Ten American Girls From History Part 7

"I thank you in the name of the American army!"

One can fancy how Molly's heart throbbed with pride at such commendation, as she picked her way over the bodies of the dead and wounded to the spot where her husband was propped up against a tree, slowly recovering from his prostration, but able to express his admiration for a wife who had been able to take a gunner's place at a moment's notice and help to rout the British.

"That night the American army slept upon their arms; Greene, like his Commander, taking his repose without couch or pillow, on the naked ground, and with no other shelter than a tree beneath the broad canopy of heaven. But this shelter was not sought, nor sleep desired, until every wounded and hungry soldier had been cared for and fed with the best food the camp could supply. Rising at dawn, Washington found the enemy gone! They had stolen silently away with such rapidity as would, when their flight became known, put them beyond the chance of pursuit--and so the American army had been victorious at Monmouth, and Molly Pitcher had played an important part in that victory."

She, too, had slept that night under the stars, and when morning came she was still in the dusty, torn, powder-stained clothing she had worn as cannonier, and afterward while working over the wounded. Her predicament was a bad one when a messenger arrived from General Washington requesting an interview with her. She, Molly Pitcher, to be received by the Commander-in-chief of the American forces in such a garb as that! How could she make herself presentable for the interview? With her usual quick wit, Molly borrowed an artilleryman's coat, which in some measure hid her grimy and torn garments. In this coat over her own petticoats, and a c.o.c.ked hat with a feather, doubtless plucked from a straying hen, she made no further ado, but presented herself to Washington as requested, and from the fact that she wore such a costume on that June day has come the oft-repeated and untrue story that she wore a man's clothing on the battle-field.

General Washington's eyes lighted with pleasure at the sight of such a brave woman, and he received her with such honor as he would have awarded one of his gallant men. Molly was almost overcome with his words of praise, and still more so when he conferred on her the brevet of Captain, from which came the t.i.tle, "Captain Molly," which she was called by the soldiers from that day. General Washington also recommended that she be given a soldier's half-pay for life, as a reward for her faithful performance of a man's duty at the battle of Monmouth.

That was enough to make John Hays, now completely recovered from his prostration, the proudest man in the army; but added to that he had the satisfaction of seeing Molly given a tremendous ovation by the soldiers, who cheered her to the echo when they first saw her after that fateful night. To cap the climax, the great French General Lafayette showed his appreciation of her courage by asking Washington if his men "might have the pleasure of giving Madame a trifle."

Then those French officers who were among the American regiments formed in two long lines, between which Captain Molly pa.s.sed in her artilleryman's coat, c.o.c.ked hat in hand, and while l.u.s.ty cheers rang out, the hat was filled to overflowing with gold crowns.

And so it was that Molly Pitcher, a country girl of New Jersey, played a prominent part in the battle of Monmouth and won for herself an enviable place in American history.

It is of little importance to us that when the war was over, Molly with her husband and child lived quietly in Carlisle, John Hays going back to his trade, Molly doing washing and enjoying her annuity of forty dollars a year from the government.

After John Hays's death Molly married again, an Irishman named McCauley, and it would have been far better for her to have remained a widow, for her life was unhappy from that time until her death in 1833, at the age of seventy-nine.

But that does not interest us. Ours it is to admire the heroic deeds of Molly Pitcher on the battle-field, to thrill that there was one woman of our country whose achievements have inspired poets and sculptors in the long years since she was seen

loading, firing that six-pounder,--

when, as a poet has said,

Tho' like tigers fierce they fought us, to such zeal had Molly brought us That tho' struck with heat and thirsting, yet of drink we felt no lack; There she stood amid the clamor, swiftly handling sponge and rammer While we swept with wrath condign, on their line.[1]

At Freehold, New Jersey, at the base of the great Monmouth battle monument are five bronze tablets, each five feet high by six in width, commemorating scenes of that memorable battle. One of these shafts is called the "Molly Pitcher," and shows Mary Hays using that six-pounder; her husband lies exhausted at her feet, and General Knox is seen directing the artillery. Also forty-three years after her death, on July 4, 1876, the citizens of c.u.mberland County, Pennsylvania, placed a handsome slab of Italian marble over her grave, inscribed with the date of her death and stating that she was the heroine of Monmouth.

