Hero Stories from American History Part 6

It was just before sunrise on a lovely Sabbath morning that Nathan Hale was led out to death. The gallows was the limb of an apple tree.

Early as it was, a number of men and women had come to witness the execution.

"Give us your dying speech, you young rebel!" shouted the brutal Cunningham.

The young patriot, standing upon the fatal ladder, lifted his eyes toward heaven, and said, in a calm, clear voice, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

These were his last words. The women sobbed, and some of the men began to show signs of sympathy.

"Swing the rebel off!" cried Cunningham, in a voice hoa.r.s.e with anger. The order was obeyed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Statue of Nathan Hale, standing in City Hall Park in New York City]

Half an hour later, the body of the patriot spy was buried, probably beneath the apple tree, but the grave {61} was not marked, and the exact spot is now unknown. A British officer was sent, under a flag of truce, to tell Washington of the fate of his gallant young captain.

Thus died in the bloom of life, Captain Nathan Hale, the early martyr in the cause of our freedom. Gifted, educated, ambitious, he laid aside every thought of himself, and entered upon a service of the greatest risk to life and to honor, because Washington deemed it important to the sacred cause to which they had both given their best efforts.

"What was to have been your reward in case you succeeded?" asked Major Tallmadge, Hale's cla.s.smate, of the British spy, Major Andre, as his prisoner was being rowed across the Hudson River to be tried by court-martial.

"Military glory was all I sought for," replied Andre; "the thanks of my general and the approbation of my king would have been a rich reward."

Hale did not expect, nor did he care, to be a hero. He had no thought of reward or of promotion. He sacrificed his life from a pure sense of what he thought to be his duty.

{62}

CHAPTER V

OUR GREATEST PATRIOT

If American boys and girls were asked to name the one great man in their country's history whom they would like to have seen and talked with, nine out of every ten would probably say, "Washington." Many an old man of our day has asked his grandfather or his great-grandfather how Washington looked. Indeed, so much has been said and written of the "Father of his Country" that we are apt to think of him as something more than human.

Washington was truly a remarkable man, from whatever point of view we choose to study his life. He left, as a priceless legacy to his fellow citizens, an example of what a man with a pure and n.o.ble character can do for himself and for his country. Duty performed with faithfulness was the keynote to every word and every act of his life.

Still, we must not overlook the fact that Washington was, after all, quite human. Like all the rest of us, he had his faults, his trials, and his failures. Knowing this, we are only drawn nearer to him, and find ourselves possessed of a more abiding admiration for the life he lived.

{63} Washington was tall, and straight as an arrow. His favorite nephew, Lawrence Lewis, once asked him about his height. He replied, "In my best days, Lawrence, I stood six feet and two inches, in ordinary shoes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: George Washington]

During his whole life, Washington was rather spare than fleshy. Most of his portraits, it is said, give to his person a fullness that it did not have. He once said that the best weight of his best days never exceeded two hundred and twenty pounds. His chest was broad but not well rounded. His arms and his legs were long, large, and sinewy.

His feet and his hands were especially large. Lafayette, who aided us in the Revolution, once said to a friend, "I never saw so large a hand on any human being, as the general's."

Washington's eyes were of a light, grayish blue, and were so deep sunken that they gave him an unusually serious expression. On being asked why he painted these eyes of a deeper blue than life, the artist said, "In a hundred years they will have faded to the right {64} color." This painting, by Stuart, of the bust of Washington, is said to be wonderfully true to life.

Many stories are told of the mighty power of Washington's right arm.

It is said that he once threw a stone from the bed of the stream to the top of the Natural Bridge, in Virginia. Again, we are told that once upon a time he rounded a piece of slate to the size of a silver dollar, and threw it across the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, the slate falling at least thirty feet on the other side. Many strong men have since tried the same feat, but have never cleared the water.

Peale, who was called the soldier artist, was once visiting Washington at Mount Vernon. One day, he tells us, some athletic young men were pitching the iron bar in the presence of their host.

