Part 11 (1/2)

The young wife taught her husband to believe in G.o.d, and to trust in prayer. In his simple-hearted way, Morgan tells us that, just before the fierce attack on the fort at Quebec, he knelt in the drifting snow, and felt that G.o.d had nerved him to fight.

In riding over the battlefield after his great victory at Cowpens, old soldiers saw with wonder the fierce fighter stop his horse and pray aloud, and, with tears running down his face, thank G.o.d for the victory.

{112} His men never scoffed at their leader's prayers, for it was noticed that the harder ”old Dan Morgan” prayed, the more certain they were of being soon led into the jaws of death itself.

Meanwhile, he and his young bride were thrifty and prosperous. They were both ignorant of books, but they studied early and late to make up for lost time. For the next nine years, Morgan, with his household treasures,--his good wife, and his two little daughters,--lived in the pure atmosphere of a Christian home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Riflemen treating with Indians in the Wilderness of Virginia]

The storm cloud of the Revolution was now gathering thick and fast.

Events followed each other with startling rapidity. Morgan watched keenly. He never did anything in a half-hearted way; and we may be sure that he took up the cause of the Revolution with all the fervor of his strong nature.

After the bloodshed at Lexington, the Continental Congress called for ten companies from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Morgan received his commission as captain, five days after Bunker Hill. When he shouted, ”Come, boys, who's for the camp before Cambridge?” every man in his section turned out.

In less than ten days, Morgan at the head of ninety-six expert riflemen started for Boston. It was six hundred miles away, but they marched the distance in twenty-one days without the loss of a single man.

One day as Was.h.i.+ngton was riding out to inspect the redoubts, he met these Virginians.

{113} Morgan halted his men, and saluted the commander in chief, saying, ”From the right bank of the Potomac, General!”

Was.h.i.+ngton dismounted, and, walking along the line, shook hands with each of them.

Late in the fall of 1775, Morgan and his famous sharpshooters marched with about a thousand other troops on Arnold's ill-fated expedition to Quebec. This campaign, as you have read, was one of the most remarkable exploits of the war.

In the attack upon Quebec, after Arnold had been carried wounded from the field, and Montgomery had been killed, Morgan took Arnold's place and fought like a hero. He forced his way so far into the city that he and all his men were surrounded and captured.

A British officer who greatly admired his daring visited him in prison, and offered him the rank and pay of a colonel in the royal army.

”I hope, sir,” answered the Virginian patriot, ”you will never again insult me, in my present distressed and unfortunate situation, by making me offers which plainly imply that you think me a scoundrel.”

Soon after his release, Congress voted him a colonel's commission, with orders to raise a regiment. The regiment reported for service at Morristown, New Jersey, in the winter of 1776.

Five hundred of the best riflemen were selected from the various regiments, and put under the command of {114} Colonel Morgan. He was well fitted to be the leader of this celebrated corps of sharpshooters. They were always to be at the front, to watch every movement of the enemy, and to furnish prompt and accurate news for Was.h.i.+ngton. They were to hara.s.s the British, and to fight with the enemy's outposts for every inch of ground.

Meanwhile, in the fall of 1777, Burgoyne, with a large army of British, Hessians, and Indians, marched down from Canada, through the valley of the Hudson. The country was greatly alarmed. Was.h.i.+ngton could ill spare Morgan, but generously sent him with his riflemen to help drive back the invaders.

Two great battles, the first at Freeman's Farm, the second at Saratoga, sealed Burgoyne's fate. In each battle, the sharpshooters did signal service. Before their deadly rifles, the British officers, clad in scarlet uniforms, fell with frightful rapidity. They were a terror to the Hessians. As Morgan would often say in high glee, ”The very sight of my riflemen was always enough for the Hessian pickets.

They would scamper into their lines as if the devil drove them, shouting in all the English they knew, 'Rebel in de bus.h.!.+ rebel in de bus.h.!.+'”

After the surrender, when Burgoyne was introduced to Morgan, he took him warmly by the hand and said, ”Sir, you command the finest regiment in the world.”

For over a year and a half after Saratoga, Morgan and his riflemen were attached to Was.h.i.+ngton's army, and saw hard service. Their incessant attacks on the enemy's {115} outposts, and their numberless picket skirmishes, are all lost to history, and are now forgotten.

Just before the battle of Monmouth, a painful disease, known as sciatica, brought on by constant exposure and hards.h.i.+p, disabled Morgan. Sick and discouraged because he had seen officers who were favorites with Congress promoted over his head, he, like Greene, Stark, and Schuyler, now left the army for a time.

But after Gates was defeated at Camden, the fighting blood of the old Virginian was greatly stirred. He declared that no man should have any personal feeling when his country was in peril. So he hurried down South, and took, under Gates, his old place as colonel.

After the battle at King's Mountain, Congress very wisely made Morgan a brigadier general.

[Ill.u.s.tration: General Daniel Morgan]