The maid of the doe

PREFACE. 13

PREFACE. 13

and others of the pretty little pastoral songs of Scot-
land. But when I became familiar with the exploits oi
WiUiam Richardson Davie, and learned that amid the
dismay which followed Gates's defeat at Camden, he
expended the last dollar of an estate left him by his
maternal uncle, in equipping and mounting a corps to
make head against the devastating invaders, and per-
formed with it prodigies of valor; when I dwelt upon
his surprise of the snemy at Warhab's, his defence oi
Charlotte, his turning from the laurels which he loved,
to the country he bved more, and serving her where
he might be more useful, though less renowned ; when
I afterwards traced his civil career, and became ac-
quainted with his love of letters and his zeal in promo-
ting learning, the little pastoral associations vanished
from his name, and it gradually assumed the dignity of
that great one of Israel, from which it is corrupted, and
which was rendered so illustrious by the hero of the
sling and of the harp, the conqueror of Goliah and the
soother of Saul. Yet fearing that some reader might
have my old diminishing associations with it, I felt
obliged upon my first introduction of it to crowd it up
with others, and invoke even a jingle to relieve its in-
significancy.

The process of reasoning, here merely suggested, will
also serve to explain why a poet, whose genius is pecu-
liar and topics novel, is often, at first, the object of ridi-
cule, and at last, of idolatry ; as has actually happened
to Mr. Wordsworth. For the public imagination did
not know, at first, how to appreciate the. treasures he
2*

XIX.

Flashes my soul across
Such beam of hope as erst it knew,
When battle charge your bugle blew,

For Harry Lee's light horse.
O haste unclasp the secret book,
Whose title sparkles in your look,
In order every page display,
And do it in your minstrel way ;
For not since Camden's day of fear
Aught of our arms hath reached my ear,"

XX.

XXXHL

Canto V, MAID OF THE DOE. 161

In the day of the Camden route:
But when he saw the bleeding youth.
And heard his piteous tale of truth

The mercy-lamp went out.
And turning on the man an eye

THE MAID OF THE DOE. 251

Revolutionary men, was so surprised to hear that Kirkwood was at
that battle, that I began to think I might have misunderstood Judge
Brooke, and wrote to him to know if I had. From his reply I ex-
tract the following passage :

«* All I can say is, that I often heard it said in the army, that
Captain Kirkwood was in the battle of the Cowpens, and that he
first gave the word of command to charge bayonets under the smoke
of the first fire given by the Marylanders under Colonel Howard ;
and that it would be very difficult to convince me that what I heard
from so many officers at different times was not true." This was
sufficient for me ; but for the sake of others, I hunted up and ex-
amined Tarlton's Campaigns ; but, alas ! he too was silent as to
Kirkwood's presence in the battle where he was so severely defeated.
Under these circumstances, I began to fear that the glorious old
soldier's memory would be deprived of its honor from that famous
field, when Mr, Custis luckily stumbled on a passage in Major Gor.
den's Anecdotes of the Revolution, to which he gladly referred me .
It is in his account of Michael Docherty, who at page 397 thus
speaks ; ** The bloody battle of Camden, fought on the 16th of Au-
gust—bad luck to the day — brought me once again into trouble .
Our regiment was cut up root and branch, and poor Pilgarlic, my
unfortunate self, wounded and made prisoner. My prejudices
against a jail I have frankly told, and being pretty confident that I
should not a whit better relish a lodging in the inside of a prison-
ship, I cmce again suffered myself to be persuaded, and listed in
the infantry of Tai-lton's Legion. O botheration, what a mistake I
I never before kept such bad company ; as a man of honor I was
out of my ilement, and should certainly have given them leg bail,
but that I had no time to brood over my misfortunes ; for the battle
of the Cowpens quickly following, Howard and Old Kirkwood
gave us the bayonet so handsomely, that we were taken one and
all," &c.

This Michael Docherty is recorded by Major Gorden to have been
" a distinguished soldier of the Delawares," from whose lips he, the
Major, received the above narrative. So that the most incredulous
must now believe that Kirkwood was at the battle of the Cowpens—
that Howard's sagacity would have placed him in a distinguished

D PREFACE.

