the night attack upon quebec--and my share in it.
of these sad occurrences it was my fortune not to be informed for many months. in some senses this was a beneficent ignorance. had i known that, under the dear old roof which so long sheltered me, mr. stewart was helplessly stricken with paralysis, and poor daisy lay ill unto death with a brain malady, the knowledge must have gone far to unfit me for the work which was now given into my hands. and it was work of great magnitude and importance.
close upon the heels of the bunker hill intelligence came the news that a continental army had been organized; that colonel washington of virginia had been designated by congress as its chief, and had started to assume command at cambridge; and that our own philip schuyler was one of the four officers named at the same time as major-generals. there was great pleasure in albany over the tidings; the patriot committee began to prepare for earnest action, and our tory mayor, abraham cuyler, sagaciously betook himself off, ascending the mohawk in a canoe, and making his way to canada.
among the first wishes expressed by general schuyler was one that i should assist and accompany him, and this, flattering enough in itself, was made delightful by the facts that my friend peter gansevoort was named as another aide, and that my kinsman dr. teunis was given a professional place in the general's camp family. we three went with him to the headquarters at cambridge very shortly after, and thenceforward were too steadily engrossed with our novel duties to give much thought to home affairs.
it was, indeed, a full seven months onward from the june of which i have written that my first information concerning the cedars, and the dear folk within its walls, came to me in a letter from my mother. this letter found me, of all unlikely places in the world, lying in garrison on the frozen bank of the st. lawrence--behind us the strange, unnatural silence of the northern waste of snow, before us the black, citadel-crowned, fire-spitting rock of quebec.
again there presses upon me the temptation to put into this book the story of what i saw there while we were gathering our strength and resolution for the fatal assault. if i am not altogether proof against its wiles, at least no more shall be told of it than properly belongs here, insomuch as this is the relation of my life's romance.
we had started in september with the expedition against canada, while it was under the personal command of our general; and when his old sickness came unluckily upon him and forced his return, it was at his request that we still kept on, under his successor, general richard montgomery. it was the pleasanter course for us, both because we wanted to see fighting, and because montgomery, as the son-in-law of mr. livingston, was known to us and was our friend. and so with him we saw the long siege of st. john's ended, and chambly, and then montreal, sorel, and three rivers, one by one submit, and the habitants acclaim us their deliverers as we swept the country clean to the gates of quebec.
to this place we came in the first week of december, and found bold arnold and his seven hundred scarecrows awaiting us. these men had been here for a month, yet had scarcely regained their strength from the horrible sufferings they encountered throughout their wilderness march. we were by this time not enamoured of campaigning in any large degree, from our own experience of it. yet when we saw the men whom arnold and morgan had led through the trackless kennebec forest, and heard them modestly tell the story of that great achievement--of their dreadful sustained battle with cold, exhaustion, famine, with whirling rapids, rivers choked with ice, and dangerous mountain precipices--we felt ashamed at having supposed we knew what soldiering was.
three weeks we lay waiting. inside, clever carleton was straining heaven and earth in his endeavor to strengthen his position; without, we could only wait. those of us who were from the albany and mohawk country came to learn that some of our old tory neighbors were within the walls, and the knowledge gave a new zest to our eager watchfulness.
this, it should be said, was more eager than sanguine. it was evident from the outset that, in at least one respect, we had counted without our host. the french-canadians were at heart on our side, perhaps, but they were not going to openly help us; and we had expected otherwise. arnold himself, who as an old horse-dealer knew the country, had especially believed in their assistance and sympathy, and we had bills printed in the french language to distribute, calling upon them to rise and join us. that they did not do so was a grievous disappointment from the beginning.
yet we might have been warned of this. the common people were friendly to us--aided us privily when they could--but they were afraid of their seigneurs and curés. these gentry were our enemies for a good reason--in their eyes we were fighting new england's fight, and intolerant new england had only the year before bitterly protested to parliament against the favor shown the papist religion in quebec. these seigneurs and priests stood together in a common interest. england had been shrewd enough to guarantee them their domains and revenues. loyalty meant to them the security of their rentes et d?mes, and they were not likely to risk these in an adventure with the papist-hating yankees. hence they stood by england, and, what is more, held their people practically aloof from us.
but even then we could have raised canadian troops, if we had had the wherewithal to feed or clothe or arm them. but of this congress had taken no thought. our ordnance was ridiculously inadequate for a siege; our clothes were ragged and foul, our guns bad, our powder scanty, and our food scarce. yet we were deliberately facing, in this wretched plight, the most desperate assault of known warfare.
