Philip Winwood / A Sketch of the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of Independence; Embracing Events that Occurred between and during the Years 1763 and 1786, in New York and London: written by His Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant in the Loyalist Forces.

by Robert Neilson Stephens

And yet a British troop had seized General Charles Lee when he was the rebels' second in command, and, in turn, a party of Yankees had taken the British General Prescott from his quarters in Rhode Island. True, neither of these officers was at the time of his seizure as safely quartered and well guarded as Washington was now; but, on the other hand, Margaret had spoken of treachery in the American camp. Who were the traitors? Philip hoped he might find out their chief, at least.

It was a long and hard ride, and more and more an up-hill one as it neared its end. But Philip's thoughts made him so often unconscious of his progress, and of the passage of the hours, that he finally realised with a momentary surprise that he had reached a fork of the road, near which he should come upon the rebel pickets, and that the night was far spent. He might now take one road, and enter the camp at its nearest point, but at a point far from Washington's headquarters; or he might take the other road and travel around part of the camp, so as to enter it at a place near the general's house. 'Twas at or near the latter place that the enemy would try to enter, as they would surely be so directed by the traitors within the camp.

Heedless of the apparent advantage of alarming the camp at the earliest possible moment, at whatever part of it he could then reach, he felt himself impelled to choose the second road. He ever afterward held that his choice of this seemingly less preferable road was the result of a swift process of unconscious reasoning—for he maintained that what we call intuition is but an instantaneous perception of facts and of their inevitable inferences, too rapid for the reflective part of the mind to record.

He felt the pressure of time relaxed, for a troop of horse going by the circuitous route Meadows had indicated could not have reached the camp in the hours since they had passed the place where Meadows had seen them. So he let his horse breathe wherever the road was broken by ascents. At last he drew up, for a moment, upon an eminence which gave, by daylight, a wide view of country. Much of this expanse being clear of timber, and clad in snow, it yielded something to a night-accustomed eye, despite the darkness. A low, far-off, steady, snow-muffled beating, which had imperceptibly begun to play on Winwood's ear, indicated a particular direction for his gaze. Straining his senses, he looked.

Against the dusky-white background of snow, he could make out an indistinct, irregular, undulating line of moving dark objects. He recognised this appearance as the night aspect of a distant band of horsemen. They were travelling in a line parallel to his own. Presently, he knew, they would turn toward him, and change their linear appearance to that of a compact mass. But he waited not for that. He gently bade his horse go on, and presently he turned straight for the camp, having a good lead of the horsemen.

He was passing a little copse at his right hand, when suddenly a dark figure stepped from behind a tree into the road before him. Thinking this was a soldier on picket duty, he recollected the word of the night, and reined in to give it upon demand. But the man, having viewed him as well as the darkness allowed, seemed to realise having made a mistake, and, as suddenly as he had appeared, stalked back into the wood.

"What does this mean?" thought Philip; and then he remembered what Margaret had said of treachery. Was this mysterious night-walker a traitor posted there to aid the British to their object?

"Stop or I'll shoot you down!" cried Philip, remembering too late that he had parted with both his pistols at the Bowery lane guard-house.

But the noise of the man's retreat through the undergrowth told that he was willing to risk a shot.

Philip knew the importance of obtaining a clue to the traitors. The rebels had suffered considerably from treachery on their own side; had been in much danger from the treason of Doctor Church at Boston; had owed the speedier loss of their Fort Washington to that of Dumont; and (many of them held) the retreat which Washington checked at Monmouth, to the design of their General Charles Lee. So the capture of this man, apart from its possible effect upon the present business, might lead to the unearthing of a nest of traitors likely at some future time, if not to-night, to menace the rebel cause.