Part 9

Thus within the winter night, when the hickory fire is roaring, Flickering streams of ruddy light on the folk before it pouring; When the apples pass around, and the cider follows after, And the well-worn jest is crowned by the hearers’ hearty laughter; When the cat is purring there, and the dog beside her dozing, And within his easy-chair sits the grandsire old, reposing, Then they tell the story true to the children hushed and eager, How the bold Van Valen slew, on a time, the Tory leaguer, Jack, the Regular.

_TARLETON’S DEFEAT._

After his disaster at Camden, Gates was superseded in the command of the Southern Departments by Greene, to whom he turned over the remnant of his army, about two thousand men in all. Of these a force of a thousand, or less, were placed in Union District, near the junction of the Broad and Pacolet rivers, nearly fifty miles to the left of Greene’s position. Lord Cornwallis at once determined to attack and destroy this detachment, and sent. Tarleton, with eleven hundred men, including his own cavalry and two field-pieces, for that purpose. Morgan’s forces, outside of Howard’s Continentals and Washington’s dragoons, were raw militia, some of whom had never seen battle, had had little drill, and were devoid of discipline. The task was supposed to be easy, and Tarleton began his march in high spirits. In consequence of bad roads he was much delayed on the march, and it was not until the 15th of January, 1781, four days after starting, that he drew near the Pacolet. Morgan, finding his forces not sufficient to stop the enemy at the river, retreated and took post on the north side of Thickety Mountain, near the Cowpens. Tarleton at once pushed on in pursuit, leaving his baggage behind, riding all night, and at eight o’clock of the morning of the 17th came in sight of the American patrol. Fearing they might escape he ordered an immediate attack. To his surprise he found Morgan prepared to give battle.

It is unnecessary to expand this note further, since the movements in the battle are given with accuracy in the ballad. The pursuit of the British was not relinquished until they reached the open wood near or about the point where the fight first began. The remnant of Tarleton’s force, by the next morning, reached Cornwallis’s camp. The American loss was twelve killed and about forty-eight wounded. Cornwallis’s report to Sir Henry Clinton gives the British loss at one hundred killed and five hundred and twenty-three prisoners. The Americans captured the two field-pieces, two standards, eight hundred muskets, thirty-five baggage-wagons, and one hundred dragoon horses. The battle was not so important itself but in its consequences. It contributed very much towards the capture of Cornwallis.

_THE BATTLE OF THE COWPENS._

To the Cowpens riding proudly, boasting loudly, rebels scorning, Tarleton hurried, hot and eager for the fight; From the Cowpens, sore confounded, on that January morning, Tarleton hurried somewhat faster, fain to save himself by flight.

In the morn he scorned us rarely, but he fairly found his error When his force was made our ready blows to feel; When his horsemen and his footmen fled in wild and pallid terror At the leaping of our bullets and the sweeping of our steel.

All the day before we fled them, and we led them to pursue us, Then at night on Thickety Mountain made our camp; There we lay upon our rifles, slumber quickly coming to us, Spite the crackling of our camp-fires and our sentries’ heavy tramp.

Morning on the mountain border, ranged in order, found our forces, Ere our scouts announced the coming of the foe; While the hoar-frost lying near us, and the distant watercourses, Gleamed like silver in the sunlight, seemed like silver in their glow.

Morgan ranged us there to meet them, and to greet them with such favor That they scarce would care to follow us again; In the rear the Continentals—none were readier nor braver; In the van, with ready rifles, steady, stern, our mountain men.

Washington, our trooper peerless, gay and fearless, with his forces Waiting panther-like upon the foe to fall, Formed upon the slope behind us, where, on rawboned country horses, Sat the sudden-summoned levies brought from Georgia by M’Call.

Soon we heard a distant drumming, nearer coming, slow advancing— It was then upon the very nick of nine; Soon upon the road from Spartanburg we saw their bayonets glancing, And the morning sunlight playing on their swaying scarlet line.

