USA > Maine > The history of the state of Maine; from its first discovery, A. D. 1602, to the separation, A. D. 1820, inclusive, Vol. II > Part 50
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VOL. II. 62
490
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[VOL. II.
A. D. 1781. fled thither to dress herself, a British officer ordered the firing Gen. Wads- there to cease.
worth. His bravery and surren- der.
Armed with a brace of pistols, a fusee and a blunderbuss, the General fought the assailants away entirely from his windows and the kitchen door. Twice he ineffectually snapped his blunder- buss at others, whom he heard in the front entry ; when they retreated. He next seized his fusee and fired upon those who were breaking through one of his windows ; and they also with- drew. The attack was then renewed through the entry-which he bravely resisted with his bayonet. But the appearance of his under linen, betraying him to the soldiers in the kitchen, they instantly fired at him, and one of their bullets went through his left arm :- He then announced a surrender. Still, they contin- ued firing, when he said to them, " my brave fellows, why do you fire after I have surrendered ?"-They now rushed into the room, and one who was badly wounded exclaimed with an oath- " You've taken my life and I'll take yours ;" and aimed his gun at the General's breast. But an officer, coming in at the instant, put it aside and saved his life. Five or six men, besides the General, were wounded,-the doors and windows were in ru- ins ; one of the rooms was on fire ; the floors were covered with blood, and on one of them lay weltering an old soldier, who beg- ged that an end might be put to his misery. But the children and females were unhurt.
His removal from his quarters.
An officer, bringing in a candle from Miss Fenno's room, re- marked, 'Sir, you have defended yourself bravely,-done too ' much for one man. But we must be in haste. We will help ' on with your clothes ;'-and in a moment he was clad, except with his coat, which his wounded arm rendered it impossible for him to wear. It was therefore committed to a soldier. His wife and her fair friend, suppressing with admirable fortitude their intense emotion, wished to examine the wound, but time was not allowed. One threw a blanket over his shoulders, and the other tied a handkerchief closely round his arm, to check the copious effusion of blood. A soldier then took him out of the house, greatly exhausted ; and the assailants departed with the prisoner in the utmost haste. Two wounded British soldiers were mounted on a horse taken from the General's barn, himself and a wounded soldier of his, travelling on foot, though aided by their captors. At the end of a mile, one of the former, appar-
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ently dying, was left at a house, and the General was placed A. D. 1781. upon the horse behind the other.
Gen. Wads- worth.
When he had come to the place where the schooner lay, His treat- which was a privateer ; the master, impatient for a cruise, and ment. finding some of his men had been wounded, damned him for a rebel, and told him,-' go help launch the boat, or I'll run you ' through.' The General cooly replied, ' I am a prisoner, badly wounded,-unable to assist, treat me as you may.' Acquainted with this abuse, the commanding officer, Stockton, came instant- ly from the house, where he was taking refreshments, and said to the captain, 'your conduct shall be reported to your superiors. ' The prisoner is a gentleman, has made a brave defence, and ' is to be treated honorably.' Thunderstruck at this severe repri- mand, the Captain set the General and his fellow sufferers on board, assigned him a good berth in the cabin, and administered such comforts, as the vessed afforded.
Next day he was landed upon the peninsula ; the shores His arrival thronging with spectators, Britons and Yankee refugees, or To- at Castino. ries, anxious to see the man, who, through the preceding year, had disappointed all the enemy's designs in this quarter. The rabble raised shouts loud and long, as he stepped ashore, and he felt it a privilege to march under guard to the house of a refugee ; and thence, half a mile to the officers' guard-room in the fort. General Campbell soon sent a surgeon to dress his wounds, and a messenger to assure him, he should be made as comfortable as his situation would permit. The surgeon found the joint of the prisoner's elbow uninjured, and pronounced the wound free from danger, if an artery were not touched ;- a fact, he said, indeter- minable till a suppuration should take place.
