Part 11

"Emily was young, but as to her person or adventures on the way, we have no further information, except that she was mounted on horseback, upon a side-saddle, and on the second day of her journey she was intercepted by Lord Rawdon's scouts. Coming from the direction of Greene's army, and not being able to tell an untruth without blushing, Emily was suspected and confined to a room; and as the officer in command had the modesty not to search her at the time, he sent for an old tory matron as more fitting for that purpose. Emily was not wanting in expedient, and as soon as the door was closed and the bustle a little subsided, she _ate up the letter_, piece by piece. After a while the matron arrived, and upon searching carefully, nothing was to be found of a suspicious nature about the prisoner, and she would disclose nothing. Suspicion being thus allayed, the officer commanding the scouts suffered Emily to depart whither she said she was bound; but she took a route somewhat circuitous to avoid further detention, and soon after struck into the road to Sumter's camp, where she arrived in safety. Emily told her adventure, and delivered Greene's verbal message to Sumter, who, in consequence, soon after joined the main army at Orangeburgh."

MRS. CALDWELL AND THE TORIES.

--The spell is thine that reaches The heart.

HALLECK.

Prudence protects and guides us.

YOUNG.

Rachel Caldwell was the daughter of the Rev. Alexander Craighead and the wife of David Caldwell, D. D., whose history is somewhat identified with that of North Carolina. For several years he was at the head of a classical school at Guilford in that state, and in the vocation of teacher he had, at times, the efficient aid of his faithful and talented companion. She was a woman of exalted piety; and such a degree of success attended her "labor of love" in the school, that it became a common saying that "Dr. Caldwell makes the scholars, and Mrs. Caldwell makes the preachers."

More than once during the Revolution, the house of Dr. Caldwell, who was a stanch friend of his country, was assailed by tories:[35] and on one occasion, while his wife was alone and the marauders were collecting plunder, they broke open a chest or drawer and took therefrom a table-cloth which was the gift of her mother. She seized it the moment the soldier had it fairly in his hand, and made an effort to wrest it from him. Finding she would be the loser in a trial of physical strength, she instinctively resorted to the power of rhetoric. With her grasp still firm on the precious article, she turned to the rest of the plunderers, who stood awaiting the issue of the contest, and in a beseeching tone and with words warm with eloquence, asked if some of their number had not wives for the love of whom they would assist her, and spare the one dear memorial of a mother's affection! Her plea, though short, was powerful, and actually moved one man to tears. With rills of sympathy running down his cheeks, he assured her he had a wife--a wife that he loved--and that for her sake the table-cloth should be given up. This was accordingly done, and no further rudeness was offered.

[35] The tories not only destroyed his property, but drove him into the woods, where he was often obliged to pass nights; and some of his escapes from captivity or death are said to have been almost miraculous.--He resumed his labors as teacher and pastor after the war; and continued to preach till his ninety-sixth year. He died in 1824, at the age of ninety-nine. His wife died the following year, in the eighty-seventh of her age.

In the fall of 1780, a "way-worn and weary" stranger, bearing dispatches from Washington to Greene, stopped at her house and asked for supper and lodgings. Before he had eaten, the house began to be surrounded by tories, who were in pursuit of him. Mrs. Caldwell led him out at a back-door, unseen in the darkness, and ordered him to climb a large locust tree, and there remain till the house was plundered and the pursuers had departed. He did so. Mrs. Caldwell lost her property, but her calmness and prudence saved the express, and that was what most concerned the patriotic woman.

THE MOTHER OF RANDOLPH

She led me first to God; Her words and prayers were my young spirit's dew; For when she used to leave The fireside every eve, I knew it was for prayer that she withdrew.

PIERPONT.

The biographers of John Randolph mention the interesting fact that his mother taught him to pray. This all-important maternal duty made an impression on his heart. He lived at a period when skepticism was popular, particularly in some political circles in which he had occasion to mingle; and he has left on record his testimony in regard to the influence of his mother's religious instruction. Speaking of the subject of infidelity to an intimate friend, he once made the following acknowledgment:

"I believe I should have been swept away by the flood of French infidelity if it had not been for one thing--the remembrance of the time when my sainted mother used to make me kneel by her side, taking my little hands folded in hers, and cause me to repeat the Lord's Prayer."

CORNELIA BEEKMAN.

The smallest worm will turn when trodden on, And doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood.

SHAKESPEARE.

The vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pass like the gust, that roared and died away In the distant tree.

COLERIDGE.

