‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I may own to those accomplishments. If there is some task in that way that you wish to put upon me, I shall be pleased to undertake it immediately. You have been very hospitable to me.’
‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I have a proposition to make. You are an Irishman, I am told. Then I will build a school-house for you and make you as comfortable as I can, and you shall stay here with us and instruct the children of Urbanna, who have run wild these three years and forgotten even their alphabet. You shall eat and drink at this house and earn ten dollars a month besides.’
I felt my whole frame agitated at the proposal: the more so because, though the proposal was dishonourable to a soldier, the man who made it, unlike the shifty Kentucke lawyer, was evidently of a liberal and philanthropic mind. Smothering my indignation, I stammered out as graceful excuses as I could find; then, though the weather was stormy and I felt very unwell, I immediately left his house. As we parted, I tried to insist upon payment, but he would not go back on his word, and shook his head at me for ‘a most perverse, proud fellow who did not know what was good for him’.
The country beyond Urbanna wore but a poor aspect. The road, which was level and very sandy, ran through woods of black oak, pine and cedar for miles together: there were several bridges across creeks and causeways across swamps which abounded with snipe. After a few miles on the road I overtook a Sergeant Macleod of The Seventy-First, who was an acquaintance of mine, and a drummer of my own company, named Darby Kelly. They were in fact what I was by a fiction, namely stragglers from the convalescent party. Drummer Kelly suffered from a leg wound and Sergeant Macleod, a man of great hardiness and enterprise, had nearly died of the yellow fever. When the Sergeant asked me how I came to be on the road, I replied: ‘I am escaping to New York. I did so once before after the Saratoga capitulation, together with two companions; and, please God, I shall do it again. Will you join me?’
Sergeant Macleod replied solemnly in his slow, thick Scottish way: ‘You ken well, Sergeant Lamb, how entwined about the very heart of man is the love of liberty. But though ’tis easy enough to brag about pushing through a tract of land, of five or six hundred miles covered with enemies, I misdoubt how it can be realized in practice.’
‘By a stout heart, and a trust in the humanity of the better sort of Americans,’ I replied, ‘—especially of the women.’
When I recounted my former experiences, Sergeant Macleod was convinced that I was not ‘just havering’, as he expressed it; and both he and Kelly decided to throw in their lot with me. We lay that night in a fodder-stack near Hob’s Hole, or Tappahannock, twenty-five miles beyond Urbanna. It was a sad-looking town of about a hundred houses. As dawn came and we resumed our march we came upon a mulatto fish-pedlar. He was calling tunefully as we met him:
Fishee, fishee!
Flounder and Blackfish!!
Shark-steaks—for dem darra likes ’em;
Swordfish—for dem darra fights ’em.
Fishee, fishee!
We bought shark-steaks from him, which was all the wares he had for sale. He informed us that the Rappahannock River, which ran three-quarters of a mile broad at this point, was full of sharks, which the negroes caught on strong hooks baited with shark-flesh and then despatched with spears. We roasted the steaks on sticks held over a fire of pine-branches, and they ate very well.
We addressed ourselves to our journey with confidence the next morning, but Drummer Kelly presently complained that we marched too hard for him. He said in great despondency, when we halted for awhile: ‘It is impossible, you know well, ever to make good our escape. For my part, I will go no further with you towards the cold North. I will stay where I am and solace myself after all my hardships. Hob’s Hole was no bad place. I shall find employment there, I do not doubt.’
We could not alter his determination by any arguments and therefore left him sitting by the roadside. Sergeant Macleod remarked, morosely, as we resumed our march: ‘Ay, no trained drummer should ever lack employment in this sultry airt, where no son born to woman will willingly labour unless he be oft and scientifically flogged.’
I replied: ‘Drummer Kelly could flog to a hair’s breadth, and to watch him slowly slide the lash through his left hand before he laid on was the terror of all our criminals whose wounds still smarted. But, faith, it is strange that a man so lacking in compassion towards others should be so tender on his own behalf.’
