University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
ISRAEL GOES TO THE WARS; AND REACHING BUNKER HILL
IN TIME TO BE OF SERVICE THERE, SOON AFTER IS FORCED
TO EXTEND HIS TRAVELS ACROSS THE SEA INTO THE ENEMY'S
LAND.

LEFT to idle lamentations, Israel might now have
planted deep furrows in his brow. But stifling his
pain, he chose rather to plough, than be ploughed. Farming
weans man from his sorrows. That tranquil pursuit
tolerates nothing but tranquil meditations. There, too, in
mother earth, you may plant and reap; not, as in other
things, plant and see the planting torn up by the roots.
But if wandering in the wilderness, and wandering upon
the waters, if felling trees, and hunting, and shipwreck,
and fighting with whales, and all his other strange adventures,
had not as yet cured poor Israel of his now hopeless
passion, events were at hand for ever to drown it.

It was the year 1774. The difficulties long pending
between the colonies and England were arriving at their
crisis. Hostilities were certain. The Americans were preparing
themselves. Companies were formed in most of

the New England towns, whose members, receiving the
name of minute-men, stood ready to march anywhere at
a minute's warning. Israel, for the last eight months, sojourning
as a laborer on a farm in Windsor, enrolled
himself in the regiment of Colonel John Patterson of
Lenox, afterwards General Patterson.

The battle of Lexington was fought on the 18th of
April, 1775; news of it arrived in the county of Berkshire
on the 20th about noon. The next morning at
sunrise, Israel swung his knapsack, shouldered his musket,
and, with Patterson's regiment, was on the march, quickstep,
towards Boston.

Like Putnam, Israel received the stirring tidings at the
plough. But although not less willing than Putnam to
fly to battle at an instant's notice, yet—only half an
acre of the field remaining to be finished—he whipped up
his team and finished it. Before hastening to one duty,
he would not leave a prior one undone; and ere helping
to whip the British, for a little practice' sake, he applied
the gad to his oxen. From the field of the farmer, he
rushed to that of the soldier, mingling his blood with his
sweat. While we revel in broadcloth, let us not forget
what we owe to linsey-woolsey.

With other detachments from various quarters, Israel's
regiment remained encamped for several days in the vicinity
of Charlestown. On the seventeenth of June, one
thousand Americans, including the regiment of Patterson,
were set about fortifying Bunker's Hill. Working all
through the night, by dawn of the following day, the
redoubt was thrown up. But every one knows all about

the battle. Suffice it, that Israel was one of those marksmen
whom Putnam harangued as touching the enemy's
eyes. Forbearing as he was with his oppressive father
and unfaithful love, and mild as he was on the farm,
Israel was not the same at Bunker Hill. Putnam had
enjoined the men to aim at the officers; so Israel aimed
between the golden epaulettes, as, in the wilderness, he
had aimed between the branching antlers. With dogged
disdain of their foes, the English grenadiers marched up
the hill with sullen slowness; thus furnishing still surer
aims to the muskets which bristled on the redoubt.
Modest Israel was used to aver, that considering his practice
in the woods, he could hardly be regarded as an
inexperienced marksman; hinting, that every shot which
the epauletted grenadiers received from his rifle, would,
upon a different occasion, have procured him a deerskin.
And like stricken deers the English, rashly brave as they
were, fled from the opening fire. But the marksman's
ammunition was expended; a hand-to-hand encounter ensued.
Not one American musket in twenty had a bayonet
to it. So, wielding the stock right and left, the terrible
farmers, with hats and coats off, fought their way among
the furred grenadiers, knocking them right and left, as
seal-hunters on the beach, knock down with their clubs
the Shetland seal. In the dense crowd and confusion,
while Israel's musket got interlocked, he saw a blade
horizontally menacing his feet from the ground. Thinking
some fallen enemy sought to strike him at the last gasp,
dropping his hold on his musket, he wrenched at the steel,
but found that though a brave hand held it, that hand
was powerless for ever. It was some British officer's
laced sword-arm, cut from the trunk in the act of fighting,
refusing to yield up its blade to the last. At that
moment another sword was aimed at Israel's head by a
living officer. In an instant the blow was parried by
kindred steel, and the assailant fell by a brother's weapon,
wielded by alien hands. But Israel did not come off unscathed.
A cut on the right arm near the elbow, received
in parrying the officer's blow, a long slit across
the chest, a musket ball buried in his hip, and another
mangling him near the ankle of the same leg, were the
tokens of intrepidity which our Sicinius Dentatus carried
from this memorable field. Nevertheless, with his comrades
he succeeded in reaching Prospect Hill, and from
thence was conveyed to the hospital at Cambridge. The
bullet was extracted, his lesser wounds were dressed, and
after much suffering from the fracture of the bone near
the ankle, several pieces of which were extracted by the
surgeon, ere long, thanks to the high health and pure
blood of the farmer, Israel rejoined his regiment when
they were throwing up intrenchments on Prospect Hill.
Bunker Hill was now in possession of the foe, who in
turn had fortified it.

