THE CONCLUSION.
The victory was won. In the last assault, Campbell had reached the crest of the mountain, and the loyalists had given ground with decisive indications of defeat. Ferguson, in the hopeless effort to rally his soldiers, had flung himself into their van, but a bullet at this instant reached his heart; he fell from his seat, and his white horse, which had been conspicuous in the crowd of battle, bounded wildly through the ranks of the Whigs, and made his way down the mountain side.
Campbell passed onward, driving the royalists before him. For a moment the discomfited bands hoped to join their comrades in the rear, and, by a united effort, to effect a retreat: but the parties led by Sevier and Cleveland, cheered by the shouts of their victorious companions, urged their attacks with new vigor, and won the hill in time to intercept the fugitives. All hopes of escape being thus at an end, a white flag was displayed in token of submission; and the remnant of Ferguson's late proud and boastful army, now amounting to between eight and nine hundred men, surrendered to the assailants.
It has scarcely ever happened that a battle has been fought, in which the combatants met with keener individual exasperation than in this. The mortal hatred which embittered the feelings of Whig and Tory along this border, here vented itself in the eagerness of conflict, and gave the impulse to every blow that was struck—rendering the fight, from beginning to end, relentless, vindictive, and bloody. The remembrance of the thousand cruelties practised by the royalists during the brief Tory dominion to which my narrative has been confined, was fresh in the minds of the stern and hardy men of the mountains, who had pursued their foe with such fierce animosity to this his last stage. Every one had some wrong to tell, and burned with an unquenchable rage of revenge. It was, therefore, with a yell of triumph that they saw the symbol of submission raised aloft by the enemy; and for a space, the forest rang with their loud and reiterated huzzas.
Many brave men fell on either side. Upon the slopes of the mountain and on its summit, the bodies of the dead and dying lay scattered amongst the rocks, and the feeble groans of the wounded mingled with the fierce tones of exultation from the living. The Whigs sustained a grievous loss in Colonel Williams, who had been struck down in the moment of victory. He was young, ardent, and brave; and his many soldier-like virtues, combined with a generous and amiable temper, had rendered him a cherished favorite with the army. His death served still more to increase the exacerbation of the conquerors against the conquered.
The sun was yet an hour high when the battle was done. The Whigs were formed in two lines on the ridge of the mountain; and the prisoners, more numerous than their captors, having laid down their arms, were drawn up in detached columns on the intervening ground. There were many sullen and angry glances exchanged, during this period of suspense, between victors and vanquished; and it was with a fearful rankling of inward wrath, that many of the Whigs detected, in the columns of the prisoners, some of their bitterest persecutors.
This spirit was partially suppressed in the busy occupation that followed. Preparations were directed to be made for the night-quarters of the army; and the whole host was, accordingly, ordered to march to the valley. The surgeons of each party were already fully employed in their vocation. The bodies of the wounded were strewed around; and, for the protection of such as were not in a condition to be moved, shelters were made of the boughs of trees, and fires kindled to guard them from the early frost of the season. All the rest retired slowly to the appointed encampment.
Whilst Campbell was intent upon these cares, a messenger came to summon him to a scene of unexpected interest. He was informed that a gentleman, not attached to the army, had been dangerously wounded in the fight, and now lay at the further extremity of the mountain ridge. It was added that he earnestly desired an interview with the commanding officer. Campbell lost no time in attending to the request.
Upon repairing to the spot, his attention was drawn to a stranger who lay upon the ground. His wan and haggard cheek, and restless eye, showed that he suffered acute pain; and the blood upon his cloak, which had been spread beneath him, indicated the wound to have been received in the side. A private soldier of the British army was his only attendant. To Campbell's solicitous and kind inquiry, he announced himself, in a voice that was almost over-mastered by his bodily anguish, to be Philip Lindsay, of Virginia.
"You behold," he said, "an unhappy father in pursuit of his children." Then, after a pause, he continued, "My daughter Mildred, I have been told, is near me: I would see her, and quickly."
"God have mercy on us!" exclaimed Campbell, "is this the father of the lady who has sought my protection? Wounded too, and badly, I fear! Where is Major Butler, who was lately prisoner with Ferguson?" he said, addressing the attendant—"Go, go, sir," he added, speaking to the same person, "bring me the first surgeon you can find, and direct some three or four men from the ranks to come to your aid. Lose no time."
