Benedict Arnold. A biography/3
CHAPTER III.
IN THE WILDERNESS.
ARNOLD returned to Cambridge in July. Congress, then in session in Philadelphia, had been planning an expedition against Canada, which was to be under the command of General Schuyler, and to proceed by way of the great lakes. A committee came on from Congress to consult with General Washington about the project, and, if possible, to devise some way by which another party might be made to co-operate with that under Schuyler.
The complaints of Arnold, all through the month of July, were loud and frequent. He declared that he was shamefully treated by the Massachusetts Legislature, and appeared uneasy in the inactive condition to which it had doomed him. It was admitted, both by Washington, who had just come on and assumed the office of Commander-in-chief of the army, that he was a brave man, and could perform as much service for the colonies as any other; it seemed a pity, therefore, that he should be condemned to idleness and inaction, when there was so much to be done.
The Committee from Congress having conferred a long time with Washington on the subject, it was at last determined to send a military force into Canada by way of the Kennebec river, in Maine. Thus the two forces would finally come together before Quebec, and be able to operate to advantage against this greatest strong-hold of the enemy. The next question was, who should command this expedition? It lay in Washington's power to answer that question, and he was not long in making up his mind. He knew very well the impetuous courage and hot-headed daring of Arnold, and rightly concluded that he was just the man to be placed at the head of such a hazardous enterprise.
Accordingly Washington tendered Arnold the appointment, together with the title of Colonel in the Continental army. Perhaps, too, he put him in this position in order to keep so uneasy a spirit quiet, as well as to secure such valuable services as his to the interests of his country. Arnold accepted the appointment, and, with his new title of Colonel, got his command in readiness to move northward at the earliest day possible.
There were eleven hundred men under him in all, composing thirteen different companies, which were detached from the regular army for this special purpose; ten companies of New England musketeers, and three companies of riflemen from Virginia and Pennsylvania. The field officers were as follows: Lieut. Col. Christopher Greene (afterwards the hero of Red Bank on the Delaware), Lieut. Col. Roger Enos, and Majors Meigs and Bigelow. Capt. Daniel Morgan commanded the riflemen, a man who became very well known as a brave partisan leader in the progress of the war.
The men being all ready, they started off from the camp and marched down to Newburyport, at which place eleven transports were waiting to convey them to the mouth of the Kennebec river. The next day after reaching Newburyport they went on board the vessels. Several small boats had previously been sent to explore the coast, in order to learn if any of the enemy's ships were hovering near, but nothing being seen of them, the expedition set sail as already stated.
A large force of carpenters had been sent to the Kennebec from Cambridge some little while before this expedition set out; they were to con- struct as many as two hundred bateaux against its arrival, and get all things else in readiness, so that when the regiment reached Gardiner, which they did after a sail of two days, they found mat- ters exactly as they would have desired. Only a slight mishap befell them on the way, and that was the grounding of a couple of the vessels on the bars in the river; but this did not occasion tbem any delay, and caused no damage whatever to the transports. The bateaux were built at Pittston, on the bank of the river over against Gardiner, and the men and provisions were taken from the transports and placed on board them at once. They then all met together again at Fort Western, opposite the city of Augusta, and a few miles farther up the river.
It was at this time late in the autumn. The enterprise was certainly a hazardous one at any period of the year, but more especially so with winter and the wilderness before them. The region was new to them all, and comparatively unknown to everybedy. Some St. Francis Indians had previously visited the American camp at Cambridge, and given our officers some more distinct ideas about that tract of country than they ever possessed before; and from them, too, it was very well known what sufferings this party of stout-hearted men would be obliged to endure. Still, it was thought best to run the risk and put the plan to a trial.
Colonel Montressor, likewise, an officer in the British service, had gone through the whole of this howling wilderness about fifteen years before, and kept a journal of his experience on that route. Arnold had an imperfect copy of this journal in his possession at the time he started off, which, with the information given by the Indians spoken of, was quite all he bad to guide him. Montressor, however, had gone up the Chaudiere river from Quebec, crossed the high-lands not far from the head-waters of the Penobscot, and. after sailing over the surface of Moosehead Lake, struck the Kennebec river at its eastern branch. The route mapped out by Arnold was in many important points a different one and therefore quite as difficult to traverse, perhaps, as if Montressor had never written any journal at all.
