CHAPTER IX.
ON MONMOUTH PLAIN.
"Wut's words to them whose faith and truth On war's red techstone rang true metal; Who ventured life and love and youth For the great prize o' death in battle?" --LOWELL.
And it was June-time, too, in the far-off New Jersey country acrosswhich an army, glittering with scarlet and steel, took its way. Slowlyit moved; for with it went a wagon-train conveying many of the refugeesfrom the evacuated city of Philadelphia, people who could not crowd intothe transports that went by sea, but who feared to meet the incomingAmericans and so sought safety in New York. Children and delicatelyreared women slept in army tents, or sat in their coaches all day,listening to the crunching of the wheels in the sand and looking backthrough the slowly increasing distance to the horizon, behind which laythe deserted city where pleasure had held high carnival during themonths just passed. And with them they carried everything that couldbe packed into coach or hidden in wagon; and though they went with thesemblance of victory and almost of pleasure-seekers, it was a sadprocession; for who could say when or upon what terms they might eversee their old homes again? Often Clinton looked back impatiently at thecrawling train, for he had not liked to be so hampered, and yet had beenquite as unwilling to abandon these people to the vengeance theyimagined awaited them.
Almost before they had lost sight of the spires of the city, Arnold,with braying bugles, marched his column down the echoing streets, andset up the standard of the republic where late the British lion hadwooed the wind.
For nearly a week that long train crept on its way, held back by its owncumbersome weight and the varying roughness of the route. And ever onits flank hung the lean but resolute army of the Continentals, waitingand longing for a chance to strike. All the suffering of Valley Forgewas to be avenged. Every wrong they had sustained was whispering attheir ears and tugging at their memories; every dead comrade seemedcalling out to them for retribution through the sunshine or the midnightsilence. And it should be theirs; the utmost atonement that arms,nerved with patriotic and personal vengeance, could achieve should beclaimed--if only the hour would come. But still that long train movedonward, and there came no word to fight.
Then, from out the blue sky-reaches of that June-time dawned Monmouthday.
"We are to fight at last!"
And every man in that thin, dishevelled line felt his heart throb withthe exultation of action long desired and long delayed. Every man butone, and he the one on whom rested the responsibility of the attack.
"Anybody but Lee!" Dunn had said with a groan, when he heard who was tolead the attacking column. And Richard, having gone with him to reportsome scouting work to the council of officers, and recalling Lee'sfierce opposition to any plan for battle, groaned too.
"His envy of General Washington and his imprisonment among the Britishhave made him half Tory. He is the senior officer, it is true,--but ifhe had only persisted in his first refusal to lead the division and leftit to La Fayette!"
But in Richard's thoughts there was no time for doubt when, in thebrilliant light of the next morning, he swept with his column over thebrow of the low hill and on down the narrow valley toward the scarletline that marked Clinton's post. It was his first real battle; forcompared with this the engagements under Sumter had been but skirmishes,and the frenzy of the fight was upon him. "For home and Joscelyn!" hadbeen the war-cry he had set himself, thinking to carry into the hottestof every fray the memory-presence of the girl whom he loved. But whenthe test came she was forgotten, and only the menace ahead, the death hewas rushing to meet, was remembered. Every musket along that steadfastscarlet line seemed levelled at him alone, and into his heart thereflashed a momentary wish to turn and seek shelter in flight from theleaping fire of the deadly muzzles. But in the quick onset, the shouts,the growl of the guns, and the challenging call of the bugles, this fearwas conquered; and in its place a wild, unreasoning delirium seized uponhim, and the one thought of which he was conscious was to kill, kill,kill!
To those blue-clad men, burning with the memory of their sufferingsand their wrongs, it seemed as if nothing could stand before them; butBritish regulars were trained to meet such an advance, and the red linewas as a wall of adamant. Between the attack and the repulse thereseemed to Richard scarcely breathing-time; for they were repulsed, and,fighting still, were driven back through that narrow defile, expectingevery moment that Lee would send them succour so that they might againtake up the offensive. But instead of reenforcements, there came thatstrange order to retreat. Retreat? Had there not been some mistake? Theofficers looked at each other incredulously, suspiciously, half-inclinedto disobey; for the battle was hardly yet begun, and this first checkwas not a rout. Then full of rage and doubt they repeated to theirsubordinates the orders of the couriers, and the regiment fell backsullenly, clashing against other regiments who had not struck a blow,but to whom had also come that mysterious order to fall back. What wasthe matter, what was this paralyzing hand that had been laid upon them!No one could tell; but men retreated looking longingly over theirshoulders at the enemy. Confusion grew almost into panic as those stillfurther away saw the retiring columns pursued by the Redcoats, and knewnot the cause nor yet what dire disaster had befallen.