The soldier went instantly upon the errand, and soon returned with the desired assistance. Lindsay's wound had been already staunched, and all that remained to be done was to put him in some place of shelter and comfort. A cottage at the foot of the mountain was pointed out by Campbell; a litter was constructed, and the sick man was borne upon the shoulders of four attendants to the designated spot. Meantime, Campbell rode off to communicate the discovery he had made to Mildred and her brother.
Lindsay's story, since we last parted from him, may be briefly told. He and Tyrrel had journeyed into the low country of Virginia, to meet the friends of the royal government. These had wavered, and were not to be brought together. A delay ensued, during which Tyrrel had prevailed upon Lindsay to extend his journey into North Carolina; whence, after an ineffectual effort to bring the Tory party to some decisive step, they both returned to the Dove Cote, having been nearly three weeks absent.
Upon their arrival, the afflicting intelligence met Lindsay of the departure of Mildred and her brother for the seat of war, Mildred's letter was delivered to him; and its contents almost struck him dumb. It related the story of Arthur Butler's misfortunes, and announced, that, for nearly a year past, Mildred had been the wedded wife of the captive officer. The marriage had been solemnized in the preceding autumn, in a hasty moment, as Butler travelled south to join the army. The only witnesses were Mistress Dimock, under whose roof it had occurred, Henry Lindsay, and the clergyman. The motives that induced this marriage were explained: both Mildred and Arthur hoped, by this irremediable step, to reconcile Lindsay to the event, and to turn his mind from its unhappy broodings: the increased exasperation of his feelings, during the succeeding period, prevented the disclosure which Mildred had again and again essayed to make. The recent dangers which had beset Arthur Butler, had determined her to fly to his rescue. As his wife she felt it to be her duty, and she had, accordingly, resolved to encounter the peril of the journey.
For a day or two after the perusal of this letter, Lindsay fell into a deep melancholy. His presentiments seemed to have been fatally realized, and his hopes suddenly destroyed. From this despondency, Tyrrel's assiduous artifice aroused him. He proposed to Lindsay the pursuit of his children, in the hope of thus luring him into Cornwallis's camp, and connecting him with the fortunes of the war. The chances of life, he reasoned, were against Butler, if indeed, as Tyrrel had ground to hope, that officer were not already the victim of the snares that had been laid for him.
Upon this advice, Lindsay had set out for Cornwallis's head-quarters, where he arrived within a week after the interview of Mildred and Henry with the British chief.
Whilst he delayed here, he received the tidings that his daughter had abandoned her homeward journey, and turned aside in quest of Butler. This determined him to continue his pursuit. Tyrrel still accompanied him; and the two travellers having arrived at the moment of the attack upon King's mountain, Lindsay was persuaded by his companion to make the rash adventure which, we have already seen, had been the cause of his present misfortune.
It is not my purpose to attempt a description of the scene in the cottage, where Arthur Butler and his wife, and Henry, first saw Lindsay stretched upon a rude pallet, and suffering the anguish of a dangerous wound. It is sufficient to say that, in the midst of the deep grief of the bystanders, Lindsay was composed and tranquil, like one who thought it vain to struggle with fate. "I have foreseen this day, and felt its coming," he muttered, in a low and broken voice; "it has happened as it was ordained. I have unwisely struggled against my doom. There, take it," he added, as he stretched forth his hand to Butler, and in tones scarcely audible breathed out, "God bless you, my children! I forgive you."
During the night fever ensued, and with it came delirium. The patient acquired strength from his disease, and raved wildly, in a strain familiar to his waking superstition. The same vision of fate and destiny haunted his imagination; and he almost frightened his daughter from beside his couch, with the fervid eloquence of his madness.
The cottage was situated near half a mile from the encampment of the army. Towards daylight, Lindsay had sunk into a slumber, and the attendant surgeon began to entertain hopes that the patient might successfully struggle with his malady. Mildred and Mary Musgrove kept watch in the apartment, whilst Butler, with Horse Shoe Robinson and Allen Musgrove, remained anxiously awake in the adjoining room. Henry Lindsay, wearied with the toils of the preceding day, and old Isaac the negro, not so much from the provocation of previous labor as from constitutional torpor, lay stretched in deep sleep upon the floor.
Such was the state of things when, near sunrise, a distant murmur reached the ears of those who were awake in the cottage. These sounds attracted the notice of Horse Shoe, who immediately afterwards stole out of the apartment and repaired to the camp. During his walk thither the uproar became more distinct, and shouts were heard from a crowd of soldiers who were discovered in a confused and agitated mass in the valley, at some distance from the encampment. The sergeant hastened to this spot, and, upon his arrival, was struck with the shocking sight of the bodies of some eight or ten of the Tory prisoners suspended to the limbs of a large tree.
