Books: Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher
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William Henry Withrow >> Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher
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"Kate, you're an angel and I'm a brute," he said one day after one
of these exacerbations of temper; "I don't see how you can bear
with me."
"Bear with you, Zenas!" she replied, tears of sympathy rilling her
eyes, "I could give my life for you. Alas! my brother, very far
from an angel am I; I am a poor weak sinner, and I need the grace
of God every day to cleanse my heart and keep it clean."
"If you, who are a saint, need that, what do I need, who am viler,
than a beast?" he exclaimed with an impassioned gesture.
"You need the same, Zenas, dear; and it is for you if you only
will seek it," she replied laying her hand gently on his arm.
He snatched her hand, kissed it passionately, then dropped it and
turned abruptly away. She looked after him wistfully; but felt a
glad assurance spring up in her heart that the object of so many
prayers could not be finally lost.
Thus matters went on for several weeks. At last one day Kate was
sewing alone in her little room, when through the window she saw
Zenas approaching with long elastic strides from the barn.
Bursting into her presence, he exclaimed, with joyous exaltation
of manner, "I've done it, Kate! Thank God, at last I've done it!"
She had no need to ask, as she looked into his transfigured
countenance, an explanation of his words. She flung herself upon
his breast, and throwing her arms about his neck said, "Dear
Zenas, I knew you would;--I felt sure of it. Thank God I Thank
God!"
In loving communion the brother and sister sat, as Zenas told how
he could not bear the struggle between his conscience and his
stubborn will any longer. So, after doing his "chores" at the
barn, he went on, he had climbed into the hay-loft, resolved not
to leave it till the conflict was over and he had the
consciousness of his acceptance with God and of the forgiveness of
his sins. "I envied the very horses in the stalls," he said, in
describing his emotions; "they were fulfilling their destiny; they
had no burden of sin; while I was tortured with a damning sense of
guilt. I flung myself on the straw," he went on; "and groaned in
the bitterness of my spirit, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall
deliver me from the body of this death.' At that moment," he
exclaimed, "I seemed to hear spoken in my ears, the exultant
answer from the apostle: 'I thank God, through Jesus Christ our
Lord.' I sprang up, and before I knew began to sing--
"''Tis done, the great transaction's done!
I am my God's and He is mine.'"
Kate took up the refrain, and brother and sister sang together the
joyous song,--
"O happy day! O happy day!
When Jesus washed my sins away!"
We must turn now to the more stormy public events of the time.
Preparations for the campaign of 1814 were made on both sides with
unabated energy. The legislature of Lower Canada increased the
issue of army bills to the amount of L1,500,000, and that of the
upper province voted a liberal appropriation for military
expenditure, and increased the efficiency of the militia system.
Stores of every kind, and in vast quantities, were forwarded from
Quebec and Montreal by brigades of sleighs to Kingston as a centre
of distribution for western Canada. A deputation of Indian chiefs
from the West was received at the castle of St. Louis, and sent
home laden with presents and confirmed in their allegiance to the
British.
Early in the year, the Emperor of Russia offered to mediate
between the belligerents in the interests of peace. Great Britain
declined his interference, but proposed direct negotiations with
the United States. The commissioners appointed, however, did not
meet till August, and, meanwhile, the war became more deadly and
mutually destructive than ever.
The campaign opened in Lower Canada. General Wilkinson, who had
removed his headquarters from Salmon River to Plattsburg, advanced
with five thousand men from the latter place, crossed the Canadian
frontier at Odelltown, and pushed on to Lacolle, about ten miles
from the border. Here a large two-storey stone mill, with
eighteen-inch walls, barricaded and loop-holed for musketry, was
held by the British who numbered, in regulars and militia, about
five hundred men, under the command of Major Handcock. Shortly
after midday, on the 13th of March, General Wilkinson, with his
entire force, surrounded the mill, being partially covered by
neighbouring woods, with the design of taking it by assault. As
they advanced with a cheer to the attack, they were met by such a
hot and steady fire that they were obliged to fall back to the
shelter of the woods. The guns were now brought up (an eighteen, a
twelve, and a six-pounder), for the purpose of battering, at short
range, a breach in the walls of the mill. Their fire, however, was
singularly ineffective. The British sharpshooters picked off the
gunners, so that it was exceedingly difficult to get the range or
to fire the pieces. In a cannonade of two hours and a half, only
four shots struck the mill. Major Handcock, however, determined to
attempt the capture of the guns, and a detachment of regulars,
supported by a company of voltigeurs and fencibles, was ordered to
charge. In the face of desperate odds they twice advanced to the
attack on the guns, but were repulsed by sheer weight of opposing
numbers. The day wore on. The ammunition of the beleaguered
garrison was almost exhausted. Yet no man spoke of surrender. For
five hours this gallant band of five hundred men withstood an army
of tenfold numbers. At length, incapable of forcing the British
position, the enemy fell back, baffled and defeated, to
Plattsburg, and for a time the tide of war ebbed away from the
frontier of Lower Canada.
