USA > New York > Schoharie County > History of Schoharie county, and border wars of New York > Part 60
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* He was a native of Dublin, Ireland. He was executed some time after the war for a forgery committed in England. In his dying confession, he says : " I shudder to think of the murders I have been accessory to, both with and without orders from government, especially while in New York ; du- ring which time there were more than two thousand prisoners starved in the different churches, by stopping their rations, which I sold. There were also two hundred and seventy five American prisoners and obnoxious persons exe- cuted, out of all which number there were only about one dozen public exe- cutions, which chiefly consisted of British and Hessian deserters."-Niles' Principles of the Revolution.
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was refused him ; a Bible, for a few moments' devotion, was not procured, although he wished it." Letters, which, on the morn- ing of his execution, he wrote to his intended, and other friends, were destroyed ; and this very extraordinary reason given by the provost-marshal, " That the rebels should not know they had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness." Unknown to all around him,-without a single friend to offer him the least consolation,-thus fell as amiable and as worthy a young man as America could boast, with this, his dying observation : " He only lamented that he had but one life to lose for his country." Andre, in his defence, alluded to the death of Capt. Hale, and paid his character a just tribute. He closed his allusion to the fate of Hale by saying that their cases were not parallel. Let us see how far they differed :
Both, when taken, were in a citizen's dress, and that of Andre at least, not his own; both had been within the lines of the ene- my in that disguise ; Andre had assumed a false name, although it is not certain that Hale did; both had gone to learn the situa- tion of the enemy's works, and Andre was taking measures to criminate another-and while neither the expectation of pecunia- ry reward or promotion influenced the action of Hale, it is not certain but both were in prospect for Andre. The one was the agent of a powerful king, sent to fix the manacles of despotism upon his fellow subjects, and by so doing entwine the laurel wreath upon his own brow, or receive a high sounding court title; the other was the agent of an oppressed people, struggling to be free, who felt it his duty, not for gold or worldly honors, to peril his life. Andre was planning the easy capture of a strong fortress by becoming accessory to treason ; Hale was endeavoring to learn
the future operations of the enemy, not through the treachery and crime of her officers. Andre was twenty-nine years old when he suffered, and Hale but twenty-two. If both were guilty of the same crime, under precisely the same circumstances, should not sympathy naturally incline to the younger ? for age is expected to bring with it experience divested of rashness. Contrast the treatment of the two officers after their arrest : The one is tried.
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by court-martial, and every possible indulgence granted him, add- ed to the sympathy of the whole American people; while the other, without the form of a trial, or the sympathy of a single Briton,-without being granted the favor of Christian devotion,- without permission to send a dying epistle to his father,-is hur- ried out and executed, with the cold formality that would attend the hanging of a rabid dog. Finally, let us contrast their dying words. Said Andre to the spectators, "Witness tothe world that I die like a brave man !" Said Hale, " I only lament that I have but one life to lose for my country !". The one implies a desire for personal fame, even in death ; while in the other, self is bu- ried deep in the love of country. Reader ! can you look on this picture, and feel that justice is done to the character of your be- loved Hale ?- to an accomplished and feeling scholar, who laid down his life a willing sacrifice for his bleeding country ? His blood, while yet warmed with the fire of youth, watered the then withering roots of the tree of Liberty. The time has arrived when justice ought to be done to the character of Hale ; and I believe that if ever this Republic rears two monuments for her illustrious dead, the one should bear the name of " the father of his coun- try," and on the other should be inscribed the name of the patriot martyr to American liberty, Nathan Hale. It is said that the father of Capt. Hale was mentally deranged ever after the exe- cution of his son.
In August, 1831, the remains of Andre were exhumed by roy- al mandate, under the direction of J. Buchanan, British Consul at New York, and removed to England to find a resting place in Westminster Abbey, where a monument had previously been erected to his memory.
Major Andre was no doubt a brave, accomplished, and at times, generous man ; but sympathy, for which the American character has ever been distinguished, and for which I trust it ever will be, tended at the time of his death to throw around his name a ficti- tious coloring that would not stand the ordeal of scrutiny. Going to prove that fact, is the following article, which is an extract of a communication published in the Philadelphia True American, and copied by Niles in his Register, March 1, 1817 :
43
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" Andre was in Philadelphia with the English army, and was quartered at the house of Dr. Franklin, in which the Doctor's fur- niture and very valuable library had been left. When the Brit- ish were preparing to evacuate the city, M. D. Simetre,* who was an intimate friend of Andre, called to take leave, and found him busily engaged in packing up and placing amongst his own bag- gage a number of the most valuable books belonging to Doctor Franklin. Shocked and surprised at the proceeding, he told him, in order that he might be influenced by the highly honorable con- duct of Gen. Kniphausen, who had been quartered at Gen. Cad- wallader's that that officer sent for the agent of the latter, gave him an inventory, which he had caused his steward to make out on his first taking possession, told him he would find every thing in proper order, even to some bottles of wine in the cellar, and paid him rent for the time he occupied it. Not so with Andre ; he qui- etly carried off his plunder. I have often thought his character owes many beams which play around it, to the fascination of Miss Seward's verse and description, of which he was by no means worthy, though there can be no doubt but he was a gallant soldier, and in some respects, an honest man."
