It was unmilitary, but it has always been approved by my conscience, for which I alone am responsible.
CHAPTER XXII. CAPITULATIONS.
I stood with Whitestone and saw the British lay down their arms, and, of all the things I saw on that great day, an English officer with the tears dropping down his face impressed me most.
We were not allowed to exult over our enemies, nor did we wish it; but I will not deny that we felt a great and exhilarating triumph. Before the war these Englishmen had denied to us the possession of courage and endurance as great as theirs. They had called us the degenerate descendants of Englishmen, and one of their own generals, who had served with us in the great French and Indian war, and who should have known better, had boasted that with five thousand men he could march from one end of the colonies to the other. Now, more than five thousand of their picked men were laying down their arms to us, and as many more had fallen, or been taken on their way from Canada to Saratoga.
I repeat that all these things—the taunts and revilings of the English, who should have been the last to cheapen us—had caused much bitterness in our hearts, and I assert again that our exultation, repressed though it was, had full warrant. Even now I feel this bitterness sometimes, though I try to restrain it, for the great English race is still the great English race, chastened and better than it was then, I hope and believe.
Remembering all these things, I say that we behaved well on that day, and our enemies, so long as they told the truth, could find no fault with us.
There was a broad meadow down by the riverside, and the British, company after company, filed into this meadow, laid down their arms, and then marched, prisoners, into our lines. Our army was not drawn up that it might look on, yet Whitestone and I stood where we could see.
Some women, weary and worn by suspense and long watches, came across the meadow, but Kate Van Auken was not among them. I guessed that she was by the side of the wounded Chudleigh. When the last company was laying down its arms, I slipped away from Whitestone and entered the British camp.