Great was the revulsion when our troops rallied to such glorious purpose at Trenton and Princeton! Those who had fallen away in the hour of adversity, and found to their sorrow how utterly worthless were Lord Howe’s paper “protections” to shield them from the vile outrages of the plundering Hessians, now returned in crowds, offering themselves and all they possessed to General Washington to further his efforts. His headquarters were made that winter in a town near the little village where Mrs. Thorpe resided. Mr. von Francke visited him frequently at his quarters during the winter as the financial agent of many friends of the cause in New England and the Southern States. I improved those occasions to accompany him and visit my dear friend, Mrs. Thorpe.
She was exerting all her energies, time, and money to prepare clothing for the soldiers and necessary supplies for the army. The buzz of spinning-wheels and the clack of domestic looms were heard in her house from day-dawn until late at night. That house was a workshop of tailors and shoemakers, and her agents ransacked the country for leather wherewith to make shoes. Every friend who visited her was pressed into the service, and during each precious moment the busy needles were plied and the knitting-needles clicked while we were visiting and chatting of
the past, the present, and the prospects of the future. Most religiously did she thus fulfil the promise made to her dying husband, and seemed to find solace for her great sorrow in occupying herself constantly to aid the struggle for which her beloved ones had given their lives.
My heart ached for poor Charles, dejected and lonely in his separation from Anna, and grieving over the stern refusal of her father to permit any intercourse between them unless he would abandon the rebels and join the standard of King George. To add to his distress, he had heard, through a friend of Anna, that her father had determined she should accept the suit of an influential officer of the government in Nova Scotia, a very dissolute man, who was captivated by her beauty upon their first meeting at a dance in the house of the governor. Charles knew so well her father’s despotic rule over his family that he feared she might be compelled to comply with his commands.
Deeply as I sympathized with the young people, I could not afford them the aid they entreated for communicating with each other through my letters to my mother. The principles of my religion forbade that I should do any act to encourage disobedience to a father. Yet I could not regret that the kindness of General Washington made amends for my refusal, by furnishing better facilities for their purpose than I could have furnished.
The three following years passed on, marked by fluctuating fortunes and many hardships for our devoted troops and their dauntless leader. The surrender of Burgoyne in the autumn of ’77, and the alliance with
France which followed, had awakened bright hopes of a speedy and successful termination of the conflict, but crushing reverses and bitter disappointments soon came.
The state of the currency baffled the strongest efforts and exhausted the resources of wise and able financiers. My husband, who was accounted extremely clever in affairs connected with the exchequer, was often driven to his wits’ end to provide for fearful contingencies, and then to confess his utter inability to meet further demands.
Mr. Earle placed his large fortune at the disposal of his country, and died soon after. His daughter gave better treasures when, with Spartan firmness, she yielded all her noble sons, one after another, for its defence.
In the terribly hard winter of 1779-80 General Washington again established his headquarters in New Jersey, in Mrs. Thorpe’s immediate neighborhood, and I went frequently to visit her when it was necessary for Mr. von Francke to go on financial missions to that place. Upon one of these occasions, early in the spring, what was my surprise to be greeted on the threshold by my beloved Anna, and to find that she was the happy bride of my desponding young friend of yore, Charles Thorpe, now a dashing lieutenant and prime favorite with the commander-in-chief. Their happiness was not unclouded, however; for they had been married without her father’s knowledge or consent. He had made every arrangement for her immediate marriage with the man whom he had chosen and whom she despised, and sent her to Boston to procure her trousseau. Very opportunely, General Washington made a journey to Boston about that time, with Charles in company