In this, our day, we stand at the place where the old and the new in civilization and in humanity stand face to face. Shall the young woman of to-day, with new inspiration, fresh courage, and desire to better the world by her existence, face backward or forward in the spirit of patriotism which animated Molly Pitcher on the battle-field of Monmouth? Ours "not to reason why," ours "but to do and die," not as women, simply, but as citizen-soldiers on a battle-field where democracy is the golden reward, where in standing by our guns we stand shoulder to shoulder with the inspired spirits of the world.

Molly Pitcher stood by her gun in 1778--our chance has come in 1917.

Let us not falter or fail in expressing the best in achievement and in womanhood.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Thomas Dunn English.

ELIZABETH VAN LEW: THE GIRL WHO RISKED ALL THAT SLAVERY MIGHT BE ABOLISHED AND THE UNION PRESERVED

I

It was the winter of 1835. Study hour was just over in one of Philadelphia's most famous "finishing schools" of that day, and half a dozen girls were still grouped around the big center-table piling their books up preparatory to going to their rooms for the night.

Suddenly Catherine Holloway spoke.

"Listen, girls," she said; "Miss Smith says we are to have a real Debating Club, with officers and regular club nights, and all sorts of interesting subjects. Won't it be fun? And what do you suppose the first topic is to be?"

Books were dropped on the table, and several voices exclaimed in eager question, "What?"

"'Resolved: That Slavery be abolished.' And Betty Van Lew is to take the negative side!"

There was a chorus of suppressed "Oh-h-hs!" around the table, then some one asked, "Who is going to take the other side?"

The speaker shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I hope it will be me. My, but it would be exciting to debate that question against Betty!"

"You would get the worst of it," said a positive voice. "There isn't a girl in school who knows what she thinks on any subject as clearly as Betty knows what she believes about slavery."

The speaker tossed her head. "You don't know much about it, if you think that!" she declared. "We Ma.s.sachusetts colonists are just as sure on our side as she is on hers--and you all ought to be if you are not! Father says it is only in the cotton-raising States that they think the way Betty does, and we Northerners must stand firm against having human beings bought and sold like merchandise. I just hope I will be chosen on that debate against Betty."

She was, but she came off vanquished by the verbal gymnastics of her opponent, to whom the arguments in favor of slavery were as familiar as the principles of arithmetic, for Betty had heard the subject discussed by eloquent and interested men ever since she was able to understand what they were talking about.

Never did two opponents argue with greater fire and determination for a cause than did those two school-girls, pitted against each other in a discussion of a subject far beyond their understanding. So cleverly did the Virginia girl hold up her end of the debate against her New England opponent, and so shrewdly did she repeat all the arguments she had heard fall from Southern lips, that she sat down amid a burst of applause, having won her case, proudly sure that from that moment there would be no more argument against slavery among her schoolmates, for who could know more about it than the daughter of one of Richmond's leading inhabitants? And who could appreciate the great advantages of slavery to the slaves themselves better than one who owned them?

But Betty had not reckoned with the strength of the feeling among those Northerners with whose children she was a.s.sociated. They had also heard many telling arguments at home on the side against that which Betty had won because she had complied so fully with the rules of debate; and she had by no means won her friends over to her way of thinking. Many a heated argument was carried on later in the Quaker City school over that question which was becoming a matter of serious difference between the North and the South.

Before the war for Independence slavery existed in all the States of the Union. After the war was over some of the States abolished slavery, and others would have followed their example had it not been for the invention of the cotton-gin, which made the owning of slaves much more valuable in the cotton-growing States. East of the Mississippi River slavery was allowed in the new States lying south of the Ohio, but forbidden in the territory north of the Ohio. When Missouri applied for admission into the Union, the question of slavery west of the Mississippi was discussed and finally settled by what was afterward called "The Missouri Compromise of 1820."

In 1818, two years before this Compromise was agreed upon, Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond. As we have already seen, when she was seventeen, she was in the North at school. Doubtless Philadelphia had been chosen not only because of the excellence of the school to which she was sent, but also because the Quaker City was her mother's childhood home, which fact is one to be kept clearly in mind as one follows Betty Van Lew's later life in all its thrilling details.

For many months after her victory as a debater Betty's convictions did not waver--she was still a firm believer that slavery was right and best for all. Then she spent a vacation with a schoolmate who lived in a New England village, in whose home she heard arguments fully as convincing in their appeal to her reason as those to which she had listened at home from earliest childhood. John Van Lew, Betty's father, had ever been one of those Southerners who argued that in slavery lay the great protection for the negro--in Ma.s.sachusetts Betty heard impa.s.sioned appeals for the freedom of the individual, of whatever race, and to those appeals her nature slowly responded as a result partly of her inheritance from her mother's Northern blood, and partly as a result of that keen sense of justice which was always one of her marked traits.

