling up combustible brush-wood;
there a gallant band were affixing their scaling ladder to a second story
window, yonder another band were thundering away at the hall door, with
musquet and battle axe; while along the whole sweep of the wide lawn
poured the fire of the continental host, with a flash like lightning, yet with
uncertain and ineffectual aim.

The hand of the soldier with the hand gathered near the combustible pile
under a window—the hand of the soldier was extended with the blazing
torch, he was about to fire the heap of faggots, when his shattered arm fell
to his side, and a dead comrade came toppling over his chest.

A soldier near the hall door had been foremost among that gallant band,
the barricades were torn away, all obstructions well nigh cleared, and he
raised his battle axe to hew the door in fragments, when the axe fell with a
clanging sound upon the threshold stone, and his comrades caught his falling
body in their arms, while his severed jaw hung loosely on his breast.

The party who rushed forward in the endeavor to scale the window!
The ladder was fixed—across the trench dug around Chew's house it was
fixed—the hands of two sturdy continentals held it firm, and a file of desperate
men, headed by a stalwart backwoodsman, in rough blue shirt and
fur cap, with buck-tail plume, began the ascent of death.

The foot of the backwoodsman touched the second round of the scaling
ladder, when he sprang wildly in the air, over the heads of his comrades,
and fell dead in the narrow trench, with a death shriek that rang in the ears
of all who heard it for life. A musquet ball had penetrated his skull, and
the red torrent was already streaming over his forehead, and along his
swarthy features.

The Americans again rushed forward to the house, but it was like rushing
into the embrace of death; again they scaled the windows, again were
they driven back, while the dead bodies of their comrades littered the trench;
again they strode boldly up to the hall door, and again did soldier after
soldier crimson the threshold-stone with his blood.

II.—THE HORSEMAN AND HIS MESSAGE.

And while the battle swelled fiercest, and the flame flashing from the
windows of Chew's house was answered by the volley of the continental
brigade, two sounds came sweeping along the air, one from the south, and
the other from the northwest. They were the sounds of marching men—
the tread of hurrying legions.

On the summit of a gentle knoll, surrounded by the officers of his staff,
Washington had watched the progress of the fight around Chew's mansion,
not more than two hundred yards distant.

With his calm and impenetrable face, wearing an unmoved expression,
he had seen the continentals disappear in the folds of the fog, he had seen
file after file marching on their way of death, he had heard the roar of contest,
the shrieks of the wounded and the yells of the dying had startled his
ear, but not a muscle of his countenance moved, not a feature trembled.

But when those mingling sounds of marching men came pealing on his
ear, he inclined slightly to one side of his steed and then to the other, as if
in the effort to catch the slightest sound, his lips were fixedly compressed
and his eye flashed and flashed again, until it seemed turning to a thing of
living flame.

The sounds grew near, and nearer! A horseman approached from the
direction of Germantown, his steed was well nigh exhausted and the rider
swayed heavily to and fro in the saddle. The horse came thundering up
the knoll, and a man with a ghastly face, spotted with blood, leaned from
the saddle and shrieked forth, as he panted for breath—

“General—they are in motion—they are marching through Germantown
—Kniphausen, Agnew, and Grey, they will be on you in a moment, and—
Cornwallis—Cornwallis is sweeping from Philadelphia.”

The word had not passed his lips, when he fell from his steed a ghastly
corpse.

Another messenger stood by the side of Washington—his steed was also
exhausted, and his face was covered with dust, but not with blood. He
panted for breath as he shrieked forth an exclamation of joy:—

“Greene is marching from the northwest—attracted by the fire in this
quarter, he has deviated from his path, and will be with you in a moment?”

And as he spoke, the forms of a vast body of men began to more, dim
and indistinctly, from the folds of the fog on the northwest, and then the
glare of crimson was seen appearing from the bosom of the mist on the

south, as a long column of red coated soldiers, began to break slowly on the
vision of Washington and his men.

III.—THE BRITISH GENERAL.

Turn we for a moment to Germantown.

The first glimpse of day, flung a grey and solemn light over the tenements
of Germantown, when the sound of distant thunder, aroused the startled
inhabitants from their beds, and sent them hurriedly into the street. There
they crowded in small groups, each one asking his neighbor for the explanation
of this sudden alarm, and every man inclining his ear to the north,
listening intently to those faint yet terrible sounds, thundering along the
northern horizon.

The crowded moments of that eventful morn, wore slowly on. Ere the
day was yet light, the streets of Germantown were all in motion, crowds
of anxious men were hurrying hither and thither, mothers stood on the rustic
porch, gathering their babes in a closer embrace, and old men, risen in haste
from their beds, clasped their withered hands and lifted their eyes to heaven
in muttered prayer, as their ears were startled by the sounds of omen pealing
from the north.

The British leaders were yet asleep; the soldiers of the camp, it is true,
had risen hastily from their couches, and along the entire line of the British
encampment, ran a vague, yet terrible rumor of coming battle and of sudden
death; yet the generals in command slept soundly in their beds, visited, it
may be, with pleasant dreams of massacred rebels, fancy pictures of the
night of Paoli, mingled with a graphic sketch of the head of Washington
adorning one of the gates of London, while the grim visage of mad Anthony
Wayne figured on another.

The footstep of a booted soldier rang along the village street, near the
market-house, in the centre of the village, and presently a tall grenadier
strode up the stone steps of an ancient mansion, spoke a hurried word to
the sentinel at the door, and then hastily entered the house. In a moment
he stood beside the couch of General Grey, he roused him with a rude
shake of his vigorous hands, and the startled `Britisher' sprang up as hastily
from his bed as though he had been dreaming a dream of the terrible night
of Paoli.

“Your Excellency—the Rebels are upon us!” cried the grenadier—
“they have driven in our outposts, they surround us on every side—”

“We must fight it out—away to Kniphausen—away to Agnew—”

“They are already in the field, and the men are about advancing to
Chew's House.”

But a moment elapsed, and the British general with his attire hung hastily
over his person, rode to the head of his command, and while Kniphausen,
gay with the laurels of Brandywine, rode from rank to rank, speaking

encouragement to his soldiers in his broken dialect, the British army moved
forward over the fields and along the solitary street of Germantown towards
Chew's House.

The brilliant front of the British extended in a flashing array of crimson,
over the fields, along the street; and through the wreaths of mist on every
side shone the glitter of bayonets, on every hand was heard the terrible
tramp of 16,000 men sweeping onward, toward the field of battle, their
swords eager for American blood.

As the column under command of General Agnew swept through the
village street, every man noted the strange silence that seemed to have
come down upon the village like a spell. The houses were all carefully
closed, as though they had not been inhabited for years, the windows were
barricaded; the earthquake tramp of the vast body of soldiers was the
only sound that disturbed the silence of the town.

Not a single inhabitant was seen. Some had fled wildly to the fields,
others had hastened with the strange and fearful curiosity of our nature to
the very verge of the battle of Chew's House, and in the cellars of the
houses gathered many a wild and affrighted group, mothers holding their
little children to their breasts, old men whose eyes were vacant with enfeebled
intellect, asking wildly the cause of all this alarm, while many a fair-cheeked
maiden turned pale with horror, as the thunder of the cannon seemed
to shake the very earth.

IV.—THE LEGEND OF GENERAL AGNEW.

A singular legend is told in relation to General Agnew. Tradition states,
that on the eventful morn, as he led the troops onward through the town, a
singular change was noted in his appearance. His cheeks were pale as
death, his compressed lip trembled with a nervous movement, and his eyes
glared hither and thither with a strange wild glance.

He turned to the aid-de-camp at his side, and said with a ghastly smile,
that this day's work would be his last on earth, that this battle-field would
be the last he should fight, that it became him to look well at the gallant
array of war, and share in the thickest of the fight, for in war and in fight
should his hand this day strike its last and dying blow.

And tradition states that as his column neared the Mennonist grave-yard,[2]
a man of strange and wild aspect, clad in the skins of wild beasts,
with scarred face and unshaven beard, came leaping over the grave-yard
wall, and asked a soldier of the British column, with an idiotic smile whether
that gallant officer, riding at the head of the men, was the brave General
Grey, who had so nobly routed the rebels at Paoli?

The soldier replied with a peevish oath that yonder officer was General
Grey, and he pointed to General Agnew as he spoke.

The strange man said never a word, but smiled with a satisfied look and
sprang over the grave-yard wall, and as he sprang, a bullet whistled past the
ear of General Agnew, and a thin column of blue smoke wound upward
from the grave-yard wall.

