There also goes a joke,
How Clinton went on board the Duke
Count Rochambeau to fight;
As he didn't fail
To set sail
The first fair gale,
For once we thought him right;
But, after a great clutter,
He turn'd back along the coast,
And left the French to make their boast,
And Englishmen to mutter.
Just so, not long before,
Old Knyp,
And old Clip
Went to the Jersey shore,
The rebel rogues to beat;
But, at Yankee farms,
They took alarms,
At little harms,
And quickly did retreat.
Then after two days' wonder,
March'd boldly up to Springfield town,
And swore they'd knock the rebels down.
But as their foes
Gave them some blows,
They, like the wind,
Soon changed their mind.
And, in a crack,
Returned back,
From not one third their number.
On June 6, while on their way to Springfield, the British passed through a village called Connecticut Farms. They set it on fire, destroying almost every house, and one of them shot and killed the wife of Rev. James Caldwell, as she was kneeling at prayer in her bedroom. Her husband took the revenge described in Mr. Harte's poem.
CALDWELL OF SPRINGFIELD
[June 23, 1780]
Here's the spot. Look around you. Above on the height
Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right
Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall,—
You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball.
Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow,
Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago.
Nothing more, did I say? Stay one moment; you've heard
Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the Word
Down at Springfield? What, No? Come—that's bad; why he had
All the Jerseys aflame. And they gave him the name
Of the "rebel high-priest." He stuck in their gorge,
For he loved the Lord God,—and he hated King George!
He had cause, you might say! When the Hessians that day
Marched up with Knyphausen they stopped on their way
At the "Farms," where his wife, with a child in her arms,
Sat alone in the house. How it happened none knew
But God—and that one of the hireling crew
Who fired the shot! Enough!—there she lay,
And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away!
Did he preach—did he pray? Think of him as you stand
By the old church to-day;—think of him and his band
Of militant ploughboys! See the smoke and the heat
Of that reckless advance,—of that straggling retreat!
Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view,—
And what could you, what should you, what would you do?