On the third of July, Washington arrived from the
South to take the command. Israel witnessed his joyful
reception by the huzzaing companies.

The British now quartered in Boston suffered greatly
from the scarcity of provisions. Washington took every
precaution to prevent their receiving a supply. Inland,
all aid could easily be cut off. To guard against their

receiving any by water, from tories and other disaffected
persons, the General equipped three armed vessels to intercept
all traitorous cruisers. Among them was the
brigantine Washington, of ten guns, commanded by Captain
Martindale. Seamen were hard to be had. The
soldiers were called upon to volunteer for these vessels.
Israel was one who so did; thinking that as an experienced
sailor he should not be backward in a juncture like this,
little as he fancied the new service assigned.

Three days out of Boston harbor, the brigantine was
captured by the enemy's ship Foy, of twenty guns. Taken
prisoner with the rest of the crew, Israel was afterwards
put on board the frigate Tartar, with immediate sailing
orders for England. Seventy-two were captives in this
vessel. Headed by Israel, these men—half way across
the sea—formed a scheme to take the ship, but were betrayed
by a renegade Englishman. As ringleader, Israel
was put in irons, and so remained till the frigate anchored
at Portsmouth. There he was brought on deck; and
would have met perhaps some terrible fate, had it not
come out, during the examination, that the Englishman
had been a deserter from the army of his native country
ere proving a traitor to his adopted one. Relieved of
his irons, Israel was placed in the marine hospital on
shore, where half of the prisoners took the small-pox,
which swept off a third of their number. Why talk of
Jaffa?

From the hospital the survivors were conveyed to Spit-head,
and thrust on board a hulk. And here in the
black bowels of the ship, sunk low in the sunless sea, our

poor Israel lay for a month, like Jonah in the belly of
the whale.

But one bright morning, Israel is hailed from the deck.
A bargeman of the commander's boat is sick. Known
for a sailor, Israel for the nonce is appointed to pull the
absent man's oar.

The officers being landed, some of the crew propose,
like merry Englishmen as they are, to hie to a neighboring
ale-house, and have a cosy pot or two together.
Agreed. They start, and Israel with them. As they
enter the ale-house door, our prisoner is suddenly reminded
of still more imperative calls. Unsuspected of any design,
he is allowed to leave the party for a moment. No sooner
does Israel see his companions housed, than putting speed
into his feet, and letting grow all his wings, he starts like a
deer. He runs four miles (so he afterwards affirmed) without
halting. He sped towards London; wisely deeming
that once in that crowd detection would be impossible.

Ten miles, as he computed, from where he had left the
bargemen, leisurely passing a public house of a little village
on the roadside, thinking himself now pretty safe—
hark, what is this he hears?—

“Ahoy!”

“No ship,” says Israel, hurrying on.

“Stop.”

“If you will attend to your business, I will endeavor
to attend to mine,” replies Israel coolly. And next minute
he lets grow his wings again; flying, one dare say, at
the rate of something less than thirty miles an hour.

“Stop thief!” is now the cry. Numbers rushed from

the roadside houses. After a mile's chase, the poor panting
deer is caught.