In the first place, then, a small party was sent forward to Chaudiere pond, or Megantic Lake, to look about and see what was to be done there to help along the main body whenever it should come up on its toilsome journey. Then another party was despatched to the Dead River, a remarkably still and sluggish stream flowing into the Kennebec, to ascertain its course and distances. To describe these two rivers as they stand relatively each to the other, the Chaudiere and the Kennebec, it may be said that, taking their rise but a few miles apart in the highlands of that region, they flow on, one to the St. Lawrence on the north, and the other to the Atlantic ocean on the south; thus, though they empty at points so widely apart, it is nevertheless but a few miles between them at their sources. The task before the American party was, therefore, to force their way up the Kennebec as far as they could, cross the country with their bateaux to Lake Megantic, which is the head-waters of the Chaudiere, and afterwards embark on the latter river and pass down it to the St. Lawrence and the city of Quebec.
The little army knew they had a hard task before them, but it was even much harder than they had thought for. Encumbered with their arms, accoutrements, baggage, and provisions, at the very outskirts of a wild and untravelled forest, two hundred miles of the rockiest and sternest country imaginable stretching between them and the French settlements on the frontier, with fierce river currents and precipitous torrents offering their obstacles to their daily progress, it would not have been very much to be wondered at, if many of them had given out at the first appearance of such astounding difficulties and dangers. If they got on, they knew it must be done only by a resolution and perseverance such as few men, and never any ordinary men, are known to possess. And then the thought that winter was approaching so fast was quite enough to appal almost any, even stouter-hearted than they.
But the journey was at length seriously begun. As before related, Arnold pushed forward a party of half a dozen men to explore in the region of Lake Megantic, and collect what intelligence they could from the Indians who were known to be out on their annual autumn hunt in that vicinity; and another party of the same number was sent on to explore the courses, currents, and distances of Dead river, which emptied into the Kennebec from the westward. Then the army itself started. It was divided into four .sections, each following the other at a distance of a day between, which prevented all confusion and perplexity at the several carrying-places along on the river. Morgan led the first division, which was composed of the riflemen, whose weapons would be of most service in the forest they were to penetrate; then came Greene and Bigelow with three companies of musketeers; next followed Major Meigs with four companies more; and finally came Major Enos with the three companies remaining. The very last man to leave Fort Western was Arnold himself, who had thus stayed behind until every soldier had been safely embarked.
As soon as they were all off, he got into a light birch canoe and started on after them. He passed the several divisions on their way up the river, shooting by in his own lighter craft with all possible celerity; and on the third day after leaving Fort Western, he overtook the party of Morgan's riflemen in the van, which had already reached Norridgewock Falls.
At these Falls, or a little way below them, on a fine open plain stretching out upon the eastern bank of the river, was once an Indian village, peopled by the ancient Norridgewock tribe; and a French Jesuit, named Father Ralle, a learned and zealous missionary, had resided among them for twenty-six years, wielding a great and salutary influence over their untutored minds. The story of this mission is as romantic in some particulars as it was tragical in its termination. The British settlers in Massachusetts considered Father Ralle their enemy, believing that he prejudiced the minds of the savages against them, and they therefore set on foot an expedition to destroy the entire settlement. A party of soldiers came upon them very suddenly, and struck terror into their hearts. Unable from the nature of the attack to rally themselves for a concerted defence, they were put to the sword indiscriminately, and not one allowed any quarter. Every one belonging to this devoted little settlement was slaughtered. Old Father Ralle was barbarously scalped, together with many of his Indian disciples. This bloody drama was enacted in the year 1724, just a year over half a century beiore Benedict Arnold came upon the place. He found the remains of the church and altar, however, most melancholy memorials of the wild havoc that had desolated this once happy spot. A dictionary of the language of these Norridgewock Indians, in the handwriting of Father Ralle, is still preserved in the library of Harvard College. At this place the toils and perils of the devoted little army began in good earnest. None of them had any conception of the dangers and sufferings that were in store for them, or they would have turned back appalled. Norridgewock Falls were to be gone around first, and that was no slight or easy undertaking. It was a long mile-and-a-quarter around to the upper side, where they were to launch their fleet of boats again; and this distance they had to travel with their bateaux, provisions, ammunition, and stores besides. The river banks, too, on both sides, were extremely rocky and difficult, without the first sign of roads or paths, the scowling wilderness hemming them in on the right and the left, and the roar of the Falls filling their ears with its steady thunder.
