There is nothing more true, than that in war as in love, much depends upon accident, and an alarm is frequently conveyed and a victory won, by circumstances entirely the act of chance. As a case in point. In the retreat of the British after the battle of Monks’ Corner, Lt. Col. Stuart ordered all the arms belonging to the dead and wounded to be collected, and when the retreating enemy had marched on, they were set fire to by the rear guard. As many of the muskets were loaded, an irregular discharge followed, resembling the desultory fire which usually precedes a battle. The retreating army immediately supposed, that Greene was up and had commenced an attack on their rear—and the dismay and confusion was so great, that the wagoners cut the traces of their horses and galloped off, leaving the wagons on the route. The followers of the army fled in like manner, and the terror was rapidly increasing, when the cessation of the firing quelled the alarm.
But the most exciting incident that our fellow voyager related, and one which would well merit the attention of the painter, was the spirited affair at Quinby’s Bridge. When the British army in their turn were retreating, Sumpter, Marion and Lee frequently were able to act in concert. The 19th British Regiment, Lt. Col. Coates, having become isolated at Monks’ Corner, Marion and Lee determined to fall upon it, and cut it off by surprise before it could obtain relief. The British officer having taken the precaution to secure the bridge across the Cooper river by a strong detachment, it became necessary for them to make a long circuit, through the deep sands in the hottest part of the summer, before they could form a junction with Sumpter, whose aid was required in the intended attack. The junction was not effected until evening, and the attack was necessarily deferred until the following morning; but about midnight the whole sky becoming illuminated by a great conflagration, it was evident that the enemy had taken the alarm. They had set fire to the church to destroy the stores, and had decamped in silence. By the neglect of the militia, who had deserted a bridge at which they were stationed, the enemy had been able to draw off, and obtain a considerable distance in advance, before their retreat was discovered. Lee immediately followed on with the cavalry in pursuit of the main body, but was unable to come up with it, until he had arrived in the neighbourhood of Quinby’s Bridge, about eighteen miles from Monks’ Corner. Upon his first approach, he discovered the baggage of the regiment under a rear guard of about one hundred men, advancing along a narrow road, the margin of which was bordered by a deep swamp on both sides. As soon as the cavalry came in view, the British officer formed his men across the road, which they had hardly effected, when the charge was sounded, and the Legion cavalry rushed upon them with drawn swords at full gallop. The voice of the British officer was distinctly heard: “Front rank,—bayonets—second rank,—fire!”—and as no discharge immediately followed, the cavalry officers felt extreme solicitude, lest its reservation was meant to make it the more fatal on their near approach, for on the narrow road, and in the close column in which they were rushing on, a well-directed fire would have emptied half of their saddles—but happily the soldiers, alarmed by the formidable appearance of the cavalry, threw down their arms and supplicated for quarter, which the cavalry were most happy to grant them. The prisoners being secured, the main body of the cavalry pushed on under Armstrong for the bridge, which was still about three miles in front, in the hope of cutting off the enemy before they should succeed in reaching it. As Armstrong came in sight, he found that Coates had passed the bridge, and that he was indolently reposing on the opposite side of the river, awaiting his rear guard and baggage. He had, by way of precaution, taken up the planks from the bridge, letting them lie loosely on the sleepers, intending as soon as the rear should have crossed, to destroy it. Seeing the enemy with the bridge thus interposed, which he knew was contrary to the commandant’s anticipations, Armstrong drew up, and sent back word to Lee, who was still with the prisoners, requesting orders, never communicating the fact that the bridge was interposed. Lee’s adjutant soon came galloping back with the laconic answer:—“The order of the day, sir, is to fall upon the enemy, without regard to consequences.”