The General turned and smiled. His officers would have searched the
grave-yard for the author of the shot, but a sound broke on their ears from
the road above, and presently the clatter of hoofs and the clamor of swords
came thundering through the mist.

V.—THE CONTEST IN THE VILLAGE STREET.

And in a moment the voice of Sullivan was heard—“Charge—upon the
`Britishers'—charge them home!”

And the steeds of the American cavalry came thundering on, sweeping
down the hill with one wild movement, rushing into the very centre of the
enemy's column, each trooper unhorsing his man, while a thousand fierce
shouts mingled in chorus, and the infantry advanced with fixed bayonets,
speeding steadily onward until they had driven back their foes with
the force of their solid charge.

And along that solitary street of Germantown swelled the din and terror
of battle, there grappled with the fierce grasp of vengeance and of death the
columns of contending foemen, there rode the troopers of the opposite
armies, their swords mingling, their horses meeting breast to breast in the
shock of this fierce tournament; there shrieked the wounded and dying,
while above the heads of the combatants waved the white folds of mist,
mingled with the murky battle smoke.

Sullivan charged bravely, Wayne came nobly to his rescue, Pulaski
scattered confusion into the ranks of the enemy, and the Americans had
been masters of the field were it not for a fresh disaster at Chew's House,
combined with the mistakes of the various bodies of the Continentals, who
were unable to discern friend from foe in the density of the fog.

VI.—CHEW'S HOUSE AGAIN.

Meanwhile the contest thickened around Chew's house; the division of
Greene, united with the central body of the American army, were engaged
with the left wing of the British army, under Kniphausen, Grant, and Grey,
while Sullivan led forward into the town, a portion of the advance column
of his division.

Tradition has brought down to our times a fearful account of the carnage
and bloodshed of the fight, around Chew's house at this moment, when the
British army to the south, and the Americans to the north, advanced in the
terrible charge, under the cover of the mist and gloom.

It was like fighting in the dark. The Americans advanced column after

column; they drove back the British columns with a line of bristling
bayonets, while the fire of the backwoodsmen rattled a death-hail over the
field; but it was all in vain! That gloomy mist hung over their heads,
concealing their foes from sight, or investing the forms of their friends with
a doubtful gloom, that caused them to be mistaken for British; in the
fierce mellé; all was dim, undefined and indistinct.

VII.—THE ADVENTURE OF WASHINGTON.

It was at this moment that a strange resolution came over the mind of
Washington. All around him was mist and gloom, he saw his men disappear
within the fog, toward Chew's house, but he knew not whether their
charge met with defeat or victory. He heard the tread of hurrying
legions, the thunder of the cannon, the rattle of the musquetry broke on his
ear, mingled with the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying.
The terrible panorama of a battle field, passed vividly before his eyes,
but still he knew not the cause of the impregnability of Chew's house.

He determined to advance toward the house, and examine its position in
person.

He turned to the officers of his staff—“Follow me who will!” he cried,
and in a moment, his steed of iron grey was careering over the sod, littered
with ghastly corses, while the air overhead was alive with the music of bullets,
and earth beneath was flung against the war steed's flanks by the cannon
ball.

Followed by Hamilton, by Pickering, by Marshall, and by Lee, of the
gallant legion, Washington rode forward, and speeding between the fires of
the opposing armies, approached the house.

At every step, a dead man with a livid face turned upward; little pools
of blood crimsoning the lawn, torn fragments of attire scattered over the
sod; on every side hurrying bodies of the foemen, while terrible and unremitting,
the fire flashing from the windows of Chew's House, flung a lurid
glare over the battle-field.

Washington dashed over the lawn; he approached the house, and every
man of his train held his breath. Bullets were whistling over their heads,
cannon balls playing round their horses' feet, yet their leader kept on his
way of terror. A single glance at the house, with its vollies of flame flashing
from every window, and he turned to the north to regain the American
lines, but the fog and smoke gathered round him, and he found his horse
entangled amid the enclosures of the cattle-pen to the north of the mansion.

“Leap your horses—” cried Washington to the brave men around him
—“Leap your horses and save yourselves!”

And in a moment, amid the mist and gloom his officers leaped the northern
enclosure of the cattle-pen, and rode forward to the American line,
scarcely able to discover their path in the dense gloom that gathered around

them. They reached the American lines, and to their horror, discovered
that Washington was not among their band. He had not leaped the fence
of the cattle-pen; with the feeling of a true warrior, he was afraid of injuring
his gallant steed, by this leap in the dark.

While the officers of the staff were speeding to the American line, Washington
turned his steed to the south, he determined to re-pass the house,
strike to the north-east, and then facing the fires of both armies, regain the
Continental lines.

He rose proudly in the stirrups, he placed his hand gently on the neck
of his steed, he glanced proudly around him, and then the noble horse
sprang forward with a sudden leap, and the mist rising for a moment disclosed
the form of Washington, to the vision of the opposing armies.

4. Part the Fourth.
THE FALL OF THE BANNER OF THE STARS.

—Mss. Revolution

I.—WASHINGTON IN DANGER.

The form of the Chieftain rose through the smoke and gloom of battle,
in all its magnificence of proportion, and majesty of bearing, as speeding
between two opposing fires—his proud glance surveying the battle-field—he
retraced his path of death, and rode toward the American army.

He was now in front of Chew's House, he was passing through the very
sweep of the fires, belching from every window; the bullets whistled
around him; on every hand was confusion, and darkness, made more
fearful by the glare of musquetry, and the lightning flash of cannon.

He is now in front of Chew's House! Another moment and the Man
of the Army may fall from his steed riddled by a thousand bullets, a single
moment and his corse may be added to the heaps of dead piled along the

lawn in all the ghastliness of death; another moment and the Continentals
may be without a leader, the British without their most determined foe.

His form is enrapt in mist, he is lost to sight, he again emerges into
light, he passes the house and sweeps away toward the Continental army.

He passes the house, and as he speeds onward toward the American
lines, a proud gleam lights up his eye, and a prouder smile wreaths his determined
lips. “The American army is yet safe, they are in the path to
victory—” he exclaims, as he rejoins the officers of his staff, within the
American lines—“Had I but intelligence of Armstrong in the West—of
Smallwood and Forman in the East, with one bold effort, we might carry
the field!”

But no intelligence of Smallwood or Forman came—Armstrong's movements
were all unknown—Stephens, who flanked the right wing of Greene,
was not heard from, nor could any one give information concerning his
position.

And as the battle draws to a crisis around Chew's house, as the British
and Americans are disputing the possession of the lawn now flooded with
blood, let me for a moment turn aside from the path of regular history, and
notice some of the legends of the battle field, brought down to our times by
the hoary survivors of the Revolution.

II.—THE UNKNOWN FORM.

Let us survey Chew's house in the midst of the fight.

It is the centre of a whirpool of flame.

Above is the mist, spreading its death shroud over the field. Now it is
darkened into a pall by the battle smoke, and now a vivid cannon flash lays
bare the awful theatre.

Still in the centre you may see Chew's house, still from every window
flashes the blaze of musquetry, and all around it columns of jet black smoke
curl slowly upward, their forms clearly defined against the shroud of white
mist.

It is a terrible thing to stand in the shadows of the daybreak hour, by the
bedside of a dying father, and watch that ashy face, rendered more ghastly
by the rays of a lurid taper—it is a terrible thing to clasp the hand of a sister,
and feel it grow cold, and colder, until it stiffens to ice in your grasp—
a fearful thing to gather the wife, dearest and most beloved of all, to your
breast, and learn the fatal truth, that the heart is pulseless, the bosom clay,
the eyes fixed and glassy.—

Yes, Death in any shape, in the times of Peace by the fireside, and in
the Home, is a fearful thing, talk of it as you will.

And in the hour when Riot howls through the streets of a wide city, its
ten thousand faces crimsoned by the glare of a burning church, Death looks
not only horrible but grotesque. For those dead men laid stiffly along the

streets, their cold faces turned to scarlet by the same glare that reveals the
cross of the tottering temple, have been murdered by their—brothers.
Like wild beasts, hunted and torn by the hounds, they have yielded up their
lives, the warm blood of their hearts mingling with the filth of the gutter.

This indeed is horrible, but Death in the Battle, who shall dare paint its
pictures?

What pencil snatched from the hands of a Devil, shall delineate its colors
of blood?

Look upon Chew's house and behold it!

There—under the cover of the mist, thirty thousand men are hurrying to
and fro, shooting and stabbing and murdering as they go! Look! The
lawn is canopied by one vast undulating sheet of flame!