At breakfast next morning with the officers, to which he was Conduct of politely invited, General Campbell paid him a high compliment the British officers to- wards him. upon the defence he had made ; yet thought he had exposed himself to a degree, which could not be perfectly justified. ' From the manner of attack,' said Wadsworth, ' I had no reason ' to suppose there was any design to take me alive, and I deter- 'mined to sell my life dearly as possible.'-' To men of our ' profession,' replied Campbell, ' this is as it should be. The treat- ' ment you have received from the captain of the privateer has ' come to my knowledge ; and you shall receive from him the 'proper concessions. A room of the officers' barracks within
492
THE HISTORY
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A. D. 1781. ' the fort will be prepared for you ; and one of the orderly ser- Gen. Wads- ' geants will daily attend you to breakfast and dinner at my table, worth. 'where a seat will be reserved, if you choose to accept it.' Campbell, moreover, after his worthy prisoner had retired, sent into his apartment several entertaining books ; and presently call- ing upon him in person, endeavored to cheer his spirits with ani- mated conversation. In a short time he was visited by the offi- cers of the victorious party ; and among them was the redoubta- ble captain of the privateer, who made to him an apology which he accepted.
Sends let- ters to Cam- den.
Wadsworth saw himself now alone-wounded-imprisoned. The vivid ardor of enterprize was chilled ; there was no new plan to be devised or executed in the service of his beloved country ;- no motive to excite an effort or even rouse a vigorous thought. Neither books nor attentions could beguile the heavy hours. After a few days, however, at his request, an officer, (Lieut. Stockton,) was sent to Camden with a flag of truce, car- rying letters from the General to his wife, and to the Governor of Massachusetts, stating his situation, the obliging treatment he had received, and his desires to be exchanged. Camden, the American encampment, though down the bay, was on its west- ern shore, only seven leagues distant from 'Biguyduce, and less than four from the place where he had quartered ; yet the re- ceipt of an answer from his wife, was not till the end of a fort- night from the disastrous night. His extreme anxiety for his children was then relieved by intelligence, for the first time, of their safety. His little son, it seemed, slept through the bloody scene undisturbed.
Denied a parol.
At the end of five weeks, finding his wounds so far healed as to permit his going abroad, he sent a note to General Campbell, requesting the customary privilege of a parol. But he was told that some of the refugees were his bitterest enemies, and ex- posure would endanger his safety ; that the garrison might suffer hazard by the inspection of a military man ; and that no altera- tion of his circumstances could be allowed, till a return was re- ceived to a communication sent the commanding General at New- York. Favored, in about two months, with a visit of ten days from his wife and Miss Fenno, under the protection of a pass- port from General Campbell, General Wadsworth suspected in the meantime from some intimations, that he was not to be ex-
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changed. Miss Fenno, being also fearful of the fact, had the A. D. 1781. address and shrewdness to ascertain from one of the officers, Gen. Wads- who was fond of her, and occasionally in the General's quarters, worth. that he was to be sent to New-York, Halifax, or some place in the British dominions. This she kept a profound secret till the moment of her departure, when she barely said, with a most significant look, " General Wadsworth, take care of yourself."- The monitory caution he more fully understood,-shortly after- wards, when told by one of his attending servants, that he was to be sent to England, as a rebel of too much consequence to be safely trusted with his liberty. The commanding General hence- forth withheld his civilities, though his officers continued still to visit his room and treat him with attention.
In April, Major Benjamin Burton, who had served under the Major Bur- General, the preceding summer, was taken prisoner on his passage prisoner. ton made a from Boston to St. George's river, the place of his residence,* and lodged in the same room with the General. He was a brave and worthy man, and had fortified his own habitation with stone battlements. Circumstances, from day to day, and hints, con- firmed their suspicions, that they were to be transported and kept in confinement till the close of the war ; and that it was indispen- sable to take care of themselves. They determined, therefore, to effect their escape or perish in the attempt.
But they were confined in a grated room of the officers' bar- The fort and racks within the fort. Besides the surrounding ditch, they knew guards. the walls of the fortress were twenty feet high,-secured with frazing on the top, and chevaux-de-frize at the bottom. Within and upon the walls, and near the exterior doors of the building, there were sentinels posted ; and also two in the entry about the prisoners' door. The upper part of this door was a window-sash -opened by the guards at pleasure, not unfrequently in times of profound darkness and silence. From items of information, ob- tained through enquiries apparently careless ; Wadsworth and Burton ascertained, that there were without the ditch, the glacis and abattis, another set of sentinel soldiers, who always patrolled through the night. The gate was shut at sunset, and a picket guard was placed on or near the isthmus north-westward, to pre- vent any escape from the fort, to the main land. In view of these
* His fortress was in Cushing .- See ante, A. D. 1752, p. 288.