With the opening of navigation hostilities were resumed on Lake
Ontario. During the winter, two new vessels had been built at
Kingston.
Strengthened by the addition of these, the British fleet, under
the command of Sir James Yeo, early in May, sailed for Oswego in
order to destroy a large quantity of naval stores there collected.
A military force of a thousand men, under General Drummond,
accompanied the expedition. An assaulting party of three hundred
and forty soldiers and sailors, in the face of a heavy fire of
grape, stormed the strong and well-defended fort. In half an hour
it was in their hands. The fort and barracks were destroyed, and
some shipping, and an immense amount of stores were taken.
Sir James Yeo, now blockaded Chauncey's fleet in Sackett's
Harbour. On the morning of the last day of May a flotilla of
sixteen barges, laden with naval stores, was discovered seeking
refuge amid the windings of Sandy Creek. A boat-party from the
fleet, attempting pursuit, became entangled in the narrow creek,
and was attacked by a strong force of the enemy, including two
hundred Indians. After a desperate resistance, in which eighteen
were killed and fifty wounded, the British force was overpowered,
and a hundred and forty made prisoners. These were with difficulty
saved from massacre by the enraged Iroquois, by the vigorous
interposition of their generous captors.
The course of political events in Europe intimately affected the
conflict in America. Napoleon was now a prisoner in Elba, and
England was enabled to throw greater vigour into her transatlantic
war. In the month of June, several regiments of the veteran troops
of Wellington landed at Quebec, and strong re-enforcements were
rapidly despatched westward.
The most sanguinary events of the campaign occurred on the Niagara
frontier. On the 3rd of July, Brigadier-Generals Scott and Ripley,
with a force of four thousand men, crossed the Niagara River at
Buffalo. Fort Erie was garrisoned by only a hundred and seventy
men, and the commandant, considering that it would be a needless
effusion of blood to oppose an army with his scanty forces,
surrendered at discretion. The next day, General Brown, the
American Commander-in-Chief, advanced down the river to Chippewa.
Here he was met by Major-General Riall, whose scanty force was
strengthened by the opportune arrival of six hundred of the 3rd
Buffs from Toronto, making his entire strength fifteen hundred
regulars, six hundred militia, and three hundred Indians. The
engagement that ensued was one of extreme severity, a greater
number of combatants being brought under fire than in any previous
action of the war.
Instead of prudently remaining on the defensive, Riall, about four
o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth, boldly attacked the enemy,
who had taken up a good position, partly covered by some buildings
and orchards, and were well supported by artillery. The battle was
fierce and bloody, but the Americans were well officered, and
their steadiness in action gave evidence of improved drill. After
an obstinate engagement and the exhibition of unavailing valour,
the British were forced to retreat, with the heavy loss of a
hundred and fifty killed and three hundred and twenty wounded,
among whom was Lieutenant-Colonel the Marquis of Tweedall. The
loss of the Americans was seventy killed and two hundred and fifty
wounded. Riall retired in good order without losing a man or gun,
though pursued by the cavalry of the enemy. Having thrown re-
enforcements into the forts at Niagara, on both sides of the
river, fearing lest his communication with the west should be cut
off by the Americana, Riall retreated to Twenty Mile Creek.