Hark! To the terrible tramp of the horses' hoofs, as they crash on over
heaps of dead.

Here, you behold long columns of blue uniformed soldiers; there dense
masses of scarlet. Hark! Yes, listen and hear the horrid howl of
slaughter, the bubbling groan of death, the low toned pitiful note of pain.
Pain? What manner of pain? Why, the pain of arms torn off at the
shoulder, limbs hacked into pieces by chain shot, eyes darkened forever.

Not much poetry in this, you say. No. Nothing but truth—truth that
rises from the depths of a bloody well.

From those heaps of dying and dead, I beseech you select only one corse,
and gaze upon it in silence—Is he dead? The young man yonder with the
pale face, the curling black hair, the dark eyes wide open, glaring upon that
shroud above—is he dead?

Even if he is dead, stay, O, stay yon wild horse that comes rushing on
without a rider; do not let him trample that young face, with his red hoofs.

For it may be that the swimming eyes of a sister have looked upon that
face—perchance some fair girl, beloved of the heart, has kissed those red
lips—do not let the riderless steed come on; do not let him trample into
the sod that face, which has been wet with a Mother's tears!

And yet this face is only one among a thousand, which now pave the battle
field, crushed by the footsteps of the hurrying soldiers, trampled by the
horses' hoofs.

And while the battle swelled fiercest, while the armies traversed that
green lawn in the hurry of contest, along the blood stained sward, with
calm manner and even step, strode an unknown form, passing over the
field, amid smoke and mist and gloom, while the wounded fell shrieking at
his feet, and the faces of the dead met his gaze on every side.

It was the form of an aged man, with grey hairs streaming over his
shoulders, an aged man with a mild yet fearless countenance, with a tall
and muscular figure, clad neither in the glaring dress of the `Britisher,' or the
hunting shirt of the Continental, but in the plain attire of drab cloth, the

simple coat, vest with wide lappels, small clothes and stockings, that mark
the believers of the Quaker faith.

He was a Friend. Who he was, or what was his name, whence he
came, or whither he went, no one could tell, and tradition still remains
silent.

But along that field, he was seen gliding amid the heat and glare of battle.
Did the wounded soldier shriek for a cup of water? It was his hand
that brought it from the well, on the verge of Chew's wall. Extended
along the sward, with their ghastly faces quivering with the spasmodic throe
of insupportable pain, the dying raised themselves piteously on their trembling
hands, and in broken tones asked for relief, or in the wildness of delirium
spoke of their far off homes, whispered a message to their wives or
little ones, or besought the blessing of their grey haired sires.

It was the Quaker, the unknown and mysterious Friend, who was seen
unarmed save with the Faith of God, undefended save by the Armour of
Heaven, kneeling on the sod, whispering words of comfort to the dying, and
pointing with his uplifted hand to a home beyond the skies, where battle
nor wrong nor death ever came.

Around Chew's house and over the lawn he sped on his message of
mercy. There was fear and terror around him, the earth beneath his measured
footsteps quivered, and the air was heavy with death, but he trembled
not, nor qualied, nor turned back from his errand of mercy.

Now seen in the thickest of the fight, the soldiers rushing on their paths
of blood, started back as they beheld his mild and peaceful figure. Some
deemed him a thing of air, some thought they beheld a spirit, not one offered
to molest or harm the Messenger of Peace.

It was a sight worth all the ages of controversial Divinity to see—this
plain Quaker going forth with the faith of that Saviour, whose name has
ever been most foully blasphemed by those who called themselves his
friends, going forth with the faith of Jesus in his heart, speaking comfort to
the dying, binding up the gashes of the wounded, or yet again striding
boldly into the fight and rescuing with his own unarmed hands the prostrate
soldier from the attack of his maddened foe.

Blessings on his name, the humble Quaker, for this deed which sanctifies
humanity, and makes us dream of men of mortal mould raised to the majesty
of Gods. His name is not written down, his history is all unknown, but
when the books of the unknown world are bared to the eyes of a
congregated universe, then will that name shine brighter and lighter with a
holier gleam, than the name of any Controversial Divine or loud-mouthed
hireling, that ever disgraced Christianity or blasphemed the name of Jesus.

Ah, methinks, even amid the carnage of Germantown, I see the face of
the Redeemer, bending from the battle-mist, and smiling upon the peaceful
Quaker, as he never smiled upon learned priest or mitred prelate.

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.

IV.—THE WISSAHIKON.

It is a poem of everlasting beauty—a dream of magnificence—the
world-hidden, wood-embowered Wissahikon. Its pure waters break forever
in ripples of silver around the base of colossal rocks, or sweep murmuringly
on, over beds of pebbled flints, or spread into calm and mirror-like
lakes, with shores of verdure, surmounted by green hills, rolling away
in waves of forest trees, or spreading quietly in the fierce light of the summer
sun, with the tired cattle grouped beneath the lofty oaks.

It is a poem of beauty—where the breeze mourns its anthem through the
tall pines; where the silver waters send up their voices of joy; where
calmness, and quiet, and intense solitude awe the soul, and fill the heart
with bright thoughts and golden dreams, woven in the luxury of the summer
hour.

From the moment your eyes first drink in the gladness of its waters, as
they pour into the Schuylkill, seven miles from Philadelphia, until you behold
it winding its thread of silver along the meadows of Whitemarsh, many
miles above, it is all beauty, all dream, all magnificence.

It breaks on your eye, pouring into the Schuylkill, a calm lake, with an
ancient and picturesque mill[3] in the foreground. A calm lake, buried in
the depths of towering steeps, that rise almost perpendicularly on either
side, casting a shadow of gloom over the water, while every steep is green
with brushwood, every rocky cleft magnificent with the towering oak, the
sombre pine, or the leafy chesnut.

This glen is passed; then you behold hilly shores, sloping away to the
south in pleasant undulations, while on the north arise frowning steeps.
Then your mind is awed by tremendous hills on either side, creating one
immense solitude; rugged steeps—all precipice and perpendicular rock—
covered and crowded with giant pines, and then calm and rippleless lakes,
shadowy glens, deep ravines and twilight dells of strange and dreamy
beauty.

There is, in sooth, a stamp of strange and dreamy beauty impressed
upon every ripple of the Wissahikon, every grassy bank extending greenly
along its waters, on every forest-tree towering beside its shores.

On the calm summer's day, when the sun is declining in the west, you
may look from the height of some grey, rugged steep, down upon the depths
of the world-hidden waters. Wild legends wander across your fancy as
you gaze; every scene around you seems but the fitting location for a wild
and dreamy tradition, every rock bears its old time story, every nook of the
wild wood has its tale of the ancient days. The waters, deep, calm, and
well-like, buried amidst overhanging hills, have a strange and mysterious

clearness. The long shadows of the hills, broken by golden belts of sunshine,
clothe the waters in sable and gold, in glitter and in shadow. All
around is quiet and still; silence seems to have assumed a positive existence
amid these vallies of romance and of dreams.

It was along the borders of this quiet stream, that an ancient fabric arose,
towering through the verdure of the trees, with its tottering chimneys
enveloped in folds of mist. The walls were severed by many a fissure, the
windows were crumbling to decay; the halls of the ancient mansion were
silent as the tomb.

It was wearing toward noon, when a body of soldiers, wearing the blue
hunting-shirt and fur cap with bucktail plume, came rushing from the woods
on the opposite side of the rivulet, came rushing through the waters of the
lonely stream, and hurried with hasty steps toward the deserted house.

In a moment they had entered its tottering doorway, and disappeared
within its aged walls. Another instant, and a body of soldiers broke from
the woods on the opposite side of the stream, clad in the Hessian costume,
with ponderous bearskin caps, heavy accroutements, and massive muskets.

They crossed the stream, and rushed into the house in pursuit of the
flying continentals. They searched the rooms on the first floor; they hurried
along the tottering timbers, but not a single Continental was to be seen.
They ascended the crumbling stairway with loud shouts and boisterous
oaths, and reached the rooms of the second story. Every door was flung
hastily aside, every closet was broken open, the boards were even torn from
the floor, every nook was searched, every corner ransacked, and yet no
vision of a blue shirted backwoodsman, met the eye of the eager Hessians.

All was silent as death.

Their own footfalls were returned in a thousand echoes, their own shouts
alone disturbed the silence of the house, but no sound or sight, could be obtained
of the fleeing Continentals. Every room was now searched, save
the garret, and the Hessians, some twenty men, able bodied and stout, were
about rushing up the stairway of the attic in pursuit of the ten Continental
soldiers, when the attention of one of their number was arrested by a singular
spectacle.

