University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Southey.

Alas! how horror-struck were the disconsolate
inhabitants of Wyoming, when the melancholy
relics of their late band of brave defenders
returned to that fortress which was
now their last asylum. Where were now the
near and dear relatives, the fathers, sons, brothers,
husbands and lovers, to whom so many
heartfelt thanks had that morning been given,
and for whom so many earnest prayers had
been offered? Ye bereaved mothers, and ye
orphans and ye widows, cold now are the
manly hearts that, but a few hours since, beat
so warmly to your ardent pressure; and those
ears which drank in, with so much rapture,
the glowing praises and fervent blessings
which ye showered upon them, are now deaf
to all sounds. From neither friendship nor love
can those clay-cold bosoms, late so generous
and joyous, now experience any pleasing emotion.

The blooming cheek is now pale; the
sparkling eye is dim; motionless is the heart
of ardour, and nerveless is the arm of strength.
And ye survive those dear objects! Alas! unhappily
for yourselves, ye survive them. Ye
are in sorrow; ye are miserable. Sorrow can
approach them no more. Their trials are over;
they are happy! Yes, they are all happy; for
the barbarity of their foes has not permitted a
wounded one to survive—the work of death has
been carefully, coolly, and effectually accomplished
upon them all. Oh! ye mourners, do
your hearts long for the same fate! Alas!
what is life, when those who constituted
its charm are no more? And within the
walls of the fort of Wyoming many a heart,
during that dismal night, (for night had now
come on,) would have given a sincere welcome
to the blow of the Indian tomahawk or the
thrust of the tory bayonet which would have
terminated their grief, and sent them to join,
in the realms of spirits, the beloved ones of
whom they had been so cruelly bereaved.

Colonel Dennison was now invested with
the command of the small garrison, whose task
it was to defend the fort and preserve from
destruction the hundreds of helpless and innocent
beings who had made it their place of refuge.
The governor, on escaping from the
fatal defile, had refused to enter the fort.

“You are,” said he to Colonel Dennison,
“better fitted for the command than I. My
unhappy credulity has been the sole cause of
the terrible disaster that has befallen my
friends. I am mortified; I am grieved almost
to heart-breaking, to think of the fatal infatuation
which induced me, in spite of your
judicious counsel, to place confidence in the assurances
of a wretch so perfidious, so utterly
wicked. I will not enter the fort. I could
not look upon the faces of those whom my obstinate
folly has reduced to such a state of danger
and distress. Your coolness, your wisdom,
your intrepidity will do more to save them, if
there is yet for them any means of safety, than
any power or effort of mine. Yet I will not
desert their cause; I will hasten to the districts
on the Delaware. I will implore the people
there to hurry to your aid; and, if I cannot
succeed, I will fly to the camp of Washington
himself, and entreat assistance. Alas! it may
then be too late to assist you. But if so, I will
avenge you—God protect and bless you!” said
he; and the tears rushed to his eyes, as he
shook Colonel Dennison by the hand. He
then mounted a horse which was brought to
him from the fort, and rode off.

The tories and their allies did not advance
towards the fort that evening. They had, during

the day, performed abundance of fatiguing
work. Besides the labour of the severe battle
they had fought, they had gone through the
barbarous toil of despatching the wounded and
despoiling the dead, upon all of whom the scalping-knife
had performed its horrid office, and
the diabolical Brandt added, that day, the integuments
of more than three hundred human
heads to the number of his former trophies of
conquest and massacre. They encamped in
the vicinity of the fatal field, and after their
customary carousal in celebration of victory,
they sunk exhausted into a supine and heavy
state of repose. But the garrison of the fort
was too weak, and, perhaps, too much disheartened
to take advantage of this defenceless condition
of the enemy.

This melancholy night was spent by Agnes
Norwood in a state of the most intense and
restless anxiety. At the first intelligence of
the disasters of the day, poignant grief overcame
every other feeling. But the exhortations
of her father, and the exemplary fortitude
of Mary Watson, contributed much to
restore her to a state of pious submission to
the awful dispensation that had taken place;
and although the terrors of destruction seemed
to accumulate so thickly around her, as to exclude
from her view every hope of deliverance,

yet she would not resign herself to despair nor
withdraw her confidence in the overruling
goodness of the Most High. Her attention
was, indeed, soon so entirely absorbed by the
wretchedness of her friend Isabella Austin, the
only sister of her Henry, who, on first hearing
of the death of her father, became so overpowered
with grief, that she had to be carried,
in a state of insensibility, to her bed-chamber.
When she recovered from this, she wept bitterly
for some time, and then relapsed into
stupefaction. Towards the morning, she was
seized with several fits of frenzy, during which
she frequently exclaimed, that she beheld the
ungrateful Butler in the act of murdering her
father!