Suddenly, without taking off his coat, Washington grasped the bar and hurled it, with little effort, much farther than any of them had done. "We were indeed amazed," said one of the young men, "as we stood round, all stripped to the buff, and having thought ourselves very clever fellows, while the colonel, on retiring, pleasantly said, 'When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I'll try again.'"

At another time, Washington witnessed a wrestling match. The champion of the day challenged him, in sport, to wrestle. Washington did not stop to take off his coat, but grasped the "strong man of Virginia."

{65} It was all over in a moment, for, said the wrestler, "in Washington's lionlike grasp, I became powerless, and was hurled to the ground with a force that seemed to jar the very marrow in my bones."

In the days of the Revolution, some of the riflemen and the backwoodsmen were men of gigantic strength, but it was generally believed, by good judges, that their commander in chief was the strongest man in the army.

During all his life, Washington was fond of dancing. He learned in boyhood, and danced at "b.a.l.l.s and routs" until he was sixty-four. To attend a dance, he often rode to Alexandria, ten miles distant from Mount Vernon. The year he died he was forced, on account of his failing health, to give up this recreation. "Alas!" he wrote, "my dancing days are no more."

Many and merry were the dances at the army headquarters during the long winter evenings. General Greene once wrote to a friend, "We had a little dance and His Excellency and Mrs. Greene danced upwards of three hours, without once sitting down." Another winter, although they had not a ton of hay for the horses, as Greene wrote, and the provisions had about given out, and for two weeks there was not cash enough in camp to forward the public dispatches, Washington subscribed to a series of dancing parties.

Amid all the hardships of campaign life, Washington was ever the same dignified and self-contained gentleman. At one time, the headquarters were in an old log {66} house, in which there was only one bed. He alone occupied this, while the fourteen members of his staff slept on the floor in the same room. Food, except mush and milk, was scarce.

At this homely but wholesome fare, the commander in chief presided with his usual dignity.

For a man so large and so strong, Washington ate sparingly and of the simplest food. We are told that he "breakfasted at seven o'clock on three small Indian hoecakes, and as many dishes of tea." Custis, his adopted son, once said that the general ate for breakfast "Indian cakes, honey, and tea," and that "he was excessively fond of fish."

In fact, salt codfish was at Mount Vernon the regular Sunday dinner.

Even at the state banquets, the President generally dined on a single dish, and that of a very simple kind. When asked to eat some rich food, his courteous refusal was, "That is too good for me." People at a distance, hearing of the great man's liking for honey, took pride in sending him great quant.i.ties of it. During fast days, he religiously went without food the entire day.

Washington was fond of rich and costly clothes. In truth, he was in early life a good deal of a dandy. His clothes were made in London; and from his long letters to his tailor we know that he was fussy about their quality and their fit. Even while away from home fighting Indians and making surveys, he did not neglect to write to London for "Silver Lace for a Hatt," "Ruffled Shirts;" "Waistcoat of superfine scarlet Cloth and gold {67} Lace," "Marble colored Silk Hose," "a fashionable gold lace Hat," "a superfine blue Broadcloth Coat with silver Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs," and many other costly and highly colored articles of apparel worn by the rich young men of that period. As he grew older, he wore more subdued clothing, and in old age reminded his nephew that "fine Cloathes do not make fine Men more than fine Feathers make fine Birds."

You have noticed, of course, the wrong spelling of certain words quoted from Washington's letters and journals. These words are spelled as he wrote them. The truth is, the "Father of his Country"

was all his life a poor speller. He was always sensitive over what he called his "defective education." His more formal letters and his state papers were in many instances put into shape by his aids or his secretaries, or by others a.s.sociated with him in official life.