The Hessian soldier beheld through a crumbling window frame, the
figure of a woman, standing on the height of an abrupt steep, overhanging
the opposite side of the stream. She waved her hands to the soldier,
shouted and waved her hands again. He heeded her not, but rushed up the
stairway after his companions.

The shout of that unknown woman was the warning of death.

While the Hessians were busily engaged in searching the attic, while
their shouts and execrations awoke the echoes of the roof, while they were
thrusting sword and bayonet into the dark corners of the apartment, that
shout of the woman on the rock, arose, echoing over the stream again and
again.

The Hessians rushed to the window, they suddenly remembered that
they had neglected to search the cellar, and looking far below, they beheld
thin wreaths of light blue smoke, winding upward from the cellar window.

A fearful suspicion crept over the minds of the soldiers.

They rushed from the attic, in a moment they might reach the lower
floor and escape. With that feeling of unimaginable terror creeping round
each heart and paling every face, they rushed tremblingly on, they gained
the second floor, their footsteps already resounded along the stairway when
the boards trembled beneath their feet, a horrid combination of sounds assailed
their ears, aud the walls rocked to and fro like a frantic bacchanal.

Another moment! And along that green wood rang a fearful sound,
louder and more terrible than thunder, shaking the very rocks with an earth-quake
motion, while the fragments of the ancient fabric arose blackening
into the heavens, mingled with human bodies torn and scattered into innumerable
pieces, and the air was filled with a dense smoke, that hung over
the forest, in one thick and blackening pall.

In a few moments the scene was clear, but the ancient house had disappeared
as if by magic, while the shouts of the Continental soldiers were
heard in the woods, far beyond the scene.

The house had been used by the British as a temporary depot of powder.
When the American Continentals rushed into the cellar, they beheld the
kegs standing in one corner, they piled up combustible matter in its vicinity
and then made their escape from the house by a subterranean passage
known only to themselves. They emerged into open air some hundred
yards beyond, and beheld the result of this signal vengeance on their foes.

V.—THE CRISIS OF THE FIGHT.

Again we return to the field of Chew's House.

Washington determined to make one last and desperate effort. The
Corps de Reserve under Stirling, and Maxwell, and Nash, came thundering
along the field; each sword unsheathed, every bayonet firm; every man
eager and ready for the encounter.

It was now near nine o'clock in the morning.—The enemy still retained
Chew's house. The division under Greene, the main body commanded
by Wayne, by Sullivan and Conway, composed the American force engaged
in actual contest.—To this force was now added the Corps de Reserve,
under Lord Stirling, Generals Maxwell and Nash.

The British force, under command of General Howe, who had arrived
on the field soon after the onslaught at Chew's House, were led to battle by
Kniphausen, Agnew, Grant, and Grey, who now rode from troop to troop,
from rank to rank, hurrying the men around toward the main point of the flight.

There was a pause in the horror of the battle.

The Americans rested on their arms, the troopers reined in their steeds

in sight of Chew's House, and amid the bodies of the dead. The Continental
ranks were terribly thinned by the desolating fire from the house;
every file was diminished, and in some instances, whole companies were
swept away.

The British were fresh in vigor, and ably armed and equipped. They
impatiently rushed forward, eager to steep their arms in American blood.

And amid the folds of mist and battle-smoke—while the whole field resembled
some fearful phantasmagoria of fancy, with its shadowy figures flitting
to and fro, while the echo of the cannon, the rattle of the musquetry,
and the shrieks of the wounded yet rung on the soldiers' ears—they eagerly
awaited the signal for the re-commencement of the fight.

The signal rang along the lines! In an instant the cannons opened their
fire on Chew's house, the troopers came thundering on in their hurricane
charge. All around were charging legions, armed bodies of men hurrying
toward the house, heaps of the wounded strown over the sod. That terrible
cry which had for three long hours gone shrieking up to heaven from
that lawn, now rose above the tumult of battle—the quick piercing cry of
the strong man, smitten suddenly down by his death-wound.

The American soldiers fought like men who fight for everything that man
needs for sustenance, or holds dear in honor, or sacred in religion. Step by
step the veteran continentals drove the Britishers over the field, trampling
down the faces of their dead comrades in the action; step by step were
they driven back in their turn, musquets were clubbed in the madness of the
strife, and the cry for “quarter,” fell on deafened ears.

Then it was that the chieftains of the American host displayed acts of
superhuman courage!

In the thickest of the fight, where swords flashed most vivedly, where
death-groans shrieked most terribly upon the air, where the steeds of contending
squadrons rushed madly against each other in the wild encounter of
the charge, there might you see mad Anthony Wayne; his imposing form
towering over the heads of the combatants, his eye blazing with excitement,
and his sword, all red with blood, rising and falling like a mighty hammer
in the hands of a giant blacksmith.

How gallantly the warrior-drover rides! Mounted on his gallant war-steed,
he comes once more to battle, his sword gleaming like a meteor,
around his head. On and on, without fear, without a thought save his country's
honor and the vengeance of Paoli—on and on he rides, and as he
speeds, his shout rings out clear and lustily upon the air—

“On, comrades, on—and Remember Paoli!”

“Forwarts, brudern, forwarts!”

Ha! The gallant Pulaski! How like a king he rides at the head of his
iron band, how firmly he sits in his stirrups, how gallantly he beckons his
men onward, how like a sunbeam playing on glittering ice, his sword flits to
and fro, along the darkened air!

Like one solid battle-bolt, his gallant band speed onward, carrying terror
and confusion into the very centre of Kniphausen's columns, leaving a line
of dead men in their rear, and driving the discomfitted Hessians before them,
while the well-known battle-shout of Pulaski halloos these war-hounds on
to the slaughter—

“Forwarts—brüdern—forwarts!”

And there he rides, known to all the men as their commander, seen by
every eye in the interval of the battle-smoke, hailed by a thousand voices
—Washington!

Hark! How the cheer of his deep-toned voice swells through the confusion
of battle!

A calm and mild-faced man, leading on a column of Continentals, rides
up to his side, and is pushing forward into the terror of the mist-hidden
meleé, when the voice of Washington rings in his ear—

“Greene—why is Stephens not here? Why does he delay his division?”

“General, we have no intelligence of his movements. He has not yet
appeared upon the field—”

Washington's lip quivered. A world seemed pent up in his heart, and
for once in his entire life, his agitation was visible and apparent.

He raised his clenched hand on high, and as Napoleon cursed Grouchy
at Waterloo, in after times, so Washington at Germantown cursed Stephens,
from his very heart of hearts. The glittering game of battle was being
played around him. Stephens alone was wanting to strike terror into the
ranks of the enemy around Chew's house, the crisis had come—and Stephens
was not there, one of the most important divisions of the army was
powerless.

And now the gallant Stirling, the brave Nash, and the laurelled Maxwell,
came riding on, at the head of the corps de reserve, every man with his
sword and bayonet, yet unstained with blood, eager to join the current of the
fight.

Nash—the brave General of the North Carolina Division, was rushing
into the midst of the meleé with his men, leading them on to deeds of courage
and renown, when he received his death-wound, and fell insensible in
the arms of one of his aids-de-camp.

The mist gathering thicker and denser over the battle field, caused a terrible
mistake on the part of the American divisions. They charged against
their own friends, shot down their own comrades, and even bayonetted the
very soldiers who had shared their mess, ere they discovered the fatal mistake.
The mist and battle-smoke rendered all objects dim and indistinct—
the event of this battle will show, that it was no vain fancy of the author,
which induced him to name this mist of Germantown—the Shroud of
Death. It proved a shroud of death, in good sooth, for hundreds who laid
down their lives on the sod of the battle field.

The gallant Colonel Matthews, at the head of a Virginia regiment, penetrated
into the centre of the town, driving the British before him at pleasure,
and after this glorious effort, he was returning to the American lines with
some three hundred prisoners, when he encountered a body of troops in the
mist, whom he supposed to be Continentals. He rode unfearingly into their
midst, and found himself a prisoner in the heart of the British army! The
mist had foiled his gallant effort; his prisoners were recaptured, himself and
his men were captives to the fortune of war.

VI.—“RETREAT.”

Now it was that Washington beheld his soldiers shrink and give way on
every side! On every hand they began to waver, from line to line, from
column to column ran terrible rumors of the approach of Cornwallis, with
a reinforcement of grenadiers; the American soldiers were struck with despair.