In the distance seen so dimly they looked grimly; coming nearer There was naught about them fearful, after all, Until some one near me spoke, in voice than falling water clearer, “Tarleton’s quarter is the sword-blade, Tarleton’s mercy is the ball.”

Then the memory came unto me, heavy, gloomy, of my brother Who was slain while asking quarter at their hand; Of that morning when was driven forth my sister and my mother, From our cabin in the valley by the spoilers of the land.

I remembered of my brother slain, my mother spurned and beaten, Of my sister in her beauty brought to shame; Of the wretches’ jeers and laughter, as from mud-sill up to rafter Of the stripped and plundered cabin leaped the fierce, consuming flame.

But that memory had no power there in that hour there to depress me— No! it stirred within my spirit fiercer ire; And I gripped my sword-hilt firmer, and my arm and heart grew stronger; And I longed to meet the wronger on the sea of steel and fire.

On they came, our might disdaining, where the raining bullets leaden Pattered fast from scattered rifles on each wing; Here and there went down a foeman, and the ground began to redden; And they drew them back a moment, like the tiger ere his spring.

Then said Morgan, “Ball and powder kill much prouder men than George’s; On your rifles and a careful aim rely. They were trained in many battles—we in workshops, fields, and forges; But we have our homes to fight for, and we do not fear to die.”

Though our leader’s words we cheered not, yet we feared not; we awaited, Strong of heart, the threatened onset, and it came: Up the sloping hill-side swiftly rushed the foe so fiercely hated; On they came with gleaming bayonet ’mid the cannon-smoke and flame.

At their head rode Tarleton proudly; ringing loudly o’er the yelling Of his men we heard his voice’s brazen tone; With his dark eyes flashing fiercely, and his sombre features telling In their look the pride that filled him as the champion of the throne.

On they pressed, when sudden flashing, ringing, crashing, came the firing Of our forward line upon their close-set ranks; Then at coming of their steel, which moved with steadiness untiring, Fled our mountaineers, re-forming in good order on our flanks.

Then the combat’s ranging anger, din, and clangor, round and o’er us Filled the forest, stirred the air, and shook the ground; Charged with thunder-tramp the horsemen, while their sabres shone before us, Gleaming lightly, streaming brightly, through the smoky cloud around.

Through the pines and oaks resounding, madly bounding from the mountain, Leaped the rattle of the battle and the roar; Fierce the hand-to-hand engaging, and the human freshet raging Of the surging current urging past a dark and bloody shore.

Soon the course of fight was altered; soon they faltered at the leaden Storm that smote them, and we saw their centre swerve. Tarleton’s eye flashed fierce in anger; Tarleton’s face began to redden; Tarleton gave the closing order—“Bring to action the reserve!”

Up the slope his legion thundered, full three hundred; fiercely spurring, Cheering lustily, they fell upon our flanks; And their worn and wearied comrades, at the sound so spirit-stirring, Felt a thrill of hope and courage pass along their shattered ranks.

By the wind the smoke-cloud lifted lightly, drifted, to the nor’ward, And displayed in all their pride the scarlet foe; We beheld them, with a steady tramp, and fearless, moving forward, With their banners proudly waving, and their bayonets levelled low.

Morgan gave his order clearly—“Fall back nearly to the border Of the hill, and let the enemy come nigher!” Oh! they thought we had retreated, and they charged in fierce disorder, When out rang the voice of Howard—“To the right about, face!—Fire!”

Then upon our very wheeling came the pealing of our volley, And our balls made red a pathway down the hill; Broke the foe, and shrank and cowered; rang again the voice of Howard— “Give the hireling dogs the bayonet!”—and we did it with a will.

In the mean while one red-coated troop, unnoted, riding faster Than their comrades, on our rear in fury bore; But the light-horse led by Washington soon brought it to disaster, For they shattered it and scattered it, and smote it fast and sore.