Mrs. Cornelia Beekman was a daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1777 to 1795; and she seems to have inherited her father's zeal for the rights of his country. She was born at the Cortlandt manor house, "an old fashioned stone mansion situated on the banks of the Croton river," in 1752; was married when about seventeen or eighteen, to Gerard G. Beekman; and died on the fourteenth of March, 1847. A few anecdotes will illustrate the noble characteristics of her nature.[36]

[36] For a fuller account of her life, see the second volume of Mrs. Ellet's Women of the Revolution, to which work we are indebted for the substance of these anecdotes.

When the British were near her residence, which was a short distance from Peekskill, a soldier entered the house one day and went directly to the closet, saying, in reply to a question she put to him, that he wanted some brandy. She reproved him for his boldness and want of courtesy, when he threatened to stab her with a bayonet. Unalarmed by his oath-charged threats--although an old, infirm negro was the only aid at hand--she in turn threatened him, declaring that she would call her husband and have his conduct reported to his commander. Her sterness and intrepidity, coupled with her threats, subdued the insolent coward, and, obeying her orders, he marched out of the house.

A party of tories, under command of Colonels Bayard and Fleming, once entered her house, and, with a great deal of impudence and in the most insulting tone, asked if she was not "the daughter of that old rebel, Pierre Van Cortlandt?" "I am the daughter of Pierre Van Cortlandt, but it becomes not such as you to call my father a rebel," was her dauntless reply. The person who put the question now raised his musket, at which menacing act, she coolly reprimanded him and ordered him out of doors. His heart melted beneath the fire of her eye, and, abashed, he sneaked away.

In one instance, a man named John Webb, better known at that time as "Lieutenant Jack," left in her charge a valise which contained a new suit of uniform and some gold. He stated he would send for it when he wanted it, and gave her particular directions not to deliver it to any one without a written order from himself or his brother Samuel. About two weeks afterwards, a man named Smith rode up to the door in haste, and asked her husband, who was without, for Lieutenant Jack's valise. She knew Smith, and had little confidence in his _professed_ whig principles; so she stepped to the door and reminded her husband that it would be necessary for the messenger to show his order before the valise could be given up.

"You know me very well, Mrs. Beekman; and when I assure you that Lieutenant Jack sent me for the valise, you will not refuse to deliver it to me, as he is greatly in want of his uniform."

"I do know you very well--_too well_ to give you the valise without a written order from the owner or the Colonel."

Soon after this brief colloquy, Smith went away without the valise, and it was afterwards ascertained that he was a rank tory, and at that very hour in league with the British. Indeed Major Andre was concealed in his house that day, and had Smith got possession of Webb's uniform, as the latter and Andre were about the same size, it is likely the celebrated spy would have escaped and changed the reading of a brief chapter of American history. Who can tell how much this republic is indebted to the prudence, integrity, courage and patriotism of Cornelia Beekman?

THE MOTHER OF WEST.

O wondrous power! how little understood-- Entrusted to the mother's mind alone-- To fashion genius, form the soul for good, Inspire a West, or train a Washington.

MRS. HALE.

When Benjamin West was seven years old, he was left, one summer day, with the charge of an infant niece. As it lay in the cradle and he was engaged in fanning away the flies, the motion of the fan pleased the child, and caused it to smile. Attracted by the charms thus created, young West felt his instinctive passion aroused; and seeing paper, pen and some red and black ink on a table, he eagerly seized them and made his first attempt at portrait painting. Just as he had finished his maiden task, his mother and sister entered. He tried to conceal what he had done, but his confusion arrested his mother's attention and she asked him what he had been doing. With reluctance and timidity, he handed her the paper, begging, at the same time, that she would not be offended. Examining the drawing for a short time, she turned to her daughter and, with a smile, said, "I declare, he has made a likeness of Sally." She then gave him a fond kiss, which so encouraged him that he promised her some drawings of the flowers which she was then holding, if she wished to have them.

The next year a cousin sent him a box of colors and pencils, with large quantities of canvas prepared for the easel, and half a dozen engravings. Early in the morning after their reception, he took all his materials into the garret, and for several days forgot all about school. His mother suspected that the box was the cause of his neglect of his books, and going into the garret and finding him busy at a picture, she was about to reprimand him; but her eye fell on some of his compositions, and her anger cooled at once. She was so pleased with them that she loaded him with kisses and promised to secure his father's pardon for his neglect of school.

How much the world is indebted to Mrs. West for her early and constant encouragement of the immortal artist. He often used to say, after his reputation was established, "_My mother's kiss made me a painter!_"

HEROIC ENDURANCE.

'Tis not now who is stout and bold, But who bears hunger best and cold.

BUTLER.

On the twenty-seventh of July, 1755, Mrs. Howe, of Hinsdale, New Hampshire, with seven children and two other women and their children, was taken captive by the Indians, and marched through the wilderness to Crown Point. There Mrs. Howe, with some of the other prisoners, remained several days. The rest were conducted to Montreal to be sold, but the French refusing to buy them, they were all brought back, except Mrs. Howe's youngest daughter, who was presented to Governor De Vaudreuil.