the weeks went by swiftly enough. much of the time i was with the commander at our headquarters in holland house, and i grew vastly attached to the handsome, gracious, devoted young soldier. brigadier-general montgomery had not, perhaps, the breadth of character that made schuyler so notable; which one of all his contemporaries, save washington, for that matter, had? but he was very single-minded and honorable, and had much charm of manner. often, during those weeks, he told me of his beautiful young wife, waiting for his return at their new home on the hudson, and of his hope soon to be able to abandon the strife and unrest of war, and settle there in peace. alas! it was not to be so.
and then, again, we would adventure forth at night, when there was no moon, to note what degree of vigilance was observed by the beleaguered force. this was dangerous, for the ingenious defenders hung out at the ends of poles from the bastions either lighted lanterns or iron pots filled with blazing balsam, which illuminated the ditch even better than the moon would have done. often we were thus discovered and fired upon, and once the general had his horse killed under him.
i should say that he was hardly hopeful of the result of the attack already determined upon. but it was the only thing possible to be done, and with all his soul and mind he was resolved to as nearly do it as might be.
the night came, the last night but one of that eventful, momentous year 1775. men had passed each day for a week between our quarters and colonel arnold's at st. roch, concerting arrangements. there were frenchmen inside the town from whom we were promised aid. what we did not know was that there were other frenchmen, in our camp, who advised carleton of all our plans. the day and evening were spent in silent preparations for the surprise and assault--if so be it the snow-storm came which was agreed upon as the signal. last words of counsel and instruction were spoken. suppressed excitement reigned everywhere.
the skies were clear and moonlit in the evening; now, about midnight, a damp, heavy snowfall began and a fierce wind arose. so much the better for us and our enterprise, we thought.
we left holland house some hours after midnight, without lights and on foot, and placed ourselves at the head of the three hundred and fifty men whom colonel campbell (not the cherry valley man, but a vain and cowardly creature from down the hudson, recently retired from the british army) held in waiting for us. noiselessly we descended from the heights, passed wolfe's cove, and gained the narrow road on the ledge under the mountain.
the general and his aide, mcpherson, trudged through the deep snow ahead of all, with gansevoort, and me keeping up to them as well as we could. what with the very difficult walking, the wildness of the gale, and the necessity for silence, i do not remember that anything was said. we panted heavily, i know, and more than once had to stop while the slender and less eager carpenters who formed the van came up.
it was close upon the fence of wooden pickets which stretched across the causeway at cape diamond that the last of these halts was made. through the darkness, rendered doubly dense by the whirling snowflakes with which the wind lashed our faces, we could only vaguely discern the barrier and the outlines of the little block-house beyond it.
"here is our work!" whispered the general to the half-dozen nearest him, and pointing ahead with his gauntleted hand. "once over this and into the guard-house, and we can never be flanked, whatever else betide."
we tore furiously at the posts, even while he spoke--we four with our hands, the carpenters with their tools. it was the work of a moment to lay a dozen of these; another moment and the first score of us were knee-deep in the snow piled to one side of the guard-house door. there was a murmur from behind which caused us to glance around. the body of campbell's troops, instead of pressing us closely, had lingered to take down more pickets. somebody--it may have been i--said, "cowards!" some one else, doubtless the general, said, "forward!"
then the ground shook violently under our feet, a great bursting roar deafened us, and before a scythe-like sweep of fire we at the front tumbled and fell!
i got to my feet again, but had lost both sword and pistol in the snow. i had been hit somewhere--it seemed in the side--but of that i scarcely thought. i heard sharp firing and the sound of oaths and groans all around me, so it behooved me to fight, too. there were dimly visible dark forms issuing from the guard-house, and wrestling or exchanging blows with other forms, now upright, now in the snow. here and there a flash of fire from some gun or pistol gave an instant's light to this stygian hurly-burly.
a heavy man, coming from the door of the block-house, fired a pistol straight at me; the bullet seemed not to have struck me, and i leaped upon him before he could throw the weapon. we struggled fiercely backward toward the pickets, i tearing at him with all my might, and striving with tremendous effort to keep my wits as well as my strength about me, in order to save my life. curiously enough, i found that the simplest wrestling tricks i tried i had not the power for; even in this swift minute, loss of blood was telling on me. a ferocious last effort i made to swing and hurl him, and, instead, went staggering down into the drift with him on top.
as i strove still to turn, and lifted my head, a voice sounded close in my ear, "it's you, is it? damn you!" and then a great mashing blow on my face ended my fight.
doubtless some reminiscence in that voice caused my mind to carry on the struggle in the second after sense had fled, for i thought we still were in the snow wrestling, only it was inside a mimic fort in the clearing around mr. stewart's old log-house, and i was a little boy in an apron, and my antagonist was a yellow-haired lad with hard fists, with which he beat me cruelly in the face--and so off into utter blackness and void of oblivion.