The work was slow and toilsome. A good deal of the bread which they brought along with them was spoiled by exposure to the weather, which would now make them come short. Other provisions also proved worthless, upon examination. The boats leaked; the men did not know how to manage them, either; and it was seven days before they completed this mile-and-a-quarter journey around the Falls with their remaining provisions and unwieldy burdens. Much of that time was consumed by the carpenters in making repairs and putting the boats in their former condition.
Arnold plunged his canoe into the river again as soon as he reached it, and, taking an Indian with him for a guide, paddled swiftly on past the last division of his little army, until he arrived at the Carratunc Falls; here they all went through the same trials and delays as before, but succeeded in getting around the falls much sooner than they had passed the Norridgewock. The other two divisions of the army were still ahead of him.
Pushing on, however, in a couple of days after leaving the Carratunc Falls he overtook the rest of the men at what is called the Great Carrying Place. This is at the point twelve miles below where the Dead River joins the Kennebec on the east, the angle of whose junction is almost a right angle. The men were there waiting for him to come up, before they proceeded to take another step forward. On reckoning up his whole force again, Arnold found that they counted only nine hundred and fifty out of the original eleven hundred. This considerable falling off was owing in part to sickness, and partly to desertion. On their way up to the Great Carrying Place, they had been in the water much of the time, pushing the bateaux before them as they waded in the shallow places, the current running strongly against them, yet all the while keeping up most cheerful spirits and evincing the stoutest resolution. The enthusiasm which their commander showed, they could not help catching themselves. It was chiefly that which helped, or led them on.
While pausing to look over his muster-roll and reckon up the amount of his stores, he found that he had provisions for twenty-five days, whereas he calculated that he could reach the Chaudiere River and the straggling French settlements along its course in ten days, at the farthest. The first stretch, from the Great Carrying Place to the Dead River, was a distance across the country of fifteen miles. Three ponds broke the land travel, the first of which was some three miles from the Kennebec. The road was craggy and very diffi- cult. They were obliged to procure oxen to drag the bateaux across the land, which was done by the patient animals only with the greatest labor. The men strapped their baggage to their own backs, and likewise loaded themselves with the provisions and stores.
This picture of an army tramping through the wilderness, was a wild and most exciting one. It was a passage quite as heroic as the more famed retreat of the Ten Thousand described by the Greek writer, Xenophon. It was in the Fall time, and all the splendors of the season were at their highest. The weather was superb. The leaves in the forest were changing rapidly, furnishing the most gorgeous colorings on which the eye could desire to rest. The waters in the ponds they came to were calm and unruffled, and in the placid bosom of each the spacious dome of the sky was perfectly reflected. And the stained leaves of Autumn scattered themselves over the surface of the ponds as they fell, forming a beautiful mosaic pavement around their borders which heightened indescribably their sequestered beauty.
The boats were launched on the bosom of the first pond, and the men embarked again. They found great abundance of luscious salmon trout within the lake, which they caught in astonishing numbers. Probably these tempting fish, now sought after by the sportsman with so much ea- gerness, were never before disturbed by the ap- proach of the white man. If the Indians drew them out, as we have good reason to beb'eve they did, they took no more of them than just enough to satisfy their immediate wants. But we venture to say that this superb fish was never hunted by an army before. This timely wild game afforded the troops a great deal of comfort, jaded and dispirited as they were getting to be, and in want, too, of some such delicacy as this new food was fitted to furnish them. A couple of oxen were likewise killed, and thus a morsel of fresh beef was divided up among those who most stood in need of it.
