Horse-Shoe Robinson: A Tale of the Tory Ascendency

by John Pendleton Kennedy

Campbell passed onward, driving the royalists before him. For a moment the discomfited bands hoped to join their comrades in the rear, and, by a united effort, to effect a retreat: but the parties led by Sevier and Cleveland, cheered by the shouts of their victorious companions, urged their attacks with new vigor, and won the hill in time to intercept the fugitives. All hopes of escape being thus at an end, a white flag was displayed in token of submission; and the remnant of Ferguson's late proud and boastful army, now amounting to between eight and nine hundred men, surrendered to the assailants.

It has scarcely ever happened that a battle has been fought, in which the combatants met with keener individual exasperation than in this. The mortal hatred which embittered the feelings of Whig and Tory along this border, here vented itself in the eagerness of conflict, and gave the impulse to every blow that was struck—rendering the fight, from beginning to end, relentless, vindictive, and bloody. The remembrance of the thousand cruelties practised by the royalists during the brief Tory dominion to which my narrative has been confined, was fresh in the minds of the stern and hardy men of the mountains, who had pursued their foe with such fierce animosity to this his last stage. Every one had some wrong to tell, and burned with an unquenchable rage of revenge. It was, therefore, with a yell of triumph that they saw the symbol of submission raised aloft by the enemy; and for a space, the forest rang with their loud and reiterated huzzas.

Many brave men fell on either side. Upon the slopes of the mountain and on its summit, the bodies of the dead and dying lay scattered amongst the rocks, and the feeble groans of the wounded mingled with the fierce tones of exultation from the living. The Whigs sustained a grievous loss in Colonel Williams, who had been struck down in the moment of victory. He was young, ardent, and brave; and his many soldier-like virtues, combined with a generous and amiable temper, had rendered him a cherished favorite with the army. His death served still more to increase the exacerbation of the conquerors against the conquered.

The sun was yet an hour high when the battle was done. The Whigs were formed in two lines on the ridge of the mountain; and the prisoners, more numerous than their captors, having laid down their arms, were drawn up in detached columns on the intervening ground. There were many sullen and angry glances exchanged, during this period of suspense, between victors and vanquished; and it was with a fearful rankling of inward wrath, that many of the Whigs detected, in the columns of the prisoners, some of their bitterest persecutors.

This spirit was partially suppressed in the busy occupation that followed. Preparations were directed to be made for the night-quarters of the army; and the whole host was, accordingly, ordered to march to the valley. The surgeons of each party were already fully employed in their vocation. The bodies of the wounded were strewed around; and, for the protection of such as were not in a condition to be moved, shelters were made of the boughs of trees, and fires kindled to guard them from the early frost of the season. All the rest retired slowly to the appointed encampment.

Whilst Campbell was intent upon these cares, a messenger came to summon him to a scene of unexpected interest. He was informed that a gentleman, not attached to the army, had been dangerously wounded in the fight, and now lay at the further extremity of the mountain ridge. It was added that he earnestly desired an interview with the commanding officer. Campbell lost no time in attending to the request.

Upon repairing to the spot, his attention was drawn to a stranger who lay upon the ground. His wan and haggard cheek, and restless eye, showed that he suffered acute pain; and the blood upon his cloak, which had been spread beneath him, indicated the wound to have been received in the side. A private soldier of the British army was his only attendant. To Campbell's solicitous and kind inquiry, he announced himself, in a voice that was almost over-mastered by his bodily anguish, to be Philip Lindsay, of Virginia.

"You behold," he said, "an unhappy father in pursuit of his children." Then, after a pause, he continued, "My daughter Mildred, I have been told, is near me: I would see her, and quickly."

"God have mercy on us!" exclaimed Campbell, "is this the father of the lady who has sought my protection? Wounded too, and badly, I fear! Where is Major Butler, who was lately prisoner with Ferguson?" he said, addressing the attendant—"Go, go, sir," he added, speaking to the same person, "bring me the first surgeon you can find, and direct some three or four men from the ranks to come to your aid. Lose no time."

The soldier went instantly upon the errand, and soon returned with the desired assistance. Lindsay's wound had been already staunched, and all that remained to be done was to put him in some place of shelter and comfort. A cottage at the foot of the mountain was pointed out by Campbell; a litter was constructed, and the sick man was borne upon the shoulders of four attendants to the designated spot. Meantime, Campbell rode off to communicate the discovery he had made to Mildred and her brother.