“Ha!” she would cry, “see, see! oh! save
him! The horrid steel pierces his heart. Ungrateful
Butler! He was your best friend. How
could you do such a deed! Oh! for my sake,
could you not have spared him!”

She would then laugh deliriously, and sink
again into stupefaction. Agnes and Miss Watson
became alternately the nurses of the poor
sufferer, and in the intensity of her grief, almost
forgot their own.

The morning arose with the brightness usual
in July. The night-clouds fled, and the advancing
sun came forward joyously and in

smiles, as if he were that day to witness no
scene of calamity and suffering on the earth
which he illuminated. Colonel Dennison, at
an early hour, mustered the whole strength of
his garrison, and found that it scarcely numbered
a hundred men. This was but a small
force, with which to contend against that which
he expected soon to assail him. They were
zealous, however, and determined to defend
the place to the last extremity. To propose a
capitulation, they knew to be folly. The garrison
of Fort Wintermoot they remembered,
had received to the request which they made to
Butler to be informed of what treatment they
might expect if they surrendered, the reply
which has since become so famous for its laconic
ferocity of “the hatchet!” Their prospects
of making a successful defence were, it
is true, hopeless. But making such defence
would not render their fate more certain or
more severe. Massacre would inevitably follow
submission; nothing worse could follow
resistance. Besides, in resistance there was
one chance; that of protracting their fate, until,
perhaps, the succour which was daily expected,
might arrive. This, indeed, was literally a
forlorn hope. Their utmost efforts could not
be supposed capable of resisting the force of
their numerous enemies for many hours. They
were, however, too brave to despair; and with
the firmness of devoted martyrs, they calmly
awaited the approach of the expected foe.

How terrible to the reflecting mind is such
an interval of suspense! In the hurry of battle
there is an excitement of mind which silences
the emotions of fear; and nerves which,
in moments of tranquillity, would tremble at
the contemplation of approaching doom, in the
actual struggle with that doom, become animated
to a defiance, and indurated to an endurance
of its uttermost extremity.

At length the music of warlike instruments,
floating at first so weakly as scarcely to seem
to agitate the distant air, became every moment
louder and louder, until the neighbouring
woods shook, and the walls of the fort itself
reverberated with the sounds. The blood-stained
banner of toryism soon appeared issuing
from the surrounding forest; and Butler and
Brandt, with the whole strength of their sanguinary
followers, drew up before the devoted
fort, which they soon made arrangements to
attack.

The fire of the small garrison succeeded for
some time in keeping the assailants at a respectful
distance. But it was not sufficient
long to guard the entrenchments at every point
from numbers so superior. A party of the

tories succeeded in filling the ditch, near its
northern angle, with rubbish, which rendered
it passable. In various other places repeated attempts
to accomplish the same object had been
made by the besiegers, which were foiled by
the unremitting exertions of the garrison. To
the place which was now rendered passable,
the assailants soon directed their chief efforts.
The garrison rushed to prevent their wall from
being scaled there. The besiegers drew back.
But many other points being now undefended,
at several of them the trench was also soon
rendered passable. At one of these, Butler
resolved to make an effective attempt, cost
what it would, to scale the walls, and take the
place by storm. As he was leading on a choice
body of men for this purpose, his attention and
the attention of all, both in and out of the garrison,
were suddenly attracted to an apparition
upon the rampart opposite to him, of a beautiful
young woman with her white garments
flowing loosely around her, her dark brown
hair streaming wildly in the air, her face pale,
her eyes rolling, and her hands stretched towards
Heaven. It was Isabella Austin. She had
unexpectedly rushed from her chamber, and
with the energy and fleetness of a maniac, while
the attention of her friends was directed towards
the advancing foe, she ascended the parapet,
looked wildly around her—then fixing her
view upon Butler, she exclaimed:

“Ha! he is there! Heaven, have mercy!
a murderer!—my beloved—did ye not know
I loved you? Yet ye killed him! My father
—Oh! Heaven, think of the deed! The old
man was kind.—Ha!—the thunderbolt! it has
struck my brain. Terrible man! thou art
accurst. My love will not save thee. Fiends!
fiends!—yes, there he is—he is a murderer—
Oh! God! must I fly to the arms of a murderer!”