The river now gradually narrowed. The same evening we reached a place called Port Royal, unremarkable except for the very noisome stench of its river front, and were now a day’s march short of Fredericksburg, the tobacco town. Our night was passed in the drying-house of a derelict plantation. We had found in the mud on the road a heap of rice fallen from a wagon: we washed this and made a meal of it, with the crimson berries of the poke-plant and some shark-steak that we had saved.
On the following day, as we were coming out of Port Royal we overtook a fine wagon of the sort named Conestoga from a town in Pennsylvania where they were manufactured by the Dutch. The under-body was painted blue and the top part a bright red: there was a hooped tilt over it of tarred cotton cloth. The wagon was filled with sacks.
The wagoner rode one of the horses of his team—an old man with a smooth, very red face. We learned later that he was nicknamed Sops-in-Wine after an apple (called in Canada pomme caille) the flesh of which is red to the very core and of a remarkable sweetness. He hailed us with: ‘Huzza, my hearties, how where might you be bound?’
We told him: ‘To Winchester.’
He asked: ‘You be’nt of that sort who sell themselves to the gentlemen hereabouts, I guess?’
‘No,’ said I, smiling. ‘We are not for sale. Were you about to make a bid for us?’
For answer he pointed with his whip across the river and asked: ‘Do you know how yonder land is named, hey?’
We said that we did not know.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘’Tis King George County, lying a matter of seven miles from here. God bless King George, I say; and those as hear me may believe, if they will, that I bless the township only.’
We understood by this speech that he was a Loyalist and therefore asked whether we might ride concealed in his wagon. He told us that we were welcome to come as far with him as we wished in the direction of Philadelphia, where his master Mr. Benezet the Quaker lived. He had come southward three months before in the wake of the French army, with a load of tinware, cutlery, cloth and other manufactured articles from New England. He was now returning with rice, indigo, lemons and tobacco, by way of Frederick Town in Maryland and Little York in Pennsylvania. Four other wagons of the same train were a mile ahead. His offer of protection was gladly received on our part, and we promised him two shillings a day in hard money for the conveyance, he undertaking to keep us in corn-bread and cold bacon.
After an hour or two we passed the party of British convalescents resting by the roadside, but thought it prudent not to hail them.
We travelled undetected for five days, hidden among the sacks in the rear of the wagon and without any view of the country through which we were passing. We kept our own company while Mr. Sops-in-Wine dined with the others of the train.
The wagon was a comfortable conveyance. I was surprised to learn that instead of axle-grease our protector used powdered soapstone—the same pale, greasy stone that was used by the Red Indians for their carved calumets and other ornamental instruments. We passed over the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, being ferried across in a flat which our protector cursed as very dangerous and leaky.
We now passed through Colchester and crossed the Potomack River at Alexandria, where was a large glass manufactory and where the women dressed more luxuriously than in any city of America, especially in the matter of plumed bonnets. We were now in the Romish state of Maryland. On the fifth day the wagon was unfortunately hailed by an American Continental soldier who had been wounded in the foot at York Town and was hobbling along with the aid of a
stick; his destination, he said, was Frederick Town. Ours happened to be the leading wagon of the train that day and the driver dared not refuse to take the man in. He was a talkative, knowing fellow and when we heard the manner in which he addressed Mr. Sops-in-Wine, we thought fit to come out from our concealment before he entered. I will not attempt to recall his precise manner of addressing us, but it was most opprobrious, and he told us that his people had given us a good whacking at York Town and who were the cowards now, hey, ourselves, or they? We told him that we had never accused the Americans of cowardice; but he wagged his finger at us and cried: ‘So I dare say! So I dare say!’
Sergeant Macleod thought it best to inform this soldier that we had fallen sick and stayed behind on the road, being members of a party that left York Town for Frederick Town—whom we were now rejoining. But he replied only with a knowing leer: ‘Ay, so I dare say, lobsters, so I dare say!’
