Philadelphia (Repplier)/Chapter 13

by Agnes Repplier

Chapter XIII

A Gay Captivity

THE defeat of Washington's forces on the Brandywine brought the victorious English army within twenty miles of Philadelphia. The successful night attack on Wayne's camp at Paoli disheartened still further the American soldiers, unused to the fearful vicissitudes of war. It only remained for General Howe to outmanœuvre Washington at the Swedes Ford by swift marches and counter-marches on the west bank of the Schuylkill, which tactics enabled him to elude his enemy, cross the river unopposed, and enter the city on the twenty-sixth of September, 1777. Word was sent to the townspeople, through Thomas Willing, that they should remain quietly in their homes, and a promise was given that no one should be molested in person or in property. This promise was kept, for although the soldiers could not always be restrained from committing depredations, they were punished with severity every time they offended, even when soft-hearted sufferers, like Mrs. Samuel Morton, tried hard to beg them off. Many prominent Whigs had already left Philadelphia. The citizens who remained regarded the advent of the English with conflicting emotions, in which the irrepressible spirit of commerce played a weighty part. Robert Morton, aged seventeen, wrote in his diary: "Sept. 26th. This day has put a period to the existence of Continental money in the city. 'Esto Perpetua!'"

It was no pleasant matter, however, for a town of thirty thousand inhabitants to be suddenly called upon to shelter an invading army nearly eighteen thousand strong. The soldiers found quarters wherever they could, the artillery and the Forty-Second Highlanders remaining near the State House, while the State House yard was filled with formidable cannon. The officers were billeted upon wealthier households, not always to the satisfaction of their hosts, though, on the whole, sufficiently amicable relations were maintained. Lord Cornwallis with a numerous suite established himself in the home of Isaac Norris; but when Mrs. Norris represented to him that it would be impossible for her to remain under her own roof with so large a company of soldiers and servants, he courteously expressed his unwillingness to cause her any annoyance, and betook himself that very afternoon to other lodgings. General Howe lived first in General Cadwalader's house on Second Street, and afterwards in the house of Richard Penn, which subsequently became the residence of Washington, when President. We have an amusing account in Elizabeth Drinker's journal of her reluctance to receive an English officer during her husband's enforced absence, and of her relief when she found the unwelcome guest to be "a thoughtful, sober young man," with an equally thoughtful, sober servant, neither of whom caused any disturbance beneath her quiet roof. In fact, "our Major," as she affectionately calls the intruder, became after a month or two the object of her careful solicitude. He developed, amid the fast growing gayeties of the town, a taste for late hours and supper parties, and she gave him excellent advice, of the "early to bed and early to rise" order, which he accepted with great good-humour, and ill-kept promises of amendment.

Howe's first care was to strengthen the defences of Philadelphia by placing batteries along the river front, and building a line of redoubts from the Delaware to the Schuylkill. Until these defences were completed, a portion of his army was left to guard Germantown, and the exposed position of this camp determined Washington to risk an immediate battle. He divided his forces into three columns, the first led by Armstrong, the second by Green, the third by Wayne and Sullivan. The attack was made at early dawn on the fourth of October. The English, taken by surprise, retreated in some disorder, closely pursued by Wayne, until Colonel Musgrave with his six companies of the Fortieth Regiment flung himself into the Chew Mansion, and effectually checked the progress of the triumphant Americans. In vain they essayed to storm this strong old country house, thus suddenly turned into a fortress. It was not built in this era of feeble, flimsy architecture, and Musgrave's men poured

"This Strong Old Country House"

a deadly and continuous fire upon the attacking column. To complete the misfortunes of the day, a thick autumnal mist shrouded the combatants; and Green's division, pressing eagerly forward along Mill Street, was mistaken by Wayne's soldiers for the enemy. The confusion that followed was irreparable; the battle which had promised a victory ended in defeat; and noon saw the American forces retreating northward to White Marsh, leaving the English in possession of the field.

To Philadelphia, the news of the struggle at her gates brought a fever of excitement. All morning she waited in suspense, and by afternoon the first wagon-loads of wounded soldiers were dragged through her thronged streets. The hospitals were filled to overflowing; and Robert Morton tells us that Dr. Foulke, demonstrator of anatomy at the Medical College, was held to be a far more skilful operator than any of the English surgeons: so that the wounded Americans had at least the sad comfort of having their arms and legs cut off in half the time, and with half the suffering endured by their unfortunate opponents. In those old terrible days, when the supreme mercy of anæsthetics had not yet been granted to the world, it made a vast difference to the poor shattered wretch to know that his agony would last twenty instead of forty minutes, and would be alleviated by the firm, sure touch of a practised and pitying hand.

