Part 26 (1/2)
The Canadian campaign was in many respects the severest and most trying of any during the Revolution. General Arnold's march through the woods of Maine was attended with delays, misfortunes, and losses which would have discouraged any but the bravest, and most determined and hardy. The strength, and fort.i.tude of the men was tried to the utmost, by wearisome marches, floods, winter's cold and famine, and in these crises private Warner was one of those few whose soldiers.h.i.+p failed to stand the test.
The advanced guard of the army of the wilderness was composed of Morgan's troops, who, with incredible labor and hards.h.i.+p, ascended the Dead river and crossed the highlands into the Canadian frontier, one hundred and twenty miles from Quebec, with their last rations in their knapsacks, and with their pa.s.sage obstructed by a vast swamp overflowed with water from two to three feet deep. Smith's and Hendrick's companies reached it first, and halted to wait for stragglers. Mrs. Warner came up with another woman, the wife of Sergeant Grier, of Hendrick's company--as much a heroine as herself, though less unfortunate in her experience. The soldiers were entering the water, breaking the ice as they went with their gun-stocks, and the women courageously wading after them, when some one shouted, ”Where is Warner?” Jemima, who had not noticed her husband's disappearance, started back in search of him. Warner was no more enfeebled in body than many of the other men, but his fort.i.tude had given out. Begging his comrades to delay their march for a while, she hurried back in search of her husband, but an hour pa.s.sed, and his company marched without him.
Utterly dest.i.tute of that forethought which is so necessary an element of endurance and resolution in extremity, he had eaten all his rations, which should have lasted him two days. Knowing that the supplies of the army were exhausted, his faint heart saw no hope ahead. His brave wife had had a sad trial with him. From the day that provisions had began to be scarce he had been the same improvident laggard. Familiar with his failings, she was in the habit of h.o.a.rding food, the price of her own secret fastings, against such need as this. She now exerted herself to the utmost to rouse him, and induce him to press on and rejoin his comrades. It was long before she prevailed, and at last, when they started, the army had gone on, and Warner and his heroic wife were forced to make their way through the wilderness alone. She realized that her husband's safety depended entirely upon herself, and took care of him as she would have taken care of a child.
Refusing to entertain, for a moment, the thought of peris.h.i.+ng in the wilderness, she did her best to cheer her husband and drive such thoughts from his mind. It was a thankless task, but her love and devotion were equal to everything. Endowed with a strong const.i.tution, and free from disease, the young soldier could have survived the terrible march to Canada, had he possessed but a little of her courage and good sense. Taking the lead in the bitter journey, through swamps and snows, threading the tangled forests, climbing cliffs, and fording half-frozen creeks,--day after day the heroic woman pushed her faint-hearted husband on, feeding him from her own little store of ember-baked cakes, and eating almost nothing herself till they were more than half way to Sertigan on the Chaudiere river, toward Quebec.
Here Warner dropped down, completely discouraged, and resisted all his wife's entreaties to rise again. It was in vain that she appealed to every motive that could nerve a soldier, every sentiment that could inspire and stimulate a man. Relief, she said, _must_ be before them, and not far away; for her sake, would he not try once more? Her pleadings and her tears were wasted. The faint-hearted soldier had made his last halt. Weak he undoubtedly was, but comparing the nourishment each had taken, she should have been physically worse off than he. It was the superiority of her mental and moral organization that kept her from sinking as low as her husband. Failing to stir him to make another effort to save himself, she filled his canteen with water, and placing that and the little remnant of her wretched bread between his knees, she turned away and went down the river, with a heavy but dauntless heart, in search of help. On her way she met a boat coming up the river, and in it were two army officers and two friendly Indians. Hailing the party, she told them of her distress and begged them to take her husband on board. They replied that it was impossible. They had been sent after Lieutenant Macleland, a sick officer left behind with an attendant, at Twenty-foot Falls, and the little birch bark canoe would only carry two more men. They could only spare her food enough to keep herself alive. Weeping, she turned back and sadly followed the canoe up the stream till it was lost to view. When she again reached the spot where she had left her discouraged husband, she found him alive but helpless, and sinking fast. While the devoted wife sat by his side, doing what little she could for his comfort, the canoe party came down the river, bearing the gallant Macleland, their loved but dying officer. Again the hapless wife begged, with piteous tears, that they would take her husband in. No! All her prayers were useless. Macleland was worth more than Warner.