General Brown advanced to Queenston Heights, ravaged the country,
burned the village of St. David's, and made a reconnoissance
toward Niagara. Being disappointed in the promised co-operation of
Chauncey's fleet in an attack on the forts at the mouth of the
river, he returned to Chippewa, followed again by Riall as far as
Lundy's Lane. In the meanwhile, General Drummond, hearing at
Kingston of the invasion, hastened with what troops he could
collect to strengthen the British force on the frontier. Reaching
Niagara on the 25th of July, he advanced with eight hundred men
to support Riall. At the same time, he pushed forward a column
from Fort Niagara to Lewiston, to disperse a body of the enemy
collected at that place. General Brown now advanced in force from
Chippewa against the British position at Lundy's Lane. Riall was
compelled to fall back before the immensely superior American
force, and the head of his column was already on the way to
Queenston. General Drummond coming up with his re-enforcements
about five o'clock, countermanded the movement of retreat, and
immediately formed the order of battle. He occupied the gently
swelling acclivity of Lundy's Lane, placing his guns in the
centre, on its crest. His entire force was sixteen hundred men,
that of the enemy was five thousand. The attack began at six
o'clock in the evening, Drummond's troops having that hot July day
marched from Queenston landing. The American infantry made
desperate efforts in successive charges to capture the British
battery; but the gunners stuck to their pieces, and swept, with a
deadly fire, the advancing lines of the enemy, till some of them
were bayoneted at their post. The carnage on both sides was
terrible.
At length the long summer twilight closed, and the pitying night
drew her veil over the horrors of the scene. Still, amid the
darkness, the stubborn contest raged. The American and British
guns were almost muzzle to muzzle. Some of each were captured and
re-captured in fierce hand-to-hand fights, the gunners being
bayoneted while serving their pieces. About nine o'clock, a lull
occurred. The moon rose upon the tragic scene, lighting up the
ghastly staring faces of the dead and the writhing forms of the
dying; the groans of the wounded mingling awfully with the deep
eternal roar of the neighbouring cataract.
The retreating van of Riall's army now returned, with a body of
militia--twelve hundred in all. The Americans also brought up
fresh reserves, and the combat was renewed with increased fury.
Thin lines of fire, marked the position of the infantry, while
from the hot lips of the cannon flashed red volleys of flame,
revealing in brief gleams the disordered ranks struggling in the
gloom. By midnight, after six hours of mortal conflict, seventeen
hundred men lay dead or wounded on the field, when the Americans
abandoned the hopeless contest, their loss being nine hundred and
thirty, besides three hundred taken prisoners. The British loss
was seven hundred and seventy. To-day the peaceful wheat-fields
wave upon the sunny slopes fertilized by the bodies of so many
brave men, and the ploughshare upturns rusted bullets, regimental
buttons, and other relics of this most sanguinary battle of the
war. Throwing their heavy baggage and tents into the rushing
rapids of the Niagara, and breaking down the bridges behind them,
the fugitives retreated to Fort Erie, where they formed an
entrenched camp. [Footnote: Withrow's "History of Canada," 8vo.
Ed., pp. 323-333.]
We must now return to trace the individual adventures in this
bloody drama of the personages of our story. Every possible
provision that wise foresight could suggest had been made for the
defence of the Niagara Frontier. Fort George had been strengthened
and revictualled. A new fort--Fort Mississauga--with star-shaped
ramparts, moat and stockade, had been constructed at the mouth of
the river. Its citadel is a very solid structure, with walls eight
feet thick, built of the bricks of the devastated town of Niagara.
A narrow portal with a double iron door admits one to the vaulted
interior of the citadel, and a stairway, constructed in the
thickness of the wall, conducts to the second storey or platform,
which is open to the sky. Here were formerly mounted several heavy
guns, and the fire-place for heating the cannon-balls may still be
seen.
On the morning of July fourth, a courier, on a foam-flecked steed,
dashed into Fort George and announced to the officer of the day
the startling intelligence of the invasion by the enemy in force
and the surrender of Fort Erie. Soon all was activity, knapsacks
were packed, extra rations cooked and served out, ammunition
waggons loaded, cartridge-boxes filled, and the whole garrison,
except a small guard, were under orders to march to meet the enemy
at dawn the following morning.
That evening--the eve of the fatal fight at Chippewa--Captain
Villiers snatched an hour to pay a farewell visit to The Holms, as
had become his habit when ordered on active service. He seemed
strangely distraught in manner, at times relapsing for several
minutes into absolute silence. Before taking his leave, he asked
Kate to walk with him on the river bank in the late summer sunset.
The lengthening shadows of the chestnuts stretched over the
greensward slopes, and were flung far out on the river which swept
by in its silent majesty, far-gleaming in the last rays of the
sinking sun. The Captain spoke much and tenderly of his mother and
sisters in their far-off Berkshire home.
"I sometimes think," he said, as they stood looking at the shining
reaches of the river, "that I shall never see them again; and to-
night, I know not why, I seem to feel that presentiment more
strongly than ever."