The battle of Germantown left Howe free to complete his line of redoubts, and to turn his attention to the chevaux de frise—Franklin's invention—which still stretched across the channel, protecting the American ships, and separating the English effectually from their fleet, which lay outside under the command of Admiral Howe. The invading army depended upon this fleet for provisions, for the country about Philadelphia was closely watched by detachments of soldiers under Wayne's command; but the Admiral was unable to pass the chevaux de frise while the three forts, Mifflin, Mercer and Billingsport, were still in the hands of the Americans. The reduction of these forts became an absolute necessity, if eighteen thousand men were not to starve in the city they had taken; but though Billingsport was surrendered early in October, Fort Mifflin and Fort Mercer held out gallantly for more than a month; desperately attacked and desperately defended, costing more lives than were wasted in many a great decisive battle, and abandoned by their garrisons, only after they had been battered into mere unrecognizable heaps of tumbling stones and mortar. In the meantime, the colonies had gained elsewhere their first decisive victory. The battle of Saratoga had been fought, and Burgoyne with six thousand men had surrendered to General Gates. But Gates was far away from the poor little besieged forts, and made no great speed to draw nearer. When they fell, the chevaux de frise was removed, the American war vessels were captured by the superior English fleet, and supplies of every kind were brought in great abundance to the city. General Howe and his army, free from all immediate apprehensions, settled down comfortably for the winter; and Washington withdrew to his dismal quarters at Valley Forge, with no prospect of anything resembling comfort in the long, cruel months of inactivity.

If, at first, Philadelphia seemed a trifle dull to the English officers, they rapidly proceeded to remedy that evil. The water was pronounced at once too bad to drink, but wine could always be substituted, and the town had long been as famous for its fine Madeira as for its West India turtle. The damp, unwholesome climate was also roundly abused, and, unhappily, no substitute was in this case attainable. The women were declared with one accord to be both gay and charming, and they lent themselves with easy humour to strange surroundings, and to the unwonted quickening of social life. The deference shown them moderated in some degree the reckless dissipation of the younger men, cadets often.of noble houses, to whom the snatching of every possible pleasure was as much a part of the soldier's life as hard fighting in the field, and grim endurance when there were no pleasures to be snatched. The weekly balls at the City Tavern had for these English lads a keener attraction than even the cock-pit in Moore's Alley, or the wild suppers at the "Bunch of Grapes," or the club dinners, "late and long," in the rooms of the "Indian Queen." The shabby little theatre on South Street no longer languished in disgrace, but afforded endless entertainment, notwithstanding its truly destitute condition. With military readiness of resource, the Englishmen were prepared to be actors, actresses, scene-painters, supernumeraries, costumers and audience. They were equally willing to try their hands at tragedy, comedy, farce, or melodrama; and their winter's repertoire included such fine contrasts as "The Constant Couple," "Douglas," "The Deuce is in Him," and the first part of "King Henry IV."

The best actor in the troupe, the best scene-painter, the best costumer, and the only man who could be
Major André depended upon to write a really witty prologue was Major André. In all the frivolities of this frivolous time, his was the central figure. His gay good humour, his handsome face, his charm of voice and manner, made the art of pleasing a perilously easy art for him to practise. Light of heart and steadfast of purpose, he shrank from no danger, and neglected no amusement. He was but twenty-seven years old, and his friend and fellow actor, De Lancey, was younger still. Indeed, many of the officers were mere boys, to whom a skirmish or a cricket match were equally acceptable entertainments. That careless dare-devil, Tarleton, who divided his time between riding races and making love, was only twenty-one, and a match in precocity for the gallant young American, "Major Stodard," whom Miss Sally Wister extols in her journal as "justly celebrated for his powers of mind," and who had gained this enviable distinction at nineteen.

We can best understand what sober Philadelphia was really like in this winter of mad and modish gayety when we read contemporary letters, especially the letters of women, who have ever been wont to think more of pastimes than of politics. Just as Miss Wister, in the retirement of country life at Gwynedd, fills up her diary with descriptions of the American officers whom the chances of war brought under her father's roof, with minute accounts of the bewitching costumes she wore for their subjection, and with accurate reports of all the flattering things they said to her, and of all the vivacious things she said to them; so the fair Tories in the Quaker City describe with equal ardour and fidelity the more varied dissipations which filled their nights, and filled their hearts, to the exclusion of graver issues. Miss Rebecca Franks, who played a prominent part in these few months of frolic, can find no words vehement enough to express her enjoyment of the situation.

