University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
“Our Fathers!....Where are they?”....Bible.

Yes, my children, I will no longer delay it. We are
passing, one by one, from the place of contention, one
after another, to the grave; and, in a little time, you
may say—Our Fathers!—the men of the Revolution—
where are they?..... Yes, I will go about it, in
earnest: I will leave the record behind me, and when
there is nothing else to remind you of your father, and
your children's children, of their ancestor—nothing
else, to call up his apparition before you, that you may
see his aged and worn forehead—his white hair in the
wind... you will have but to open the book, that I
shall leave to you—and lay your right hand, devoutly,
upon the page. It will have been written in blood
and sweat, with prayer and weeping. But do that—
no matter when it is, generations may have passed
away—no matter where I am—my flesh and blood
may have returned to their original element, or taken
innumerable shapes of loveliness—my very soul may
be standing in the presence of the Most High—Yet
do ye this, and I will appear to you, instantly, in the
deepest and dimmest solitude of your memory!—
—Yes!—I will go about it, this very day...
And I do pray you and them, as they shall be born
successively of you, and yours, when all the family are
about their sanctuary, their own fire side—the holy
and comfortable place, to open the volume, and read it
aloud. Let it be in the depth of winter, if it may be,
when the labour of the year is over, and the heart is
rejoicing in its home—and when you are alone:—not
that I would frown upon the traveller, or blight the
warm hospitality of your nature, by reproof—but there

are some things, and some places, where the thought of
the stranger is intrusion, the touch and hearing of the
unknown man, little better than profanation. If you
love each other, you will not go abroad for consolation:
and if you are wise, you will preserve some
hidden, fountains of your heart, unvisited but by one
or two—the dearest and the best. This should be one
of them—I will have it so. I would not have your
feeling of holy, and solemn, and high enthusiasm,
broken in upon, by the unprepared, just when you have
been brought, perhaps, to travel in imagination, with
your father, barefooted, over the frozen ground, leaving
his blood at every step, as he went, desolate, famished,
sick, naked, almost broken hearted, and almost
alone, to fight the battles of your country.

No!—I would have your thought go in pilgrimage,
over the same ground, remembering that the old men
who travelled it, in the revolution, doing battle at
every step, for your inheritance, were an army journeying,
deliberately, to martyrdom. Do this my
children—and let it be a matter of religion with you:
teach your children to do the same. Let every place
of especial trial and bloodshed, be a Mecca to you and
to them—and God's blessing shall be upon you, forever
and ever!

We have had many a history of our country, many
of the revolution; but none written by men acquainted,
by participation therein, with our sorrow, and
trial, and suffering: not one, where the mighty outline
of truth is distinctly visible—no, not one. I make no
exception. All of them are in my mind, at this moment—there
is not one. We wrestled, children as
we were, for eight years, with armed giants: and
wrenched—wrenched! with our own hands, the spoil
from the spoiler—overcame them all, at last, after
eight years of mortal trial, and uninterrupted battle,
even in their strong hold.

I was one of them that helped to do this. There is
a vividness in my recollection that cannot deceive me.
I knew personally, and intimately, the leading men in

this drama. Most of them have gone down to their
graves, dishonoured and trampled upon, in their old
age:—many are yet wandering, helpless and dejected,
among the beautiful and vast proportions of that edifice,
which they built up with their blood and bones—like
the spirits of venerable men, that have been driven
away from their dwelling places by banditti—and died
in a foreign land:—like shadowy sovereigns, coming
back to a degenerate people, haunting the chambers of
their greatness, in olden time, and re-treading, with
an air of authority and dominion—which is the scorn
and mockery of men, whose fathers could not have
stood upright in their awful presence—the courts
where they have been dethroned—the ancient palaces,
which they built with their own power and treasure—
and from which they have been banished, day by day,
with insult and derision —yet, at my bidding
they will appear! and harness and array themselves—
and stand before you, as I have seen them stand before
George Washington—a battalion of immoveable,
impregnable, unconquerable old men.

I am familiar with all that they thought and did,
they that were about me, I mean, from the time that I
went among them a passionate, wild boy, till I came
out from them, battered and worn, and bruised and broken
and scarred all over, with the deep cabala of premature
old age.

None but an eye witness can tell, as it ought to be
told, the story of individual suffering, protracted for
such a time, the tale of individual heroism, continued
year after year, under privation, cruelty, insult and
toil, beyond all that the men of Rome or of Macedon,
under Alexander himself, would have borne, in the
spring tide of their heart's valour.

Yes—though I would tell the tale before I die—old
as I am, frail as the tenure is, by which I hold to the
earth, I must take my own time for it, and tell that
which I do tell, with the plainness and honesty of my
nature, so that you may depend upon it. You know
that I will tell you nothing which I do not know to be

true. I need not add, therefore, that, where there is a
disagreement between my story, and that which you
will find in the blundering, tedious compilations, which
are called the Histories of our Revolution, you will do
well to rely upon mine.

Let this be copied, in a fair hand by Frederick, and
during the next week, I will forward you two or three
sheets more. Make no alteration in it—no corrections.
If there be any part illegible, leave a blank, till I have
an opportunity of supplying it. I would have this a
family relick, the legitimate production of your father,
an uneducated, plain soldier, and of him alone. It
will then grow every year, in your veneration: gain
every year, upon your heart, in solemnity and interest.
Nay—let this intimation take a higher authority. I
know the sacredness of ancient things—I command
you therefore, that you lay not your hand upon one
letter of what I write. Men do not talk now as they
used to—you see none of the old fashioned kingly-looking
people in this generation... nothing of their high
carriage and attitude—hear nothing of their powerful
voices, and regal tread—their thought, the currency of
their heart is base and degenerate—it wears no longer
the stamp of sovereignty—is no longer the coinage of
God's kingdom—but the paltry counterfeit thereof—
base and showy. No—trust them not. Hold what
there is left to you, of other days, as the regalia of
giants; to be visited only, by torch light, with downcast
eyes and folded arms. Ye are a fettered people—
fettered too, by manacles that would have fallen from
the limbs of your fathers like rain—dropped from them,
in the indignant heat of their mighty hearts, like the
leaden entrenchments of a furnace.

My children.—It has been my nature, from my
childhood, to speak and write for myself. There are
few men upon this earth, in whom it would not be presumption
to alter what I have written. And you, my
children, are not of their number. In you, it would
be wicked and foolish. It would lead to a perpetual
discussion, in your family, about the genuineness of the

whole, and, in time, destroy all your reverence for me.
No—let there be no interpolation. My blessing shall
not abide upon him that dares to add, alter, or leave
out, one jot or tittle of the whole. No—let it go down,
with your blood, the patent of your nobility, to the
elder son, forever and ever; and when you are able,
multiply the copies among all that are descended from
me, as the last legacy, of one, that it would be an honour
to them, whatever they may become, to be the posterity
of.

My style may often offend you. I do not doubt
that it will. I hope that it will. It will be remembered
the better. It will be the style of a soldier, plain and
direct, where facts are to be narrated; of a man, roused
and inflamed, when the nature of man is outraged—
of a father—a husband—a lover and a child, as the
tale is of one, or of the other.

You have all had a better education than your father.
You have, most of you, a pleasant and graceful
way of expressing yourselves on paper—and there is
one among you—you know which I mean—the operations
of whose mind are as vivid and instantaneous,
and beautiful, as flashes of coloured light—but there is
not one among you—not one, that has yet learnt to
talk on paper. Learn that—learn it speedily—there is
no time to be lost.

Farewell, my children, farewell: till the next
mail. I shall expect you, a week, at least, before
Christmas.