Alternately by water and land they passed on, now launching their boats on the ponds, and now dragging all after them from one portage to another. Arnold directed the carpenters to build a block house at the second portage, within which were placed such as were sick and otherwise unable to withstand the hardships of the journey. He likewise ordered a second house of this description to be erected on the banks of the Kennebec river, for the purpose of storing what provisions might be sent up for the army from Norridgewock. In case he should find it necessary to retreat, on account of the enemy's advance or the assailing rigors of approaching Winter, he wished to have something to fall back upon, and to feel that he was at the same time safe.
It was during this slow passage of the little army across from the Great Carrying Place on the Kennebec to the Chaudiere river, that Arnold himself learned how pleasant was that same spirit of treachery which he afterwards practised on a much larger scale. He formed the design of sending forward a couple of Indians, one of whom was named Eneas, to certain gentlemen of his acquaintance in Quebec, and likewise to General Schuyler, with whom it was intended that his command should cooperate. With these Indians also went a white man, Jakins by name, whose orders were to search for the French settlements along on the Chaudiere river, obtain v all the information he could, make as friendly an impression upon them as he was able, and then return and report his success. The two Indians carried letters in Arnold's hand-writing to the gentlemen in Quebec, upon the reception of which much depended. But the letters never reached those to whom they were sent. The Indians proved arrant traitors. Instead of obeying the directions given them, they delivered them into the hands of other parties, and thus sowed a crop of mischief for Arnold and his men, the harvest of which they reaped not a great while after. It was always supposed, from the best information that could be obtained about them, tfiat they were carried directly to the Lieut. Governor of Canada, who was thus put on his guard against the approach of the bold American party. In fact, Eneas, the treacherous Indian fellow, was some time after seen in Quebec by those who knew him in the army.
With a new feeling of joy they at last came to the banks of the Dead River. This was certainly one step gained, and a very important one, too. They were conscious of having met and conquered difficulties, before which three short months earlier they would have stood appalled and disheartened. They had accomplished more than they thought mortal man could accomplish.
Dead River was so named from its slow and almost motionless current. It was rather devious in places, but, with the exception of a few slight falls, or rapids, was everywhere as calm as a summer's morning; never fretting and fuming like many a little inland stream, and nowhere disposed to chafe against its banks because impatient to get on faster. All along its course its path was placid, gentle, and dreamy. It was on such a stream as this that the men launched their boats anew, with hearts refreshed at so much more agreeable prospects. They came in sight of a very high and bold mountain as they sailed onward, whose base came down to the river, and whose distant summit was already covered with snow. It seemed like a great friend to them all, --a huge rock casting down its welcome shadow in the wilderness. Here they encamped for a couple of days. Arnold believed it was a good place to find rest. There was not a single one, either, who was not glad enough to lie down under its broad shelter.
It is said Arnold run up the American flag to the peak of his tent while here encamped; and it is solely on account of this slight incident that the little settlement since built up on the spot goes by the name of the "Flag-Staff." There is like-wise another story connected with this same mountain, which deserves mention as well. It is a pleasant tradition that has become smoky from being told so many times in all the old chimney-corners of the neighborhood. Major Bigelow--so says the tradition,--climbed to its top, expecting when there to rest his longing eyes on the far-off hills of Canada, and the roofs and spires of ancient Quebec. It was a very courageous undertaking, and the rnan who carried it through certainly deserves more than a mere mention for his exploit. From this circumstance the mountain received the name Mount Bigelow, which it has faithfully kept to this day. The enterprising Major failed to find the particular objects after which he gazed from its height into Canada; but his eyes were greeted with another view that must have afforded him quite as agreeable an impression, if he was a lover of nature in her inmost solitude. There were mountain peaks all around and beneath him, and he the king, as it were, of them all. Not an echo broke the solemn stillness of the scene. The wild animals that peopled this awful solitude, were unused to the footfall of man, and had never learned to flee from the intrusion of his presence. Beavers and other wild game frequented the coverts and the glens, sharing the gloom and the silence with none but those who were made after their own kind.