"You have not the slightest idea," she writes to her friend, Mrs. Paca, "of the life of continued amusement I live in. I can scarce have a moment to myself. I have stole this while everybody is retired to dress for dinner. I am but just come from under Mr. J. Black's hands, and most elegantly am I dressed for a ball this evening at Smith's, where we have one every Thursday. You would not know the room, 'tis so much improved. I wish to Heaven you were going with us this evening to judge for yourself."

No doubt poor Mrs. Paca, being still young and giddy, wished so too, especially when her correspondent goes on to assure her that there is never any loss for partners, and that she herself is engaged to seven different gentlemen for the evening, as no lady dances more than twice with the same cavalier. There is the ring of true girlish friendship in the closing lines of the letter, an impetuous, generous desire to share all this fun with a companion.

"Oh! how I wish Mr. P. would let you come in for a week or two. I know you are as fond of a gay life as myself. You'd have an opportunity of rakeing as much as you choose, either at Plays, Balls, Concerts, or Assemblies. I've been but three evenings alone since we moved to town. I begin now to be almost tired."

No wonder that downcast Whigs grew sore at heart when they contrasted all this jollity with the hardships endured by Washington's ragged army at Valley Forge, or with the still sadder lot of the American prisoners in Philadelphia, herded together in the old jail on Walnut Street under the charge of a brute named Cunningham, who proved his total unfitness for such an office by wanton cruelty and abuse, and who, it is a profound comfort to know, was finally hanged as he deserved after his return to England. No wonder that dull exiles from the city found it hard to listen with tranquillity to letters brimful of plays and dances. No wonder that James Allen growled deeply over Philadelphia's "rollicking winter," when he remembered his unpaid rents; or that Christopher Marshall, shut up in stupid Lancaster for safety, and well-nigh maddened by his isolation,—not from balls, but from the progress of events,—relieved his mind by storming alternately at General Howe, as a "savage monster," and at General Washington, as a supine sluggard,—equally unmerited reproaches. The situation was particularly trying to those Free Quakers who were rich, thrifty, disinclined for active service, and discontented with the behaviour of everybody about them. "This is a strange age in which I now dwell," writes Marshall angrily in his "Remembrancer," "because nothing can be had cheap but lies, falsehood, and slanderous accusations. Love and Charity, the badges of Christianity, are not so much as named amongst us."

It is a painful proof of the bitterness of spirit, which grew deeper with every year of warfare, that when Mr. William Atlee of Lancaster was moved by pity to take under his roof a young English officer, a fever-stricken prisoner who bore Mrs. Atlee's maiden name, though claiming no relationship, this act of "Love and Charity," so far from winning Marshall's approbation, rouses him to a whole page of wrathful anathemas upon the lukewarm patriotism which made friends of enemies, and weakened the cause of freedom by ill-timed lenity and vacillation.

Meanwhile Philadelphia, careless of the darkening future, grew gayer and gayer as the spring advanced. An occasional skirmish outside the lines hardly sufficed to remind the soldiers that there were still military duties and dangers to be encountered. Once, indeed, La Fayette with twenty-five hundred picked men advanced half-way from Valley Forge; and General Howe, eager to defeat this little force and to capture its gallant leader, marched hastily to meet them. But the Americans, eluding attack, retreated in safety, and nothing came of the manœuvres on either side, save some brisk and healthy exercise. England, however, was of the opinion that the war might be carried on with more fervour; Howe was recalled in May, to the unfeigned distress of both officers and soldiers with whom he was equally popular, and Sir Henry Clinton succeeded him in the command.

The famous fête called the Mischianza, of which so many accounts have been written, was designed as a farewell to Howe, and as a testimony of the affection felt for him. The open dissatisfaction expressed by the home government for the languor and negligence of his campaign merely stimulated his staff to more extravagant expressions of their love and loyalty. Twenty-two field-officers planned an entertainment which in beauty, novelty and costliness surpassed all balls and banquets that Philadelphia had ever known in her hundred years of existence. It comprised a regatta, a tournament, and a dance; and no pains were spared to make it as splendid as colonial resources would permit. Walnut Grove, the country-seat of Thomas Wharton, was selected as a desirable site; and the gay company who met at Knight's Wharf between

Walnut Grove

three and four o'clock on the afternoon of the eighteenth of May were carried in decorated barges to the landing-place at Old Fort, whence they were escorted by troops to the wide lawn on which the tournament was held. The English fleet lying at anchor with streaming colours, and the thousands of spectators who crowded the wharfs and transport ships, lent picturesqueness and brilliancy to the scene. On the lawn, suitable pavilions had been erected for the ladies, twenty-one of whom were dressed in Turkish costumes, designed by the indefatigable André, and presenting a delightful mixture of the Oriental and the Parisian. André was wont to declare that the Mischianza had made of him a most capable milliner; and he wrote blithely to Miss Shippen, offering his valuable services, and confessing himself ready to enter "into the whole details of cap-wire, needles, and gauze."

