Major André was with Sir Henry Clinton at the siege and capture of Charleston in the spring of 1780, and there is clear evidence that he played the part of a spy in that tragedy. It is asserted that Edward Shrewsberry, a respectable citizen of Charleston, but a suspected Tory, was ill at his house on East Bay during the siege. His Whig brother, who belonged to the American army, frequently visited him. He saw at his Tory brother's house, on several occasions, a young man clad in homespun, who was introduced to him as a Virginian, also belonging to the patriot army. After the capitulation, and the British were in possession of the city, the Continental soldier saw at the house of his sick brother the same young man, but in different apparel, who was introduced to him as Major André, of the British army. His brother afterward confessed that the major and the homespun-clad young "Virginian" were one and the same man. To another visitor this young man in homespun was introduced by Shrewsberry as "a back-country man who had brought down cattle for the garrison." He was afterward informed that the cattle-driver was Major André.
If these assertions be true—and there is no reason for doubting their truth—Major André did not hesitate, when an occasion offered, to play the part of a spy for the benefit of his king and country. Six months afterward, when circumstances had placed him in that position, and he was a prisoner, he expressed, in a letter to Washington, a desire to rescue himself from "an imputation of having assumed a mean character for treacherous purposes or self-interest."
In the early autumn of 1780 Major André was made adjutant-general of the British forces in America. He was then busy in consummating the intrigue and conspiracy with Arnold. The time had arrived when it had become necessary to bring matters to a head—to settle upon a definite plan and time for action, terms, etc. Arnold had, at his own earnest solicitation, been appointed to the command at West Point and its dependencies in August, and had resolved to surrender that strong post into the hands of the enemies of his country. It was an object of covetous desire on the part of the British, for the possession of it would open a free communication between New York and Canada, which they had been endeavoring to secure ever since the invasion of Burgoyne in 1777. The subject of the surrender of West Point was the burden of the correspondence between Arnold and André early in September.
At midsummer, 1780, an occasion drew from Major André's pen his most notable satirical poem, in imitation, in structure and metre, of the famous old British ballad, "Chevy Chase." It appears to have been written for the twofold purpose of gratifying his own quick perception of the ludicrous and to retaliate in kind the satirical attacks of Whig writers upon him and his friends. The occasion was an expedition in July against a block-house on the west bank of the Hudson, three or four miles below Fort Lee, at the base of the Palisades, which was occupied by a British picket of seventy men—loyal refugees—for the protection of some wood-cutters and the neighboring Tories.
On Bergen Neck, not far from the block-house, were a large number of cattle and horses within reach of the British foragers who might go out from the fort at Paulus' Hook (now Jersey City). Washington sent General Wayne with horse and foot—less than two thousand men—to storm the block-house and to drive the cattle within the American lines. Wayne sent the cavalry under Major Henry Lee ("Legion Harry," father of the late General Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate army), to perform the latter duty, while he, with three regiments, marched against the block-house with four pieces of light artillery. A brief but sharp skirmish ensued. The assailants were compelled to retire, and Wayne returned to camp with a large number of cattle driven by the dragoons. The failure to capture the block-house was attributed to the ineffectualness of the small cannons.
The "Cow-Chase" was published in Rivington's "Gazette," the last canto on the day of the author's arrest as a spy at Tarrytown. He made copies of the poem for his friends. Of one of these, belonging to the late Rev. Dr. Sprague, of Albany, I was permitted, in 1849, to make the following copy of the poem given in the next chapter; also the fac-simile given of the last stanza of the poem in the handwriting of Major André.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] This poem, with explanatory notes, may be found in Frank Moore's "Ballads of the Revolution."
[25] Beverly Robinson was a gentleman of fortune, a son-in-law of Frederick Phillipse, proprietor of Phillipse Manor on the Hudson, and a very active Tory.
[26] See a copy of this letter in the "Life and Career of John André," by Winthrop Sargent, p. 447.