This disconcerted our plan for the present. We were fast approaching Frederick Town, through which we could not pass concealed in the wagon on account of the American soldier. When therefore we were at about six miles’ distance from the town we considered it both more prudent for our own sakes, and more honest dealing with Mr. Sops-in-Wine, to quit the wagon entirely and boldly go through the town on foot, trusting to the inspiration of the moment to satisfy any awkward questionings. This happened on December 10th, 1781. The good wagoner, before he left us, promised to wait a few miles on the other side of the town. But in the event he must have waited in vain. We crossed the Little Monocaccy Creek, by a ford where the stones were very loose, the current rapid, and the water rising to our breasts. Four miles more and we came to Frederick Town, which was a substantial town built chiefly of brick and stone, with several churches, and inhabited by near two thousand Germans. Soon as we entered, the American soldier gave the alarm from behind us. He had obliged the wagoner to whip up his team to keep up with us, for we were marching fast; and now he halloed to two guards posted at the entrance of the principal street: ‘Heigh, brothers, there go two more birds for the cage! They thought to give me the slip, but I was too smart for the sons of bitches.’
We were seized and led through the town in triumph, two guards walking a little behind each of us, with one hand gripping a wrist and the other a shoulder. The Seventy-First, who had numbered 248 rank and file at the surrender, but were reduced by desertions and sickness to two hundred, were here imprisoned in barracks with some other regiments. We were put among them and found ourselves in a most deplorable situation: nearly fifty British soldiers huddled together in a room that had been built for the accommodation of eight Americans. It is true that we had an extensive parade to walk about during the day, but as the weather was already remarkably cold, very few men availed themselves of that privilege and the room, though warm, grew fetid to a nauseating degree.
Sergeant Macleod exclaimed to me: ‘Faugh, Sergeant Lamb, you do not think to bide here many more days, I dare say?’
‘No,’ said I, ‘I value the health of my lungs more than the society of my fellow-unfortunates.’
CHAPTER XVII
The barracks and parade at Frederick Town were surrounded by numerous sentinels, but before Sergeant Macleod and I attempted to find a weak link in this chain we would try another plan. We learned that small parties of prisoners, under a strong guard, were often ordered out to get wood for firing. We soon prevailed on the quartermaster-sergeant of The Seventy-First, who was in charge of the hut, to enrol us in the next wood-cutting party, which was set for December 12th. We then strove to persuade as many of the party as possible to venture an escapade with us. But only one other man, a private soldier also named Macleod, would consent.
When the day came, I waited with anxious suspense for the call which would summon us out to our task. First I emptied my knapsack, and distributed my superfluous necessaries among my comrades; but I put on three shirts, took my spare pair of shoes in my pocket, wrapped my blanket about my shoulders and carried my hatchet in my hand.
We arrived at the wood about half a mile from the place of confinement, at ten o’clock, and immediately set to the work of cutting. The two Macleods kept close to me, and we felled a pine together and chopped it up into logs. I then observed to one of our guards: Tine-wood burns bright, but is all consumed in a short space of time. Pray, will you let me and my companions fell that fine large maple that stands just beyond you?’
He consented, but with that rudeness which ever characterizes the low mind when in office, he grinningly detailed to us several disagreeable uses to which, for aught he cared, we might put the timber when we had reduced it to small pieces. We strolled together in a leisurely manner to the maple and, the better to colour our pretence, began loudly disputing as to the best manner of felling it; and then set about the work, keeping our eyes constantly fixed on the guard. At last, he turned himself about to watch the other prisoners.