When all hope had fled, Jemima staid faithfully by her husband till he had breathed his last. She could only close his eyes and try to cover his body from the wolves. Then, when love had done its best, she strapped his powder horn and pouch to her person, shouldered his rifle, and set out on her weary tramp toward Quebec. Melancholy as it was, one sees a certain sublimity in the woman's act of selecting and carrying with her those warlike keepsakes. It was in perfect keeping with those tragic times.
Tender thoughtfulness of her poor husband's martial honor outlived her power to inspire him again to her heroism, and made her grand in the forlornness of her sorrow. She was determined that his arms should go to the war, if he could not.
The same brave mind that had made her so admirable as a soldier's helpmeet, upheld her through tedious hards.h.i.+ps and continued perils on her lonely way to the settlement. Once there, it was necessary for her to wait till she could recover her exhausted strength. Her triumph over the severe tasking of all those bitter days in the wilderness, without chronic injury, or even temporary sickness, would be called now, in a woman, a miracle of endurance.
As she pa.s.sed on from parish to parish, the simple Canadian peasant, always friendly to the American cause, welcomed with warm hospitality the handsome young woman, the story of whose singular bravery and devotion had reached their ears.
Her subsequent life and history is shrouded in obscurity. We know not whether she married a husband worthier of such a partner in those trying times, or whether she retired to brood alone over a sorrow with which shame for the object of her grief must have mingled. Whatever her lot may have been, her name deserves a place on the golden roll of our revolutionary heroines.
As we have already remarked, only a few instances are on record where women served in the army of the revolution as enlisted soldiers. Occasional services performed under the guise of men, were more frequent. As bearers of dispatches and disguised as couriers, they glided through the enemy's lines. Donning their father's or brother's overcoats and hats, they deceived the besiegers of the garrison into the belief that soldiers were not lacking to defend it, and even ventured in male habiliments to perform more perilous feats; such, for example, as the following:
Grace and Rachel Martin, the wives of two brothers who were absent with the patriot army, receiving intelligence one evening that a courier under guard of two British officers, would pa.s.s their house on a certain night with important dispatches, resolved to surprise the party and obtain the papers.
Disguising themselves in their husband's outer garments, and providing themselves with arms, they waylaid the enemy. Soon after they took their station by the roadside, the courier and his escort made their appearance.
At the proper moment the disguised ladies sprang from their bushy covert, and presenting their pistols, ordered the party to surrender their papers.
Surprised and alarmed, they obeyed without hesitation or the least resistance. The brave women having put them on parole, hastened home by the nearest route, which was a bypath through the woods, and dispatched the doc.u.ments to General Greene.
Perhaps the most remarkable case of female enlistment and protracted service in the patriot army, was that of Deborah Samson. The career of this woman shows that her motive in adopting and following the career of a soldier was a praiseworthy one. The whole country was aglow with patriotic fervor, and in no section did the flame burn with a purer l.u.s.ter than in that where Deborah was nurtured. It was not idle curiosity nor mere love of roving, that incited her, in those straitlaced days, to abandon her home and join in the perilous fray where the standard of freedom was ”full high advanced.” She had evidently counted the cost of the extraordinary step which she was about to take, but found in the difficulties and dangers which it entailed nothing to obstruct or daunt her purpose.
Her parents were in humble circ.u.mstances, and lived in Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts, where Deborah grew up with but slender advantages for anything more than a practical education; and yet such was her diligence in the acquisition of knowledge, that before she was eighteen she had shown herself competent to take charge of a district school, in which duty she displayed some of the same qualities which made her after-career remarkable.
