These were thrilling days. The American armies were marching south, and with them were advancing the bugles of Auvergne.

Simple incidents, as well as incidents tragic and dramatic, picture times and periods, and we relate some of the family stories of General Knox of the artillery, who had collected powder and directed, often with his own hands, the siege-guns of the great events of the war.

When the French officers arrived in Philadelphia after their journey from Lebanon, they were entertained at a banquet by Chevalier de Luzerne, the ambassador from the French court. Philadelphia was the seat of the American Government then.

The banquet was a splendid one for those times, and it had a lively spirit. The American guests must have been filled with expectation.

For the plan to shut up Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown was full of promise, and the military enterprises to effect this were proceeding well. The lord himself was dissatisfied with the plans he was compelled to pursue, and any fortress is weak in which the heart of the commander is not strong in the faith of success.

In the midst of the banquet, there was a summons for silence. The Chevalier arose, his face beaming.

He looked into the eager faces and said:

“My friends, I have good news for you all.

“Thirty-three ships of the line, commanded by Monsieur le Compte de Grasse, have arrived in the Chesapeake Bay.”

A thrill ran through the assembly. The atmosphere became electric, and amid the ardor of glowing expectation the Chevalier added:

“And the ships have landed three thousand men, and the men have opened communication with Lafayette.”

The guests leaped to their feet.

“Cornwallis is surrounded and doomed!” said they.

They grasped each other’s hands, and added:

“This is the end!”

The army, now confident of victory, marched toward Yorktown, under the command of Washington.

The inhabitants along the way hailed it as it passed—women, children. There were cheers from the doorsteps, fences, and fields, from white and black, the farmer and laborer. The towns uttered one shout, and blazed by night. The land knew no common night, every one was so filled and thrilled with joy. All flags were in air.

The morning of liberty was dawning, the sun was coming, the people knew it by the advance rays. The invader must soon depart.

“Cornwallis is doomed!” was the salutation from place to place, from house to house.

General Washington, with Knox and members of his staff, stopped one morning at a Pennsylvania farmhouse for breakfast.

The meal was provided. The officers partook of it, and ordered their horses, and were waiting for them when the people of the place came into the house to pay their respects to Washington. He stood in the simple room, tall and commanding, with the stately Knox beside him.

“Make way,” said the people, “make way for age!”

An old man appeared, the patriarch of the place. He entered the house without speaking a word. He looked into the face of Washington and stood silent. There had come to him the moment that he had hoped to see; the desire and probably prayers of fading years had been answered. The room became still.

The old man did not ask an introduction to the great commander. He lifted his face upward and raised his hands. Then he spoke, not to Washington and his generals, but to God:

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”

The generals rode on toward Virginia, cheered by the spirit of prophecy in the patriarch’s prayer.

It was a little episode, but the soul of destiny was in it.

October, with its refreshing shade of coolness, its harvest-fields and amber airs, was now at hand. Cornwallis was surrounded at Yorktown. He had warned Sir Henry Clinton, his superior, that this might be his fate. He is lost who has lost his faith, and begins to make the provision to say, “I told you so!”

Knox with his siege-guns, twenty-three in number, was preparing for the final tempest of the war.

And against Yorktown were marching the heroes of the old liberty banners of Auvergne sans tache.

In the early autumn of 1781 the field of war had become the scene of a thrilling drama in the British camp. Lord Cornwallis had taken his army into Yorktown, and under the protection of the British fleet on the York River had fortified his position by semicircular fortifications which extended from river to river.

He must have felt his position impregnable at first, with the advantage which the fleet would bring to him in the wide river, until there came news to him that unsettled his faith in his position. But he soon began to lose confidence. He seemed to foreshadow his doom.

Yorktown was situated on a projecting bank of the York River. The river was a mile wide, and deep. Lord Cornwallis expected to have the place fortified by middle fall, and that Sir Henry Clinton would join him there.

“I have no enemy now to contend against but Lafayette,” he thought until the coming of the French fleet was announced to him.

Washington determined to cut off Lord Cornwallis from any retreat from Yorktown by land or by sea. His plan was to pen up the British commander on the peninsula, and there to end the war. He largely entrusted the siege by land to young Lafayette. He probably felt a pride in giving the young general the opportunity to end the war. He liked to honor one who had so trusted his heart, and whose service had so honored him.

Washington ordered the French army to the Virginia peninsula, and with them went the grand regiment of Gatinais, or Gatinois, with which many years before Rochambeau had won his fame. The heroes of old Auvergne were to be given the opportunity to fight for liberty here, as they had done in the days of old.

These heroes had had their regimental name officially taken away from them on being brought to America—Auvergne sans tache. They desired to serve liberty under this glorious name of noble memories again. They appealed to Rochambeau for that distinction.

Their hearts beat high, for they were going to reenforce Lafayette, who was born in Auvergne, and who had desired their presence and inspiration.

So on sea and land a powerful force was gathering to shut up Lord Cornwallis in Yorktown and to shatter the British army on the banks of the York.

Washington himself was approaching Lafayette by way of Philadelphia, Rochambeau by way of Chester and Philadelphia, and De Grasse by the sea. General Thomas Nelson, Governor of Virginia, was arousing the spirit of Virginia again and calling out the militia.

At the great banquet which was given in Philadelphia by the French minister, Chevalier de Luzerne, to Washington and the French officers, when came the news that Count De Grasse and Marquis St. Simon with 3,000 troops had joined Lafayette, all Philadelphia had rung with cheers, and the news thrilled the country. At that hour the destiny of America was revealed. There could but one thing happen at Yorktown now—Cornwallis must surrender. The General was certain to be blocked up in York River.

