She followed the missionary, and placed herself in his boat just as it was putting off, leaving old Mother Derwent weeping helplessly on the hearth, and Mary encouraging her sister, full of serene fortitude, and praying silently for the safety of the neighbors and friends who were marching to the fight.
And now the cry of mustering battle rose like wildfire through the valley. The farmers forsook the fields, mechanics left their workshops, and armed with such weapons as presented themselves, gathered in companies, eager to drive out their invaders. Women left their cabins, and with their children sought the shelter of various forts, or armed themselves like the men, and stood at bay on their own thresholds. It was one of these companies, filing off towards Forty Fort, the most extensive fortification on the river, which Aunt Polly had met on her way to Monockonok Island. Col. Zebulon Butler, a staunch patriot and an officer of the Continental army, had chanced to return home on a visit to his family at this awful period, and was, by unanimous consent, made commander-in-chief. Colonels Denison and Dorrance volunteered their aid, and that day came five commissions from the army, accompanied by the missionary, who having attained intelligence of the invasion, went to urge their presence. Thus the raw recruits were officered by experienced men, and there was hope from delay, for Captain Spralding was already on his march to the valley with a well-drilled company.
With these advantages and hopes there arose a division of opinion in the council at Forty Fort; but the impetuous and inexperienced carried the day, and the opinion of the brave commander was overruled. Alas! for that council and the men who controlled it! The fatal order was given. In a body the patriots were about to storm Wintermoot’s Fort, hoping to surprise its garrison.
Having decided their own fearful destiny, this band of martyrs marched out of the fort and mustered under the clear sun, which they would never see rise again.
FORTY FORT
It was a mournful sight—those old Connecticut women standing in front of the block-house ready to say farewell and call God’s mercy down upon the heads their bosoms had pillowed, in some cases, for fifty years; heads too grey for the general service for which their sons had gone, but not too grey for defence of those grand old wives and mothers, who, fired with patriotism and yet pale with terror, stood to see them go.
Seldom have troops like those gone forth to battle. No fathers and sons marched side by side there, but grandfathers and grandsons, the two extremes of life, stood breast to breast on that fateful day. Congress had drawn the strength and pith of the valley into its own army and left it cruelly defenceless. Thus each household gave up its old men and boys, while the mothers, already half-bereaved, looked on with trembling lips ready to cry out with anguish, but making mournful efforts to cheer them with their quivering voices. Lads, too young for battle, saw their elder brothers file off with reckless envy, while the little grandchildren, who looked upon the whole muster as a pleasant show, clapped their hands in glee, more painful still, and followed the grey-headed battalion with sparkling eyes.
Younger women, with husbands in the wars, strove to console their mothers, but dropped into silence with the vague words upon their lips, while the children tugged at their garments and clamored for one more sight of the soldiers.
When all were gone—when the hollow tramp of those moving masses could no longer be heard, the women looked at each other with a vague feeling of desolation. The bravest heart gave way then; one woman threw an apron over her head, that no one might see her crying; another looked upon the earth with her withered hands locked, and tears finding mournful channels in the wrinkles of her quivering face; another sat down on the ground; gathered her children around her, and wept in their midst, while two or three strove to dash their fears away with wild attempts at boastfulness and defiance, and the rest fell to work preparing to receive the fugitives who were every moment applying for admission to the fort.