They had fought while there was hope, they had paved their way to victory
with heaps of dead, they had fought against superior discipline, superior
force, superior fortune, but the mist that overhung the battle field, blasted all
their hopes, and along the American columns rang one word, that struck
like a knell of death on the heart of Washington—“retreat”—“RETREAT!”

It was all in vain that the American chieftain threw himself in the way
of the retreating ranks and besought them to stand firm—for the sake of
their honor, for the sake of their country, for the sake of their God.

It was all in vain! In vain was it that Pulaski threw his troopers in the
path chosen by the fugitives; in vain did he wave his sword on high, and
beseech them in his broken dialect, with a flushed cheek and a maddening
eye, implore them to turn and face the well-nigh conquered foe! It was in
vain!

In vain did Mad Anthony Wayne, the hero of Pennsylvania, ride from
rank to rank, and with his towering form raised to its full height, hold his
hand aloft, and in the familiar tones of brotherly intimacy, beckon the soldiers
once again to the field of battle.

All was in vain!

And while Chew's house still belched forth its fires of death, while all
through Germantown were marching men, hot-foot from Philadelphia, while
over the fatal lawn rushed hurried bands of the Continentals, seeking for
their comrades among the dead, Washington gazed to the north and beheld
the columns of Continentals, their array all thinned and scattered, their numbers
diminished, taking their way along the northern road, calmly it is true,
and in remarkable order, but still in the order of a retreat, though the enemy
showed no disposition to annoy or pursue them.

And while his heart swelled to bursting, and his lip was pressed between
his teeth in anguish, Washington bowed his head to the mane of his gallant
“grey” and veiled his face in his hands, and then his muscular chest throbbed
as though a tempest were pent up within its confines.

In a moment ne raised his face. All was calm and immoveable, all
traces of emotion had passed away from the stern and commanding features,
like the waves rolling from the rock.

He whispered a few brief words to his aids-de-camp, and then raising his
form proudly in the stirrups, he rode along the Continental columns, while
with a confused and half-suppressed murmuring sound, the Retreat of Germantown commenced.

5. Part the fifth.
THE LAST SHOT OF THE BATTLE.

—Mss. of the Revolution.

I.—THE SOLDIER AND HIS BURDEN.

A PAUSE in the din of battle!

The denizens of Mount Airy and Chesnut Hill came crowding to their
doors and windows; the hilly street was occupied by anxious groups of
people, who conversed in low and whispered tones, with hurried gestures
and looks of surprise and fear. Yonder group who stand clustered in the
roadside!

A grey haired man with his ear inclined intently toward Germantown,
his hands outspread, and his trembling form bent with age. The maiden,
fair cheeked, red lipped, and blooming, clad in the peasant costume, the
tight boddice, the linsey skirt, the light 'kerchief thrown over the bosom.
Her ear is also inclined toward Germantown, and her small hands are involuntarily
crossed over her bosom, that heaves and throbs into view.

The matron, calm, self possessed, and placid, little children clinging to
the skirt of her dress, her wifely cap flung carelessly on her head, with
hair slightly touched with grey, while the sleeping babe nestles in her
bosom.

The boy, with the light flaxen hair, the ruddy cheeks, the merry blue
eye! He stands silent and motionless—he also listens!

You stand upon the height of Mount Airy, it is wearing towards noon,
yet gaze around you.

Above the mist is rising. Here and there an occasional sun gleam lights
the rolling clouds of mist, but the atmosphere wears a dull leaden hue, and
the vast horizon a look of solemnity and gloom.

Beneath and around sweep field and plain, buckwheat field, and sombre
woods, luxuriant orchards and fertile vallies, all seen in the intervals of the
white columns of the uprising mist.

The group clustered along the roadside of Mount Airy are still and silent.
Each heart is full, every ear absorbed in the effort of catching the slightest
sound from Germantown.

There is a strange silence upon the air. A moment ago, and far off
shouts broke on the ear, mingled with the thunder of cannon and the
shrieks of musquetry, the earth seemed to tremble, and far around the wide
horizon was agitated by a thousand echoes.

Now the scene is still as midnight. Not a sound, not a shout, not a distant
hurrah. The anxiety of the group upon the hill becomes absorbing
and painful. Looks of wonder at the sudden pause in the battle, flit from
face to face, and then low whispers are heard, and then comes another moment
of fearful suspense.

It is followed by a wild rushing sound to the south, like the shrieks of
the ocean waves, as they fill the hold of the foundering ship, while it sinks
far in the loneliness of the seas.

Then a pause, and again that unknown sound, and then the tramp of ten
thousand footsteps, mingled with a wild and indistinct murmur.—Tramp,
tramp, tramp, the air is filled with the sound, and then distinct voices break
upon the air, and the clatter of arms is borne on the breeze.

The boy turns to his mother, and asks her who has gained the day?
Every heart feels vividly that the battle is now over, that the account of
blood is near its close, that the appeal to the God of battles has been made.

The mother turns her tearful eyes to the south—she cannot answer the
question. The old man, awaking from a reverie, turns suddenly to the
maiden, and clasps her arm with his trembling hands. His lips move, but
his tongue is unable to syllable a sound. His suspense is fearful. He
flings a trembling hand southward, and speaks his question with the gesture
of age.

The battle, the battle, how goes the battle?

And as he makes the gesture, the figure of a soldier is seen rushing from
the mist in the valley below, he comes speeding round the bend of the road,
he ascends the hill, but his steps totter, and he staggers to and fro like a
drunken man.

He bears a burden on his shoulders—is it the plunder of the fight, is it
spoil gathered from the ranks of the dead?

No—no. He bears an aged man on his shoulders, he grasps the aged

form with his trembling arms, and with an unsteady step nears the group
on the hill top.

The old man's grey hairs are waving in the breeze, and his extended
hand grasps a broken bayonet, which he raises on high with a maniac
gesture.

The soldier and the veteran he bears upon his shoulders, are clad in the
blue hunting shirt, torn and tattered and stained with blood, it is true, but
still you can recognize the uniform of the Revolution.

The tottering soldier nears the group, he lays the aged veteran down by
the roadside, and then looks around with a ghastly face and a rolling eye.
There is blood dripping from his attire, his face is begrimed with powder,
and spotted with crimson drops. He glances wildly around, and then
kneeling on the sod he takes the hands of the aged man in his own, and
raises his head upon his knee.

The battle, the battle, how goes the battle?

The group cluster round as they shriek the question.

The young Continental makes no reply, but gazing upon the face of the
dying veteran, wipes the beaded drops of blood from his forehead.

“Comrade,” shrieks the veteran, “raise me on my feet, and wipe the
blood from my eyes. I would see him once again!”

He is raised upon his feet, the blood is wiped from his eyes.

“I see—I see—it is he—it is Washington! Yonder—yonder—I see
his sword—and Antony Wayne,—raise me higher, comrade,—all is getting
dark—I would see—Mad Antony!”

Did you ever see a picture that made your heart throb, and your eyes
grow blind with tears?

Here is one.

The roadside, the group clustered in front of Allen's house, which rises
massive and solemn in the background. The young soldier, all weak and
trembling from loss of blood, raising the grey haired veteran in his arms,
placing his face toward Germantown, while the wrinkled features light up
with a sudden gleam, and waving his broken bayonet before his eyes, he
looks toward the scene of the late fight.

The bystanders, spectators of this scene. The matron gazing anxiously
upon the old man's face, her eyes swimming in tears, the ruddy cheeked
boy holding one hand of the dying veteran, the youthful maiden, all blossom
and innocence, standing slightly apart, with the ancient man in peasant's
attire, gazing vacantly around as he grasps her arm.

“Lift me, comrade—higher, higher— I see him—I see Mad Antony!
Wipe the blood from my eyes, comrade, for it darkens my sight—it is dark,
it is dark!”

And the young soldier held in his arms a lifeless corse. The old veteran
was dead. He had fought his last fight, fired his last shot, shouted the

name of Mad Antony for the last time, and yet his withered hand clenched,
with the tightness of death, the broken bayonet.

The battle, the battle, how goes the battle?

As the thrilling question again rung in his ears, the young Continental
turned to the group, smiled ghastily and then flung his wounded arm to the
south.

“Lost!” he shrieked, and rushed on his way like one bereft of his
senses. He had not gone ten steps, when he bit the dust of the roadside,
and lay extended in the face of day a lifeless corse.

The eyes of the group were now fixed upon the valley below.

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.

III.—CAPTAIN LEE.