"We are all in the care, Captain Villiers," said Kate, "of a
loving Heavenly Father. Not even one of these twittering sparrows
falls to the ground without His notice; and we, who are redeemed
by the death of His Son, are of more value than they."
"I wish I had your faith. Miss Drayton," said the Captain with a
sigh.
"I am sure I wish you had, Captain Villiers," replied Kate
earnestly. "I would not be without it, weak as it often is, for
worlds. But you _may_ have it. You have the strongest grounds
for having it. But alas! I lived without it myself till very
recently."
"I have not been unobservant, Miss Drayton," continued the
Captain, "of the--what shall I say?--the moral transfiguration of
your character. It has been an argument as to the spiritual
reality of religion that I could not gainsay. I have always
observed its outward forms. I was duly baptized and confirmed, and
have regularly taken the sacrament. But I feel the need of
something more--something which I am sure my mother had, for if
there ever was a saint on earth she is one."
"I can only send you," said Kate, "to the Great Teacher, who says
'Come unto Me and I will give you rest.' I am trying to sit at His
feet and learn of Him. _He_ will guide you into all truth."
"Amen!" solemnly answered the young man. After a pause he went
on, "Miss Drayton, I make bold to ask a favour. Perhaps it may be
a last one. Those hymns I have heard you sing come strangely home
to my own heart. They awaken yearnings I never felt, and reveal
truths I never saw before. May I take the liberty of asking the
loan of your hymn-book? Even my mother, with her horror of
dissent, would not object to the writings of so staunch a
Churchman as the Rev. Charles Wesley."
"If you will do me the favour to accept it, I shall be most happy
to give it you," replied Kate. "May it be a great help to you as
it has been to me."
"You greatly honour me by your kindness," said the Captain.
Drawing his small gold-clasped Prayer Book, on which was engraven
his crest--a cross raguled with a wyvern volant--from the
breast-pocket of his coat, he said, "Will you do me the further
honour of accepting this book. The prayers I know by heart, and I
think that, even though a dissenter," he added with a smile, "you
will admire them."
"Thanks. I do admire them, very much," said Kate, who was quite
familiar with the beautiful service of her father's Church.
The Captain stooped as they were walking through the little
garden, which they had now reached, and plucking a few leaves and
flowers, placed them in the book, saying in the words of the fair
distraught Ophelia,--
"There is rosemary, that's for rememberance;
And there is pansies, that's for thoughts."
Then placing the hook in her hand with a reverent respect, he
raised her fingers to his lips. In a moment more he had vaulted on
his steed, which stood champing its bit at the garden gate and was
soon out of sight.
As, in the deepening twilight, Kate watched his retreating form, a
feeling of vague apprehension, of she knew not what, filled her
gentle breast. Was it a premonition of his impending doom?--a
prescience that she should never behold him again.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE TRAGEDY OF WAR.
With the early dawn, Zenas rode off to join his militia company;
which was summoned to repel the invasion. Loker and McKay were
already in the field. They were all in the severe action at
Chippewa. Captain Villiers distinguished himself by his heroic
daring, and while heading a gallant charge, whereby he covered the
retreat of the British, received a rather severe bayonet thrust in
his leg. Binding his military scarf around the wound, he remained
in his saddle till night, performing the arduous duties of
commander of the rear-guard.
The three weeks following were weeks of toilsome marching and
counter-marching beneath the burning July sun. More than once
Zenas was within an hour's ride of home; but the pressing
exigencies of a soldier's life prevented his making even a passing
call on those whom he so much loved. He was forced to content
himself with messages sent through Neville Trueman, whose sacred
calling made him free of the lines of both armies. These messages
were full of praise and admiration of the gallant Captain
Villiers; and, accompanied by no stinted praise of his own, they
were faithfully delivered by the young preacher.
"He will be Colonel before the war is over, I expect," said
Neville, "and I am sure no man deserves it better. He is as gentle
as he is brave. His treatment of the prisoners is kindness
itself."
The Captain, although once at Fort George, commanding a re-
enforcement of the garrison, was prevented by his military duties
from riding the short three miles that lay between it and The
Holms.
One day toward the latter part of July,--it was the twenty-fifth
of the month, a day for ever memorable in the annals of Canada,--
early in the morning a convoy of schooners and barges, filled with
armed men, was seen by Katharine gliding up the Niagara River,
their snowy sails gleaming beyond the fringe of chestnuts that
bordered the stream. The Union Jack floating gaily at the peak,
and the inspiring strains of "Britannia Rules the Waves" swelling
on the breeze as the fleet approached, gave the assurance of
welcome re-enforcements to the struggling army in the field.