The repose of the night had not allayed the thirst of revenge amongst the Whigs. On the contrary, the opportunity of conference and deliberation had only given a more fatal certainty to their purpose. The recent executions which had been permitted in Cornwallis's camp, after the battle of Camden, no less than the atrocities lately practised by some of the Tories who were now amongst the captured, suggested the idea of a signal retribution. The obnoxious individuals were dragged forth from their ranks at early dawn, and summary punishment was inflicted by the excited soldiery in the manner which we have described, in spite of all remonstrance or command.
This dreadful work was still in progress when Horse Shoe arrived. The crowd were, at that moment, forcing along to the spot of execution a trembling wretch, whose gaunt form, crouching beneath the hands that held him, and pitiful supplications for mercy, announced him to the sergeant as an old acquaintance. The unfortunate man had caught a glance of Robinson, and, almost frantic with despair, sprang with a tiger's leap from the grasp of those who held him, and, in an instant, threw his arms around the sergeant's neck, where he clung with the hold of a drowning man.
"Oh save me, save me, Horse Shoe Robinson!" he exclaimed wildly. "Friend Horse Shoe, save me!"
"I am no friend of yours, Wat Adair," said Robinson, sternly.
"Speak for me—Galbraith—speak, for old acquaintance sake!"
"Hold!" said Robinson to the crowd who had gathered round to pluck the fugitive from his present refuge. "One word, friends! stand back, I have somewhat to say in this matter."
"He gave Butler into Hugh Habershaw's hands," cried out some of the crowd.
"He took the price of blood, and sold Butler's life for money—he shall die!" shouted others.
"No words!" exclaimed many, "but up with him!"
"Mr. Robinson," screamed Adair, with tears starting from his eyes, "only hear me! I was forced to take sides against Major Butler. The Tories would have burnt down my house; they suspected me,—I was obliged,—Mike Lynch was witness,—mercy, mercy!" and here the frightened culprit cried loud and bitterly.
"Friends," said Horse Shoe calmly to the multitude, "there is better game to hunt than this mountain-cat. Let me have my way."
"None has a better right than Horse Shoe Robinson," said a speaker from the group, "to say what ought to be done to Wat Adair. Speak out, Horse Shoe!"
"Speak! We leave it to you," shouted some of the leaders: and instantly the crowd fell back and formed a circle round Horse Shoe and Adair.
"I give you your choice," said the sergeant, addressing the captive, "for though your iniquities, Wat Adair, desarve that you should have been the first that was strung up to yonder tree, yet you shall have your choice, to tell us fully and truly, without holding back name of high or low, who put you on to ambush Major Arthur Butler's life at Grindall's Ford. Tell us that, to our satisfaction, and answer all other questions besides that we may ax you, and you shall have your life, taking, howsever, one hundred lashes to the back of it."
"I will confess all, before God, truly," cried Adair with eagerness. "James Curry told me of your coming, and gave me and Mike Lynch money to help Hugh Habershaw."
"James Curry had a master in the business," said Robinson: "His name?"
Adair hesitated for an instant and stammered out "Captain St. Jermyn."
"He was at your house? Speak it, man, or think of the rope!"
"He was there," said Adair.
"By my soul! Wat Adair, if you do not come out with the whole truth," said Robinson, with angry earnestness, "I take back my promise. Tell me all you know."
"Curry acted by the captain's directions," continued the woodsman, "he was well paid for it, as he told me, and would have got more, if a quarrel amongst Habershaw's people hadn't stopped them from taking Major Butler's life. So I have heard from the men myself."
"Well, sir?"
"That's all," replied Adair.
"Do you know nothing about the court-martial?" asked Robinson.
"Nothing, except that as the Major wasn't killed at the Ford, it was thought best to have a trial, wherein James Curry and Hugh Habershaw, as I was told, had agreed to swear against the Major's life."
"And were paid for it?"
"It was upon a consideration, in course," replied Adair.
"And Captain St. Jermyn contrived this?"
"It was said," answered Adair, "that the captain left it all to Curry, and rather seemed to take Major Butler's side himself at the trial. He didn't want to be known in the business!"
"Where is this Captain St. Jermyn?" demanded many voices.