The tournament was the remarkable feature of the entertainment. The Knights of the Blended Rose and the Knights of the Burning Mountain—it all sounds horribly Masonic to our dull nineteenth century ears—defied each other to mortal combat, shivered their lances in orthodox fashion, fired their pistols,—a sad anachronism,—and engaged valorously with their swords, until the Marshal of the Field ordered them, in the name of the ladies, to desist. The company then passed under triumphal arches, and between files of soldiers, into a spacious hall, where the Knights received their favours at the hands of the Turkish damsels, and refreshed themselves with lemonade and other cooling drinks. After this the doors of the ball-room were thrown open, revealing a charming apartment decorated in pale blue and gold, with hanging garlands of roses, painted by André and De Lancey, and with eighty-five mirrors on the wall, reflecting the beauty of the scene. The Knights and their Turkish ladies opened the ball, which began early, after the primitive fashion of our ancestors, and was interrupted at ten o'clock by a magnificent display of fireworks. At midnight, supper was served to the exhausted merrymakers, who must by that time have been perilously nigh the brink of starvation. A very fine supper it was, with four hundred and thirty covers, and fully twelve hundred dishes. Twenty-four black slaves in Oriental costumes, with silver collars and bracelets, waited on the guests. The walls of the banqueting room were also gayly painted and hung with mirrors, while more than a thousand wax tapers shed their soft brilliance over scarlet uniforms and silken gowns. At the conclusion of the feast, a herald, gorgeously attired and preceded by trumpeters, proclaimed a number of toasts,—the King, the Queen, the Army, the Navy, the Commanders, the Knights and Ladies,—after which ceremony all returned to the ball-room, and danced indefatigably until four o'clock.

Thus the Mischianza lasted, from beginning to end, fully twelve hours, and reflected credit on the magnificent endurance of the English army and of our American women. "It was the most splendid entertainment ever given by soldiers to their General," writes André, contentedly; and it was certainly one of the longest entertainments ever given in modern times to anybody. Six days later, Howe sailed for England, amid the lamentations of his officers, and to the unfeigned regret of the rank and file who loved him better than any other commander in the field. Even the phlegmatic Hessians felt for him something akin to affection; and General Knyphausen broke down in the middle of a farewell address, and forgot in his honest dejection all the complimentary speeches he had meant to utter.

With the Mischianza, Philadelphia's season of reckless levity came to an abrupt termination. Surely the gay Tory dames, the fair Shippens and Chews, the vivacious Miss Franks who, with the far handsomer Miss Auchmuty, had been crowned Queen of Beauty at the tournament, and many another pleasure-loving maid must have felt the grey dawn strike chillingly to their hearts, as they wended their way homeward, and thought of the changes to come. For already there was an ominous stir in the camp at Valley Forge, where the sharp lessons of suffering and experience had made of undisciplined and often cowardly militia, soldiers worth leading to the field. That very night, while Philadelphia's daughters were dancing in the rose-garlanded ball-room, McLane with a few troopers and four squads of infantry had sharply attacked the redoubts, firing the abatis which adjoined them. But while the English officers danced, or gambled at the faro tables which the Mischianza had liberally provided, the English soldiers kept watchful guard. Surprise was impossible, and the bold assailants were so swiftly repelled that the breathless girls, who paused with startled eyes to listen to the thunder of the guns, were not even permitted to hear the disquieting news. It was a salute, their partners said, a salute to honour them; and with light laughter at their easily awakened fears, they turned joyously back to the dance.

It is a painful truth that not Tory ladies alone graced the Mischianza by their presence. The wives and daughters of many incorruptible Whigs found the temptation too great to be resisted, and their offence was hardly of so heinous a nature as to merit the severe strictures passed upon it. A ball is always a ball, no matter by whom it may be given; but when to a ball is added the startling novelty of a tournament, with Knights of the Blended Rose, and Turkish maidens carrying favours in their turbans, what wonder that curiosity and desire grew too strong to be controlled by the abstract spirit of patriotism! General Wayne, who could never bring himself to forgive the light-heartedness of women, wrote crossly and sarcastically anent their misbehaviour in coquetting with "the heavenly, sweet, pretty redcoats," adding, in the true tone of "Parent's Assistant":—

"The Knights of the Blended Roses and of the Burning Mount have resigned their laurels to Rebel officers, who will lay them at the feet of those virtuous daughters of America who cheerfully gave up ease and affluence in a city for liberty and peace of mind in a cottage."