Running down to the bank, Katharine exultantly waved her
handkerchief in welcome. The redcoats, who thronged the bulwarks,
gave a rousing cheer in reply; and an officer in gold lace, with
a white plume in his General's hat--who was no other than Sir
George Gordon Drummond himself--gaily waved his handkerchief in
return.
And right welcome those re-enforcements were that day.
Disembarking at Queenston landing, and climbing the steep hill,
they marched through smiling orchards and green country roads to
the bloody field of Lundy's Lane, where many of them ended life's
march for ever.
We shall depend for the further record of that eventful day on the
narrative of Zenas, as subsequently reported, with all the vivid
touches of personal experience and eye-witness. With bandaged head
and one arm in a sling he sat at the kitchen table at The Holms,
explaining to his father and some neighbours the fortunes of the
fight. His story, disentangled from the interruptions of his
auditors, was as follows: "You see," he said, making a rude
diagram of the battle on the supper-table with the knives and
forks, "General Riall took up a strong position on Lundy's Lane
early in the day, with the regulars and the Glengary militia; and
Lieutenant-Colonel Robinson [Footnote: Subsequently better known
as Sir John Beverly Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada.]
commanded the sedentary militia. The enemy lay on the other side
of Chippewa Creek, and didn't move till late in the afternoon. If
they had come on in the morning, they could have crushed us like
an egg-shell," and he suited the action to the word, by crushing
into fragments one that lay upon the table.
"But we got it hard enough as it was. General Winfield Scott,
[Footnote: Afterwards Commander-in-chief of the United States
armies.] began pounding away at us with his artillery just before
sundown. We expected to be re-enforced before long, so we
determined to hold the hill where our own battery was planted at
any cost. The sun went down; it got darker and darker; still the
cannon flashed their tongues of flame, and the deadly rattle of
the musketry went on without a minute's pause for three mortal
hours. The Yankee sharp-shooters crept up in the darkness behind a
screen of barberry bushes growing in the panels of a rail fence,
and at a volley picked off all the gunners of our battery but
three. Then, with a cheer, they rushed forward with the bayonet,
and wrestled in fierce hand-to-hand fight with our infantry for
the guns, which were alternately taken and re-taken on either
side, till the hill-slope was slippery with blood.
"Our troop of dragoons was ordered to charge up the hill and re-
capture the guns. I had only time to lift up my heart in prayer,
and say 'Lord have mercy upon us,' when a roundshot struck my
horse. He reared straight up and fell backward, partly falling
upon me. All at once everything got black, and I heard not a sound
of the din of battle that was raging around me. After a while, I
don't know how long, it seemed like hours, I became aware of a
deep thunderous sound that seemed to fill the air and cause the
very earth to tremble, and I knew it was the roar of the Falls.
Then I felt an intolerable aching, as if every bone in my body was
broken. I opened my eyes and saw the moon shining through the
drifting clouds. I was parched with thirst and raging with fever,
and felt a sharp pain piercing my temple. Raising my arm to my
head, I found my hair all clotted with blood from a scalp wound.
"Just then I heard a rattle and a cheer, and galloping down hill
full in the moonlight, right toward the spot where I lay, a brass
field-gun fully horsed, the drivers lashing the horses with all
their might. I was afraid they would gallop over me, and raised my
arm to warn them aside. But they either didn't see or couldn't
heed, and on came the heavy cannon, lurching from side to side,
the polished brass gleaming in the moonlight like gold. I heard a
deep shuddering groan as the heavy wheels rolled over a wounded
man beside me, crushing the bones of his legs like pipe stems. As
the plunging horses galloped past, one iron-shod hoof struck fire
against a stone just beside my head. In the momentary flash I
could see the hoof poised just above my face. I remember I noticed
that it had been badly shod, and one of the nails was bent over
the edge of the shoe. By a merciful Providence, instead of dashing
my brains out he stepped on one side, and I received no further
hurt. After the roar of the battle had ceased, while the solemn
stars looked down like eyes of pitying angels on the field of
slaughter, I managed to crawl to the road-side and wet my parched
lips with some muddy water that lay in a cattle track. In the
morning Trueman found me and brought me off the field, and here I
am laid up for one while. I pray God I may never see another
battle. It is a sight to make angels weep and devils rejoice, to
see men thus mangling each other like beasts of prey."
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