In the centre of the village extended a level piece of ground, surrounded
by dwelling houses, stretching from the eastern side of the road, with the
market-house, a massive and picturesque structure, arising on one side,

while the German Reformed Church, with its venerable front and steeple,
arose on the other.

The gallant Captain Lee, of the Partizan Rangers, had penetrated thus
far into the town, in common with many other companies of the army, but
soon all others retreated, and he was left alone in the heart of the British
army, while the continentals were retreating over Mount Airy and Chesnut
Hill.

Lee had pursued a Hanoverian troop as far as the market house, when
he suddenly perceived the red-coated soldiers of Cornwallis breaking from
the gloom of the mist on the south, while a body of troopers came rushing
from the school house lane on one side, and another corps came thundering
from the church lane on the opposite side.

Lee was surrounded. The sable-coated troopers whom he had been pursuing,
now turned on their pursuers, and escape seemed impossible. The
brave Partizan turned to his men. Each swarthy face gleamed with
delight—each sunburnt hand flung aloft the battle-dented sword. The confusion
and havoc of the day had left the Partizan but forty troopers, but
every manly form was marked by wide shoulders, muscular chest, and lofty
bearing, and their uniform of green, their caps of fur, with bucktail plume,
gave a striking and effective appearance to the band.

“Comrades, now for a chase!” shouted Lee, glancing gaily over his men.
“Let us give these scare-crow hirelings a chase! Up the Germantown
road, advance, boys—forward!”

And as they galloped along the Germantown road, riding gallantly four
abreast, in all a warrior's port and pride, the Hanoverians, now two hundred
strong, came thundering in their rear, each dark-coated trooper leaning over
the neck of his steed, with sword upraised, and with fierce battle-shout
echoing from lip to lip.

Only twenty paces lay between the Rangers and their foes. The monotonous
sound of the pattering hoof, the clank of the scabbard against the
soldier's booted leg, the deep, hard breathing of the horses, urged by boot
and spur to their utmost speed, the fierce looks of the Hanoverians, their
bending figures, their dress of deep black, with relief of gold, the ponderous
caps, ornamented with the fearful insignia of skull and cross-bones, the
Rangers sweeping gallantly in front, square and compact in their solid
column, each manly form in costume of green and gold, disclosed in the light,
in all its muscular ability and imposing proportions, as they moved forward
with the same quick impulse, all combined, form a scene of strange and
varying interest, peculiar to those times of Revolutionary peril and bloodshed.

The chase became exciting. The advance company of sable-coated
troopers gained on Lee's gallant band at every step, and at every step they
left their comrades further in the rear.

Lee's men spurred their steeds merrily forward, ringing their boisterous

shouts tauntingly upon the air, while their exasperated foes replied with
curses and execrations.

And all along through the streets of Germantown lay the scene of this
exciting chase, the clatter of the horses' hoofs awake the echoes of the an
cienthouses, bringing the frightened denizens suddenly to the doors and windows,
and the pursuers and pursued began to near the hill of the Mennonist
graveyard, while the peril of Lee became more imminent and apparent.
The Hanoverians were at the horses' heels of the Rangers—they were
gaining upon them at every step; in a moment they would be surrounded
and cut to pieces.

Lee glanced over his shoulder. He saw his danger at a glance; they
were now riding up the hill, the advance company of the enemy were in
his rear, the main division were some hundred yards behind. In a moment
the quick word of command rung from his lips, and at the instant, as the
whole corps attained the summit of the hill, his men wheeled suddenly
round, faced the pursuing enemy, and came thundering upon their ranks like
an earth-riven thunderbolt!

Another moment! and the discomfitted Hanoverians lay scattered and
bleeding along the roadside; here a steed was thrown back upon its
haunches, crushing its rider as it fell; here was a trooper clinging with the
grasp of death to his horse's neck; yonder reared another horse without its
rider, and the ground was littered with the overthrown and wounded
troopers.

They swept over the black-coated troopers like a thunderbolt, and in another
instant the gallant Rangers wheeled about, returning in their charge of
terror with the fleetness of the wind, each man sabreing an enemy as he
rode, and then, with a wild hurrah, they regained the summit of the hill.

Lee drew his trooper's cap from his head, his men did the same, and then,
with their eyes fixed upon the main body of the enemy advancing along the
foot of the hill, the gallant Rangers sent up a wild hurrah of triumph, waving
their caps above their heads, and brandishing their swords.

The enemy returned a yell of execration, but ere they reached the summit
of the hill, Lee's company were some hundred yards ahead, and all
pursuit was vain. The Rangers rode fearlessly forward, and, ere an half-hour
was passed, regained the columns of the retreating army.

IV.—SUNSET UPON THE BATTLE FIELD.

It was sunset upon the field of battle—solemn and quiet sunset. The
rich, golden light fell over the grassy lawn, over the venerable fabric of
Chew's house, and over the trees scattered along the field, turning their
autumnal foliage to quivering gold.

The scene was full of the spirit of desolation, steeped in death, and crimsoned
in blood. The green lawn—with the soil turned up by the cannon
wheels, by the tramp of war steeds, by the rush of the foemen—was all

heaped with ghastly piles of dead, whose cold upturned faces shone with a
terrible lustre in the last beams of the declining sun.

There were senseless carcasses, with the arms rent from the shattered
body, with the eyes scooped from the hollow sockets, with foreheads severed
by the sword thrust, with hair dabbled in blood, with sunken jaws fallen on
the gory chest; there was all the horror, all the bloodshed, all the butchery
of war, without a single gleam of its romance or chivalry.

Here a plaid-kilted Highlander, a dark-coated Hanoverian, were huddled
together in the ghastliness of sudden death; each with that fearful red wound
denting the forehead, each with that same repulsive expression of convulsive
pain, while their unclosed eyes, cold, dead, and lustreless, glared on the blue
heavens with the glassy look of death.

Yonder, at the foot of a giant elm, an old Continental, sunk down in the
grasp of death. His head is sunken on his breast, his white hair all blood-bedabbled,
his blue hunting shirt spotted with clotted drops of purple. The
sunburnt hand extended, grasps the unfailing rifle—the old warrior is merry
even in death, for his lip wears a cold and unmoving smile.

A little farther on a peasant boy bites the sod, with his sunburnt face
half buried in the blood-soddened earth, his rustic attire of linsey tinted by
the last beams of the declining sun; one arm convulsively gathered under
his head, the long brown hair all stiffened with blood, while the other grasps
the well-used fowling piece, with which he rushed to the field, fought bravely,
and died like a hero. The fowling piece is with him in death; the fowling
piece—companion of many a boyish ramble beside the Wissahikon, many
a hunting excursion on the wild and dreamy hills that frown around that
rivulet—is now beside him, but the hand that encloses its stock is colder
than the iron of its rusted tube.

Let us pass over the field, with a soft and solemn footstep, for our path
is yet stamped with the tread of death; the ghosts of the heroes are thronging
in the air.

Chew's house is silent and desolate. The shattered windows, the broken
hall door, the splintered roof, the battered chimneys, and the walls of the
house stained with blood: all are silent, yet terrible proofs of the havoc and
ruin of the fight.

Silence is within Chew's house. No death-shriek, no groan of agony,
no voice shrieking to the uplifted sword to spare and pity, breaks upon the
air. All is still and solemn, and the eye of human vision may not pierce
the gloom of the unknown, and behold the ghosts of the slain crowding before
the throne of God.

The sun is setting over Chew's lawn and house, the soldiers of the
British army have deserted the place, and as the last beams of day quiver
over the field, death—terrible and fearful death—broods over the scene, in
all its ghastiliness and horror.

V.—THE LEGEND OF GENERAL AGNEW AGAIN.

Along the solitary streets of Germantown, as the sun went down, rang
the echo of horses' hoofs, and the form of the rider of a gallant war steed
was seen, disclosed in the last beams of the dying day, as he took his way
along the village road.

The horseman was tall, well-formed, and muscular in proportion; his
hair was slightly touched with the frost of age, and his eye was wild and
wandering in its glance. The compressed lip, the hollow cheek, the flashing
eye, all told a story of powerful, through suppressed emotion, stirring
the warrior's heart to bitter thoughts and gloomy memories.

It was General Agnew, of the British army. He had fought bravely in
the fight of Chew's house, though the presentiment sat heavy on his soul;
he had fought bravely, escaped without a wound, and now was riding alone,
along the solitary street, toward the Mennonist grave-yard.

There was an expression on his commanding face that it would have
chilled your heart to see. It was an expression which stamped his features
with a look of doom and fate, which revealed the inward throbbings of his
soul, as the dark presentiment of the morning, moved over its shadowy
depths.

