For Love of Country: A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution

The Ranger, a new and swift-sailing ship, and going free also, rapidly edged down upon the slow moving convoy on the wind. The frigate, it was noticed, was several miles ahead i...

Two weary horsemen on tired horses were slowly riding up the river road just where it entered the Wilton plantation. One was young, a mere boy in years; but a certain habit of c...

A short time before sunset that same evening the Yarmouth was hove to, and the hoarse cry of the boatswain and his mates was once more heard through the ship, calling,--

The Quaker road led southeast from Trenton until it reached the village of Sandtown, where it turned to the northwest again, and it was not until that point was reached that the...

And so the departure of my Lord Cornwallis was necessarily deferred. The packet upon which he had engaged passage, and which had actually received his baggage, sailed without hi...

Left to himself for a moment, the colonel heaved a deep sigh; he had a premonition of what was coming, and then paced slowly up and down the long hall.

The route, for the first mile and a half, lay up a steep hill, where the men were much exposed and suffered terribly; after that, for three miles or so, it wound in and out betw...

"Pass the word quietly," said Seymour, rapidly, to one of his young aids, "that when I say, 'Stand by to back the maintopsail,' the guns are to be fired. Bid the gun captains to...

It was springtime again in Virginia. The sky, its blue depths accentuated by the shifting clouds, was never more clear, wherever it appeared in the intervals of sunshine, nor th...

It was a delightful morning in February. The Continental ship Randolph, a tight little thirty-two-gun frigate, the first to get to sea of those ordered by Congress in 1775, was...

If Seymour could have voiced his thought, he would have said that the earth itself did not afford a fairer picture than that which lay within the level radius of his vision, and...

The men, divided into small squads, marched down to the boats,--large unwieldy scows, which had been hauled up against the shore,--and each boat was speedily filled to its utmos...

"Oh, come, Miss Wilton," said another, "you surely do not think the colonies--oh, well, the late colonies, if you will insist upon it--can maintain a fight with the power of Gre...

"I 'm blest if I like this orderin' business," said one grizzled seaman; "they said he was h--l on orders, but what I shipped for was prize money and a chance to get a lick at t...

There were two roads which led from Fairview Hall to the home of the Wiltons,--one by the river, and the other over the hills farther inland. Talbot had chosen the river-road, a...

The day after the battle Washington sent his nephew, Major Lewis, under protection of a flag of truce, to attend upon the wounded General Mercer; the exigency of his pursuit of...

One or two other men were writing at a table, and another stalwart officer of rank was sitting by the fire reading. None of the four men coming into the room had seen the genera...

A few miles up the river from Colonel Wilton's plantation, upon a high bluff, from which, as at that point the river made a wide bend, one could see up and down for a long dista...

Three days after the sinking of the Juno, the Mellish, which had escaped in the dark without pursuit from the fleet, after witnessing the successful termination of the action be...

The day before Christmas, the warden of the port of Philadelphia, standing glass in hand on one of the wharves, noticed a strange vessel slowly coming up the bay. This in itself...

"Do so, Seymour," cried the colonel, as the sailor hastily left the room. "Phoebus," to the butler, "go tell Caesar to call the slaves to the house. You, Scipio," to one of the...

About half after one o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, December 25th, being Christmas day, and very cold, four tired horsemen, on jaded steeds, rode up to a plain stone far...

It is usually not difficult for an individual to define the conditions of happiness. If I only had so and so, or if I only were so and so, and the thing is done. Each successive...

It was with a sinking heart that Seymour rode up the hill toward Fairview Hall a few days later. There had been a light fall of snow during the preceding night, and the brillian...

Six rather uneventful days passed by, during which prizes to the number of five fell to the lot of the squadron, one loaded with military stores, and another with provisions of...

"Over three hundred men certainly," replied the colonel (the actual number was three hundred and fifteen). "Most of them not already done for were lost in the explosion, I presu...

Six days out from the Capes of Delaware Bay, and the Ranger was cruising between Halifax and Boston, about one hundred leagues east of Cape Sable. If there be truth in the maxim...

A booming roar came down upon them from the frigate, which had fired a broadside, which was followed presently by the whistling of shot over their heads. Great rents were seen i...

The force of the explosion occurring so near to the line-of-battle ship drove her over with irresistible power upon her beam-ends until she buried her port main-deck guns under...

"Ay, ay, sir," replied the young executive officer; and then lifting the trumpet to his lips, he called out with a powerful voice, "Lay aloft and loose the topgallantsails! Man...

"Oh, what is the hour, Mr.--John? Shall I call you Seymour? That is your second name, is it not? But what would people say? I-- No, no, not again; we really must go in. See! I a...

"Your people, son?" she said after a long pause. "Come with me a moment." She drew him into the brilliantly lighted hall. As they entered, he said to the servant in waiting,--

As he spoke, a fresh youthful voice was heard in the hall. "Father, Kate, where are you? Come see our string of-- Why, what's all this?" said a young man, standing astonished in...

While the big ship was rapidly and methodically being stripped for the possible emergency, the captain was engaged in busy conversation with the colonel. They had steadily drawn...

As they rode along slowly, the general explained his plans. General Howe had pursued him relentlessly through the Jerseys, until he had crossed into Pennsylvania, only escaping...

A young man in the uniform of a British naval lieutenant leaped in front of the girl with drawn sword, with which he laid about him lustily, striking some of the men with the fl...

There were two entrances to the channel, lying perhaps a half mile apart, the first the better and more practicable, and certainly, with the frigate rapidly drawing near, the sa...

"I served aboard her for eighteen months, sir. I knows every line of her,--that there spliced fore shroud, the patch in the mainsail,--I put it on myself,--besides, I know her;...

"She's a big one, ain't she?" said one young seaman, glancing over a gun through a port-hole forward; "but we ain't afraid of her, mates. We 'll just dance up and slap her in th...

"Ah!" said the general, looking up eagerly from the book he had been reading, "perhaps that is Mr. Martin with news from the enemy." Then laying aside his book, he rose to his f...

Left to himself in the deserted hall, the old sailor walked over to the body of the old soldier. Many a quaint dispute these two old men had held in their brief acquaintance, an...

XIX THE PORT OF PHILADELPHIA XX A WINTER CAMP XXI THE BOATSWAIN TELLS THE STORY XXII WASHINGTON--A MAN WITH HUMAN PASSIONS XXIII LIEUTENANT MARTIN'S LESSON XXIV CROSSING THE DEL...

XXX A SAILOR'S OPINION OF THE LAND XXXI SEYMOUR'S DESPERATE RESOLUTION XXXII THE PRISONERS ON THE YARMOUTH XXXIII TWO PROPOSALS XXXIV CAPTAIN VINCENT MYSTIFIED XXXV BENTLEY SAYS...

I KATHARINE YIELDS HER INDEPENDENCE II THE COUNTRY FIRST OF ALL III COLONEL WILTON IV LORD DUNMORE'S MEN PAY AN EVENING CALL V A TIMELY INTERFERENCE VI A FAITHFUL SUBJECT OF HIS...

XI CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES XII AN IMPORTANT COMMISSION XIII A CLEVER STRATAGEM XIV A SURPRISE FOR THE JUNO XV CHASED BY A FRIGATE XVI 'TWIXT LOVE AND DUTY XVII AN INCIDENTAL PAS...