Uttering the last words, she sprang from the
wall towards Butler, and as she descended, a
random ball—for even this heart-rending spectacle
had not produced an entire cessation of
the firing—passed through her heart. An exclamation
of horror burst from the defenders
of the fort. One volley they fired with desperate
precision upon their enemies, which
levelled about fifty of them to the ground. But
it was their last volley. Before they could reload,
Butler and his inhuman followers were
within the ramparts, furiously employed in the
work of destruction.

Butler, in the midst of this affray, became
anxious to obtain possession of Agnes, lest she
might fall a victim to the savages, who he knew,
had resolved on a general massacre, and who

were now surmounting the entrenchments in
all directions. Seeing Colonel Dennison engaged
with a soldier, he ordered the latter to
desist.

“Your life, Colonel,” said he, “shall be
granted on one condition. You see it is useless
to resist. Let me have your sword.”

“Name your condition first,” said the
Colonel. “It must be such as an honourable
man can accept, or I shall die sword in hand.”

“It is only to lead me to Mr. Norwood and
his daughter, that I may save them,” said Butler.
“No time is to be lost—the Indians may
in another moment, defeat my intention.”

“You are right,” replied Dennison. “I
surrender—take my sword—follow me!”

In a few moments they had penetrated the
mingled mass of destroyers and victims, and
reached the chamber where Mr. Norwood and
his daughter,and Dr. Watson and his sister, were
calmly awaiting that expected death which they
were determined to share together. On entering
the apartment, Butler, looking at Agnes,
exclaimed,

“I am fortunate!—You are yet safe. But
you must be taken hence. These walls are
doomed to destruction!”

He then called, from the window, to Bateman,
one of his partizans, who has been already

mentioned as enrolling the tories in the
Hemlock Glade, to bring forward the company
he commanded. He was speedily obeyed.

“Captain Bateman,” said he, “here are
five prisoners. Their safety is of importance
to me. I charge you with it. Conduct them
to Mr. Norwood's house. I will join you there
as soon as our business here is completed.”

Agnes and Miss Watson, Mr. Norwood, Dr.
Watson, and Colonel Dennison, were thus
snatched, like brands from amidst a mass of
flaming destruction, by the influence which the
charms of the former had over the savage
heart of a ruffian who was destitute of every
other tender feeling save that of love.—Love!
ah! no—let not the name of the sweetest and
purest, and most disinterested of feelings be
profaned by being applied to the gross and
selfish, and sensual passion which actuated the
heart of Butler the destroyer of Wyoming

A detailed description of the terrible carnage
that was now committed on the defenceless
inmates of the fort, by the merciless victors
of this bloody day, would present too horrible
a picture of human suffering and human
depravity, to be endured by any reader of sensibility.
The monster Brandt seemed to be in
his natural element, when wading through the
currents of fresh-flowing blood that filled the

yard of the fortress which was made the butchering
place of the victims. As each victim
received the mortal stroke, he rushed upon the
body, while yet writhing in the agonies of
death, and with his own knife dissected, with
a fiendish delight, from the warm skull, the
scalp which added one more trophy to those
horrid memorials of vengeful victory of which
he was so proud. The number of these memorials
to which he had limited his ambition was
on this occasion completed.

“I have now a thousand scalps!” said he to
Butler. “I have had a full harvest of revenge.
The people of my tribe will extol me.
I shall be called Brandt the successful—the destroyer
of white men!—I am satisfied!”

The carnage being over, the dead were stripped
of every thing valuable. They were then
dragged into the principal building of the fort,
which after being pillaged, was set on fire
along with the adjoining edifices. The smoke
and flames soon ascended to the clouds, and
struck new terror into the hearts of the disconsolate
prisoners at Mr. Norwood's; for too
well they knew that the awful conflagration
which they beheld was the funeral pile of
slaughtered hundreds of their friends and
neighbours.