Like a herd of startled cattle from the battle-field we drove them; In disorder down the Mill-gap road they fled; Tarleton led them in the racing, fast he fled before our chasing, And he stopped not for the dying and he stayed not for the dead.

Down the Mill-gap road they scurried and they hurried with such fleetness— We had never seen such running in our lives! Ran they swifter than if seeking homes to taste domestic sweetness, Having many years been parted from their children and their wives.

Ah! for some no wife to meet them, child to greet them, friend to shield them! To their home o’er ocean never sailing back; After them the red avengers, bitter hate for death had sealed them, Yelped the dark and red-eyed sleuthhound unrelenting on their track.

In their midst I saw one trooper, and around his waist I noted Tied a simple silken scarf of blue and white; When my vision grasped it clearly to my hatred I devoted Him, from all the hireling wretches who were mingled there in flight.

For that token in the summer had been from our cabin taken By the robber-hands of wrongers of my kin; ’Twas my sister’s—for the moment things around me were forsaken; I was blind to fleeing foemen, I was deaf to battle’s din.

Olden comrades round me lying dead or dying were unheeded; Vain to me they looked for succor in their need; O’er the corses of the soldiers, through the gory pools I speeded, Driving rowel-deep my spurs within my madly bounding steed.

As I came he turned, and staring at my glaring eyes he shivered; Pallid fear went quickly o’er his features grim; As he grasped his sword in terror, every nerve within him quivered, For his guilty spirit told him why I solely sought for him.

Though the stroke I dealt he parried, onward carried, down I bore him— Horse and rider—down together went the twain: “Quarter!”—He! that scarf had doomed him! stood a son and brother o’er him; Down through plume and brass and leather went my sabre to the brain— Ha! no music like that crashing through the skull-bone to the brain.

_THE AFFAIR OF CHERRY VALLEY._

The massacre at Cherry Valley, New York, was notably cruel and bloody. In November, 1778, Walter Butler, with two hundred loyalists, and Joseph Brant, with five hundred Indians, swept down on the place, and commenced an indiscriminate slaughter. The very loyalists among the inhabitants were not spared. John Wells was well affected to the crown, yet he and his family, with the exception of his son John, who happened to be in Schenectady, were killed. Jane Wells was very much esteemed for her kindness and other good qualities. The elder Wells was a particular friend of Colonel John Butler, Walter’s father, who said, when he heard of his death, “I would have gone miles on my hands and knees to have saved that family, and why my son did not do it God only knows.” One loyalist, Peter Smith, who had formerly been a servant in the family, tried to save Miss Jenny, but the Indian who had seized her struck her on the head with his tomahawk and killed her. One man by the name of Mitchell was at a distance, saw the savages approaching, and finding that he could not rejoin his family, escaped into the woods. On his return he found his house burning, and near it lay the bodies of his wife and four children. One of these, a little girl, was still living, when he saw a party approach. He dropped the child, and secreted himself behind a tree. One of the new-comers saw the child to be alive yet, and stooping, brained her with a hatchet. The wretch was not an Indian, but a white loyalist savage named Newbery, who was afterwards hanged as a spy by General James Clinton. Brant saved a number of prisoners, and would have spared the women and children, but Walter Butler denied all appeals for mercy.

Butler’s time was to come. On the 22d of August, 1781, Colonel Willet attacked a force of five hundred loyalists and Indians at Johnstown, and defeated them. They were commanded by Major Ross and Walter Butler. The remnant of the enemy retreated all that night, and could not be overtaken. It was during that retreat that Butler was killed in the manner related in the ballad. Skenando, the Oneida chief, who is supposed to have been his slayer, was about seventy-four years old at the time. He lived many years after, dying at the age of one hundred and ten, on March 19, 1816. His burial was attended by a large number of citizens. A short time before his death he said to a visitor, who made some inquiries about his age, “I am an old hemlock. The winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my top. The generation to which I belonged has gone and left me. Pray to my Jesus that I may have patience to wait for my appointed time to die.”