Then suddenly upon the field there came the Achilles of the cause, andthe rout was turned.
"The general--thank God!" the officers sobbed; and the men cheered asthose who are drowning cheer a saving sail.
Richard was too far off to hear the fierce protest and rebuke heapedupon Lee, but in a few minutes an aide galloped up to his regiment andcried out to Wayne:--
"General Washington says you and Ramsey are to hold the enemy in checkhere upon this hillside until he can re-form the rear."
And the blue line swung about and steadied, and met the English faceto face; and Richard Clevering's battle-cry rang full and clear amidthe yells that well-nigh drowned the roar of the musketry. About thatsun-scorched knoll there fell the fiercest part of the fray. The palsyof hesitation was gone, and desperation had made the men invincible.Again and again that red wave from the open space before surged againstthem, broke and recoiled and gathered and came again like some strongbillow of the ocean that rolls itself against a headland--fierce, blind,futile.
Then came the climax of the splendid tragedy. Upon Wayne's right was aContinental battery from which a great gun sent its deadly challenge tothe foe. Again and again its whirring missives tore great gaps in thered ranks, until Clinton gave orders to silence it at any cost.
Careless of danger, unconscious of his impending doom, the gunner loadedhis piece anew, and lifted the rammer to send the charge home. Behindhim stood his wife, who had left the safety of the wagons to bring himwater from a wayside ravine, for the sky was like copper and the dustblew in suffocating gusts. She saw what he did not, the shifting of theenemy's gun in the plain below, the turning of its deadly muzzle fullupon the knoll where they stood. But there was no time for so much as awarning cry; for instantly the flame leaped out, the ground shook with astrong reverberation, and a groan went up from the Continentals as theysaw the dust fly from the knoll and their own brave gunner throw up hisarms, swing sidewise, and then fall dead. For one awful moment no onemoved; then two men from the line sprang forward to take his place, butsome one was before them--some one with the face of an avenging Nemesis.There was the flutter of a skirt, a woman's long black hair streamedbackward on the wind, and Moll Pitcher stood in her husband's placelike an aroused lioness of the jungle. Fury gave her the strength of aBoadicea, and the rammer, still warm from the dead man's grasp, wenthome with a single thrust; the flame flashed over the pan, and with aroar that shook the heavens, the big gun sent back into the red ranksthe death it had witnessed. When the smoke had lifted, the breathlessmen saw the woman, one hand still upon the great black gun, stoop downand kiss the dead husband she had avenged; and all down the Continentalline eyes were wet and throats were cracked and dry with cheering.
And in the meantime, in the rear, the voice of a single man, with itstrumpet tones of inspiration, was bringing order out of chaos. Regimentswere re-formed, scattered companies gathered, batteries turned, anddefeat robbed of its surety. Men, who a moment before had beenpanic-stricken with the confused marching and counter-marching of theday, looked into the face of the commander and felt their hearts beatwith an answering calm. Confidence was restored, and the routed corpswere turned into attacking columns. And so when that red wave broke forthe last time against Wayne's and Ramsey's divisions on the hillside,reenforcements were close at hand.
But they came too late for some of the brave men who had saved libertyand honour that day, for the red wave, receding, took as its flotsam allthe men in buff and blue who, in their enthusiasm and temerity, hadadvanced too far beyond the ranks.
And among these prisoners went he whose battle-cry had been, "For homeand Joscelyn!"
"RICHARD WAS DRAGGED ALONG WITH THE BRITISH UNTIL THEIRPOSITION WAS REGAINED."]
Joscelyn Cheshire: A Story of Revolutionary Days in the Carolinas Page 9