Finding it was no use now to prevaricate, Israel boldly
confesses himself a prisoner-of-war. The officer, a good
fellow as it turned out, had him escorted back to the inn;
where, observing to the landlord that this must needs
be a true-blooded Yankee, he calls for liquors to refresh
Israel after his run. Two soldiers are then appointed
to guard him for the present. This was towards evening;
and up to a late hour at night, the inn was filled with
strangers crowding to see the Yankee rebel, as they politely
termed him. These honest rustics seemed to think that
Yankees were a sort of wild creatures, a species of 'possum
or kangaroo. But Israel is very affable with them.
That liquor he drank from the hand of his foe, has perhaps
warmed his heart towards all the rest of his enemies.
Yet this may not be wholly so. We shall see. At any
rate, still he keeps his eye on the main chance—escape.
Neither the jokes nor the insults of the mob does he suffer
to molest him. He is cogitating a little plot to himself.

It seems that the good officer—not more true to the
king his master than indulgent towards the prisoner which
that same loyalty made—had left orders that Israel should
be supplied with whatever liquor he wanted that night.
So, calling for the can again and again, Israel invites the
two soldiers to drink and be merry. At length, a wag
of the company proposes that Israel should entertain the
public with a jig, he (the wag) having heard that the
Yankees were extraordinary dancers. A fiddle is brought
in, and poor Israel takes the floor. Not a little cut to

think that these people should so unfeelingly seek to be
diverted at the expense of an unfortunate prisoner, Israel,
while jigging it up and down, still conspires away at his
private plot, resolving ere long to give the enemy a touch
of certain Yankee steps, as yet undreamed of in their
simple philosophy. They would not permit any cessation
of his dancing till he had danced himself into a perfect
sweat, so that the drops fell from his lank and flaxen
hair. But Israel, with much of the gentleness of the
dove, is not wholly without the wisdom of the serpent.
Pleased to see the flowing bowl, he congratulates himself
that his own state of perspiration prevents it from producing
any intoxicating effect upon him.

Late at night the company break up. Furnished with
a pair of handcuffs, the prisoner is laid on a blanket spread
upon the floor at the side of the bed in which his two
keepers are to repose. Expressing much gratitude for the
blanket, with apparent unconcern, Israel stretches his legs.
An hour or two passes. All is quiet without.

The important moment had now arrived. Certain it
was, that if this chance were suffered to pass unimproved,
a second would hardly present itself. For early, doubtless,
on the following morning, if not some way prevented,
the two soldiers would convey Israel back to his floating
prison, where he would thenceforth remain confined until
the close of the war; years and years, perhaps. When
he thought of that horrible old hulk, his nerves were
restrung for flight. But intrepid as he must be to compass
it, wariness too was needed. His keepers had gone
to bed pretty well under the influence of the liquor. This

was favorable. But still, they were full-grown, strong men;
and Israel was handcuffed. So Israel resolved upon strategy
first; and if that failed, force afterwards. He eagerly
listened. One of the drunken soldiers muttered in his
sleep, at first lowly, then louder and louder,—“Catch 'em!
Grapple 'em! Have at 'em! Ha—long cutlasses! Take
that, runaway!”

“What's the matter with ye, Phil?” hiccoughed the
other, who was not yet asleep. “Keep quiet, will ye?
Ye ain't at Fontenoy now.”

“He's a runaway prisoner, I say. Catch him, catch
him!”

“Oh, stush with your drunken dreaming,” again hiccoughed
his comrade, violently nudging him. “This comes
o' carousing.”

Shortly after, the dreamer with loud snores fell back
into dead sleep. But by something in the sound of the
breathing of the other soldier, Israel knew that this man
remained uneasily awake. He deliberated a moment what
was best to do. At length he determined upon trying
his old plea. Calling upon the two soldiers, he informed
them that urgent necessity required his immediate presence
somewhere in the rear of the house.

“Come, wake up here, Phil,” roared the soldier who
was awake; “the fellow here says he must step out;
cuss these Yankees; no better edication than to be gettin'
up on nateral necessities at this time o' night. It ain't
nateral; its unnateral. D—n ye, Yankee, don't ye know
no better?”

