The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

we scrambled up an embrasure at Fort Clinton and a clubbed musket would have dashed these valuable brains out, had not Joe's sword whipped my rebellious countryman through the gizzard. Joe wore a red coat in those days (the uniform of the brave Sixty-third, whose leader, the bold Sill, fell pierced with many wounds beside him). He exchanged his red for black and my pulpit. His doctrines are sound, and his sermons short. We read the papers together over our wine. Not two months ago we read our old friend Howe's glorious deed of the first of June. We were told how the noble Rawdon, who fought with us at Fort Clinton, had joined the Duke of York: and to-day his Royal Highness is in full retreat before Pichegru: and he and my son Miles have taken Valenciennes for nothing! Ah, parson! would you not like to put on your old Sixty-third coat? (though I doubt Mrs. Blake could never make the buttons and button-holes meet again over your big body). The boys were acting a play with my militia sword. Oh, that I were young again, Mr. Blake! that I had not the gout in my toe; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back into the world, and feel the pulses beat again, and play a little of life's glorious game!

The last “hit” which I saw played, was gallantly won by our side; though 'tis true that even in this parti the Americans won the rubber—our people gaining only the ground they stood on, and the guns, stores, and ships which they captured and destroyed, whilst our efforts at rescue were too late to prevent the catastrophe impending over Burgoyne's unfortunate army. After one of those delays which always were happening to retard our plans and weaken the blows which our chiefs intended to deliver, an expedition was got under weigh from New York at the close of the month of September, '77; that, could it have but advanced a fortnight earlier, might have saved the doomed force of Burgoyne. Sed Dis aliter visum. The delay here was not Sir Henry Clinton's fault, who could not leave his city unprotected; but the winds and weather which delayed the arrival of reinforcements which we had long awaited from England. The fleet which brought them brought us long and fond letters from home, with the very last news of the children under the care of their good Aunt Hetty and their grandfather. The mother's heart yearned towards the absent young ones. She made me no reproaches: but I could read her importunities in her anxious eyes, her terrors for me, and her longing for her children. “Why stay longer?” she seemed to say. “You who have no calling to this war, or to draw the sword against your countrymen—why continue to imperil your life and my happiness?” I understood her appeal. We were to enter upon no immediate service of danger; I told her Sir Henry was only going to accompany the expedition for a part of the way. I would return with him, the reconnaissance over, and Christmas, please Heaven, should see our family once more united in England.

A force of three thousand men, including a couple of slender regiments of American Loyalists and New York Militia (with which latter my distinguished relative, Mr. Will Esmond, went as captain), was embarked at New York, and our armament sailed up the noble Hudson River, that presents finer aspects than the Rhine in Europe to my mind: nor was any fire opened upon us from those beetling cliffs and precipitous “palisades,” as they are called, by which we sailed; the enemy, strange to say, being for once unaware of the movement we contemplated. Our first landing was on the Eastern bank, at a place called Verplancks Point, whence the Congress troops withdrew after a slight resistance, their leader, the tough old Putnam (so famous during the war) supposing that our march was to be directed towards the Eastern Highlands, by which we intended to penetrate to Burgoyne. Putnam fell back to occupy these passes, a small detachment of ours being sent forward as if in pursuit, which he imagined was to be followed by the rest of our force. Meanwhile, before daylight, two thousand men without artillery, were carried over to Stoney Point on the Western shore, opposite Verplancks, and under a great hill called the Dunderberg by the old Dutch lords of the stream, and which hangs precipitously over it. A little stream at the northern base of this mountain intersects it from the opposite height on which Fort Clinton stood, named not after our general, but after one of the two gentlemen of the same name, who were amongst the oldest and most respected of the provincial gentry of New York, and who were at this moment actually in command against Sir Henry. On the next height to Clinton is Fort Montgomery; and behind them rises a hill called Bear Hill; whilst at the opposite side of the magnificent stream stands “Saint Antony's Nose,” a prodigious peak indeed, which the Dutch had quaintly christened.

The attacks on the two forts were almost simultaneous. Half our men were detached for the assault on Fort Montgomery, under the brave Campbell, who fell before the rampart. Sir Henry, who would never be out of danger where he could find it, personally led the remainder, and hoped, he said, that we should have better luck than before the Sullivan Island. A path led up to the Dunderberg, so narrow as scarcely to admit three men abreast, and in utter silence our whole force scaled it, wondering at every rugged step to meet with no opposition. The enemy had not even kept a watch on it; nor were we descried until we were descending the height, at the base of which we easily dispersed a small force sent hurriedly to oppose us. The firing which here took place rendered all idea of a surprise impossible. The fort was before us. With such arms as the troops had in their hands, they had to assault; and silently and swiftly, in the face of the artillery playing upon them, the troops ascended the hill. The men had orders on no account to fire. Taking the colours of the Sixty-third, and bearing them aloft, Sir Henry mounted with the stormers. The place was so steep that the men pushed each other over the wall and through the embrasures; and it was there that Lieutenant Joseph Blake, the father of a certain Joseph Clinton Blake, who looks with the eyes of affection on a certain young lady, presented himself to the living of Warrington by saving the life of the unworthy patron thereof.

About a fourth part of the garrison, as we were told, escaped out of the fort, the rest being killed or wounded, or remaining our prisoners within the works. Fort Montgomery was, in like manner, stormed and taken by our people; and, at night, as we looked down from the heights where the king's standard had been just planted, we were treated to a splendid illumination in the river below. Under Fort Montgomery, and stretching over to that lofty prominence, called Saint Antony's Nose, a boom and chain had been laid with a vast cost and labour, behind which several American frigates and galleys were anchored. The fort being taken, these ships attempted to get up the river in the darkness, out of the reach of guns which they knew must destroy them in the morning. But the wind was unfavourable, and escape was found to be impossible. The crews therefore took to the boats, and so landed, having previously set the ships on fire with all their sails set; and we beheld these magnificent pyramids of flame burning up to the heavens and reflected in the waters below, until, in the midst of prodigious explosions, they sank and disappeared.

On the next day a parlementaire came in from the enemy, to inquire as to the state of his troops left wounded or prisoners in our hands, and the Continental officer brought me a note, which gave me a strange shock, for it showed that in the struggle of the previous evening my brother had been engaged. It was dated October 7, from Major-General George Clinton's divisional headquarters, and it stated briefly that “Colonel H.