We seized the opportunity and darted into the thickest part of the wood. Anxiety and hope, being pretty nearly balanced in our minds, were the twin wings which urged our flight. Our guards must have possessed the feet of deer before they could have overtaken us. We ran on through the woods, as near as I could conjecture for two hours, scarcely stopping to take breath. We steered due north. At last we considered it safe to walk, and continued for another three hours or more, alternately walking and running until we struck the Great Monocaccy just below Bennet’s Creek. Here we paid our fare to a negligent old boatman and crossed without being examined—for the blankets wrapped about us disguised our regimentals and gave us rather the appearance of Indians than British soldiers.
Luck went against us once more. We were proceeding through a wood when we suddenly ran into an armed party of Americans who instantly surrounded us, and marched us back prisoners to Frederick Town, which happened to be their destination. They bantered us in a not unfriendly way upon our folly in ‘not knowing our places’. But worse was to follow. Soon as we entered the town, very footsore, about evening, a man lounging on the stoep, or elevated porch, of a tavern, called out: ‘Now, I’ll be damned if it an’t that indefatigable Sergeant Gerry Lamb again. He’s the very devil and all for escaping. Why, he ran off from the Convention Army near Fishkill Creek, when I served in the Engineers, and won safe to New York. Last week I saw him brought prisoner into this town after escaping from the Gloucester Hospital. Take good care of him, soldiers, or he’ll give you the slip again. He has quicksilver at his heels, has Gerry Lamb.’
This deserter was intoxicated, and perhaps intended me no injury, but my captors paid attention to what he said and passed me on with a bad character to the prison guard. Sergeant Macleod and the private soldier, his namesake, were then separated from me. They were turned in along with their regiment again, but I was sent a prisoner to the American guard-house.
The weather was extremely cold, and the guard-house was an open block-house, through which the snow and frost made their way unopposed. With much trouble I prevailed on a guard, for sixpence, to bring me a little straw to he upon, in one corner. But I soon found that my lodging would be a very hard one; for whenever the guard discovered that I had fallen asleep, they applied a firebrand to the straw, and as it blazed, they set up a yell like the Indians, rejoicing in my distress, and deriding my endeavours to extinguish the flames. When the relief used to be turned out, I sometimes took the liberty of drawing near the fire, to warm my half-frozen limbs; but this indulgence was of short duration, for when the sentinels were relieved they came pouring into the guard-house, and, if found near the fire, I was usually buffeted about from one to the other, and perhaps a dozen fixed bayonets at once placed at my breast. When I found that I could obtain no mercy from these savages, and that every day I was worse used than on the preceding, I wrote a letter to the American commanding officer. In this letter, which I handed to the Lieutenant who inspected the guard, I informed the commanding officer of the treatment that I daily received, and entreated him to have me rather confined
to the Town Jail.
This request was granted three days before Christmas Day, but my condition was not bettered by it. My remaining money and possessions were taken from me and I was placed in the upper part of the prison, to which I had to climb by a long board, furnished with slats, which was almost perpendicular. In this dreary place, without any fire-place, I found twelve criminals chained to the walls. Some were deserters from the militia; some horse-thieves; two were pedlars confined for pursuing their trade without a licence; one had insulted a Congressman; one had tried to pass counterfeit money. Soon I was secured beside them, and gave them a civil greeting. After asking me a great variety of questions, which I answered carefully, they resumed their single and perpetual business, which was to argue on politics together. Not one man of them, by the bye, had a good word to say for Congress. For Generals Washington and Greene they professed considerable esteem, and were pleased that I judged this esteem as on the whole well founded. The poor fellows received a very small allowance of provisions, which was hoe-cake and a little rusty bacon, with water to wash it down; however, not a morsel was allotted me, as not being on the charge of the prison, but a military prisoner confined by my own request. However, these ‘jail birds’, though some of them may have lived very vicious lives—I know not—took compassion on me. The man who had insulted the Member of Congress and ruled the roast here, declared that it was ‘kind of hard’ that I should starve to death. At his suggestion they agreed each to set aside for my subsistence a twelfth portion of their pittance. Had it not been for their humanity this work would never have been written: I should have starved to death.
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