If Washington had an amiable weakness, it was for horses. From early boyhood, he was a skillful and daring rider. He rode on horseback, year in and year out, until shortly before his death. Many were the stories told by the "ragged Continentals" of the superb appearance of their commander in chief at the head of the army or in battle. In speaking of the battle of Monmouth, Lafayette said, "Amid the roar and confusion of that conflict I took time to admire our beloved chief, mounted on a splendid charger, as he rode along the ranks amid the shouts of the soldiers. I thought then, {68} as now," continued he, "that never had I beheld so superb a man." Jefferson summed it all up in one brief sentence: "Washington was the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Washington before Trenton]

During all his life, Washington was thrifty, and very methodical in business. He grew so wealthy that when he died his estate was valued at half a million dollars. This large fortune for those days did not include his wife's estate, or the Mount Vernon property, which he inherited from his brother. He was the richest American of his time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mount Vernon, the Home of Washington]

His management of the Mount Vernon estate would make of itself an interesting and instructive book. Of {69} the eight thousand acres, nearly one half was under cultivation during the last part of its owner's life. We must not forget that at this time few tools and very little machinery were used in farming. At Mount Vernon, the negroes and the hired laborers numbered more than five hundred. The owner's orders were, "Buy nothing you can make within yourselves." The Mount Vernon gristmill not only ground all the flour and the meal for the help, but it also turned out a brand of flour which sold at a fancy price. The coopers of the place made the flour barrels, and Washington's own sloop carried the flour to market. A dozen kinds of cloth, from woolen and linen to bedticking and toweling, were woven on the premises.

{70} In 1793, although he had one hundred and one cows on his farms, Washington writes that he was obliged to buy b.u.t.ter for the use of his family. Another time, he says that one hundred and fifteen hogsheads of "sweetly scented and neatly managed Tobacco" were raised, and that in a single year he sold eighty-five thousand herring, taken from the Potomac.

For his services in the French and Indian Wars, Washington received as a bounty fifteen thousand acres of Western lands. By buying the claims of his fellow officers who needed money, he secured nearly as much more. After the Revolution, Washington and General Clinton bought six thousand acres "amazingly cheap," in the Mohawk valley. No wonder Washington was spoken of as "perhaps the greatest landholder in America."

Like many other Southern proprietors, Washington had no end of bother with his slaves. He bought and sold negroes as he did his cattle and his horses, but, as he said, "except on the richest of Soils they only add to the Expense." In 1791, the slaves on the Mount Vernon estate alone numbered three hundred. In this same year, the owner wrote one day in his diary that he would never buy another slave; but the next night his cook ran away, and not being able to hire one, "white or black," he had to buy one. "Something must be done," he said, "or I shall be ruined. It would be for my Interest to set them free, rather than give them Victuals and Clooths."

{71} Washington was too kind-hearted ever to flog his slaves, and yet his kindness was often abused. Fat and lazy, they made believe to be sick, or they ran away, and they played all kinds of pranks. In his diary, we read the tale of woe. We are told that his slaves would steal his sheep and his potatoes; would burn their tools; and wasted six thousand twelvepenny nails in building a corn-house.

Like other rich Virginians of his time, Washington kept open house.

He once said that his home had become "a well resorted tavern."

Indeed it was, for guests of all sorts and conditions were dined and wined to their hearts' content. According to the diary, it seemed to matter little whether it was a real n.o.bleman, or a tramp "who called himself a French n.o.bleman," a sick or a wounded soldier, or "a Farmer who came to see the new drill Plow," all "were desired to tarry," to help eat the hot roasts and drink the choice wines.

There seems to have been almost no end to the sums of money, both large and small, which Washington gave away. Through the pages of his ledgers, we find hundreds of items of cash paid in charity. Here are a few entries which are typical of the whole: "10 Shillings for a wounded Soldier"; "gave a poor Man $2.00"; "two deserving French Women, $25"; "a poor blind Man, $1.50"; "a Lady in Distress, $50"; "the poor in Alexandria, $100"; "Sufferers by Fire, $300"; "School in Kentucky, $100." His lavish hospitality and his {72} unceasing charity were a constant drain on his income. Had he not been so thorough in business, he surely would have been brought to financial ruin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: General Washington and Staff riding through a Country Village]