Alas! and alas! outside the covers of Miss Edgeworth's admirable tales, rewards and punishments are not meted out with this scrupulous fidelity to deserts. When the Americans regained possession of the Quaker City, and began to give balls in their turn, they laid their laurels—not yet imposing wreaths—somewhat indiscriminately at the feet of pretty Whigs and Tories; and the fair Vicaresses of Bray, who had danced all night at the Mischianza, showed the same irresistible vivacity when Arnold opened his doors for an entertainment which rivalled in beauty and extravagance the gay routs of the redcoat winter. Miss Franks, indeed, found the change a melancholy one, though there were not wanting American officers ready and willing to fill the place of her English suitors. Her exasperating wit was more piquant than gentle loyalty, and the warmth of her impetuous heart won forgiveness for spirited sallies at which everybody laughed, and for satiric verses at which nobody could have laughed,—they were so exceedingly bad. New York opened for her fresh scenes of gayety and dissipation until she married a young English officer, Colonel Johnson of the Seventeenth Regiment, and sailed for England, never to return. Her husband served with distinction in many campaigns, succeeded to a good estate, and was made a baronet; yet Lady Johnson, with the half tender, half whimsical perverseness of so many clever women, cherished in old age a regretful affection for the country she had abandoned, and for the cause her foolish girlhood had scorned. "Would that I, too, had been a patriot," she said gently to General Winfield Scott, when he visited her many years afterwards at Bath. "I have gloried in my rebel countrymen."

Sir Henry Clinton, now in command of the English forces, was eager to take the field; but found it no easy matter to leave Philadelphia while Washington held himself ever in readiness to swoop down on the departing army, which was terribly hampered by the number of citizens who wished to go to New York under its protection, and, what was still more inconvenient, wished to carry their worldly possessions along with them. Three thousand prominent Tories had arranged, indeed, to sail with Admiral Howe's fleet. They dared not remain in the town after the protection of the troops had been withdrawn; so, with heavy hearts, they bade farewell to their birthplace, which few of them were destined to see again, and on the seventeenth of June, "the finest and the saddest night I ever knew," wrote one reluctant exile, they beheld for the last time the old familiar landmarks fade slowly in the deepening gloom. By far the greater number of the loyalists, however, placed themselves under the care of the army; and Clinton, having completed his preparations with the utmost secrecy, and disposed as best he could his wagons, artillery and stores, withdrew his forces so swiftly and so silently during the night that followed the departure of the fleet, that none knew his purpose until the early morning showed the city streets silent and deserted. "The English did not go away," it was said, "they vanished"; and Miss Wister records in her diary the astonishment that was felt at Gwynedd when the unexpected news reached them. The word flew fast and far over the country-side, and a few hours after Clinton's rearguard had left Gloucester Point, a regiment of American dragoons galloped past the quiet State House yard. The fortunes of Philadelphia had reached another turning-point; a new, and not altogether a joyful life, awaited her.

It was one thing, however, for the Englishmen to slip off on their perilous march, and quite another for them to continue it in safety. Washington was on their track: his forces outnumbered theirs, and he was not impeded by a vast quantity of stores and luggage. Whether it was pride, or kindness, or sheer obstinacy that made Clinton hold fast to the manifold possessions of the flying Tories, would be hard to say. At one moment he resolved to make a bonfire of all their encumbering wagons, and, at the next, determined to keep his word, and guard them to the end. An action was inevitable, and on the twentyeighth of June was fought the often discussed and indecisive battle of Monmouth. The heat was terrible,—that sudden, ruthless, mortal heat which nature holds in capricious reserve, and which is her chosen weapon when it pleases her to play a part in the futile struggles of men. Soldiers fell dead in their ranks without a wound. The Hessians roundly swore they could not and would not fight under such a pitiless sun. What the issue of the combat might have been, had General Charles Lee not retreated too soon over the dangerous morasses, and had Washington not advanced too soon to attack the only partially entangled enemy, is a point which still interests the student of military tactics. Ordinary readers are content to know that the action was without results, and that the lively satisfaction expressed on both sides probably meant that both sides were equally discontented. The Americans solaced themselves by court-martialling and disgracing General Lee. The English enjoyed the proud consciousness of having saved every wagon-load of stores, at the sacrifice of many lives. Sir Henry Clinton pursued his way to New York without further molestation, and Washington, turning back, took possession of Philadelphia.