Part 14 (2/2)
”I have arrived, my dearest love, in perfect health at the house of an American officer. I am going this evening to Charlestown. . . . The campaign is opened, but there is very little fighting. . . . The manners in this part of the world are very simple, polite and worthy in every respect of the country in which the n.o.ble name of liberty is constantly repeated. . . . Adieu, my love. From Charlestown I shall repair by land to Philadelphia to rejoin the army. Is it not true that you will always love me?”
A few days later he writes from Charlestown:
”I landed, after having sailed for several days along a coast swarming with hostile vessels. On my arrival here everyone told me that my s.h.i.+p must undoubtedly be taken, because two English frigates had blockaded the harbour. I even sent, both by land and sea, orders to the Captain to put the men on sh.o.r.e and burn the vessel. Well, by an extraordinary stroke of good luck a sudden gale of wind having blown away the frigates for a short time the vessel arrived at noonday without having encountered friend or foe. At Charlestown, I have met with General Howe, a general officer now engaged in service. The Governor of the State is expected this evening from the country. I can only feel grat.i.tude for the reception I have met with, although I have not thought it best yet to enter into any details respecting my future prospects and arrangements. I wish to see the Congress first. There are some French and American vessels at present here which are to sail out of the harbour in company to-morrow morning. . . . I shall distribute my letters along the different s.h.i.+ps in case any accident should happen to either one of them. . . .
”I shall now speak to you, my love, about the country and its inhabitants, who are as agreeable as my enthusiasm had led me to imagine. Simplicity of manner, kindness of heart, love of country and of liberty and a delightful state of equality are met with universally. . . .
Charlestown is one of the finest cities I have ever seen. The American women are very pretty and have great simplicity of character, and the extreme neatness of their appearance is truly delightful; cleanliness is everywhere even more studiously attended to here than in England. What gives me most pleasure is to see how completely the citizens are brethren of one family. In America there are no poor and none even that can be called peasants. Each citizen has some property and all citizens have the same right as the richest individual.”
After protestations of deep devotion and loneliness the letter ends with:
”The night is far advanced, the heat intense, and I am devoured with gnats, but the best of countries have their inconveniences. Adieu, my love, adieu.”
A very good picture that of customs and habits which would have been to the lasting advantage of America to continue!
The letters of Lafayette grew more and more homesick and Adrienne's feelings were like a harp with its strings attuned to respond to his every emotion.
From Petersburg, Va., on July 17, 1777, he writes:
”I have received no news of you, and my impatience to hear from you cannot be compared to any other earthly feeling. . . . You must have learned the particulars of the commencement of my journey. You know that I set out in a brilliant manner in a carriage, and I must now tell you that we are all on horseback, having broken the carriage after my usual praiseworthy custom, and I hope soon to write you that we have arrived at Philadelphia on foot! . . .”
A few days later he says:
”I am each day more miserable, from having quitted you, my dearest love. . . . I would give at this moment half of my existence for the pleasure of embracing you again, and telling you with my own lips how I love you. . . . Oh, if you knew how I sigh to see you, how I suffer at being separated from you and all that my heart has been called on to endure, you would think me somewhat worthy of your love.”
Poor, lonely, young couple--each was suffering in a different way from the separation, but Adrienne's misery was the hardest to bear, for not only had she lost the little daughter who had been her greatest comfort since the departure of her husband for America, but she now had a shock, for in her husband's letter of the 12th of September, after the battle of Brandywine, he wrote:
”Our Americans after having stood their ground for some time ended at last by being routed; whilst endeavouring to rally them, the English honoured me with a musket ball, which slightly wounded me in the leg, but it is a trifle, and I have escaped with the obligation of lying on my back for some time, which puts me much out of humour. I hope that you will feel no anxiety, this event ought, on the contrary, rather to rea.s.sure you, since I am incapacitated from appearing on the field for some time. I have resolved to take good care of myself, be convinced of this, my dearest love.”
Notwithstanding the cheerful tenor of this letter, Adrienne was not able to eat or sleep after its arrival, until in a second letter he again a.s.sured her of the slightness of his injury, and added:
”I must now give you your lesson as the wife of an American general-officer. They will say to you, 'They have been beaten.' You must answer, 'That is true, but when two armies of equal numbers meet in the field, old soldiers have naturally the advantage over new ones. They have had besides, the pleasure of killing a great many of the enemy; many more than they have lost.' They will afterward say, 'All that is very well, but Philadelphia is taken, the Capital of America, the rampart of Liberty!' You must politely answer, 'You are all great fools.' Philadelphia is a poor forlorn town, exposed on every side, whose harbour is already closed, although the residence of Congress lent it some degree of celebrity. This is the famous city which, it may be added, we will soon make them yield to us! If they continue to persecute you with questions you may send them about their business in terms which the Vicomte de Noailles will teach you, for I cannot lose time in talking to my friends of politics.”