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A. D. 1781. direful obstacles, they could never have been wrought up to a Gen, Wads- resolution sufficiently desperate for the emergency, by any thing, worth.
except the apprehension of a deplorable captivity abroad, in the hands of an enemy, exasperated by a long and tedious war, car- ried on against those who were deemed rebels. At length, a let- ter with money was received in a cartel from Gov. Hancock, also a proposal for exchange-but it was already otherwise determined.
Plan of es- cape.
As their room was ceiled overhead with pine boards, they set- tled upon this plan of escape ;- to cut off one of them and open an aperture, large enough for a man to pass ; to creep through it along one of the joists, over the officers' rooms adjoining theirs, to the middle entry ; and to lower themselves silently into it by means of a blanket. Should they be discovered, they proposed to avoid detection by acting like officers intoxicated,-objects with which the sentinels were familiarized. The transit from the entry to the walls was feasible; whence they intended to slide down into the ditch, and make the best of their way half a mile to the cove at the isthmus.
The labor performed.
They first begun upon the ceiling with a penknife, but soon found that the strokes and the appearance would betray them. They next procured from a soldier, who was their barber, a gim- let without exciting a suspicion ; making him a present of a dol- lar, not so much apparently for the article, as for his civilities ; as they knew he would never disclose a fact or a secret, which might give him trouble. Wadsworth being of middle stature, could, when standing on the floor, only reach the ceiling with the ends of his fingers ; but Burton being taller could use the gimlet without a chair. Every perforation was instantly filled with paste, made of bread fitted in the mouth. In three weeks, the board was riddled with holes twice across, and the interstices cut ; only a few grains of wood at the corners holding the piece in its place.
June 18. He and Bur- ton escape.
To prepare for their departure, they laid aside for food, their crusts and a part of their meat at their meals, which they dried ; and made from sticks of their firewood, pretty large skewers, with which they intended to fasten the corners of their bed- blankets to the stakes in the frasing on the top of the wall, and by those means let themselves down into the ditch. After every preparation was made, an anxious week elapsed, without a night favorable to their escape. However, on the evening of June 18, there was a tempest and much lightning. About 11 of the clock,
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as the flashes ceased, the rain suddenly began to descend in tor- A. D. 1781. rents ; and the darkness was profound. They now believed the Gen. Wads- long wished for moment had arrived. They retired to bed, while worth. the sentinel was looking at them through the glass-door ; and under his eyes extinguished their candle. But they presently arose ; and in less than an hour, the piece overhead was com- pletely out, and they prepared to leave.
Burton ascended with considerable ease, through the aperture The course or passage first ; but Wadsworth found great difficulty in following them, pursued by him, by reason of his late wounded arm. Becoming thus sepa- rated, they saw each other no more during the night. Wads- worth after passing the entry and the door, felt his way along the outside of the building, directly under the sheet of water falling from the eaves, till he attained the western side, when he shaped his course, for the embankment or wall of the fort. Finding the bank too steep for ascent, he felt out an oblique path, which he pursued, as he had seen the soldiers do, to the top. Next he proceeded to the north bastion, where he and Burton had agreed to cross the wall. Alert in his endeavors to discover and avoid the sentry-boxes, he heard a voice at the guard-house door on the opposite side of the fort, exclaim-relief-turn out ! At the same moment he heard a scrambling at a short distance, and knew Burton must be there. As he was approached by the 'relief- guard,' he made all haste to get himself with his wet blankets across the parapet, upon the frasing, to avoid being actually step- ped upon by the relief. Here he fastened the corner of his blan- ket with a skewer to a picket, and let himself down by it, to the corner, nearest the ground, and dropped without harm into the ditch. From this, he crept softly out at the water-course, between the sentry-boxes, and descended the declivity of the hill. Once more in the open field, undiscovered and uninjured, he could scarcely persuade himself, that the whole adventure was not a dream ;- a reverie from which he might awake and still find him- self in prison.
Both the rain and the darkness continuing, he groped his way Their arri- among rocks, stumps and brush to an old guard-house, on the val at shore of the back cove, where he waited in vain, half an hour, to meet his friend, according to previous agreement. He then proceeded to the cove, and happily finding it was low water, forded across it, in some places three feet deep, and in extent
Thomaston.
