CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH NATHAN MEETS AN OLD ENEMY
Wheeling his horse, Washington spurred on toward the rear to avert theconsequences of Lee's disaster and check the rout, and the effect of hispersonal presence on the demoralized troops was speedy and gratifying.Within ten minutes the retreat was suspended, the fugitives wererallying, and order and discipline were visible in the midst of theconfusion.
Colonel Oswald, with two pieces of artillery, took a position on aneminence, and by a well-directed fire from his battery, checked thepursuing enemy. Stewart and Ramsey supported him, having formed theirtroops under cover of a wood. While the British grenadiers were pouringtheir deadly volleys into the still broken ranks of the Americans,Washington rode fearlessly to and fro in the face of the leaden storm,issuing order after order. The whole of Lee's army, so shortly beforeon the verge of destruction, was soon drawn up in battle array, with abold and well-arranged front. Having thus saved the day, Washington rodeback to General Lee.
"Will you command in that place, sir?" he said curtly, pointing to thereformed division.
"I will," Lee answered, eagerly.
"Then I expect you to check the enemy at once."
"Your command shall be obeyed," assured Lee, "and I will not be thefirst to leave the field."
Washington hurried further back to the main army, and lost no time informing it in battle order on the ridge that rose above the western sideof the morass. Meanwhile General Lee partly atoned for his fault by adisplay of skill and courage in obedience to his commander's orders.While a hot cannonade was going on between the artillery of both forces,he gallantly repulsed a troop of royal light horse that charged upon theright of his division. Nevertheless the enemy were too strong to beheld in check more than temporarily, and before long the greater part ofthe Americans were obliged to give way and fall back toward Washington.
Stretching across the open field in front of the causeway over themorass was a hedgerow, and here the conflict raged for some little time,the place being held stoutly by Livingston's regiment and Varnum'sbrigade, with a battery of artillery. But their ranks were finallybroken by a desperate bayonet charge from the British cavalry andinfantry, and Varnum and Livingston, with the artillery, retreatedacross the morass, their rear effectually protected by Colonel Ogden andhis men, who held a wood near the causeway. Lee was the last to leavethe field, bringing Ogden's corps off with him, and after forming thewhole of his division in good order on the hillside west of the morass,he reported to Washington for further instructions.
Lee's forces had thus far borne the brunt of the day's fighting, soWashington considerately ordered them to the rear in the direction ofEnglishtown, while he himself prepared to engage the enemy with thefresh and main army. His left was commanded by Lord Stirling, and theright by General Greene. Wayne was on an eminence in an orchard near theparsonage, while on his right a battery of artillery occupied the crestof Comb's Hill.
The battle now began in earnest, the enemy being drawn up in force onthe hills and in the fields across the morass, and having possession ofthe lost hedgerow. They were repulsed from the American left, and ontrying to turn the right flank they were driven back by Knox's battery,supported by General Greene. Meanwhile Wayne kept up a brisk fire on theBritish centre, and repeatedly hurled back the royal grenadiers, whoseveral times advanced upon him from the hedgerow.
The commander of the grenadiers, Colonel Monckton, determined to make alast attempt to drive Wayne from his position. So he formed his men insolid column, and advanced anew with the regularity of a corps onparade. Wayne's troops were partly sheltered by a barn, and theyreserved their fire until the enemy were very close. Monckton was aboutto give the order to charge, sword in hand, when the terrible volley waspoured forth. He himself was killed instantly, and most of the Britishofficers fell with him. A desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued, and thesurvivors of the grenadiers finally fled in confusion, leaving the bodyof their commander behind. Thus the conflict raged from point to point,while the sultry day grew older, and the roar of cannons and musketsechoed far over the peaceful Jersey countryside.
And what was Nathan Stanbury doing all this time? We shall see. Behindthe American lines was the meeting-house, and in front, down the hilltoward the swamp that separated the two armies, were the parsonage andbarn, an orchard, and a bit of woods. These places of shelter bristledwith Washington's skirmishers. From behind trees and fences, from theloop-holes and crevices of the barn, they poured a hot and steady fireon the red-coats.
