The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757
the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual obstructions of the
rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the language of the country, the
river became navigable to the tide.
While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult gorges of the
Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial acuteness would not
overlook the natural advantages of the district we have just described. It
became, emphatically, the bloody arena, in which most of the battles for the
mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts were erected at the different
points that commanded the facilities of the route, and were taken and retaken,
razed and rebuilt, as victory alighted on the hostile banners. While the
husbandman shrank back from the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries
of the more ancient settlements, armies larger than those that had often
disposed of the scepters of the mother countries, were seen to bury themselves
in these forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were
haggard with care or dejected by defeat. Though the arts of peace were unknown
to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens
rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw
back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many a gallant and reckless
youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a
long night of forgetfulness.
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall
attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and
France last waged for the possession of a country that neither was destined to
retain.
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of energy in
her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great Britain from the proud
elevation on which it had been placed by the talents and enterprise of her
former warriors and statesmen. No longer dreaded by her enemies, her servants
were fast losing the confidence of self-respect. In this mortifying abasement,
the colonists, though innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the
agents of her blunders, were but the natural participators. They had recently
seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they had
blindly believed invincible—an army led by a chief who had been selected
from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military endowments,
disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and only saved from
annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame
has since diffused itself, with the steady influence of moral truth, to the
uttermost confines of Christendom.[2]
A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected disaster, and more
substantial evils were preceded by a thousand fanciful and imaginary dangers.
The alarmed colonists believed that the yells of the savages mingled with every
fitful gust of wind that issued from the interminable forests of the west. The
terrific character of their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the
natural horrors of warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in
their recollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to
have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of midnight
murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal and barbarous
actors. As the credulous and excited traveler related the hazardous chances of
the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled with terror, and mothers cast
anxious glances even at those children which slumbered within the security of
the largest towns. In short, the magnifying influence of fear began to set at
naught the calculations of reason, and to render those who should have
remembered their manhood, the slaves of the basest passions. Even the most
confident and the stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was
becoming doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who
thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America
subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their
relentless allies.
[2]
Washington, who, after uselessly admonishing the European general of the
danger into which he was heedlessly running, saved the remnants of the British
army, on this occasion, by his decision and courage. The reputation earned by
Washington in this battle was the principal cause of his being selected to
command the American armies at a later day. It is a circumstance worthy of
observation, that while all America rang with his well-merited reputation, his
name does not occur in any European account of the battle; at least the author
has searched for it without success. In this manner does the mother country
absorb even the fame, under that system of rule.
When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort which covered the
southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the lakes, that
Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army “numerous as
the leaves on the trees,” its truth was admitted with more of the craven
reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior should feel, in
finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had been brought, toward
the decline of a day in midsummer, by an Indian runner, who also bore an urgent
request from Munro, the commander of a work on the shore of the “holy
lake,” for a speedy and powerful reinforcement. It has already been
mentioned that the distance between these two posts was less than five leagues.
The rude path, which originally formed their line of communication, had been
widened for the passage of wagons; so that the distance which had been traveled
by the son of the forest in two hours, might easily be effected by a detachment
of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting of a
summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to one of these
forest-fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the other that of Fort
Edward, calling each after a favorite prince of the reigning family. The
veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a regiment of regulars and a
few provincials; a force really by far too small to make head against the
formidable power that Montcalm was leading to the foot of his earthen mounds.
At the latter, however, lay General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king
in the northern provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By
uniting the several detachments of his command, this officer might have arrayed
nearly double that number of combatants against the enterprising Frenchman, who
had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army but little superior
in numbers.
But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and men
appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable antagonists,
within their works, than to resist the progress of their march, by emulating
the successful example of the French at Fort du Quesne, and striking a blow on
their advance.
After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a rumor was
spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along the margin of the
Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the fort itself, that a
chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to depart, with the dawn, for
William Henry, the post at the northern extremity of the portage. That which at
first was only rumor, soon became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters
of the commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this
service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubts as to the intention
of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps and anxious faces
succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding
his own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered
zeal; while the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a
deliberation that scorned every appearance of haste; though his sober
lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently betrayed that he had no very strong
professional relish for the, as yet, untried and dreaded warfare of the
wilderness. At length the sun set in a flood of glory, behind the distant
western hills, and as darkness drew its veil around the secluded spot the
sounds of preparation diminished; the last light finally disappeared from the
log cabin of some officer; the trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds
and the rippling stream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that
which reigned in the vast forest by which it was environed.
According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the army was
broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling echoes were heard
issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista of the woods, just as day
began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall pines of the vicinity, on the
opening brightness of a soft and cloudless eastern sky. In an instant the whole
camp was in motion; the meanest soldier arousing from his lair to witness the
departure of his comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the
hour. The simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular
and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right of the
line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position on its left,
with a docility that long practice had rendered easy. The scouts departed;
strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering vehicles that bore the
baggage; and before the gray light of the morning was mellowed by the rays of
the sun, the main body of the combatants wheeled into column, and left the
encampment with a show of high military bearing, that served to drown the
slumbering apprehensions of many a novice, who was now about to make his first
essay in arms. While in view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front
and ordered array was observed, until the notes of their fifes growing fainter
in distance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass which
had slowly entered its bosom.
The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be borne
on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had already
disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of another
departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and accommodations, in front of
which those sentinels paced their rounds, who were known to guard the person of
the English general. At this spot were gathered some half dozen horses,
caparisoned in a manner which showed that two, at least, were destined to bear
the persons of females, of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the
wilds of the country. A third wore trappings and arms of an officer of the
staff; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the traveling
mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the reception
of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already waiting the pleasure of those
they served. At a respectful distance from this unusual show, were gathered
divers groups of curious idlers; some admiring the blood and bone of the
high-mettled military charger, and others gazing at the preparations, with the
dull wonder of vulgar curiosity. There was one man, however, who, by his
countenance and actions, formed a marked exception to those who composed the
latter class of spectators, being neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant.
The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without being in
any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and joints of other men,