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A. D. 1781. about a mile. Thence he travelled another mile, up a gentle Gen. Wads- ascent over windfalls, to the road formerly cut by his direction, to worth.
facilitate the removal of heavy cannon. At sunrise, he was on the eastern bank of the Penobscot, perhaps seven or eight miles from the fort. The rain had ceased, and the weather was be- coming fair. He stopped,-and as he was resting on the ground, -to his unspeakable joy, he was overtaken by his fellow-prisoner. The meeting was mutually rapturous ; and the more so, as each believed the other to have been lost. Here they took a boat, and obliquely crossed the bay below Orphan Island. They had seen the barge of the enemy in pursuit, though they were evidently undiscovered. From the western shore they steered south-west, by a pocket compass, to the sources or branches of St. George's river ; and the third day, they arrived to the habitations of set- tlers ; and thence proceeded on horseback to Thomaston .*
Defence of the eastern people.
The rapacious depredations committed by the British priva- teers, the meaner cruelties purpetrated by the refugee Tories upon the defenceless inhabitants in the seaports eastward of Ken- nebeck, and particularly the seizure of Wadsworth, excited popular indignation to an uncommon height, and gave an impetus to public measures for the relief of the sufferers. At the special instance of the General Court, the Governor represented to General Washington, the critical and distressing situation of the eastern counties, particularly Lincoln ; the great importance of this re- gion, to the United States,-as more abundantly evinced since it has been considered by the enemy among the greatest objects of his attention ; and the necessity of retaining in local service, the quota of 500 Continental troops, about to be recruited this spring in the district of Maine,-subject as they would be to the orders of General Lincoln, till the pleasure of the Captain-General and Congress could be known. Happy, as General Washington said he should be, to grant their request when practicable, he told them he could not dispense with the eastern recruits,-they must not delay to join the Army at Newport under General Lincoln, for an attack upon him by the enemy from New-York was ex- pected every day.
'The land and naval force in the eastern ser- vico.
Never, even in the savage wars, had this eastern country been infested with any worse, than her present enemies .- They were
* Narrative of General Wadsworth's imprisonment.
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vile mercenaries, renegado and revengeful Tories, and free- A. D. 1781. booters, whose business it was to deal in blood, treachery and plun- der. But they had for antagonists, men whose love of liberty and justice was unextinguishable, and whose fortitude and exer- tions never abated. The General Court, driven by the baseness and abuse of the enemy to a measure of the last resort, passed an Act, to retaliate upon prisoners the ill-treatment which the eastern people and others were receiving ; and adopted new and efficient measures of defence. The State government further- more requested the French Admiral at Newport, to let the ship Mars cruise upon the eastern coast, and to send a frigate as soon as it could be spared into the same waters. To encourage and animate privateering, a bounty was offered of £50 in specie, for every mounted 2-pounder which should be taken, and a far- ther sum of £10 for any additional pound-shot in an ascending series to £120 for a 9-pounder,* and £6 for every prisoner ; $6,000 being put at the disposal of the Governor to pay bounty- money. There were also employed two sloops severally armed with twelve 4-pounders, a row-galley, and a flotilla of whale-boats, furnished with 200 barrels of flour, 100 barrels of pork, 400 stands of firearms, 2,000 pounds of powder, and 4,000 lbs. of lead, for themselves and the eastern troops-all which were ad- vanced by the Commissary-General of the State, and set to the debit of the United States. Afterwards two additional armed vessels were hired to range and guard the eastern coast. In Lincoln county, 160 men were enlisted to be stationed at such places eastward of Penobscot, as the Governor might appoint ; and 120 more, raised in York and Cumberland, and assigned to Falmouth and its vicinity ;- which soldiers, when armed and equipped at their own expense, were to receive 20s. per month besides their Continental wages. General Wadsworth being a prisoner, the command of the eastern department was committed Colonel McCobb, to Samuel Mc Cobb of Georgetown, Colonel of the first militia commands the eastern regiment in Lincoln, promoted about this time to a Brigadier- department. General.+
The hostilities of the eastern Indians, so bloody in former wars, Friendship were happily changed to the amity and friendship of faithful and of the In- dians. active auxiliaries. Our alliance with the French, and their influ-
* Mass. Resolves. VOL. II.
t General McCobb succeeded General Cushing.