While they rested at the foot of this mountain, Arnold found that their provisions were coming short, and sent back a party of ninety for a new supply. And immediately upon issuing this order, he started forward again. Morgan had already gone ahead with his party of riflemen, and Arnold came close after. Hardly had they begun their march, when a violent rain set in that continued for three days, successively, drenching them all to the skin and damping their ardor excessively. Everything about them was soaked with water, clothes and provisions alike. Late one night they lay down in their hasty encampment on the bank of the stream, when the swollen torrents from the surrounding hills came rushing down upon them, the river rising eight feet at the time; so suddenly were they assailed, that they had just got up and left their camp when the waters poured over the spot in a flood. Many of them must have been drowned, had they remained where they were but a few minutes longer. The men took to the boats with all possible haste, to find the entire plain submerged, a roaring torrent all around them, and the channel completely choked up with the drift wood that had been brought down by the swollen current. As it was, seven of the bateaux were overturned by the headlong violence of the angry stream, much of the remaining provisions was lost, and the men barely escaped with their lives.
This was a severe blow indeed. Arnold had sent back for a fresh supply of provisions already, and now to lose a part even of what was left, was enough to infuse terror into hearts much stouter than theirs. They were thus more perplexed than ever. It was next to impossible to tell which one of the many streams, now all swollen to the size of the river itself, conducted them in their true course; and hence they paddled far up into many a creek and bay, down which they were soon obb'ged to retrace their way.
Plunged into a maze of dangers and difficulties like these, Arnold found himself still thirty miles distant from the head of the Chaudiere River, with provisions enough to last them not more than a fortnight. A little undecided what to do, he called a council of war. The officers looked the matter straight in the face, bad as it was, and decided that it was best to send back the sick and disabled, and to push on with all rapidity themselves.
Colonels Greene and Enos were with the rear party. Arnold despatched to them a written order, directing them to hasten forward with as many of their able-bodied and healthy men as they could supply with provisions for a fortnight, and to leave the others to make their way back to Norridgewock. Enos behaved either like a coward or a fool; for he instantly led off his whole division, and returned to the American camp at Cambridge again. The army was greatly excited to see them back again, especially as it was known in what a situation they had left their imperilled comrades. Enos was tried by a court-martial, but acquitted because it was proved that he was in the heart of the wilderness at the time, and without sufficient provisions to sustain his division. But Washington never looked upon hitn with favor again, and Enos saw it; he therefore left the army at the earliest opportunity that offered. As Arnold pressed forward with a small detachment of sixty men under Capt. Hanchet, intending to reach the settlements as soon as he could and send back provisions, the weather suddenly grew colder, and snow began to fall in large quantities, chilling them through. While they were dragging and pushing their boats through the water, ice was forming in the river, and in all the ponds and marshes in which the Dead River took its rise. They passed around seventeen different falls in this region; and on one of the bleakest and most blustering of late Autumn days, with the snow lying two inches deep on the ground, they came to the Highlands to which the streams of New England and Canada both trace their origin, and from which they both flow in opposite directions to empty themselves at last into the Atlantic. From the Highlands they had to drag their bateaux four long miles more to a little stream that took them to Lake Megantic, the source of the Chaudiere River.
Lieuts. Steele and Church had previously been sent forward from the Great Carrying Place on the Kennebec, with a small party to explore the way and make paths at the portages as they went along; and here at Lake Megantic they were found, glad enough to see signs of the army coming up. Jakins was with them the same who had been sent forward to the French settlements along the Chaudiere; he brought word that the people were quite friendly in their disposition towards them, and that they would receive the little army with expressions of joy.
There are mountains all around Lake Megantic, which is itself a body of water thirteen miles in length and about three in breadth. On the eastern shore Arnold formed his camp. The very next morning he ordered fifty-five men, under command of Capt. Hanchet, to follow the lake along its shore, while he took thirteen men, together with Lieuts. Church and Steele, with five bateaux and a birch canoe, and hastened on down the Lake and Chaudiere to the French settlements. He was desirous of obtaining provisions and sending them back to the suffering army with all despatch.
This journey by water was a fearful one for them all. The moment they got out of the outlet of the Lake and struck the river, which was some three hours after they started from the little camp in the morning, they found their boats plunged into a seething and boiling current from which it seemed impossible to extricate them. They were forced to lash their baggage and provisions fast to the boats, and trust to the merciless madness of the stream. They had no guides with them, and knew no more of the course they should pursue than they did of the treacherous whirlpools and angry flood which threatened every moment to overwhelm them. The bed of the river was of rocks, over whose jagged surface the waters foamed and fretted like fabled furies. Of a sudden their hearts were filled with a new terror. The roar and thunder as of a waterfall sounded like the ring of fate in their ears. They were plunged among the rapids without the least warning. Three of the boats were instantly dashed to fragments against the rocks, and the six men in them were thrown into the boiling current. They managed, however, to escape with their lives, but it was only after a long struggle in the water.