He may have been thinking of his home, away in the fair valleys of England—of
the blooming daughter, the bright-eyed boy, or the matronly wife—
and then a thought of the terrible wrong involved in the British cause may
have crossed his soul, for the carnage of Chew's lawn had been most fearful,
and it is not well to slay hundreds of living beings like ourselves, for
the shadow of a right.

He reached the point where the road sweeps down the hill, in front of
the grave-yard, and as he rode slowly down the ascent, his attention was
arrested by a singular spectacle.

The head of a man, grey-bearded and white haired, appeared above the
grave-yard wall, and a fierce, malignant eye met the gaze of General Agnew.
It was the strange old man who, in the morning, had asked whether “that
was General Grey?” pointing to the person of Agnew as he spoke, and
being answered, by mistake or design, in the affirmative, fired a rifle at the
officer from the shelter of the wall.

No sooner had the wild face rose above the wall than it suddenly disappeared,
and, scarce noting the circumstance, the General reined his steed for
a moment, on the descent of the hill, and gazed toward the western sky,
where the setting sun was sinking behind a rainbow hued pile of clouds, all
brilliant with a thousand contrasted lights.

The last beams of the sun trembled over the high forehead of General
Agnew, as, with his back turned to the grave-yard wall, he gazed upon the
prospect, and his eye lit up with a sudden brilliancy, when the quick

and piercing report of a rifle broke on the air, and echoed around the
scene.

A small cloud of light blue smoke wound upward from the grave-yard
wall, a ghastly smile overspread the face of Agnew, he looked wildly round
for a single instant, and then fell heavily to the dust of the road-side, a—
lifeless corse.

His gallant steed of ebon darkness of skin, lowered his proud crest, and
thrust his nostrils in his master's face, his large eyes dilating, as he snuffed
the scent of blood upon the air; and at the very moment that same wild
and ghastly face appeared once more above the stones of the grave-yard
wall, and a shriek of triumph, wilder and ghastlier than the face, arose
shrieking above the graves.

That rifle shot, pealing from the grave-yard wall, was the LAST SHOT of
the battle-day of Germantown; and that corse flung along the roadside, with
those cold eyes glaring on the blue sunset sky, with the death-wound near
the heart, was the LAST DEAD MAN of that day of horror.

As the sun went down, the dark horse lowered his head, and with quivering
nostrils, inhaled the last breath of his dying master.

6. Part the Sixth.
THE FUNERAL OF THE DEAD.

I.—THE ANCIENT CHURCH.

In the township of Towamensing, some twenty-six miles from Philadelphia,
from the green sward of a quiet grave-yard, arises the venerable walls
of an ancient church, under whose peaceful roof worship the believers in
the Mennonist faith, as their fathers worshipped before them.

The grave-yard, with its mounds of green sod, is encircled by a massive
wall of stone, overshadowed by a grove of primitive oaks, whose giant
trunks and gnarled branches, as they tower in the blue summer sky, seem
to share in the sacred stillness and ancient grandeur which rests like a holy
spell upon the temple and the hamlet of the dead.

Come back with me, reader, once more come back to the ancient revolutionary
time. Come back to the solemnity and gloom of the funeral of the
dead; and in the quiet grave-yard we will behold the scene.

Bands of armed men throng the place of graves; on every side you behold
figures of stout men, clad in the uniform of war; on every side you behold
stern and scarred visages, and all along the green sward, with its encircling
grove of oaks, the pomp of banners wave flauntingly in the evening air, but
no glittering bayonet gleams in the light of the declining day. The banners
are heavy with folds of crape, the bayonets are unfixed from each musquet,
and every soldier carries his arms reversed.

Near the centre of the ground, hard by the roadside, are dug four graves,
the upturned earth forming a mound beside each grave, and the sunbeams
shine upon four coffins, hewn out of rough pine wood, and laid upon trussels,
with the faces of the dead cold and colorless, tinted with a ghastly
gleam of the golden sunlight.

Around the graves are grouped the chieftians of the American army, each
manly brow uncovered, each manly arm wearing the solemn scarf of crape,
while an expression of deep and overwhelming grief is stamped upon the
lines of each expressive face.

Washington stands near the coffins: his eyes are downcast, and his lip
is compressed. Wayne is by his side, his bluff countenance marked by
infeigned sorrow; and there stands Greene and Sullivan, and Maxwell and
Armstrong, clustered in the same group with Stirling and Forman, with
Smallwood and Knox. Standing near the coffin's head, a tall and imposing
form, clad in a white hued uniform, is disclosed in the full light of the sunbeams.
The face, with the whiskered lip and the eagle eye, wears the
same expression of sorrow that you behold on the faces of all around. It
is the Count Pulaski.

These are the pall-bearers of the dead.

And in the rear of this imposing group sweep the columns of the American
army, each officer with his sword reversed, each musquet also reversed,
while all around is sad and still.

A grey-haired man, tall and imposing in stature, advances from the group
of pall-bearers. He is clad in the robes of the minister of heaven, his face
is marked by lines of care and thought, and his calm eye is expressive of a
mind at peace with God and man. He stands disclosed in the full glow of
the sunbeams, and while his long grey hairs wave in the evening air, he
gazes upon the faces of the dead.

The first corse, resting in the pine coffin, with the banner of blue and
stars sweeping over its rough surface, and bearing upon its folds the sword
and chapeau of a general officer, is the corse of General Nash. The noble
features are white as marble, the eyes are closed, and the lip wears the
smile of death.

The next corse, with the sword and chapeau of the commanding officer
of a regiment, is the corse of the brave Colonel Boyd.

Then comes the corse of Major White, handsome and dignified even in

death. The finely chisseled features, the arched brows, the Roman nose,
and compressed lip, look like the marble of a statue.

The last corse, the corse of a young man, with a lieutenant's sword and
cap placed on the coffin, is all that remains of the gallant Virginian, who
bore the flag of truce to Chew's house, and was shot down in the act.
Lieutenant Smith rests in death, and the blood-stained flag of truce is placed
over his heart.

The venerable minister advances, he gazes upon the faces of the dead,
his clear and solemn voice breaks out in tones of impassioned eloquence
in this.

II.—FUNERAL SERMON OVER THE DEAD.[4]

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,—they rest from their
labors, and their works do follow them.”

Soldiers and Countrymen:—Our brethren lie before us in all the solemnity
of death. Their eyes are closed, their lips are voiceless; life, with its
hurry and turmoil, its hopes and its fears, with them is over forever. They
have passed from among us, amid the smoke and glare of battle they passed
away; and now, in this solemn grove, amid the silence and quiet of the
evening hour, we have assembled to celebrate their funeral obsequies.

Brethren, look well upon the corses of the dead, mark the eyes hollowed
by decay, the cheeks sunken, and the lips livid with the touch of death;
look upon these forms, but one short day ago moving and throbbing with
the warm blood of life, and now cold, clammy, dead, senseless remains of
clay.

But this is not all, brethren; for as we look upon these corses, the solemn
words of the book break on our ear, through the silence of the evening
air:

Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors,
and their works do follow them.

For they did die in the Lord, my brethren. Fighting in the holiest cause,
fighting against wrong, and might, and violence, the brave Nash rode into
the ranks of battle, and while the bullets of the hirelings whistled around

him, while all was terror and gloom, he fell at the head of his men, bravely
flashing his sword for his fatherland.

So fell White, and so fell Boyd; you have all heard how Lieutenant
Smith met his death. You have heard how he went forth on the battle
morn with the flag of truce in his hand. You have heard how he approached
the fatal mansion on the battle-field; you have heard how these
merciless men pointed their musquets at his heart, and he fell, bathing the
flag of truce with the warm blood of his heart.

They fell, but their blood shall not fall unheeded. George of Brunswick,
may augur success to his cause from the result of this fight, but the
weak and mistaken man shall soon know his delusion false.

From every drop of patriot blood sinking in the sod of Germantown, a
hero shall arise! From the darkness and death of that terrible fight, I see
the angel of our country's freedom springing into birth; beyond the clouds
and smoke of battle, I behold the dawning of a brighter and more glorious
day.

They rest from their labors. From the toilsome labor of the night march,
from the fierce labor of the battle charge, from the labor of bloodshed and
death they rest.

They will no more share the stern joy of the meeting of congregated
armies; no more ride the steed to battle; no more feel their hearts throb at
the sound of the trumpet. All is over.

They rest from their labors! Aye, in the solemn courts of heaven they
rest from their labors, and the immortal great of the past greet them with
smiles and beckonings of joy, their hearts are soothed by the hymnings of
angels, and the voice of the Eternal bids them welcome.