63
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A. D. 1781. ence among them, had a most salutary effect. Orono, a Tarra- tine Sagamore, fitted out at his own expense, an express to Ma- chias, and thence to the tribes at Passamaquoddy, St. Johns and Nova Scotia, upon an errand of intelligence beneficial to us .* For this friendly and watchful service, there was dealt out to him thirty daily rations, through an unknown number of months. To la Juniper Barthuaine, a Catholic missionary, resident with the tribe, who was recommended by the French Consul, as a sincere friend to the American interests, the government allowed £5 per month of the new emission, in remuneration of his ser- vices, and provided for his personal accommodation.
Public credit.
The pecuniary affairs of the State had become highly interest- ing. There were incessant calls upon the people for recruits, provisions, and taxes. Many were creditors to the State, who could obtain no pay, except depreciated bills, by which they sus- tained losses ; and soldiers were importunate for their wages, which the most of their families at home greatly needed. Yet the state of the public funds, at the close of the year 1780, and that of the public credit, was such, that the bills issued by the State and still in circulation, amounting to eleven millions of dol- lars, had depreciated to be worth no more than $275 or 300,000, specie value.t To draw these all into the treasury, there was a New Emission of paper, which, for a short period, nearly retain- ed its nominal value. These were made a tender by a law; which, however, in a few months was repealed.
Public bur- dens.
Besides the pecuniary burdens and taxes upon every town and plantation in the State, there were repeated calls upon each one of them for a specific proportionate number of recruits ; and for particular articles, such as blankets, shirts, pairs of stockings and shoes, and pounds of beef : and in every county there were constantly muster-masters, and collectors of the different articles. The number of men called into the public service in 1780-1, was said to exceed one tenth of all the male inhabitants of the State, sixteen years old and upwards. Yet, according to an es- timation in the new emission of bills receivable by law in pay- ment of taxes, at the rate of one dollar and 7-8ths in the bills,
* Sept. 1, 1761. There is news, that 5 English ships and 5 brigs have arrived at 'Biguyduce .- Smith's Jour. p. 114.
+ 2 Bradford's Mass. p. 205 .- That is, one silver dollar would purchase from 35 to 40 dollars of the bills.
CHAP. XVIII.]
OF MAINE.
499
to one dollar in specie, the sums necessary to be raised in the A. D. 1781. Commonwealth during the year 1781, would, as it was stated, amount to £950,000 .*
But specie was plenty. The French brought money into the Specie country. Some probably found its way among the inhabitants plenty. from the enemy, through the medium of Tory emissaries ; and considerable sums were taken on board the prize vessels, captured by the Americans. Nevertheless, the difficulties and delays in collecting the assessments, so numerous and heavy-drew from address. the General Court to the people a pressing address ;- We con- ' jure you by all the ties of honor and patriotism, to give up ' every consideration of private advantage, and assist in supplying
Legislative
* Items :- This year's Civil List, £30,000
Interest on public notes and officers' wages,
213,000
Instalment of public debt to be paid,
500,000
For Congress,
86,000
Clothing for the army two years,
50,000
Indian department-Coats and firearms to the Chiefs, duffel and dowlas to the tribes, a barrel of pork and 2 bbls. of flour, to every family of an Indian soldier falling in battle,
,200
Furnished to Col. Josiah Brewer, truck-master, Halifax,
,500
To Col. Allen at Machias, pork, corn, and other articles, ,150
Defence of the coast, provisions and other items, 70,150
£950,000
Ways and means :-
Silver money tax assessed last year, collecting,
£ 72,000
Tax, (1781,) on polls and estates, 320,000
Excise on articles of consumption, 50,875
Lottery for purchase of clothing, 20,000
Sale of confiscated estates,
40,000
Shoes and stockings-specifically assessed on towns,
20,200
Surplus of beef towards this year,
16,000
Loan, (on the supply-bill,)
400,000
Deficit 10,925
£950,000
N. B .- In every tax of £1,000 upon the whole State, the District of Maine paid thus :- York, f39 10s. 10d .; Cumberland, £30 98. 8d .; Lin- coln, £22 2s. 7d .= £92 2s. 1d. Beef tax on Maine, was 236,120 lbs. Total beef tax on the whole State, 2,400,440 lbs .- Shoe and hose tax on Maine in 1780, was 1,016 pairs .- York, for instance, furnished 60; Fal- mouth, 72; and Pownalborough, 36 pairs,-other towns in proportion .- Resolves, 1780-1, vol. 5.
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