Ere long the whole party started for St. Johns by water. Night soon came on; a storm arose; the darkness became intense; the canoes separated, and just before day Mrs. Howe was landed on the beach, ignorant of the destiny of her children. Raising a pillow of earth with her hands, she laid herself down to rest with her infant on her bosom. A toilsome day's journey brought her and her captors to St. Johns, and pressing onward they soon reached St. Francis, the home of the latter. A council having been called and the customary ceremonies performed, Mrs. Howe, with her infant left to her care, was put in the charge of a squaw, whom she was ordered to call mother.

"At the approach of winter, the squaw, yielding to her earnest solicitations, set out with Mrs. Howe and her child, for Montreal, to sell them to the French. On the journey both she and her infant were in danger of perishing from hunger and cold; the lips of the child being at times so benumbed, as to be incapable of imbibing its proper nourishment. After her arrival in the city, she was offered to a French lady; who, seeing the child in her arms, exclaimed, 'I will not buy a woman, who has a child to look after.' I shall not attempt to describe the feelings with which this rebuff was received by a person who had no higher ambition than to become a slave. Few of our race have hearts made of such unyielding materials, as not to be broken by long-continued abuse; and Mrs. Howe was not one of this number. Chilled with cold, and pinched with hunger, she saw in the kitchen of this inhospitable house some small pieces of bread, floating in a pail amid other fragments, destined to feed swine; and eagerly skimmed them for herself. When her Indian mother found that she could not dispose of her, she returned by water to St. Francis, where she soon died of small pox, which she had caught at Montreal. Speedily after, the Indians commenced their winter hunting. Mrs. Howe was then ordered to return her child to the captors. The babe clung to her bosom; and she was obliged to force it away. They carried it to a place called 'Messiskow,' on the borders of the river Missiscoui, near the north end of lake Champlain upon the eastern shore. The mother soon followed, and found it neglected, lean, and almost perishing with hunger. As she pressed its face to her cheek, the eager, half-starved infant bit her with violence. For three nights she was permitted to cherish it in her bosom; but in the day-time she was confined to a neighboring wigwam, where she was compelled to hear its unceasing cries of distress, without a possibility of contributing to its relief.

"The third day the Indians carried her several miles up the lake. The following night she was alarmed by what is usually called the great earthquake, which shook the region around her with violent concussions. Here, also, she was deserted for two nights in an absolute wilderness; and, when her Indian connections returned, was told by them that two of her children were dead. Very soon after, she received certain information of the death of her infant. Amid the anguish awakened by these melancholy tidings, she saw a distant volume of smoke; and was strongly inclined to make her way to the wigwam from which it ascended. As she entered the door, she met one of the children, reported to be dead; and to her great consolation found that he was in comfortable circumstances. A good-natured Indian soon after informed her, that the other was alive on the opposite side of the lake, at the distance of a few miles only. Upon this information she obtained leave to be absent for a single day; and, with the necessary directions from her informant, set out for the place. On her way she found her child, lean and hungry, and proceeded with it to the wigwam. A small piece of bread, presented to her by the Indian family in which she lived, she had carefully preserved for this unfortunate boy; but, to avoid offending the family in which he lived, was obliged to distribute it in equal shares to all the children. The little creature had been transported at the sight of his mother; and, when she announced her departure, fell at her feet, as if he had been dead. Yet she was compelled to leave him; and satisfied herself, as far as she was able, by commending him to the protection of God. The family in which she lived, passed the following summer at St. Johns. It was composed of the daughter and son-in-law of her late mother. The son-in-law went out early in the season on an expedition against the English settlements. At their return, the party had a drinking frolic, their usual festival after excursions of this nature. Drunkenness regularly enhances the bodily strength of a savage, and stimulates his mind to madness. In this situation he will insult, abuse, and not unfrequently murder, his nearest friends. The wife of this man had often been a sufferer by his intemperance. She therefore proposed to Mrs. Howe that they should withdraw themselves from the wigwam until the effects of his present intoxication were over. They accordingly withdrew. Mrs. Howe returned first, and found him surly and ill-natured, because his wife was absent. In the violence of his resentment he took Mrs. Howe, hurried her to St. Johns, and sold her for a trifling sum to a French gentleman, named Saccapee.

"Upon a little reflection, however, the Indian perceived that he had made a foolish bargain. In a spirit of resentment he threatened to assassinate Mrs. Howe; and declared that if he could not accomplish his design, he would set fire to the fort. She was therefore carefully secreted, and the fort watchfully guarded, until the violence of his passion was over. When her alarm was ended, she found her situation as happy in the family, as a state of servitude would permit. Her new master and mistress were kind, liberal, and so indulgent as rarely to refuse anything that she requested. In this manner they enabled her frequently to befriend other English prisoners, who, from time to time, were brought to St. Johns.