_DEATH OF WALTER BUTLER._

I.

Overhead the sky of morning Gives of goodly weather sign; From the milking to the meadows Slowly go the lowing kine.

Fall in sparks of fire the dew-drops From the overburdened leaves; Flit from bough to bough the peewees; Hum the mud-wasps at the eaves.

Mists that recent wrapped the valley Now are sweeping o’er the hills; And the broad red sun is casting Gold upon the lakes and rills.

Deep and brown and sombre shadows Creep the forest trees between; Here and there the shades of crimson Speck the liquidambars’ green.

Lo! a horseman swiftly rising From between the river’s banks; Dust is on the rider’s garments, Blood upon his horse’s flanks.

At the portal of the tavern Hard he draws the bridle-rein, For a moment, feet in stirrup, One refreshing draught to drain.

What can make the village dwellers, In a hushed and breathless group, Gather round that jaded horseman By the village-tavern stoop?

To him come the anxious mothers, Bearing babes upon their arms; Close behind them crowd the maidens, Yet unscathed by love’s alarms.

Near him gather stalwart farmers, Sturdy, strong, and sun-embrowned; And the curious village children, Play suspending, stand around.

Breathless all, until the horseman, Mug in hand, has told his tale; Then around there spreads a murmur Like the warning of the gale.

Now it lulls and now it rises, Like the patter of the rain— “Heaven at last has dealt its vengeance! Walter Butler has been slain!”

II.

Never tongue may tell the horror Of that dark November day, When through startled Cherry Valley Walter Butler took his way—

Walter Butler and his Tories, With the savage Brant in train, Marking every rod of progress By the bodies of the slain.

Walter Butler! cruel panther, Lapping tongue in human gore; Even Brant, the bloody Mohawk, Had of truth and pity more.

His the will to save the helpless From the tomahawk and ball, Had not you with rage forbade him, Saying, “Curse them! kill them all!”

Even boyhood’s old companions, Comrades of your later days, Friends who, seeing not your vices, Gave your scanty virtues praise—

None of these could gain your mercy On that long-remembered day; For the stranger, friend or foeman, Came one doom relentless—“Slay!”

Swiftly at your word the hatchet Crashed into the quivering brain, And the swarthy fiends in fury Tore the scalp-skins from the slain.

Gray-haired elders, whom your father Knew as friends in days of yore, You had joy to see their corses Welter in their oozing gore.

Mothers lying mangled, dying, In their throes made deeper moans As they saw the skulls of infants Shattered on the ruthless stones.

These, and shrieks of fleeing maidens, Speechless children’s pleading tears, And the yelling of the savage, Made sweet music to your ears.

Bloody Walter Butler! owning Brain of fire and heart of stone, Twenty deaths, could you endure them, Would not for these deeds atone.

Nevermore may come your victims To the pleasant earth again— Never hear the blessed tidings— “Walter Butler has been slain!”

III.

When the savage had departed, Careless of the woe he caused, Then, amid the smouldering ruins, An Oneida came and paused.

He was tall and gaunt and aged, Crowned his head with films of snow; For the frosts of seventy winters Thus had honored Skenando.

Gazed he on the work of evil, Which around its traces spread, On the blood which stained the herbage, On the pale and mangled dead.

“I have been,” so spake the chieftain, “Forty years the white man’s friend; So have been to Walter Butler— Would have proved so to the end.

“Cruel son of lying father, Faithless, too, as this may show, You shall rue the dreadful doing Which creates in me a foe.

“Here are friends—I knew and loved them, Proved them often in my need. Great Monedo’s curse be on you, Walter Butler, for this deed.

“Here, by all his bitter sorrow, By his scant and whitened hairs, By the spirits of the fallen, Thus the old Oneida swears:

“He will follow in your pathway, He will hang upon your track, Through the hurry of the foray, Through the battle’s awful rack,

“Till at length his keen-edged hatchet, Driven to your coward brain, With its crashing voice shall utter, ‘Walter Butler has been slain!’”