This accident proved but a merciful providence, however, for just beyond the rapids was a high fall, over which they must all have been plunged, had they not been thus fortunately warned of their danger. It was one of the six men who were rescued that made the discovery. They were all struck dumb with terror, at the thought of their narrow escape.
For seventy miles they sailed on, now and then carrying their boats, as before, around other falls, until they reached the little French village of Sertigan, four miles beyond where the river Des Loupis joins the Chaudiere. There they were received in the most friendly manner by the simple inhabitants, and Arnold was freely supplied with what provisions he wanted for the detachments he had left behind. He paid them for all he took, and received abundant expressions of their favor and gratitude in return. As lately as the year 1848, one of the old settlers in this charming valley of the Chaudiere, showed to an American traveller an order for cattle and flour signed by Arnold, which had been treasured as a most valuable memento of those days. The old man was ninety-three years of age, and all of the old settlers there, as well as himself, were wont to speak of this descent of the "good Bostonians" into their peaceful and happy valley, as one of the most important and memorable events of their lives.
Arnold sent back the flour and cattle by some Indians and Canadians, and the supply arrived just in time to save the remainder of the little army from total annihilation. They were in a truly lamentable condition, suffering for want of needful food. They had already butchered their last ox, and eaten him; all their boats were destroyed, together with the provisions they contained; the men even dug and clawed into the sandy beach, like animals, and tore out such roots as they could discover there; they washed their moose-skin moccasins in the river, scraping away the sand arid dirt with great care, and then threw them into a kettle of hot water and boiled them, hoping to extract some little mucilage from them for nourishment; they even chewed the tasteless leather itself; a dog was killed and they made broth from his flesh; and General Dearborne, who was of the party, gave up his dog, which was a very large one and a general favorite, to one of the companies, and they killed and divided him up, eating every part of him, not even excepting his entrails.
Had not aid reached them as it did, they must all very soon have perished from want. As it was, they had been without food for forty-eight hours already. Now they took fresh courage, and soon emerged from the forest and came forward in separate detachments, uniting again at Sertigan. From this place, all along the banks of the Chaudiere to the St. Lawrence, was one of the most beautiful valleys known, and those who peopled it were peaceful, happy, and industrious, and surrounded with all the comforts that make life desirable.
Before he left Cambridge, Arnold had been furnished by Washington with copies of a proclamation to the inhabitants of this valley in the French language, which he was directed to scatter among them very freely. This paper only set forth the origin of the present war with England, and expressed the wish that the people addressed would at once join themselves to the cause of America and Freedom. It was written in good taste, and calculated to produce the desired effect. Arnold circulated copies of this paper with great judiciousness, and found that it gained him friends wherever it went. No man ever went away from a place leaving so many and such strong admirers behind him. He paid promptly for all he took, and received the ready and willing cooperation of the population in return.
Taken all together, this is one of the most romantic and remarkable expeditions on record. For thirty-two days the men were in a trackless wilderness, with no guides, and meeting no face of human settlers along the whole of that weary route. Yet there was no murmuring. They pushed on with persistent courage and energy. Troops made of stuff like this, it was impossible to vanquish anywhere. There were women, too, following in the train of the army, who bore up as stoutly against disaster as any of the rest. They all alike were obliged to wade through the mud and the water, the ice on the surface of the latter being sometimes so thick that the soldiers had to break it with the butts of their guns. Of those who accompanied Col. Arnold on this desperate expedition, there were not a few who afterwards became celebrated in the history of our revolutionary struggle, and earned the lasting gratitude of their countrymen. Among those may be named Morgan, Dearborne, Greene, Febiger, Meigs, and Burr. Aaron Burr was then an amiable and accomplished young man of but twenty years, and held the rank of a cadet. This was excellent discipline for them all, and such as they would be likely to carry into the service whenever they were called out into action.