Thrilling indeed were those days of 1777 after the battle of Brandywine, for the Americans struggling so valiantly for the liberty they were so determined to secure, and valiant was young Lafayette in upholding that Cause which he had so bravely espoused. A letter from General Greene to General Was.h.i.+ngton in which he speaks glowingly about the young Frenchman would have filled Adrienne's heart to overflowing with pride, could she but have read it, for it was full of descriptions of her husband's bravery even before he had recovered from the wound received at the battle of Brandywine, and General Greene adds:
”The Marquis Lafayette is determined to be in the way of danger.” But Lafayette's own account of his doings, both to General Was.h.i.+ngton, with whom he was on the most intimate and affectionate terms, and to his wife, were always most modest and self-depreciatory. But because of Lafayette's ill.u.s.trious connections, the loyalty he showed for the cause of American liberty, and also because of the marked discretion and good sense he had shown on several critical occasions, Was.h.i.+ngton recommended to Congress that the young Frenchman receive command of a division in the Continental army, which suggestion was carried out on the 27th of November, 1777, and of course Lafayette's ardour for the Cause he was supporting flamed higher than before, on receiving this honour.
Soon, in accordance with General Was.h.i.+ngton's plan, it was decided that the American army was to encamp for the winter at Valley Forge, and of the dreary march there, uncheered by any great triumph, and when most of the soldiers were suffering from both cold and hunger, and the still drearier arrival and terrible subsequent privations and hards.h.i.+ps, the pages of history have made us too well acquainted to need to dwell on them here.
During that hard winter, there were those in command who were jealous of the intimacy between Was.h.i.+ngton and the young Marquis who attempted to break it up by offering Lafayette the command of an expedition into Canada, which it was thought his military ambition would tempt him to accept. It did, and in consequence he hastened to the headquarters of General Gates at Yorktown to receive further orders, where he found the General dining, surrounded by such evidences of luxury and high living as were never seen at Valley Forge, and when he proposed the toast, ”The Commander-in-chief of the American Armies,” to his surprise the toast was received without a cheer, which was his first intimation that there was any feeling in the American ranks hostile in the slightest degree to General Was.h.i.+ngton.
Almost at once he set out to undertake the commission given him, and not until it had proved a disastrous failure did he discover that it had been given without the sanction or even the knowledge of Was.h.i.+ngton. He wrote a letter of profound regret and humiliation to his Commander-in-chief, laying the whole matter before him, saying that he felt utterly distressed about the matter, to which Was.h.i.+ngton replied in a fatherly and calm letter, a.s.suring the young Marquis of his continued esteem, and gladly then Lafayette hastened back to Valley Forge, to again enjoy the companions.h.i.+p of his Commander-in-chief, to be inspired by his fatherly counsel.
But of what Lafayette was exposed to, of privation or of struggle, at that time Adrienne knew little, for he always wrote cheerfully to her, dwelling at length on any bit of brightness of which he could speak.
After having returned to Valley Forge he writes:
”My presence is more necessary to the American cause than you can possibly conceive. Many foreigners have endeavoured by every sort of artifice to make me discontented with this revolution and with him who is their chief. They have spread as loudly as they could the report that I was quitting the Continent. The English have proclaimed also loudly the same intention on my side. I cannot in justice appear to justify the malice of these people. If I were to depart many Frenchmen who are useful here would follow my example. General Was.h.i.+ngton would feel very unhappy if I were to speak of quitting him. His confidence in me is greater than I dare acknowledge, on account of my youth. In the place he occupies he is likely to be surrounded by flatterers or by secret enemies, he finds in me a sincere friend in whose bosom he may always confide his secret thoughts and who will always speak the truth. . . .”
Again he says, ”Several general officers have brought their wives to the camp. I envy them--not their wives--the happiness they enjoy in being able to see them. General Was.h.i.+ngton has also resolved to send for his wife. As to the English, they have received a re-inforcement of three hundred young ladies from New York!” Then with boyish simplicity he adds, ”Do you not think that at my return we shall be old enough to establish ourselves in our own house, live there happily together and receive our friends?” and the letter concludes, ”Adieu, my love. I only wish this project could be executed on this present day.”
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