BY JESSE E. DOW.
———
The Life Guard of Washington! Who can think upon this band of gallant spirits without feeling a glow of patriotism warming his heart, and stirring up the sluggish feelings of his soul? Fancy paints again the figures which history has suffered to fade away, as the shadows departed from the magic mirror of Cornelius Agrippa; and the heroes of the past start up before us like the clan of Roderick Dhu at the sound of their chieftain’s whistle. They come from Cambridge, and from the Hudson, from Trenton and from Princeton, from Yorktown and from the Brandywine, from mountain pass and woody vale, gathering in battle array around the lowly bed of their sleeping leader, amid the solitary shades of Vernon.
The life guardsmen are fast fading away. One by one the aged members have departed, and now Lee’s corporal slumbers beside his commander. Their march of life is over.
A more efficient corps never existed on this side of the Atlantic than the Life Guard. Animated by one motive, guided by one object, they surrounded their beloved commander-in-chief, and gloried in being known as his body guard. Was there any difficult duty to perform? it fell to this body, and gallantly did they perform the service entrusted to them. The eye of the general glistened with delight as they filed before him in the shade of evening, or returned into camp from some successful incursion beyond the enemy’s lines, ere
“Jocund day stood tiptoe on the mountain top”—
or the reveillé aroused the army from their slumbers.
It was the anniversary of the battle of Princeton, when an aged man, with a stout staff in his hand, was seen trudging manfully down Broadway. As he passed along from square to square, he cast his eyes upon the signs and door-plates, and muttering, continued on his course.
“Here,” said he, “was Clinton’s Quarters”—“Edward Mallory silks and laces”—“and here was the house that Washington stopped at”—“John Knipherhausen, tobacconist,” “and here was where the pretty Quakeress lived, who used to furnish the commander-in-chief with information as to the enemies movements”—“Câfé de mille colonnes”—“all, all are changed; time has been busy with every thing but the seasons—they are the same—the sun and the rain—the evening and the morning—the icicle and the dew-drop—the frost and the snow-drift change not: but man and his habitations—aye, the very names of places and people have been altered, and the New York of the Revolution is not the New York of ’37.”