Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-02-26

they flung her dead body in the flames
they dashed your child against the hearth
stone %
This was the farmers story.
And there, as the last of the breaking ot
day fell around the spot, there stood the hus
band, the father, and gazing upon that mass
of burned flesh and blockened bones-all
that was once his wife.
Do you ask me for the words that trem-
bled from his lips? Do you ask me of the
fire that blazed in his eye?
cannot tell you. But I can tell you that
there was vein going up to heaven from
that blacksmith's heart; there was clench'
ed hand upraised in the light of the break
ing day.
Yes-as the first gleam of the autumnal
dawn broke around the spot, as the first, long,
red, gleam of the sunlight streamed over the
peeled skull of that fair young wife--she
that was last night-there was VOW going
up to Heaven, the VOW of a maddened heart
and anguished brain.
How was that VOW kept? Go there to
Brandywine, and where the carnage gathers
thickest where the fight is most bloody
there you may see stout form striding on,
lifting hammer into the light. Where that
hammerstrikes, it crushes.
1t is the blacksmith's. And the war-cry
that he shouts-is mad cry of vengeance,
half howl, half hurrah Is it fierce yell,
breaking up from his heaving chest?
All, no ah, mol
It is the name of Mary, it is the name Of
his young wife!
0, Mary, sweetest name of wom.l-name
so soft, so ripping. so musical-name of the
Mother of Jesus, made holy by poetry and
religion-how strangely did your syllables
of music ring out from that blacksmith s
lips, as he went numbering on
"Mary!' he shouts, as he drags that red
coated trooper from his steed. "Mary!" he
shrieks as his hammer crashes down, laying
that officer in the dust. Look another Off
Ger, glitteripg in tinsel, clasps that black
smith by the knees, and begs mercy.
81 have wife-mercy! I have a wife
yonder in England-spare me-"
The blacksmith, crazed as he is, trembles
there is tear in his eye.
"I would spare you, but there is form
before me-the form of my dead wife. That
from has gone before me all day-she calls
on he to strike"
And the hammer fell, and then rang out
that strange war-cry, "Mary"
At last, when the battle was over, he was
found by wagner, who had shouldered a
cart whip in his country's service--he was
found sitting by the road side, his head sun
ken, his leg broken-the life,blood yelling
from his many wounds.
The wagner would have carried him from
the field, but the stout blacksmith refused.
"You see neighbour" said he, in that
voice husky, with death, II never meddled
with the British till they burned my house,
till they" he could not speak the outrage,
but his wife, his child, were there before his
crying eye-"and now I've but five minutes
life in me. I'd like to give shot at the
British afore I die. Dye see that cherry
tree? Dye think you could drag a man Of
my build up thar? Place me thar? give
me powder-horn, three rife balls and
good rifle, that's all ask"
The WAGNER granted his request; he lift.
ed him to the foot of the cherry tree he
placed the rifle, the balls, the powder horn
in his grasp.
Then whipping his horse through the
narrow pass, from the summit of neighbor.
ing height, he looked down upon the last
scene of the blacksmith's life.
There lay the stout man, at the foot of the
cherry tree, his head sunk, his broken leg
hanging over the roadside bank. The blood
was streaming from his wounds-he was dy'
ing.
Suddenly he raised his head, sound
struck on his ears. A party of British came
rushing along the narrow road, mad with
carnage, and thirsting for blood They pur.
sued a scattered band of Continentals. An
officer led the way, waving them on with his
sword
The blacksmith loaded his rife; with that
eye bright with death, he took the aim.
"That's for Washington !" he shouted,
as he fired
The Officer lay quivcring in the roadside
dust. On and on came the British, nearer
to the cherry tree, the Contiuentals swept
through the pass. Again the blacksmith
loaded-again he fired
"That's for mad Anthony Wayne" he
shouted, as another officer bit the sod.
The British now came rushing to the cher.
ry tree, determined to cut down the wound
ed man, who, with his face towards them
bleeding as he was, dealt death among theil
ranks. \ fair visagcd officer, with golden
hair waving in the wind, led them on.
The blacksmith raised his rife with that
hand stiffening in death, he took the aim
he fired the young Briton fell with sud
den shrek.
"And that, cried the blacksmith, in Q
voice that strengthened into shout, "and
that's for
His voice was gone-the shrek died or
his white lips.
His head sunk-his rife fell
A single word bubbled up with his death
groan. Even now methinks 1 hear thai
word echong and trembling there among
| bo ro.lye &c That word pro,