XII.—THE LAST HOUR.
Meanwhile the terror of the fight darkened around the Quaker Temple.
There is a moment of blood and horror. They fight each man of them
as though the issue of the field depended upon his separate hand and blow
—but in vain, in vain!
The enemy swarm from the opposite hills, they rush forward in mighty
columns superior in force, superior in arms to the brave Continential Yeomen.
Again they advance to the charge—again they breast the foe—they drive
him back—they leap upon his bayonets—they turn the tide of fight by one
gallant effort—but now! They waver, they fall back, Sullivan beholds his
Right Wing in confusion—but why need I pursue the dark history further?
Why need I tell how Washington came hurrying on to the rescue of his
army, with the reserve under General Greene? How all his efforts of
superhuman courage were in vain? How Pulaski thundered into the British
ranks, and with his white-coated troopers at his back, hewed a way for
himself thro' that fiery battle, leaving piles of dead men on either side?
Suffice it to say, that overpowered by the superior force of the enemy,
the continental army retreated toward the south. Suffice it to say, that the
British bought the mere possession of the field, with a good round treasure
of men and blood—That if Washington could not conquer the enemy, he
at all events saved his army and crippled his foe.
And there, as the American army swept toward Chester, there rushing
upon the very bayonets of the pursuing enemy was that gallant boy of
nineteen, imploring the disheartened fugitives to make one effort more, to
strike yet another blow!
It was in vain! While his warm arm was yet raised on high, while his
voice yet arose in the shout for Washington and freedom, La Fayette was
wounded near the ancle by a musket ball. The blood of old France
flowed warmly in the veins of that gallant boy!
That glorious French blood of Charlemagne, of Conde, of Navarre,
that glorious French blood, which in aftertime, making one wide channel
of the whole earth, flowed on in a mighty river—on to triumph, bearing
Napoleon on its gory waves!
Ah there was warm and generous blood flowing in the veins of that gallant
boy of France!
Oh tell me you, who are always ready with the sneer, when a young
man tries to do some great deed, tries with a sincere heart and steady hand
to carve himself a name upon the battlements of time—oh tell me, have you
no sneer for this boy at Brandywine? This boy La Fayette, who left the
repose of that young wife's bosom, to fight the battles of a strange people
in a far land?
There was a General Howe, my friends, who invited some ladies to
take supper one night in Philadelphia, with this boy La Fayette, and then
sent his troops out to Barren Hill, to trap him and bring him in,—but my
friends, that night the ladies ate their viands cold, for Sir William failed to
—“Catch the boy.”
There was a Lord Cornwallis, who having encircled the French Marquis
with his troops, there in the forests of Virginia, wrote boastingly home
to his king, that he might soon expect a raree-show, for he was determined
to “Catch this Boy,” and send him home to London. The king had
his raree-show, but it was the news of my Lord Cornwallis's surrender at
Yorktown, but as for La Fayette, he never saw him, for my Lord Cornwallis
failed to “Catch the Boy.”