The gallant Armstrong for a moment leaned forward in his saddle, towards the adjutant, as if thunder-struck, with this reflection on his courage,—in the next his sword glanced like a streak of light around his head, his noble horse leapt with a snort clear of the ground, as the spur-rowels were buried to the gaffs in his sides, and in another shouting in a voice of thunder—“Legion cavalry, charge!” at the head of his section, he cleared the bridge, the horses throwing off the loose planks in every direction, the next instant driving the soldiers headlong from the howitzer which they had mounted at the other end to defend it, he was cutting and slashing in the very centre of the British regiment, which, taken completely by surprise, threw down their arms, retreating in every direction. The horses of Armstrong’s section had thrown off the planks as they cleared the bridge, leaving a yawning chasm, beneath which the deep black stream was rushing turbidly onwards; but Lt. Carrington, at the head of his section, took the leap and closed with Armstrong, engaged in a desperate personal encounter with Lt. Col. Coates, who had had barely time to throw himself with a few of his officers behind some baggage-wagons, where they were parrying the sabre cuts made by the dragoons at their heads. Most of the soldiers, alarmed at the sudden attack, had abandoned their officers, and were running across the fields, to shelter themselves in a neighbouring farm-house. Lee, by this time, had himself got up to the bridge, where O’Neal, with the third section had halted, the chasm having been so much enlarged by Carrington’s horses throwing off additional planks, that his horses would not take the leap, and seeing the howitzer abandoned, and the whole regiment dispersed, except the few officers who were defending themselves with their swords, while they called upon the flying soldiers for assistance, he proceeded to recover and replace the planks. The river was deep in mud, and still deeper in water, so that the dragoons could neither get a footing to re-place the planks, nor a firm spot from which they might swim their horses to the aid of their comrades. Seeing this posture of affairs, some of the bravest of the British soldiers began to hurry back to the assistance of their officers, and Armstrong and Carrington, being unable to sustain with only one troop of dragoons, so unequal a combat, they abandoned the contest, forcing their way down the great road, into the woods on the margin of the stream, in the effort to rejoin the corps. Relieved from the immediate danger, Coates hastened back to the bridge, and opened a fire from the deserted howitzer upon Lee and the soldiers, who were fruitlessly striving to repair the bridge, and being armed only with their sabres, which the chasm made perfectly useless, as they could not reach the enemy across it, they were also forced to give up the attempt, and retire without the range of the fire from the gun.
Marion shortly after coming up, in conjunction with Lee marched some distance down the banks, where they were enabled to ford the stream, and effect a passage. In the edge of the evening, they reached the farm-house, but found that Coates had fortified himself within it, with his howitzer, and was thus impregnable to cavalry. “While halting in front, Armstrong and Carrington came up with their shattered sections. Neither of the officers were hurt, but many of the bravest dragoons were killed, and still more wounded. Some of their finest fellows—men, who had passed through the whole war esteemed and admired, had fallen in this honourable but unsuccessful attempt.” Being without artillery, and within striking distance of Charleston, they were obliged, fatigued as they were, to commence their retreat. Placing the wounded in the easiest posture for conveyance, and laying the dead on the pommels of their saddles, the Legion counter-marched fifteen miles; at its close, burying in sadness and grief in one common sepulchre the bodies of those that had fallen.
These anecdotes of the Legion are but a few of the many stirring and spirited narrations with which Lee whiled away the time, as we glided along on our return up the river. His own observations and adventures in travelling over the world were not wanting for our amusement, for, with a mind well prepared for its enjoyment, he had passed the years that had intervened, since I last saw him, in travelling leisurely over Europe and the East. With the true philosophy of life, calling all men brothers, and restrained by no narrow prejudices of country or habit, he had entered eagerly into the manners and participated in the amusements of those around him. First after the hounds in England, he shouted “tally ho!” with all the enthusiasm of the veriest sportsman in the hunt; while his voice was heard equally loud and jovial in the wild and half frantic chorus of the drinking and smoking students of Germany. He scrupled not to wear his beard long, and partake of the hard black loaf in the cabin of the Russian boor, while, with equal equanimity he wore his turban, and smoked his chiboque cross-legged in the caffarets of Turkey. He climbed the huge pyramids, and their dark and silent chambers echoed the sounds of his voice, as he called on Cheops, Isis and Orus; and, kneeling in the gorgeous mosque of Omar, he worshipped the true God, while the muzzeim from its minarets was proclaiming, that Mahomet was his prophet. He had luxuriated amid the never-dying works of the great masters at Florence, and, lulled by the harmonious chaunt of the gondolier, had swept over the moonlit lagoons of Venice. He had whirled in all the gaiety of living Paris, and measured with careful steps the silent streets of dead Herculaneum and Pompeii. He had stood amid the awful stillness on the glittering ice-covered summits of Mont Blanc, and looked fearlessly down into the great roaring caverns of fire boiling in the crater of Vesuvius—but now there was a sadness about his heart which rarely lighted up, and, as I have observed, it was only under momentary excitement that he blazed into brilliant entertainment.
As the fresh breeze wafted us swiftly onwards, Venus, mid the stars trembling in unnumbered myriads, rivalled with her silvery rays the great round-orbed moon, sailing joyously in her career high in the heavens above us,—and soon the bright beacon on the plantation shore, lighted for our guidance, shone steadily over the dark water, and ere long we were all quietly seated at the supper-table, with our beautiful hostess at its head,—again in Tom’s cottage on the banks of the Potomac.
Note.—The incidents related in the above article are derived from “Lee’s Southern Campaigns” and “Col. Gardner’s Military Anecdotes,” where, if he has not already perused them, the reader will find much to interest and amuse him.