She seems for several months to have cherished the secret purpose of enlisting in the American army, and with that view laid aside a small sum from her scanty earnings as a school-teacher, with which she purchased a quant.i.ty of coa.r.s.e fustian; out of this material, working at intervals and by stealth, she made a complete suit of men's clothes, concealing in a hay-stack each article as it was finished.
When her preparations had been completed, she informed her friends that she was going in search of higher wages for her labor. Tieing her new suit of men's attire in a bundle, she took her departure. She probably availed herself of the nearest shelter for the purpose of a.s.suming her disguise.
Her stature was lofty for a woman, and her features, though finely proportioned, were of a masculine cast. When at a subsequent period she had donned the buff and blue regimentals and marched in the ranks of the patriot army, she is said to have looked every inch the soldier.
Pursuing her way she presented herself at the camp of the American army as one of those patriotic young men who desired to a.s.sist in opposing the British, and securing the independence of their country.
Her friends, supposing that she was engaged at service at some distant point, made little inquiry as to her whereabouts, knowing her self-reliance, and her ability to follow out her own career without the aid of their counsel or a.s.sistance. Those who were nearest to her appear to have never made such a search for her as would have led to her discovery.
Having decided to enlist for the whole term of the war, from motives of patriotism, she was received and enrolled as one of the first volunteers in the company of Captain Nathan Thayer, of Medway, Ma.s.sachusetts, under the name of Robert s.h.i.+rtliffe. Without friends and homeless, as the young recruit appeared to be, she interested Captain Thayer, and was received into his family while he was recruiting his company. Here she remained some weeks, and received her first lessons in the drill and duties of the young soldier.
”Accustomed to labor from childhood upon the farm and in outdoor employment, she had acquired unusual vigor of const.i.tution; her frame was robust and of masculine strength; and, having thus gained a degree of hardihood, she was enabled to acquire great expertness and precision in the manual exercise, and to undergo what a female, delicately nurtured, would have found it impossible to endure. Soon after they had joined the company, the recruits were supplied with uniforms by a kind of lottery. That drawn by Robert did not fit, but, taking needle and scissors, he soon altered it to suit him. To Mrs. Thayer's expression of surprise at finding a young man so expert in using the implements of feminine industry, the answer was, that, his mother having no girl, he had been often obliged to practice the seamstress's art.”
While in the family of Captain Thayer, she was thrown much into the society of a young girl then visiting Mrs. Thayer. She soon began to show much partiality for Deborah (or Robert), and as she seemed to be versed in the arts of coquetry, Robert felt no scruples in paying close attention to one so volatile and fond of flirtation; she also felt a natural curiosity to learn within how short a time a maiden's fancy might be won.
Mrs. Thayer regarded this little romance with some uneasiness, as she could not help perceiving that Robert did not entirely reciprocate her young friend's affection. She accordingly lost no time in remonstrating with Robert, and warning him of the serious consequences of his folly in trifling with the feelings of the maiden. The remonstrance and caution were good-naturedly received, and the departure of the blooming soldier soon after terminated all these love pa.s.sages, though Robert received from his fair young friend some souvenirs, which he cherished as relics in after years.
For three years, and until 1781, our heroine appears as a soldier, and during this time she gained the approbation and confidence of the officers by her exemplary conduct and by the fidelity with which her duties were performed. When under fire, she showed an unflinching boldness, and was a volunteer in several hazardous enterprises. The first time she was wounded, was in a hand-to-hand fight with a British dragoon, when she received a severe sword-cut in the side of her head, laying bare her skull.
About four months after the first wound, she was again doomed to bleed in her country's cause, receiving another severe wound in her shoulder, the bullet burying itself deeply, and necessitating a surgical examination.
She described her first emotion when the ball struck her, as a sickening terror lest her s.e.x should be discovered. The pain of the wound was scarcely felt in her excitement and alarm, even death on the battle-field she felt would be preferable to the shame that would overwhelm her in case the mystery of her life were unveiled. Her secret, however, remained undiscovered, and, recovering from her wound, she was soon able again to take her place in the ranks.