X.
DISASTERS AT THE SOUTH.
Gen. Gates takes the command of the southern army. The British at this time had almost undisputed possession of South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. In this condition Gates resolved to risk a general battle with Lord Cornwallis, and for which he was severely blamed. He lost the battle, hence the blame. If, on the other hand, he had gained it, he would have gained another laurel to place by the side of the one gained at Saratoga. At this battle, Gen. Gates lost more than two thousand men, and among them three valuable officers. Gen. Gregory was killed, and Baron de Kalb and Gen. Rutherford of Carolina were taken prisoners. This was the result of the battle at Camden. At this time, Col. Bigelow was watching the movements of the British troops in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. In this stage of the narrative, the writer cannot refrain from a passing tribute of respect to the memory of those patriotic women of South Carolina, who displayed so ardent, so rare a love of country, that scarcely could there be found in ancient or modern history an instance more worthy to excite surprise and admiration. They repaired on board ships, they descended into dungeons where their husbands, children or friends were in confinement. They carried them consolation and encouragement. "Summon your magnanimity," they said, "yield not to the fury of tyrants; hesitate not to prefer prisons to infamy, death to servitude. America has fixed her eyes on her beloved defenders; you will reap, doubt it not, the fruit of your sufferings; they will produce liberty, that parent of all blessing; they will shelter her forever from the assaults of British banditti; you are the martyrs of a cause the most grateful to Heaven, and sacred to man." By such words these generous women mitigated the miseries of the unhappy prisoners. Exasperated at their constancy, the English condemned the most zealous of them to banishment and confiscation. In bidding a last farewell to their fathers, their children, their brothers, their husbands, these heroines, far from betraying the least mark of weakness, which in men might have been excused, exhorted them to arm themselves with intrepidity. They conjured them not to allow fortune to vanquish them, nor to suffer the love they bore their families to render them unmindful of all they owed their country. A supernatural alacrity seemed to animate them, when they accompanied their husbands into distant countries, and even when they immured themselves with them in the fetid ships into which they were inhumanly crowded. Reduced to the most frightful indigence, they were seen to beg bread for themselves and families. Among those who were nurtured in the lap of opulence, many passed suddenly from the most delicate and the most elegant style of living, to the rudest toils, and to the humblest services. But humiliation could not triumph over their resolution and cheerfulness; their example was a support to their companions in misfortune. To this heroism of the women of Carolina it is principally to be imputed, that the love, and even the name of liberty, were not totally extinguished in the southern provinces. Col. Bigelow, hearing of the loss of Gates' army, and the appointment of Gen. Green to the command of the southern department, solicited and received orders from the commander-in-chief to move on with his regiment to join Green; but did not arrive in season to participate in the battles of Hobkirk and of Eutaw Springs, which closed the campaign in the south.
XI.
BATTLE AT YORKTOWN.
Yorktown is a port of entry in Virginia, 70 miles E. S. E. from Richmond, on the south side of York river, opposite Gloucester. The British army from the South had encamped at this place and fortified it. Col. Bigelow had arrived with his regiment to join Gen. Green. Col. Bigelow is now in Gen. Lafayette's detachment. Lafayette's second officer is Col. Hamilton, aid-de-camp of the commander-in-chief, a young man of the highest expectations, and accompanied by Col. Laurens, son of the former President of Congress.
Another detachment was commanded by the Baron de Viomesnit, the Count Charles de Damas, and the Count de Deux-Ponts. The commanders addressed their soldiers a short exhortation to inflame their courage; they represented that this last effort would bring them to the close of their glorious toils. The attack was extremely impetuous. Gen. Lafayette is ordered to attack the right redoubt, while the Baron de Viomesnit is to attack the left. This was done at the point of the bayonet. Suffice it to say, that both redoubts were carried. One of Col. Bigelow's men, on being inquired of by the writer where his Colonel was at this time, answered, "Why, old Col. Tim was everywhere all the time, and you would thought if you had been there, that there was nobody else in the struggle but Col. Bigelow and his regiment." Before the morning of the 19th, those redoubts were all repaired and manned by the allies.
Now comes the celebrated 19th day of October, 1781. The day began to appear, the allies open a tremendous fire from all their batteries; the bombs showered copiously, the French fleet, under the command of Count De Grasse, are opening a most deadly fire from the harbor. Lord Cornwallis sends in a flag to General Washington, proposing a cessation of arms for twenty-four hours. Washington would not consent to it, and would grant but two hours, and during this interval he should expect the propositions of the British commander. The proposition is made and accepted. The British flotilla, consisting of two frigates, the Guadaloupe and Fowey, besides about twenty transports (twenty others had been burnt during the siege), one hundred and sixty pieces of field artillery, mostly brass, with eight mortars, more than seven thousand prisoners, exclusive of seamen, five hundred and fifty slain, including one officer (Major Cochrane), were surrendered into the hands of the armies of France and America, whose loss was about four hundred and fifty in killed and wounded.