This interrogatory was followed by the rush of the party towards the quarter in which the prisoners were assembled, and, after a lapse of time which seemed incredibly short for the performance of the deed, the unhappy victim of this tumultuary wrath was seen struggling in the agonies of death, as he hung from one of the boughs of the same tree which had supplied the means of the other executions.
By this time Butler and Henry Lindsay, attracted by the shouts that reached them at the cottage, had arrived at the scene of these dreadful events. Wat Adair was, at this moment, undergoing the punishment for which his first sentence was commuted. The lashes were inflicted by a sturdy arm upon his uncovered back; and it was remarkable that the wretch who but lately had sunk, with the most slavish fear, under the threat of death, now bore his stripes with a fortitude that seemed to disdain complaint or even the confession of pain. Butler and Henry hurried with a natural disgust from this spectacle, and soon found themselves near the spot where the lifeless forms of the victims of military vengeance were suspended from the tree.
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Butler, "is not that St. Jermyn? What has he done to provoke this doom?"
"It is Tyrrel!" ejaculated Henry. "Major Butler, it is Tyrrel! That face, black and horrible as it is to look at, I would know it among a thousand!"
"Indeed!" said Butler, gazing with a melancholy earnestness upon the scene, and speaking scarce above his breath, "is it so? Tyrrel and St. Jermyn the same person! This is a strange mystery."
Robinson, at this moment, approached, and, in answer to Butler's questions, told the whole story of the commotions that had just agitated the camp.
"St. Jermyn was not with Ferguson," said Butler, when the sergeant had finished his narrative. "How came he here to-day?"
"First or last," replied Robinson, "it is my observation, Major, that these schemers and contrivers against others' lives are sure to come to account. The devil put it into this St. Jermyn's head to make Ferguson a visit. He came yesterday with Mr. Lindsay, and got the poor gentleman his hurt. James Curry has done working for him now, Major. Master and man have travelled one road."
The scene was now closed. The business of the day called the troops to other labors. Campbell felt the necessity of an immediate retreat with his prisoners to the mountains, and his earliest orders directed the army to prepare for the march.
When Butler returned to the cottage, he found himself surrounded by a mournful group. The malady of Lindsay had unexpectedly taken a fatal turn. Mildred and Henry were seated by the couch of their father, watching in mute anguish the last ebbings of life. The dying man was composed and apparently free from pain, and the few words he spoke were of forgiveness and resignation.
In the midst of their sorrow and silence, the inmates of the dwelling had their attention awakened by the military music of the retiring army. These cheerful sounds vividly contrasted with the grief of the mourners, and told of the professional indifference of soldiers to the calamities of war. By degrees, the martial tones became more faint, as the troops receded up the valley; and before they were quite lost to the ear, Campbell and Shelby appeared at the door of the cottage to explain the urgency of their present departure, and to take a sad farewell of their friends.
Stephen Foster, with Harry Winter and a party of the Rangers, remained behind to await the movements of Butler. Horse Shoe Robinson, Allen Musgrove, and his daughter, were in constant attendance.
Here ends my story.
In a lonely thicket, close upon the margin of the little brook which waters the valley on the eastern side of King's mountain, the traveller of the present day may be shown an almost obliterated mound, and hard by he will see the fragment of a rude tombstone, on which is carved the letters P. L. This vestige marks the spot where the remains of Philip Lindsay were laid, until the restoration of peace allowed them to be transported to the Dove Cote.
There, also, in a happier day, Arthur Butler and Mildred took up their abode; and notwithstanding the fatal presentiment in regard to the fortunes of his house which had thrown so dark a color upon the life of Philip Lindsay, lived long enough after the revolution to see grow up around them a prosperous and estimable family.
Mary Musgrove, too, attended Mildred, and attained an advanced, and I hope a happy old age, at the Dove Cote.
Wat Adair, I have heard it said in Carolina, died a year after the battle of King's mountain, of a horrible distemper, supposed to have been produced by the bite of a rabid wolf. I would fain believe, for the sake of poetical justice, that this was true.
Another item of intelligence, to be found in the history of the war, may have some reference to our tale. I find that, in the summer of 1781, Colonel Butler was engaged in the pursuit of Cornwallis in his retreat from Albemarle towards Williamsburgh: my inquiries do not enable me to say, with precision, whether it was our friend Arthur Butler who had met this promotion. His sufferings in the cause certainly deserved such a reward.
[1] This stricture, true in 1835, the date of the first edition of these volumes has, I am happy to notice, lost much of its point in the lapse of sixteen years.