D PREFACE.

if we would present the one under the beautiful aspect
of the other. From rhapsodies and runes, lays and
legends, and those other forms which poetry assumes,
whether concealed under hieroglyphics, murmuring from
ruins, or towering in imperishable monuments, the pa-
tient historians of the old world have deduced the pro-
bable beginnings of its renowned nations. But the poets
of America who would select for their themes the events
and actors dearest to their country and themselves, must
work into their fairy fabrics resolves of congresses, re-
ports of officers, and the rigid narratives of actual obser-
vers, and yet represent truly every scene described, and
every hero portrayed ; for our hearts will not endure
that truths so precious should be deformed with fable,
or that persons so beloved should be presented under
any other than their own familiar aspects. The reflect-
ing reader will acknowledge that this is a difficulty not
easily surmounted ; and in the diffidence of a first effort,
I have endeavored to lighten it, by selecting for my sub-
ject a portiori of the war whose theatre was remote
from the common highways of our business and plea-
sure, and which, though very important and glorious in
itself, has not been rendered familiar to the public by
the works of any artist. None of the heroes of King's
Mountain, or the Cowpens, who so fatally crippled the
army of Cornwallis ; none of those who conducted the
famous retreat before him from Catawba to the Dan,
none, in short, of all those whose efforts saved the
South, and with it, the Confederacy, appear even amid
those 'magnificent groupings of Trumbull, which ^dorn

PREFACE. 7

THE RETREAT.

Canto V. MAID OF THE DOE, 143

That more than half of Tarlton's host
Was at the field of Cowpens lost,
A multitude of whom the train
Of Morgan swelled in captive chain,
Surprise and grief his bosom tossed ;
And to retrieve what others lost
With bis own arm, or all involve
In the same wreck, was his resolve-

IV.

THE MAID OF THE DOE. 251

Were Kirkwood and his Delawares,-^T, 127.

I was so fortunate last winter as to be thrown a good deal into
the society of Judge Brooke, of the Court of Appeals of Virginia,
who is one of the few bright links yet remaining between this and
the Revolutionary generation. Our conversation, which I loved to
direct to the scenes of his youth, once turned upon the battle of the
Cowpens, when he glanced at the unjust silence which had been
preserved by history as to the merits of Captain Kirkwood in that
action ; upon which he briefly touched . I confess, I was so sur-
prised, and so ashamed of my ignorance of them, that I said little f
but took the first opportunity of consulting Marshall's Life of Wash-
ington and Lee's Memoirs, to see if it were possible that I could
have forgotten that they ever mentioned him in their accounts of
that brilliant victory . I found that they did not . Yet such waa
my confidence in Judge Brooke's accuracy, and such my delight to
adorn my pages with the name of a man who perished on the thirty-
sixth occasion of risking his life for his country, and whom General
Lee in the page of his Memoirs above referred to describes as ** tho
brave, the meritorious, the unrewarded Kirkwood," that I inserted
in my description of that battle, which was then finished, the
mention therein made of him. Meeting afterwards with Mr. Cuetis,
I told him what I had learned from Judge Brooke as to Kirkwood's
tervices at the Cowpens ; and he, with his extensive knowledge of

252 APPENDIX TO

THE MAID OF THE DOE. 251

Revolutionary men, was so surprised to hear that Kirkwood was at
that battle, that I began to think I might have misunderstood Judge
Brooke, and wrote to him to know if I had. From his reply I ex-
tract the following passage :

«* All I can say is, that I often heard it said in the army, that
Captain Kirkwood was in the battle of the Cowpens, and that he
first gave the word of command to charge bayonets under the smoke
of the first fire given by the Marylanders under Colonel Howard ;
and that it would be very difficult to convince me that what I heard
from so many officers at different times was not true." This was
sufficient for me ; but for the sake of others, I hunted up and ex-
amined Tarlton's Campaigns ; but, alas ! he too was silent as to
Kirkwood's presence in the battle where he was so severely defeated.
Under these circumstances, I began to fear that the glorious old
soldier's memory would be deprived of its honor from that famous
field, when Mr, Custis luckily stumbled on a passage in Major Gor.
den's Anecdotes of the Revolution, to which he gladly referred me .
It is in his account of Michael Docherty, who at page 397 thus
speaks ; ** The bloody battle of Camden, fought on the 16th of Au-
gust—bad luck to the day — brought me once again into trouble .
Our regiment was cut up root and branch, and poor Pilgarlic, my
unfortunate self, wounded and made prisoner. My prejudices
against a jail I have frankly told, and being pretty confident that I
should not a whit better relish a lodging in the inside of a prison-
ship, I cmce again suffered myself to be persuaded, and listed in
the infantry of Tai-lton's Legion. O botheration, what a mistake I
I never before kept such bad company ; as a man of honor I was
out of my ilement, and should certainly have given them leg bail,
but that I had no time to brood over my misfortunes ; for the battle
of the Cowpens quickly following, Howard and Old Kirkwood
gave us the bayonet so handsomely, that we were taken one and
all," &c.

This Michael Docherty is recorded by Major Gorden to have been
" a distinguished soldier of the Delawares," from whose lips he, the
Major, received the above narrative. So that the most incredulous
must now believe that Kirkwood was at the battle of the Cowpens—
that Howard's sagacity would have placed him in a distinguished