Sad words these, sad unfortunate words, because they came too late. Poor Decatur! he died at half past ten o'clock that night. When he was struck by the ball which lodged in his abdomen, he is said to have spoken thus, "I am hurt mortally, and wish that I had fallen in defence of my country." Yes, that was his great sorrow; he saw the uselessness of it all.
So much for the code duello, so much for false pride and extreme ideas of what should touch one's honor. Can we think that such things really happened, and so short a time ago! Have we not reason to rejoice that it is all over? That people no longer start at the sound of shots in shady lanes, run across tragedies on lawns or in tavern courtyards? There is just another word or so to add that points a stronger moral and rounds up the chapter: Joseph Bainbridge fell also in a duel. He, alas, had many of them; but like all the rest, there was a last one. The public mourned many times because good men were lost for causes in which the nation had no interest and that could have been passed by with a wave of the hand. A sad history that of "the field of honor."
DARTMOOR
The word "Dartmoor" means little to the ear of the American of this generation, for it is the name of a town on the bleak open stretches back from the sea in Devonshire. But during our war with England, and for a long time afterward, the word "Dartmoor" brought up much the same kind of recollections that "Andersonville" or "Libby" does to-day. It was the prison where England kept in confinement those unfortunates that the fate of war had thrown upon her hands. It was a safe seclusion, indeed, and for the better explanation of the story that is to be told here, it might be well worth the while to tell in a few words what manner of place it was. Surrounding an enclosure, circular in shape, and containing about eight acres, was a high stone wall, where the sentries patrolled their beats, where they could look down into the courtyards of the gloomy prison buildings some twenty feet below them. The enclosure was divided into three partitions, by walls that crossed the main space diagonally, and through which there were grated gateways leading from one department to the other. The buildings, seven in number, radiated from a common point like wheel spokes. They were built of brick, with small iron-barred windows, and in the entrance archway, leading from one yard to another (each building had a separate yard), there were always stationed after sunset two armed sentries with primed muskets. While the occupants of any one building had access to all parts of it and to the others during the daytime, it was difficult, indeed, to make a journey, or pay a visit, after nightfall.
Here were confined six thousand prisoners, and here were suffered hardships without number. There would be scarcely space to tell of the prison life, but some there were there who had been immured so long that they had almost forgotten that they had lived anywhere else. They had become so resigned to the lot of a prisoner of war, that they had begun to doubt if they should ever see their own beautiful country again. From the upper windows of the prisons, the view above the walls was nothing but a stretch of bleak, rolling country, treeless and barren—the Dartmoor heaths. The inmates had formed a government among themselves; as was done in most military prisons, many worked at their trades, as well as they could; they had markets in which they sold their wares; they had theatrical companies, which served to keep up their spirits, and lighten the dreary hours; but there was one thought in the hearts of all: the day when they should receive their liberty. Many were never to see that day.
There was a young sailor confined in the prison building known as No. 5. His strong constitution and his youth had kept him in a fair state of health for one who had been so long in close confinement, for he had been captured in a privateer in the first year of the war. Many times had he thought of his far-away home on the hills above the old town of Salem. He was popular with his fellow-prisoners, and had been a leader among them in their sports and pastimes. George Abbott was his name. He was but six and twenty years of age, and yet he had followed the sea for over twelve. When he had been captured there had been taken with him a young lad of but eighteen, who had run away from a comfortable home and a loving family, to enlist on board the privateer, but he was not of the tough fibre of which the sailor should be made, and since his arrival in prison he had been gradually succumbing to the effects of his long imprisonment. Between Abbott and this young man there had grown up a deep affection. The sailor had shielded the landsman from much of the rough treatment of the forecastle while on board ship, and now that they were prisoners together, they had been constant companions; but it was plain to see that the younger of the two would not last long enough to see the dawn of liberty unless it came quickly. He had grown so weak that by the middle of February, 1815, it was expected by all that every day he would be taken from the prison buildings and sent to the Depot Hospital, from which, alas, few ever returned. But Abbott nursed him carefully, and watched over him with all the care of an elder brother, trying to be always cheerful.
March came, and with it the gloomy mists that rose from all around settled down on the gloomy heaths, shrouding the prison buildings in impenetrable clouds. It was hard to keep either dry or warm. Those fortunates who owned little stoves would huddle around their handful of fire, but the prisons being unheated and unprovided with chimneys, the stoves were very small, their little pipes being led out of the windows.
Lying in a hammock that had been swung low, so that its occupant almost lay upon the floor, was the young landsman. He stretched out his hand toward the roughly made brazier of sheet iron, and so thin were they that they looked more like claws than the fingers of a human being.
"Lord help us and deliver us," he murmured.