Everything was going well. Washington and Rochambeau went to Baltimore and found the city blazing as with the assurance of victory. At this time, with victory in view, Washington visited Mount Vernon, from which he had been absent six anxious years. He passed the evening there with Count Rochambeau, and they were joined there by Chastellux. Washington now left his old home for the field of final victory.

The great generals next faced Yorktown, with their forces, some 16,000 men. They saw the helplessness of Cornwallis, and as De Grasse wished to return soon to the West Indies, the combined forces prepared to move on the British fortifications at once. Seven redoubts and six batteries faced the allies, with abatis, field-works, and barricades of fallen trees.

The allies began to prepare for an immediate conflict. They erected advancing earthworks, in a semicircle, and with the French fleet in the bay, the 1st of October heard the sound of the cannonade.

The peninsula thundered and smoked, and the drama there begun was watched by Washington, Rochambeau, Chastellux, and Count de Grasse. What men were these with Lafayette at the front!

A great cannonade began on the 9th of October, Washington himself putting the match to the first gun.

Governor Nelson of Virginia was in the field. His house was there, too, within the enemy’s lines in Yorktown. “Do you see yonder house?” said he to a commander of the artillery. It was the headquarters of the enemy. “It is my house, but fire upon it.”

This recalls John Hancock’s message to Washington at the beginning of the war. “Burn Boston, if need be, and leave John Hancock a beggar.”

The enemy responded. The shells of each crossed each other in the bright, smoky October air. The British fired red-hot shot, and set on fire some of their own shipping. The nights seemed full of meteors, as though red armies were battling in the sky.

The 14th of October came—a day of heroes. That day the redoubts were to be stormed.

Lafayette prepared his own men for the assault.

Then Baron de Viomenil led out the heroes of Gatinais.

Before this regiment De Rochambeau appeared to give them their orders, which meant death. He had won, as we have said, his own fame in Europe with these mountain heroes. The attack to which he was to order them now was to be made at night.

“My lads,” said he, “I have need of you this night, and I hope that you will not forget that we have served together in that brave regiment of Auvergne sans tache.”

A cheer went up in memory of old, followed by:

“Restore to us our name of ‘Auvergne sans tache’ and we will die.”

“That name shall be restored,” said Rochambeau.

They marched to death side by side with the bold regiment of Lafayette, who was to lead the advance.

About eight o’clock the signal rockets for the attack reddened the sky.

The regiment of Gatinais rushed forward. They faced the hardest resistance of the siege. This redoubt was powerfully garrisoned and fortified.

Baron de Viomenil led his heroes into the fire, and his men fought like ancient heroes, to whom honor was more than life. In the midst of the struggle an aide came to him from Lafayette.

“I am in the redoubt,” said the message. “Where are you?”

“I will be in my redoubt in five minutes.”

Strongly fortified as that redoubt was, it could not withstand the men of Gatinais. They entered it with a force that nothing could withstand, but one third of them fell.

“Royal Auvergne,” said Rochambeau, “your survivors shall have your own name again.”

He reported the action to the French King, and the latter gave back to the heroes their regimental name of old Auvergne sans tache.

These men are worthy of a monument under that noble motto. We repeat, the words should be used on decorative ensigns of the Sons of the Revolution; nothing nobler in war ever saw the light.

Yorktown fell on the morning of the 17th, and a courier sped toward Philadelphia, crying, as he went: “Cornwallis is taken!” Bells rang, people cheered.

The messenger reached Philadelphia at night—“Cornwallis is taken!”

Windows opened. The citizens leaped from their beds. The bells rang on, and the city blazed with lights, and Congress gave way to transports of joy.

Dennis and Peter came riding back to the alarm-post, shouting by the way, “Cornwallis is taken!”

The Governor knelt down in the war office, and the people shouted without the silent place.

Peter could afford to be magnanimous now to his feeble old uncle. He hurried to the old man’s cabin and knocked at the door.

“I chop wood,” said a voice within.

“Uncle, it is Peter. Cornwallis has surrendered!”

The latch was lifted, and the wood-chopper appeared as one withered and palsied.

“What is that you tell me? Cornwallis has surrendered? What has become of the King?”

“The cause of the King is lost!”

“Then I don’t see that I have anything more to live for. Come in. I have nothing against you now, so far as I am concerned, for you came back—don’t you remember that on the night that I was to have been robbed you came back? I have never forgotten that. You came back.”

He tottered to the chest beside the table.

“Here, let me open the chest now while I have strength to unlock the lid. The King! the King! How he will feel when he hears the news! And he said of young Trumbull, ‘I pity him.’ His heart will go down like a sailor on the sea on a stormy night. Peter, I feel for him. Don’t you pity him? Sit down by me.”

He lifted the lid of the chest, and took out of the chest a leather bag. He untied the bag-string, and turned a pile of doubloons on the table.

“One. That is yours. You came back to your poor old uncle on the night when the robber was trying to find me.

“Two. It is yours, for you came back.

“Three. My sight is going. It is all yours, for you came back.

“My hands grow numb, the world is going. I can feel it going. But all that I leave is yours. My breath grows cold. I have only time to say, ‘God save the King!’ I want to go, and leave what I have to you, Peter, for you came back. Good-by, earth; I leave you my woodpile; warm yourself by my fire when I am gone. God—save—the—King!”

He sat silent. Peter bent over him. The old man’s breath was cold, and soon the last pulse beat.

Peter gathered up the gold. He would turn it into education at Plainfield Academy and at Yale College. Then he would go away, after Dennis, perhaps, to the Western territory which would become a new Connecticut.

THE END