The Bride of Fort Edward | Page 4

field;----
Leslie. But then----
Arnold. By all that's holy, Sir, if I were head here, the red blood should
smoke on this grass ere to-morrow's sunset. I would have battle here,
though none but the birds of the air were left to carry the tale to the
nation. I tell you, Colonel Leslie, a war, whose resources are only in the
popular feeling, as now, and for months to come, this war's must be; a
war, at least, which depends wholly upon the unselfishness of a people,
as this war does, can be kept alive by excitement only. It was wonderful
enough indeed, to behold a whole people, the low and comfort-loving

too, in whose narrow lives that little world which the sense builds
round us, takes such space, forsaking the tangible good of their merry
firesides, for rags and wretchedness,--poverty that the thought of the
citizen beggar cannot reach,--the supperless night on the frozen field;
with the news perchance of a home in ashes, or a murdered household,
and, last of all, on some dismal day, the edge of the sword or the sharp
bullet ending all;--and all in defence of--what?--an idea--an
abstraction,--a thought:--I say this was wonderful enough, even in the
glow of the first excitement. But now that the Jersey winter is fresh in
men's memories, and Lexington and Bunker Hill are forgotten, and all
have found leisure and learning to count the cost; it were expecting
miracles indeed, to believe that this army could hold together with a
policy like this. Every step of this retreat, I say again, treads out some
lingering spark of enthusiasm. Own it yourself. Is not this army
dropping off by hundreds, and desertion too, increasing every hour,
thinning your own ranks and swelling your foes?--and that, too, at a
crisis--Colonel Leslie, retreat a little further, some fifty miles further;
let Burgoyne once set foot in Albany, and the business is done,--we
may roll up our pretty declaration as fast as we please, and go home in
peace.
Leslie. General Arnold, I have heard you to the end, though you have
spoken insultingly of councils in which I have had my share. Will you
look at this little clause in this paper, Sir. The excitement you speak of
will come ere long, and that at a rate less ruinous than this whole
army's loss. There's a line--there's a line, Sir, that will make null and
void, very soon, if not on the instant, all the evil of these golden
promises. There'll be excitement enough ere long; but better blood than
that shed in battle fields must flow to waken it.
Arnold. I hardly understand you, Sir. Is it this threat you point at?
Leslie. Can't you see?--They have let loose these hell-hounds upon us,
and butchery must be sent into our soft and innocent homes;--beings
that we have sheltered from the air of heaven, brows that have grown
pale at the breath of an ungentle word, must meet the red knife of the
Indian now. Oh God, this is war!

Arnold. I understand you, Colonel Leslie. There was a crisis like this in
New Jersey last winter, I know, when our people were flocking to the
royal standard, as they are now, and a few fiendish outrages on the part
of the foe changed the whole current in our favor. It may be so now, but
meanwhile--
Leslie. Meanwhile, this army is the hope of the nation, and must be
preserved. We are wronged, Sir. Have we not done all that men could
do? What were twenty pitched battles to such an enemy, with a force
like ours, compared with the harm we have done them? Have we not
kept them loitering here among these hills, wasting the strength that
was meant to tell in the quivering fibres of men, on senseless trees and
stones, paralyzing them with famine, wearying them with unexciting,
inglorious toil, until, divided and dispirited, at last we can measure our
power with theirs, and fight, not in vain? Why, even now the division is
planning there, which will bring them to our feet. And what to us, Sir,
were the hazards of one bloody encounter, to the pitiful details of this
unhonored warfare?--We are wronged--we are wronged, Sir.
Arnold. There is some policy in the plan you speak of,--certainly, there
is excellent policy in it if one had the patience to follow it out; but then
you can't make Congress see it, or the people either; and so, after all,
your General is superseded. Well, well, at all events he must abandon
this policy now,--it's the only chance left for him.
Leslie. Why; howso?
Arnold. Or else, don't you see?--just at the point where the glory
appears, this eastern hero steps in, and receives it all; and the