The Pennsylvania regiment to which the Wyoming troops belonged, occupiedthe strip of woods near the morass. Nathan was crouched behind a stump,and next to him was Barnabas Otter. Captain Stanbury was twenty feetaway, and from time to time he looked anxiously around to see that hisboy was all right. Overhead bullets whistled, sending down flutteringshowers of leaves and twigs. Shells went screeching and hissing by, somebursting far off, others exploding close at hand with a deafeningreport. But Nathan kept his place like an old soldier, steadily loadingand firing, and shifting the hot breech of his musket from hand to hand.
At first the lad was nervous under fire, but that feeling had long sincepassed away. His head was cool and his nerves steady. He felt that hehad to do his part in winning the battle, and he regretted that his postof duty was with the skirmishers instead of on one of the flanks of themain army. Men died around him by shot and shell, but these dreadfulsights only made his hand steadier and his aim truer.
"Be careful, boy," his father called to him. "Keep your head down."
"All right, sir," Nathan shouted back, "but I've got to see to fire."
"Aim low, lad," muttered old Barnabas Otter. "You know it's the naturaltendency of a musket to carry high."
"And who taught me that but yourself, Barnabas?" retorted Nathan. "Haveyou forgotten all the fat deer I killed up on the Susquehanna? I'mshooting just as carefully now."
He went on loading and firing, peering this way and that through thesmoke to get a glimpse of the red-coats. Far off he saw officersgalloping to and fro, and he wondered if one of them could be GodfreySpencer. He hoped the cruel fortune of war would not bring them togetheron the battle-field.
So, for hour after hour through the long afternoon, the fight went on,the skirmishers bravely holding their position. To right and left,where the morass ended, there was a constant panorama of moving cavalry,infantry and guns. The roar of battle echoed miles away, and the smokefloated overhead on the still air. The heat was terrific, and mendropped, fainting and exhausted, to the ground. Not since Bunker Hillhad the American army shown such desperate valor. In vain Clintonthundered and stormed at the centre. In vain did Lord Cornwallis assailSterling's invincible left wing.
The approach of evening found both armies still holding their ground,and now a large force of the British advanced on the American rightwing. But a spare battery hastened to that quarter, unlimbered theirguns, and poured into the enemy such a storm of shot and shell as drovethem back in confusion.
Part of an infantry brigade--mostly grenadiers--passed near the strip ofwoods. The skirmishers had just turned their fire in this direction whena mounted officer arrived with orders to charge on the enemy's flank.With ringing cheers the Pennsylvania regiment poured out from thetrees, Captain Stanbury's Wyoming company in front; and a double-quicktrot brought them to close quarters with the rear of the British.
The grenadiers doggedly kept up the retreat, firing as they went, andmany fell on both sides. Most of the enemy's officers were far in front,and Nathan felt sure that he recognized Godfrey's figure at a distance.
But one mounted officer, seeing what was taking place, pluckily gallopedback to the rear to try to rally the broken lines. He ventured too far,and a shot brought horse and rider to the ground. Before his own mencould rescue him, the front line of the Americans was nearly at thespot.
Barnabas and Nathan had seen the occurrence, and they ran up to theofficer just as he struggled to his feet from under the bod
y of hishorse. At the first glance Nathan recognized Major Langdon, and he wasquick to observe the half healed scar on his left wrist.
"SURRENDER!" YELLED BARNABAS]
"Surrender!" yelled Barnabas, presenting his musket at the officer'shead.
Major Langdon glanced around, bit his lip passionately, and then droppedhis half-drawn sword into its scabbard.
"The fortune of war has made me your prisoner," he said proudly; "I aman officer and a gentleman, and I demand proper treatment."
"You Britishers never were backward about demandin'," snorted Barnabas."Fall to the rear now."
Though the bullets were flying thickly Major Langdon showed noinclination to move, he had suddenly seen and recognized Nathan, andthere was a strange look of hatred on his deeply flushed face as hestared at the lad. Nathan returned the officer's piercing gaze for aninstant, and then, hearing a couple of loud shouts to one side, helooked around in time to see his father toss up his arms and fall.
The retreating grenadiers were still being hotly pressed, both sidesfiring steadily, but half a dozen men of Captain Stanbury's company atonce ran to him. He was lying on his back, deathly pale, and with bloodoozing from the left breast of his coat.
He lifted himself on one elbow as Nathan reached him and sank tearfullydown at his side.
"I am wounded, my boy--mortally wounded," he gasped, "but before I die Ihave a secret to tell you--a secret that will change your whole life.Listen, while I have breath to speak."
In the Days of Washington: A Story of the American Revolution Page 6