With many more denunciations, the two now staggered

to their feet, and clutching hold of Israel, escorted him
down stairs, and through a long, narrow, dark entry, rearward,
till they came to a door. No sooner was this unbolted
by the foremost guard, than, quick as a flash, manacled
Israel, shaking off the grasp of the one behind him,
butts him sprawling back into the entry; when, dashing
in the opposite direction, he bounces the other head over
heels into the garden, never using a hand; and then, leaping
over the latter's head, darts blindly out into the midnight.
Next moment he was at the garden wall. No
outlet was discoverable in the gloom. But a fruit-tree
grew close to the wall. Springing into it desperately,
handcuffed as he was, Israel leaps atop of the barrier, and
without pausing to see where he is, drops himself to the
ground on the other side, and once more lets grow all
his wings. Meantime, with loud outcries, the two baffled
drunkards grope deliriously about in the garden.

After running two or three miles, and hearing no sound
of pursuit, Israel reins up to rid himself of the handcuffs,
which impede him. After much painful labor he succeeds
in the attempt. Pressing on again with all speed, day
broke, revealing a trim-looking, hedged, and beautiful country,
soft, neat, and serene, all colored with the fresh early
tints of the spring of 1776.

Bless me, thought Israel, all of a tremble, I shall certainly
be caught now; I have broken into some nobleman's
park.

But, hurrying forward again, he came to a turnpike
road, and then knew that, all comely and shaven as it
was, this was simply the open country of England; one

bright, broad park, paled in with white foam of the sea.
A copse skirting the road was just bursting out into bud.
Each unrolling leaf was in very act of escaping from its
prison. Israel looked at the budding leaves, and round
on the budding sod, and up at the budding dawn of the
day. He was so sad, and these sights were so gay, that
Israel sobbed like a child, while thoughts of his mountain
home rushed like a wind on his heart. But conquering
this fit, he marched on, and presently passed nigh a field,
where two figures were working. They had rosy cheeks,
short, sturdy legs, showing the blue stocking nearly to the
knee, and were clad in long, coarse, white frocks, and had
on coarse, broad-brimmed straw hats. Their faces were
partly averted.

“Please, ladies,” half roguishly says Israel, taking off
his hat, “does this road go to London?”

At this salutation, the two figures turned in a sort of
stupid amazement, causing an almost corresponding expression
in Israel, who now perceived that they were men,
and not women. He had mistaken them, owing to their
frocks, and their wearing no pantaloons, only breeches
hidden by their frocks.

“Beg pardon, ladies, but I thought ye were something
else,” said Israel again.

Once more the two figures stared at the stranger, and
with added boorishness of surprise.

“Does this road go to London, gentlemen?”

“Gentlemen—egad!” cried one of the two.

“Egad!” echoed the second.

Putting their hoes before them, the two frocked boors

now took a good long look at Israel, meantime scratching
their heads under their plaited straw hats.

“Does it, gentlemen? Does it go to London? Be kind
enough to tell a poor fellow, do.”

“Yees goin' to Lunnun, are yees? Weel—all right—
go along.”

And without another word, having now satisfied their
rustic curiosity, the two human steers, with wonderful
phlegm, applied themselves to their hoes; supposing, no
doubt, that they had given all requisite information.

Shortly after, Israel passed an old, dark, mossy-looking
chapel, its roof all plastered with the damp yellow dead
leaves of the previous autumn, showered there from a close
cluster of venerable trees, with great trunks, and over-stretching
branches. Next moment he found himself entering
a village. The silence of early morning rested upon
it. But few figures were seen. Glancing through the
window of a now noiseless public-house, Israel saw a table
all in disorder, covered with empty flagons, and tobacco-ashes,
and long pipes; some of the latter broken.

After pausing here a moment, he moved on, and observed
a man over the way standing still and watching him. Instantly
Israel was reminded that he had on the dress of an
English sailor, and that it was this probably which had
arrested the stranger's attention. Well knowing that his
peculiar dress exposed him to peril, he hurried on faster
to escape the village; resolving at the first opportunity
to change his garments. Ere long, in a secluded place
about a mile from the village, he saw an old ditcher tottering
beneath the weight of a pick-axe, hoe and shovel,

going to his work; the very picture of poverty, toil and
distress. His clothes were tatters.