"Yet even in this humane family she met with new trials. Monsieur Saccapee, and his son, an officer in the French army, became at the same time passionately attached to her. This singular fact is a forcible proof that her person, mind, and manners, were unusually agreeable. Nor was her situation less perplexing than singular. The good will of the whole family was indispensable to her comfort, if not to her safety; and her purity she was determined to preserve at the hazard of her life. In the house where both her lovers resided, conversed with her every day, and, together with herself, were continually under the eye of her mistress, the lovers a father and a son, herself a slave, and one of them her master, it will be easily believed that she met with very serious embarrassments in accomplishing her determination. In this situation she made known her misfortunes to Colonel Peter Schuyler of Albany, then a prisoner at St. Johns. As soon as he had learned her situation he represented it to the Governor De Vaudreuil. The Governor immediately ordered young Saccapee into the army; and enjoined on his father a just and kind treatment of Mrs. Howe. His humanity did not stop here. Being informed that one of her daughters was in danger of being married to an Indian of St. Francis, he rescued her from this miserable destiny, and placed her in a nunnery with her sister. Here they were both educated as his adopted children.

"By the good offices of Colonel Schuyler, also, who advanced twenty-seven hundred livres for that purpose, and by the assistance of several other gentlemen, she was enabled to ransom herself, and her four sons. With these children she set out for New England in the autumn of 1758, under the protection of Colonel Schuyler, leaving her two daughters behind.[37] As she was crossing lake Champlain, young Saccapee came on board the boat, in which she was conveyed; gave her a handsome present; and bade her adieu. Colonel Schuyler being obliged to proceed to Albany with more expedition than was convenient for his fellow travelers, left them in the care of Major Putnam, afterwards Major-General Putnam. From this gentleman she received every kind office, which his well known humanity could furnish; and arrived without any considerable misfortune at the place of their destination."[38]

[37] After the treaty of peace at Paris, Mrs. Howe went to Canada and brought home the younger daughter, who left the nunnery with a great deal of reluctance. The older went to France with Monsieur Dr. Vaudreuil, and was there married to a man named Louis.

[38] Dwight's Travels.

MATERNAL HEROISM

Is there a man, into the lion's den Who dares intrude to snatch his young away?

THOMSON.

During the campaign of 1777, a soldier of the Fifty-fifth regiment was sitting with his wife at breakfast, when a bomb entered the tent, and fell between the table and a bed where their infant was sleeping. The mother urged her husband to go round the bomb and seize the child, his dress being, from the position of things, more favorable than hers for the prosecution of the dangerous task: but he refused, and running out of the tent, begged his wife to follow, saying that the fusee was just ready to communicate with the deadly combustibles. The fond mother, instead of obeying, hastily tucked up her garments to prevent their coming in contact with the bomb; leaped past it; caught the child, and in a moment was out of danger.

In December, 1850, the house of Peter Knight, of Bath, Maine, caught fire, and a small child, asleep in the room where the flames burst out, would have perished but for the self-possession and daring of its mother. One or two unsuccessful attempts had been made by others to rescue it, when the mother, always the last to despair, made a desperate effort, and secured the prize. When the two were taken from the window of the second story, the dress of Mrs. Knight was in flames!

A MODERN DORCAS.

'Tis truth divine, exhibited on earth, Gives charity her being.

COWPER.

Isabella, the wife of Dr. John Graham, was born in Scotland, on the twenty-ninth of July, 1742. At the age of seventeen she became a member of the church in Paisley of which the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, afterwards President of Princeton college, was the pastor. Dr. Graham was a physician of the same town. Her marriage took place in 1765. The next year Dr. Graham was ordered to join his regiment then stationed in Canada. After spending a few months at Montreal, he removed to Fort Niagara, where he remained in the garrison four years.

Just before the Revolutionary war the sixteenth regiment of Royal Americans was ordered to the island of Antigua. Thither Dr. Graham removed with his family, and there he died in 1774. Mrs. Graham then returned to her native land.

In 1789 she came to this country, and permanently settled in the city of New York. She there opened a school for young ladies, and gained a high reputation in her profession. She united with the Presbyterian church of which John Mason, D. D., was pastor, and was noted, through all the latter years of her life, for the depth of her piety and her Christian benevolence. She made it a rule to give a tenth part of her earnings to religious and charitable purposes. In 1795 she received, at one time, an advance of a thousand pounds on the sale of a lease which she held on some building lots; and not being used to such large profits, she said, on receiving the money, "Quick, quick, let me appropriate the tenth before my heart grows hard."