From the dead let me turn to the living.

Let me speak for a moment to the men of the gallant band; let me tell
them that God will fight for them; that though the battle may be fierce and
bloody, still the sword of the Unknown will glisten on the side of the freemen-brothers;
that though the battle clouds may roll their shadows of gloom
over heaps of dying and dead, yet from those very clouds will spring the
day of Freedom, from the very carnage of the battle-field, will bloom the
fruits of a peaceful land.

Man, chosen among men, as the leader of freemen, I speak to thee! And
as the prophets of old, standing on the ramparts of Israel, raised their hands,
and blessed the Hebrew chieftains as they went forth to battle, so now I
bless thee, and bless thy doings; by the graves of the slain, and by the
corses of the patriot dead, I sanctify thy arms, in the name of that God who
never yet beheld fearful wrong without sudden vengeance—in the name of
that Redeemer, whose mission was joy to the captive, freedom to the slave,
I bless thee,—Washington.

On, on, in thy career of glory!

Not the glory of bloodshed, not the halo that is born of the phosphorescent

light hovering around the carcasses of the dead, not the empty fame of
human slaughter. No—no.

The glory of a pure soul, actuated by one motive of good, straining every
purpose of heart to accomplish that motive; neither heeding the threats of
the merciless tyrant, on the one hand, or the calls of ambition on the other,
but speeding forward, with sure and steady steps, to the goal of all thy
hopes—the freedom of this land of the new world.

Such is thy glory, Washington.

On, then, ye gallant men, on, in your career of glory. To day all may
be dark, all may be sad, all may be steeped in gloom. You may be driven
from one battle-field, you may behold your comrades fall wounded and dying
in the path of your retreat. Carnage may thin your ranks, disease walk
through your tents, death track your footsteps.

But the bright day will come at last. The treasure of blood will find its
recompense, the courage, the self-denial and daring of this time will work
out the certain reward of the country's freedom.

Then behold the fruits of your labors.

A land of mighty rivers, colossal mountains, a land of luxurious vallies,
fertile plains, a land of freemen, peopled by happy multitudes of millions,
whose temples echo with hosannas to God, whose oraises repeat your
names, gallant survivors of the battle-field of Germantown.

Yes—yes. From the Eternal world, our departed friends shall look
down upon the fruit of their works. From the Vast Unseen they shall look
down upon your banner of blue as the sun gleam of victory glitters on its
stars. They shall behold the skeletons of the invader strewing our shores,
his banners trailed in the dust, his armies annihilated, his strong men over-thrown,
and the temple of his power, toppled from its strong foundations.

They rest from their labors.

Oh, glorious is their resting place, oh, most glorious is their home! As
they flee on spirit-wings to their eternal abode, the ghosts of the mighty-head,
come crowding to the portals of the Unknown, and hail them welcome
home! Brutus of old is there, shaking his gory dagger aloft, Hampden and
Sidney are there, and there are the patriot martyrs from all the scaffolds of
oppressed Europe, each mighty spirit sounding a welcome to the martyrs
of New World freedom.

The dead of Bunker Hill are there, the form of Warren is among the first
in the mighty crowd, and there, raising their gory hands on high, a band of
the martyred men of Brandywine, press forward, and hail their compeers
of Germantown a welcome home.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.

Oh! thrice blessed, oh! blessed on the tongues of nations, blessed in the

hymns of little children, blessed in the tears of woman, shed for their martyrdom;
blessed in the world beyond, forever and forever blessed.

Farewell to ye, mighty dead, on earth! The kind hands of wife or child
were not passed over your brows, when the big drops of the death-dew announced
the approach of the last enemy of man! No blooming child, no
soft-voiced wife, no fair-haired boy was near ye.

Alone ye died. Alone amid the ranks of battle, or ere the battle shout
had yet ceased to echo on your ear. Alone, with fever in your brain, with
fever in your hearts, with maddening throes of pain, forcing from your
manly lips the involuntary cry of agony, yet, with your native land uppermost
in your thoughts, ye died.

And now, brethren, the sun sinking in the west, warns me to close. The
bright golden beams tint the tops of the trees, and fling a shower of light
over the roof of the ancient church. The sky above arches calm and azure,
as though the spirits of the dead smiled from yon clime upon our solemn
ceremonies. The hour is still and solemn, and all nature invites us to the
offering of prayer. Let us pray.

III.—PRAYER FOR THE DEAD.

Father of Heaven, we bow before thee, under the temple of the clear
blue sky and within the shadow of yon oaken grove, we bow beside the
corses of the dead. Our hearts are sad, our souls are awed. Up to thy
throne we send our earnest prayers for this, our much-afflicted land. Turn,
oh! God, turn the burning sword from between us and the sun of thy countenance.
Lift the shadow of death from our land. And, as in the olden
times, thou didst save the oppressed, even when the blood-stained grasp of
wrong was at their throats, so save thou us, now—oh, most merciful God!

And if the voice of prayer is ever heard in thy courts, for the spirits of
the dead, then let our voices now plead with thee, for the ghosts of the
slain, as they crowd around the portals of the Unseen world.

Oh! Lord God, look into our hearts, and there behold every pulse throbbing,
every vein filling with one desire, which we now send up to thee,
with hands and soul upraised—the desire of freedom for this fair land.

Give us success in this our most holy cause. In the name of the martyred
dead of the past, in the name of that shadowy band, whose life-blood
dyes a thousand scaffolds, give us freedom.

In the name of Jesus give us peace! Make strong the hands of thy servant
even George Washington. Make strong the hearts of his counsellors,
stir them up to greater deeds even than the deeds they have already done,
let thy presence be with our host, a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of
fire by night.

And at last, when our calling shall have been fulfilled, when we have

done and suffered thy will here below, receive us into the Rest of the
Blessed.

So shall it be said of us—

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,—they rest from their labors,
and their works do follow them!”

The last words of the preacher, sank into the hearts of his hearers.
Every man felt awed, every soul was thrilled.

The preacher made a sign to the group of war-worn soldiers in attendance
at the head of the graves. The coffins were lowered in their receptacles
of death. The man of God advanced, and took a handful of earth,
from one of the uprising mounds.

There was universal silence around the graves, and thro' the grave-yard.

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

The sound of the earth rattling on the coffin of General Nash, broke with
a strange echo on the air.

Slowly along the sod, passed the minister of heaven speaking the solemn
words of the last ceremony, as he flung the handful of earth upon each
coffin.

A single moment passed, and a file of soldiers, with upraised muscuets,
extended along the graves. The word of command rang out upon the air,
and the shot after shot, the alternating reports of the musquets, broke like
thunder over the graves of the laurelled dead.

The soldiers suddenly swept aside, and in a moment, a glittering cannon
was wheeled near the graves, with the cannonier standing with the lighted
linstock, by its side. The subdued word of command again was heard, the
earthquake thunder of the cannon shook the graveyard, and like a pall for
the mighty dead, the thick folds of smoke, waved heavily above the grave.

Again did the file of musquetry pour forth the fire, again did the cannons
send forth their flame, flashing down into the very graves of the dead, while
the old church walls gave back the echo.—Again was the ceremony repeated,
and as the thick folds of cannon-smoke waved overhead, the soldiers
opened to the right and left, and the pall-bearers of the dead advanced.

They advanced, and one by one looked into the graves of the slain.

This was the scene when Washington looked for the last time into the
grave of Nash and his death-mates.

The sun setting behind the grove of oaks threw a veil of sunshine over
the masses of armed men thronging the grave-yard, over the reversed arms,
and craped banner of blue and stars. The form of Washington, standing at
the head of the grave, was disclosed in all its majesty of proportion, his face
impressed with an expression of sorrow, and his right hand reversing
his craped sword; Wayne—the gallant, the noble, the fearless Wayne—
stood at his right shoulder, and then sweeping in a line along the graves,
extended the chieftains of the army, each face stamped with grief, each right
arm holding the reversed sword; there was the sagacious face of Greene,

the bluff visage of Knox, the commanding features of Sullivan, the manly
countenances of Maxwell, Stirling, Forman, Conway, and the other officers
of the continental host. All were grouped there beside the graves of the
slain, and as every eye was fixed upon the coffins sprinkled with earth, a
low, solemn peal of music floated along the air, and a veteran advancing to
the grave, flung to the wind the broad banner of blue and stars, and the last
glimpse of sun-light fell upon this solemn relic of the

Battle=Day of Germantown.