one morning in the latter half of january, nearly three weeks after, i woke to consciousness again. wholly innocent of the lapse of time, i seemed to be just awakening from the dream of the snow fort, and of my boyish fight with little philip cross. i smiled to myself as i thought of it, but even while i smiled the vague shadows of later happenings came over my mind. little by little the outlines of that rough december night took shape in my puzzled wits.
i had been wounded, evidently, and had been borne back to holland house, for i recognized the room in which i lay. my right arm was in stiff splints; with the other hand i felt of my head and discovered that my hair had been cut close, and that my skull and face were fairly thatched with crossing strips of bandage. my chest, too, was girdled by similar medicated bands. my mental faculties moved very sedately, it seemed, and i had been pondering these phenomena for a long time when my cousin dr. teunis van hoorn came tip-toeing into the room.
this worthy young man was sincerely delighted to find me come by my senses once more. in his joy he allowed me to talk and to listen more than was for my good, probably, for i had some bad days immediately following; but the relapse did not come before i had learned much that was gravely interesting.
it is a story of sufficient sorrow and shame to american ears even now--this tale of how we failed to carry quebec. judge how grievously the recital fell upon my ears then, in the little barrack-chamber of holland house, within hearing of the cannonade by which the farce of a siege was still maintained from day to day! teunis told me how, by that first volley of grape at the guard-house, the brave and noble montgomery had been instantly killed; how arnold, forcing his way from the other direction at the head of his men, and being early shot in the leg, had fought and stormed like a wounded lion in the narrow sault-au-matelot; how he and the gallant morgan had done more than their share in the temerarious adventure, and had held the town and citadel at their mercy if only the miserable campbell had pushed forward after poor montgomery fell, and gone on to meet those battling heroes in the lower town. but i have not the patience, even at this late day, to write about this melancholy and mortifying failure.
some of our best men--montgomery, hendricks, humphreys, captain cheseman, and other officers, and nearly two hundred men--had been killed out-right, and the host of wounded made veritable hospitals of both the headquarters. nearly half of our total original force had been taken prisoners. with the shattered remnants of our little army we were still keeping up the pretence of a siege, but there was no heart in our operations, since reverse had broken the last hope of raising assistance among the french population. we were too few in numbers to be able now to prevent supplies reaching the town, and everybody gloomily foresaw that when the river became free of ice, and open for the british fleet to throw in munitions and re-enforcements, the game would be up.
all this dr. teunis told me, and often during the narration it seemed as if my indignant blood would burst off the healing bandages, so angrily did it boil at the thought of what poltroonery had lost to us.
it was a relief to turn to the question of my own adventure. it appeared that i had been wounded by the first and only discharge of the cannon at the guard-house, for there was discovered, embedded in the muscles over my ribs, a small iron bolt, which would have come from no lesser firearm. they moreover had the honor of finding a bullet in my right forearm, which was evidently a pistol-ball. and, lastly, my features had been beaten into an almost unrecognizable mass of bruised flesh by either a heavy-ringed fist or a pistol-butt.
"pete gansevoort dragged you off on his back," my kinsman concluded. "some of our men wanted to go back for the poor general, and for cheseman and mcpherson, but that campbell creature would not suffer them. instead, he and his cowards ran back as if the whole king's army were at their heels. you may thank god and gansevoort that you were not found frozen stiff with the rest, next morning."
"ah, you may be sure i do!" i answered. "can i see peter?"
"why, no--at least not in this god-forgotten country. he has been made a colonel, and is gone back to albany to join general schuyler. and we are to go--you and i--as soon as it suits your convenience to be able to travel. there are orders to that purport. so make haste and get well, if you please."
"i have been dangerously ill, have i not?"
"scarcely that, i should say. at least, i had little fear for you after the first week. neither of the gunshot wounds was serious. but somebody must have dealt you some hearty thwacks on the poll, my boy. it was these, and the wet chill, and the loss of blood, which threw you into a fever. but i never feared for you."
later in the year, long after i was wholly recovered, my cousin confided to me that this was an amiable lie, designed to instil me with that confidence which is so great a part of the battle gained, and that for a week or so my chance of life had been held hardly worth a son marquee. but i did not now know this, and i tried to fasten my mind upon that encounter in the drift by the guard-house, which was my last recollection. much of it curiously eluded my mental grasp for a time; then all at once it came to me.
"do you know, teunis," i said, "that i believe it was philip cross who broke my head with his pistol-butt?"
"nonsense!"
"yes, it surely was--and he knew me, too!" and i explained the grounds for my confidence.
"well, young man," said dr. teunis, at last, "if you do not find that gentleman out somewhere, sometime, and choke him, and tear him up into fiddle-strings, you've not a drop of van hoorn blood in your whole carcass!"
