Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary Times

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

In this condition, though much exhausted, he, with a wounded American soldier, was directed to march on foot, while the British wounded soldiers were mounted on a horse taken from the General's barn. They departed in great haste. When they had proceeded about a mile, they met, at a small house, a number of people collected, and who inquired if they had taken General Wadsworth. They said no, and added that they must leave a wounded man in their care, and if they paid proper attention to him, they should be compensated; but if not, they would burn down their house. The man appeared to be dying. General Wadsworth was mounted on the horse behind the other wounded soldier, and was warned that his safety depended on his silence. Having passed over a frozen mill-pond about a mile in length, they were met by some of their party who had been left behind. At this place they found a British privateer, which brought the party from the fort. The Captain, on being told that he must return there with the prisoner and the party, and seeing some of his men wounded, became outrageous, and cursing the General for a rebel, demanded how he dared to fire on the king's troops, and commanded him to help launch the boat, or he would put his hanger through his body. The General replied that he was a prisoner, and badly wounded, and could not assist in launching the boat. Lieutenant Stockton, on hearing of this abusive treatment, in a manner honorable to himself, told the Captain that the prisoner was a gentleman, had made a brave defense, and was to be treated accordingly, and added, that his conduct should be represented to General Campbell. After this the Captain treated the prisoner with great civility, and afforded him every comfort in his power.

General Wadsworth had left the ladies in the house, not a window of which escaped destruction. The doors were broken down, and two of the rooms were on fire; the floors were covered with blood, and on one of them lay a brave old soldier dangerously wounded, begging for death, that he might be released from misery. The anxiety and distress of Mrs. Wadsworth were inexpressible, and that of the General was greatly increased by the uncertainty in his mind respecting the fate of his little son, only five years old, who had been exposed to every danger by firing into the house; but he had the happiness, afterward, of hearing of his safety.

Having arrived at the British fort, the capture of General Wadsworth was soon announced, and the shore thronged with spectators, to see the man who, through the preceding year, had disappointed all the designs of the British in that quarter; and loud shouts were heard from the rabble that covered the shore. But when he arrived at the fort, and was conducted into the officer's guard-room, he was treated with politeness. General Campbell, the commandant of the British garrison, sent his compliments to him, and a surgeon to dress his wound, assuring him that his situation should be made comfortable. The next morning, General Campbell invited him to breakfast, and at table paid him many compliments in the defense he had made, observing, however, that he had exposed himself in a degree not perfectly justifiable. General Wadsworth replied that from the manner of the attack, he had no reason to suspect any design of taking him alive, and that he intended, therefore, to sell his life as dearly as possible. He was then informed that a room in the officers' barracks within the fort, was prepared for him, and that an Orderly Sergeant should daily attend him to breakfast and dinner at the commandant's table. Having retired to his solitary apartment, and while his spirit was extremely depressed by a recollection of the past, and by his present situation, he received from General Campbell several books of amusement, and soon after a visit from him, kindly endeavoring to cheer the spirits of his prisoner by conversation. The principal officers of the garrison also called upon him, and from them all, whom he daily met at the commandant's table, he received particular attention and kindness.

"He now made application for a flag of truce, by which means he could transmit a letter to the Governor of Massachusetts, and another to Mrs. Wadsworth. This was granted on the condition that the letter to the Governor should be inspected. The flag was intrusted to Lieutenant Stockton, and on his return, the General was relieved from all anxiety respecting his wife and family. At the end of five weeks, he requested of General Campbell the customary privilege of parole, and received in reply that his case had been reported to the commanding officer at New York, and that no alteration could be made, till orders were received from that quarter. In about two months' time, Mrs. Wadsworth and Miss Fenno arrived, and the officers of the garrison contributed to render their visit agreeable to all concerned.

"About the same time, orders were received from the commanding General at New York, which were concealed from General Wadsworth, but he finally learned that he was not to be paroled nor exchanged, but was to be sent to England as a rebel of too much consequence to be at liberty. Not long afterward, Major Benjamin Benton, a brave and worthy man, who had served under the General the preceding summer, was taken and brought into the fort, and lodged in the same room with him. He had been informed that both himself and the General were to be sent immediately after the return of a privateer now on a cruise, either to New York or Halifax, and thence to England. The prisoners immediately resolved to make a desperate effort to effect their escape. They were confined in a grated room in the officers' barracks within the fort. The wells of this fortress, exclusively of the depth of the ditch surrounding it, were twenty feet high, with fraising on top, and chevaux-de-frise at the bottom.

