That year, 1776, there were no steel rails laid nor copper wires strung to carry the news, yet it was surprising how quickly tidings of victory and defeat spread over the country.
Charlottesville was a very small town out near the shadows of the Blue Ridge mountains, yet its people, not many weeks after the events occurred, had heard how Donald McDonald had led the Scotch Tories of North Carolina against the rifles of the Whigs and how 198 the rifles proved more powerful than the Scottish broadswords; then had come the joyful news that Commodore Parker and his forty ships had sailed away from Charleston, South Carolina, which they had come to capture as though the doing of it were the pastime of a summer’s holiday. Between them and the town they had found a little island and on it a small fort built of soft palmetto logs bedded in sand and defended by a few daring men under the gallant Moultrie. These brave fellows could shoot cannon as straight as could the North Carolina Whigs their rifles. Later, even among the hamlets along the frontier, the cheers rang out when it was learned that Congress had finally approved the Declaration of Independence, and aid was now expected from France!
Not all the news was encouraging. Washington had known that, unless granted men and supplies, he could not hold New York against the British. Congress had insisted that he make the attempt, but gave him no assistance. He had failed, and barely kept the greater part of the American army out of British clutches. The king had succeeded in hiring Hessians, some twenty thousand of them, to fight England’s battles in America, with the promise of all the loot they could secure. France was very slow in granting aid, uncertain as yet how much resistance America might be able to make. The attempt to capture Quebec had failed, and the Americans were chased out of Canada. Washington had been unable to keep an effective army together as Congress would provide only for short 199 terms of enlistment, and little money or supplies for the troops. Men who had shouted for freedom were now despondent, and some of them were going over to the enemy, which occupied New York and most of New Jersey and had concluded the war was about ended.
In September Morgan came back from Quebec, but under parole. He had been offered great inducements to fight with England, but scorned them as an insult to his manhood. If he could be released from parole he would do loyal service for his country. Arnold had fought desperately around Lake Champlain with the remnants of the troops driven from Canada, but the odds against him were too great. Washington, alone, was the nucleus around which the hopes of America centred, but he could accomplish little except to hold positions between the British and Philadelphia.
Winter came on and the situation grew worse. Congress became frightened and made ludicrous haste to vote all sorts of assistance to Washington, after it was too late for him to use it for striking an effective blow.
It was evident that Rodney brooded over the long series of failures, but he still stoutly insisted, “It’s not Washington’s fault, I know.”
When, just after New Year’s, 1777, report came that Washington, with his ragged troops, had crossed the Delaware amid the floating ice, and marched almost barefooted to Trenton in a howling snowstorm, and there had defeated the Hessians, Rodney fairly 200 shouted in his joy, “I knew he’d do it, I knew he’d do it!”
About a month later, Angus came home. He was a sorry looking Angus, what with a severe wound, and his ragged regimentals, and his feet bound up in rags. But he was a very important Angus, withal, for had he not crossed the Delaware with Washington; had he not left bloody footprints on the snowy road to Trenton; had he not charged down King Street, swept by the northeast gale and British lead, and driven the brutal Hessians as chaff is swept before the wind? He was, to the village folk, the returned conqueror, and much they made of him, the Allisons with the others. He no longer envied Rodney mounted on Nat riding over the country with all the importance of a special messenger, and it is to be hoped that Rodney did not envy him, now that conditions seemed reversed. To young Allison’s credit be it said that, if in his heart lay a smouldering spark of envy, it did not show itself.
When Angus was able to go about, he frequently visited the Allison home, and revelled in narrations of his experiences. He, like the common people generally, regarded Washington as an idol. He delighted in descriptions of the appearance of his beloved general at the crossing of the Delaware; again at the battle of Princeton, when Washington had ridden out directly between the lines of the British and the wavering Americans he sought to encourage, sitting like a statue on his big horse, while the bullets of friends and foes flew about him, and then riding away 201 unscathed, as though by a miracle. The lad’s enthusiasm made it all seem very real, even when he told how, one winter morning, the general walked about among his men while wearing a strip of red flannel tied about his throat because of a cold, and picked up with one hand a piece of heavy baggage, that would have burdened both arms of an ordinary man, and lightly tossed it on top of a baggage wagon.
“He had but twenty-four hundred men to capture Trenton, an’ all the other generals who were to help him failed. I was right close to him when the messenger rode up to tell him Cadwalader couldn’t git across the river, an’ I heard him say ‘I am determined to cross the river and attack Trenton in the morning.’ I tell ye thar was no fellers who heard him but would hev follered him on their knees, bein’ they couldn’t hev used their feet.”