At the end of her school days in the North, Betty's viewpoint had so completely changed that she went back to her Richmond home an unwavering abolitionist, who was to give her all for a cause which became more sacred to her than possessions or life itself.

Soon after her return to Virginia she was visited by the New England friend in whose home she had been a guest, and to the Ma.s.sachusetts girl, fresh from the rugged hills and more severe life of New England, Richmond was a fascinating spot, and the stately old mansion, which John Van Lew had recently bought, was a revelation of cla.s.sic beauty which enchanted her.

The old mansion stood on Church Hill, the highest of Richmond's seven hills. "Across the way was St. John's, in the shadow of whose walls Elizabeth Van Lew grew from childhood. St. John's, which christened her and confirmed her, and later barred its doors against her." Behind the house at the foot of the hill stood "The Libby," which in years to come was to be her special care.... But this is antic.i.p.ating our story. Betty Van Lew, full of the charm and enthusiasm of youth, had just come home from school, and with her had come the Northern friend, to whom the Southern city with its languorous beauty and warm hospitality was a wonder and a delight.

The old mansion stood close to the street, and "from the pavement two steep, curving flights of stone steps, banistered by curious old iron railings, ascended to either end of the square, white-pillared portico which formed the entrance to the stately Van Lew home with its impressive hall and great high-ceilinged rooms. And, oh! the beauty of the garden at its rear!"

Betty's friend reveled in its depths of tangled color and fragrance, as arm in arm the girls wandered down broad, box-bordered walks, from terrace to terrace by way of moss-grown stone stairs, deep sunk in the gra.s.sy lawn, and now and again the New England girl would exclaim:

"Oh, Betty, I can't breathe, it is all so beautiful!"

And indeed it was. "There were fig-trees, persimmons, mock orange, and shrubs ablaze with blossoms. The air was heavy with the sweetness of the magnolias, loud with the mocking-birds in the thickets, and the drone of insects in the hot, dry gra.s.s. And through the branches of the trees on the lower terrace one could get frequent glimpses of the James River, thickly studded with black rocks and tiny green islands."

No wonder that the girl from the bleak North found it in her heart to thrill at the beauty of such a gem from Nature's jewel-casket as was that garden of the Van Lews'!

And other things were as interesting to her in a different way as the garden was beautiful. Many guests went to and from the hospitable mansion, and the little Northerner saw beautiful women and heard brilliant men talk intelligently on many subjects of vital import, especially on the all-important subject of slavery; of the men who upheld it, of its result to the Union. But more interesting to her than anything else were the slaves themselves, of whom the Van Lews had many, and who were treated with the kindness and consideration of children in a family.

"Of course, it is better for them!" declared Betty. "Everybody who has grown up with them knows that they simply _can't_ take responsibility,--and yet!" There was a long pause, then Betty added, softly: "And yet, all human beings have a right to be free; I know it; and all the States of the Union must agree on that before there is any kind of a bond between them."

She spoke like an old lady, her arm leaning on the window-sill, with her dimpled chin resting in her hand, and as the moonlight gleamed across the window-sill, young as she was, in Betty Van Lew's face there was a gleam of that purpose which in coming years was to be her consecration and her baptism of fire, although a moment later the conversation of the girls had drifted into more frivolous channels, and a coming dance was the all-important topic.

As we know, when Missouri applied for admission into the Union, the slavery question was discussed and finally settled by the so-called "Missouri Compromise" in 1820. Now, in 1849, a new question began to agitate both North and South. Before that time the debate had been as to the abolishing of slavery, but the question now changed to "Shall slavery be extended? Shall it be allowed in the country purchased from Mexico?" As this land had been made free soil by Mexico, many people in the North insisted that it should remain free. The South insisted that the newly acquired country was the common property of the States, that any citizen might go there with his slaves, and that Congress had no power to prevent them. Besides this, the South also insisted that there ought to be as many slave States as free States. At that time the numbers were equal--fifteen slave States and fifteen free. Some threats were made that the slaveholding States would leave the Union if Congress sought to shut out slavery in the territory gained from Mexico.