"Two sentinels were always in the entry, and their door—the upper part of which was glass—might be opened by their watchmen whenever they thought proper, and was actually opened at seasons of peculiar darkness and silence. At the exterior doors of the entries, sentinels were also stationed, as were others in the body of the fort, and at the quarters of General Campbell. At the guard-house a strong guard was daily mounted. Several sentinels were stationed on the walls of the fort, and a complete line occupied them by night. Without the ditch, glacis and abattis, another complete set of soldiers patroled through the night, and a picket guard was placed in or near the isthmus leading from the fort to the main land. Notwithstanding all these fearful obstacles to success, they resolved to make the perilous attempt.

"The room in which they were confined was railed with boards. One of these they determined to cut off so as to make a hole large enough to pass through, and then to creep along till they should come to the next or middle entry; and there lower themselves down into this entry by a blanket. If they should not be discovered, the passage to the walls of the fort was easy. In the evening, after the sentinels had seen the prisoners retire to bed, General Wadsworth got up, and standing in a chair attempted to cut with his knife, the intended opening, but soon found it impracticable. The next day, by giving a soldier a dollar they procured a gimlet. With this instrument they proceeded cautiously and as silently as possible to separate the board, and in order to conceal every appearance from their servants and from the officers, their visitors, they carefully covered the gimlet holes with chewed bread. At the end of three weeks, their labors were so far completed, that it only remained to cut with a knife, the parts which were left to hold the piece in its place. When their preparations were finished, they learned that the privateer in which they were to embark was daily expected.

"In the evening of the 18th of June, a very severe storm of rain, with great darkness and almost incessant lightning, came on. This the prisoners considered as the propitious moment. Having extinguished their lights, they began to cut the corners of the board, and in less than an hour the intended opening was completed. The noise which the operation occasioned was drowned by the rain falling on the roof. Major Benton first ascended to the ceiling, and pressed himself through the opening. General Wadsworth next, having put the corner of his blanket through the hole and made it fast by a strong wooden skewer, attempted to make his way through, standing on a chair below, but it was with extreme difficulty that he at length effected it, and reached the middle entry. From this he passed through the door which he found open, and made his way to the wall of the fort, and had to encounter the greatest difficulty before he could ascend to the top. He had now to creep along the top of the fort between the sentry boxes, at the very moment when the relief was shifting sentinels, but the falling of the heavy rain kept the sentinels within their boxes, and favored his escape. Having now fastened his blanket round a picket at the top, he let himself down through the chevaux-de-frise to the ground, and, in a manner astonishing to himself, made his way into the open field. Here he was obliged to grope his way among rocks, stumps and brush in the darkness of night, till he reached the cove. Happily the tide had ebbed, and he was enabled to cross the water, which was about a mile in breadth, and not more than three feet deep.

"About two o'clock in the morning, General Wadsworth found himself a mile and a half from the fort, and he proceeded through a thick wood and brush to the Penobscot river, and, after passing some distance along the shore, being seven miles from the fort, to his unspeakable joy he saw his friend Benton advancing toward him. Major Benton had been obliged to encounter in his course equal difficulties with his companion, and such were the incredible perils, dangers and obstructions which they surmounted, that their escape may be considered almost miraculous.

"It was now necessary that they should cross the Penobscot river, and very fortunately they discovered a canoe with oars on the shore suited to their purpose. While on the river, they discovered a barge with a party of the British from the fort, in pursuit of them, but by taking an oblique course, and plying their oars to the utmost, they happily eluded the eyes of their pursuers, and arrived safe on the western shore. After having wandered in the wilderness for several days and nights, exposed to extreme fatigue and cold, and with no other food than a little dry bread and meat, which they brought in their pockets from the fort, they reached the settlements on the river St. George, and no further difficulties attended their return to their respective families."