It is also stated in a pamphlet publication of the proceedings, at the time a monument was erected to the memory of John Paulding, on the authority of Johnson's Life of Gen. Greene, that Maj. Andre was in Charleston, South Carolina, in the character of a spy, during the seige of that city by the British ; and that he was probably instrumental, to a great extent, in involving the very men in captivity, whose fate he intimated in his letter to Washington avowing his real character, " the treatment he receiv- ed might affect."
Gen. Greene was in command of the army at head quarters du- ring Washington's visit to Hartford, to meet the French officers, and in a letter to him, dated two days before Andre's arrest, he thus writes from Tappan :
" Col. - communicated the last intelligence we have from New York ; since that I have not been able to obtain the least in- formation of what is going on there, though we have people in from three different quarters. None of them returning, makes me suspect some secret expedition is in contemplation, the success of which depends upon its being kept a secret."
" Arnold knew the bearing of this post (West Point), upon all
*Simetre was a native of Genoa, who had settled in Philadelphia, and was the person who laid the foundation of the valuable museum, now belonging to Mr. Peal.
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the operations of the American army ; and afterwards avowed his confident expectation, that, had the enemy got possession of it, the contest must have ceased, and America been subdued."
Andre was not only pleased with poetry, but wrote it very well. His poetic wit generally flowed in a strain of sarcasm, and the American officers were usually the butt of it. His most celebrated poem of the kind was called the Cow Chase, written a short time before his death, and in this he aimed a share of his wit at Gen. Wayne, one of the bravest of the brave. The dog- gerel ended with the following stanza :
" And now I've closed my epic strain, I tremble as I show it, Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, Should ever catch the poet."
When Andre was delivered a prisoner at the village of Tappan, he found Gen. Wayne in command of a division of the army, the first Pennsylvania brigade, then stationed at that place. Thus we see that indirectly " the warrior-drover Wayne" did catch the poet.
As a reward for his treason, Arnold received from the British government, as is supposed, ten thousand pounds, and a commis- sion in her service. He issued a proclamation to induce the American soldiers to desert ; yet, as dark as their prospects were, English writers say there was not a solitary instance of desertion on his account. He was actively employed until the close of the war, exerting himself to injure his parent country. At the end of the war, he was engaged in commercial pursuits in the West In- dies. He afterwards removed to England, where he was shunned and despised by all virtuous and honorable men .*
He died in London in 1801. The following acrostic, published many years ago, and for which the writer is indebted to the tena- cious memory of a bachelor friend, does ample justice to his cha- racter :
*The following anecdote, given by one of his biographers, will show the estimation in which his character was held in the land of his adoption. On a certain occasion Lord Surry, rising to speak in the House of Commons, and perceiving Arnold in the gallery, sat down with precipitation, exclaiming, " I will not speak while that man" pointing to Arnold, " is in the house."
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" Born for a curse to nature and mankind, Earth's darkest realms can't show so black a mind ; Night, sable night, his crimes can never hide, Each is so great it gluts historic tide : Defunct, in memory shall ever live, In all the glare that infamy can give ; Curses of ages shall attend thy name ; Traitors alone shall glory in thy fame.
Almighty vengeance sternly waits to roll Rivers of sulphur o'er thy treach'rous soul; Nature looks back, with conscious error sad, On such a tarnished blot that she had made. Let hell receive thee, riveted in chains, Damned to the focus of its hotest flames."
The captors of Andre are now dead, and monuments have been erected over the dust of two of them, to point the traveler not only to the generosity of their countrymen, but to the tri- umph of virtue over the corrupting influence of gold. Paulding died Feb. 18th, 1818, and was buried at Peekskill, Westchester county, where a monument was raised to his memory by the common council of New York, Nov. 22d, 1827. Van Wart died May 23d, 1828, and on the 11th of June, 1829, the citizens of Westchester placed a monument over his remains. My friend, Mr. Murphy, who well knew the merits of the last survivor, Williams, has been indefatigable in his efforts to get a monu- ment to his memory. He has repeatedly petitioned Congress, the proper source surely, for an appropriation to erect one, and has even been in person to urge the matter-but as yet in vain. Are republics ungrateful ? Mr. Murphy has several times elicited from Congress a favorable report ; but those reports, like similar ones for a monument to the ill-fated Hale, have died still-born. The memory of those heroes should be honored, although it be necessary to lessen the mileage of Congressmen, or tax their re- ceipts for imaginary distance to do it. Virtue merits the cherish- ed recollection of the good, and surely it is not vanity that dic- tates the erection of marble to remind us of departed worth, and tell where rests a hero.
THE END.
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