IV.

In the waste of Cherry Valley Desolation long was seen, Seated on the heaps of ashes Where the home of man had been.

Desolation there was sitting, Brooding on the fearful past, Crouching in the murky shadows Of her sullen pinions vast.

There, amid the thorny briers, Mingled with the earth and stones, Hidden by the noxious herbage, Were the weather-whitened bones.

On the branches of the maples Sat the houseless cocks, and crowed; In the forest’s dark recesses Starveling watch-dogs made abode.

Through the copse-wood, snorting, scampered Herds of wild and savage swine; And with yellow deer there wandered What survived among the kine.

In the fenceless fields the panther Crouched to spring upon his prey; And the rattlesnake lay basking Careless in the public way.

Where had stood the barn and stable, And the garden with its bees; Where the house, with peakèd gable, Peeped through groves of locust-trees;

Where the children, newly risen, Peered at sunrise through the pane, But through which the murdered children Nevermore may peer again;

Where the housewife in the morning, Pail in hand, the fountain near, Stopped to gossip with her neighbors, And the village news to hear;

Where the farmers in the porches Sat at closing of the day, Smoking pipes whose odors mingled With the fragrance of the hay;

Where at eve the cows were lowing Answer to the milkmaid’s cry; And, with hens about him, proudly Sultan Spurs came strutting by;

Where the horses, in the pasture, On the fence’s topmost rail, Crossed their necks and loudly whinnied, Some tired traveller’s horse to hail;

Where the rooting swine at footsteps Raised their heads beneath the trees, And the watch-dog bayed defiance To the murmur of the breeze—

Clouds that overhung the valley Would not melt in gentle rain; They were waiting for the tidings— “Walter Butler has been slain!”

V.

Where the Canada so swiftly Through the mountain gorges flows, Walter Butler found the mercy He had dealt to hapless foes.

He had fought that day with Willet, And the battle had been lost, For our men the past remembered, To the ruthless Tories’ cost.

No one there would seek for quarter, No one mercy would bestow; From the wrath that swept around them, Flight alone could save the foe.

Butler, baffled, fled the combat On his charger tried and good, Through the glen and o’er the valley, Through the gap within the wood.

Rode he steadily and swiftly, While a swart and angry pack Of the hound-like, wild Oneidas Yelped in anger on his track.

On the Canada was rushing, Tempest-swollen, from the hills, Maddened with the furious urging Of a hundred surging rills.

But he heeded not its raging; At the danger fear was lost. In he spurred his panting charger, And the foaming river crossed.

On its bank a moment halting, To the foes upon his track Words and motions of defiance Butler hurled, exulting, back.

On his hot and spent pursuers Thus his words of scorning fell: “He who rides with Walter Butler Sits a steed that carries well.

“In the battle and the foray Human blood shall fall like rain, Ere you carry round the tidings— ‘Walter Butler has been slain!’”

VI.

As he waved his hand in mocking Came the whizzing of the ball; Loudly shouted the Oneidas As they saw the braggart fall.

Then the white-haired chief who led them Flung his powder-horn aside, And his rifle dropped, preparing For a leap within the tide.

“Skenando!” exclaimed a comrade, “Stay! the stream runs fierce and wild; And your age will make you weaker In its current than a child.

“For the youngest there is danger Ere he’d reach the farther shore, From the raging of the waters, And the rocks o’er which they pour.”

“Stay me not!” he answered, sternly; “Vengeance to the flood impels; Hear you not the dying moaning Of the murdered Jenny Wells?”

Plunging in the yellow torrent With his tomahawk in hand, Swam the chief of the Oneidas, Struggling till he reached the land—

Till upon the green bank’s summit, Close beside the shaded, wood, O’er the sorely wounded Butler With a purpose fierce he stood.

Said the pallid, craven butcher, “Let my ransom save my head; I can give you gold if living, I am profitless if dead!”