Making up to this old man, Israel, after a word or two
of salutation, offered to change clothes with him. As his
own clothes were prince-like compared to the ditcher's,
Israel thought that however much his proposition might
excite the suspicion of the ditcher, yet self-interest would
prevent his communicating the suspicions. To be brief,
the two went behind a hedge, and presently Israel emerged,
presenting the most forlorn appearance conceivable; while
the old ditcher hobbled off in an opposite direction, correspondingly
improved in his aspect; though it was rather
ludicrous than otherwise, owing to the immense bagginess
of the sailor-trowsers flapping about his lean shanks, to say
nothing of the spare voluminousness of the pea-jacket. But
Israel—how deplorable, how dismal his plight! Little
did he ween that these wretched rags he now wore, were
but suitable to that long career of destitution before him:
one brief career of adventurous wanderings; and then,
forty torpid years of pauperism. The coat was all patches.
And no two patches were alike, and no one patch was
the color of the original cloth. The stringless breeches
gaped wide open at the knee; the long woollen stockings
looked as if they had been set up at some time for a target.
Israel looked suddenly metamorphosed from youth to old
age; just like an old man of eighty he looked. But, indeed,
dull, dreary adversity was now in store for him; and adversity,
come it at eighteen or eighty, is the true old age
of man. The dress befitted the fate.

From the friendly old ditcher, Israel learned the exact

course he must steer for London; distant now between
seventy and eighty miles. He was also apprised by his
venerable friend, that the country was filled with soldiers
on the constant look-out for deserters whether from the
navy or army, for the capture of whom a stipulated reward
was given, just as in Massachusetts at that time for prowling
bears.

Having solemnly enjoined his old friend not to give
any information, should any one he meet inquire for such
a person as Israel, our adventurer walked briskly on, less
heavy of heart, now that he felt comparatively safe in
disguise.

Thirty miles were travelled that day. At night Israel
stole into a barn, in hopes of finding straw or hay for a
bed. But it was spring; all the hay and straw were
gone. So after groping about in the dark, he was fain to
content himself with an undressed sheep-skin. Cold, hungry,
foot-sore, weary, and impatient for the morning dawn,
Israel drearily dozed out the night.

By the first peep of day coming through the chinks of
the barn, he was up and abroad. Ere long finding himself
in the suburbs of a considerable village, the better
to guard against detection he supplied himself with a rude
crutch, and feigning himself a cripple, hobbled straight
through the town, followed by a perverse-minded cur,
which kept up a continual, spiteful, suspicious bark. Israel
longed to have one good rap at him with his crutch, but
thought it would hardly look in character for a poor old
cripple to be vindictive.

A few miles further, and he came to a second village.

While hobbling through its main street, as through the
former one, he was suddenly stopped by a genuine cripple,
all in tatters, too, who, with a sympathetic air, inquired
after the cause of his lameness.

“White swelling,” says Israel.

“That's just my ailing,” wheezed the other; “but
you're lamer than me,” he added with a forlorn sort of
self-satisfaction, critically eyeing Israel's limp as once
more he stumped on his way, not liking to tarry too
long.

“But halloo, what's your hurry, friend?” seeing Israel
fairly departing—“where 're you going?”

“To London,” answered Israel, turning round, heartily
wishing the old fellow any where else than present.

“Going to limp to Lunnun, eh? Well, success to ye.”

“As much to you, sir,” answers Israel politely.

Nigh the opposite suburbs of this village, as good fortune
would have it, an empty baggage-wagon bound for
the metropolis turned into the main road from a side one.
Immediately Israel limps most deplorably, and begs the
driver to give a poor cripple a lift. So up he climbs;
but after a time, finding the gait of the elephantine draught-horses
intolerably slow, Israel craves permission to dismount,
when, throwing away his crutch, he takes nimbly
to his legs, much to the surprise of his honest friend the
driver.

The only advantage, if any, derived from his trip in
the wagon, was, when passing through a third village—
but a little distant from the previous one—Israel, by lying
down in the wagon, had wholly avoided being seen.

The villages surprised him by their number and proximity.
Nothing like this was to be seen at home. Well
knowing that in these villages he ran much more risk of
detection than in the open country, he henceforth did his
best to avoid them, by taking a roundabout course whenever
they came in sight from a distance. This mode
of travelling not only lengthened his journey, but put
unlooked-for obstacles in his path—walls, ditches, and
streams.

Not half an hour after throwing away his crutch, he
leaped a great ditch ten feet wide, and of undiscoverable
muddy depth. I wonder if the old cripple would think
me the lamer one now, thought Israel to himself, arriving
on the hither side.