Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1899-07-06
CHAPTER w,
NEW YORK IN 1TS.

New York at this period was scene of
confusion.
The fear of the French, which had occa-
stoned the evacuation Of Philadelphia. had
brought horde of $4,000 soldiers to be set
down among 5000 others, where but scant
Preparations had been made to receive
them. What with the smart of the flashing
administered by Washington at Monmouth
en- their march across New Jersey, the
weakness of Howes fleet, the fear of sud-
den movement on the city by the Americans,
and the intense heat of the weather, the
army was in state bordering on panic.
1t was an army, too, that through rank
and file had been demoralized by inactivity
and debauch, and nothing could have been
more apt or prophetic than the remark made
NY Franklin when it became known to him
that the Delaware had been opened by
Howe: philadelphia has succumbed to the
British, but they in turn will succumb to
Philadelphia"
1t had been even so, but the effect had be-
come apparent in New York. The civil law
had long been PROSTATE; the military au
thority lax. Now the British were waking
in the condition of man after nights dis
sipation, battling with muddled brain, and
feeling the internal economy fairly out of
gear. Fraud, fear and incompetence reigned
in every branch of the service, and bctwixt
FIRE, vandalism and the necessities of war,
New York, which had never known and was
never to know the dignity of battle, suffered
as no bcsieged city could suffer more.
All this suited my purpose, as well as d.
rectly favored my interest. The influx of a
host of newcomers saved me from being
prominent as a stranger, and the extra prep
arations for the defense of the town, to-
gether with the knowledge that the French
were at last upon the sea, diverted atten-
ton from small naval ventures
/ had feared the Phantom would be i'm
mediately reftted and armed for sound
or river cruising, and was nightly pleased
to have the days go by and see her, as the
saying goes, taking root to the bottom"
Never did the sun set without my having
a look at her swinging at her anchor. She
lay off the half-deserted shipyard, which be-
came favorite haunt of mine when tired
CT the mask I wore and wished to ease into
my true self.
And there I would walk up and down,
and each day watch the growth of the muck
that had fouled her cable on the ebG and
flow of the tide. She had not even been
dismantled, and, for aught could see, was
without a guard save at night; but to have
gone out to her and worked upon the cabin
bulkhead would have been impossible. The
boat from her larboard davits had been
taken away, but the dingey still hung over
the stern, as tantalizing as cup of water
just beyond the reach of thirsting man.
A sweet sight (but melancholy one) the
schooner made to me as she swung on the
broad river well from land, the fair light Of
an evening over her, mellowing her lines and
diminishing the rustiness of her sides. Be-
;ond her was the bald work of Fort Sterling
Quilt and deserted unframed by the pa
triots two years before), standing clear and
yellow above the height of Brookland NOW
Brooklyn.
Of Wall street lay many of Howe's fleet,
though the largest number was posted south
OF Nuttens island Governors islandl, in
readiness to oppose the French, who were
daily expected.
But in the fair harmony of sky and land
and water there was one discordant note.
The horrible hulk of the Jersey, within easy
scope OF the eye, was directly opposite, and
more than once did L see her unload her
dead, and could almost hear the cry of
Down, We rebels. down." as the patriot
prisoners were driven below at sunset.
Excepting in the shpyard and through
the sparscly built district lying betwixt the
line OF Notifications and the city proper on
the westward side of the island, there was
scarcely a rood of land to which I could flee
and not come in contact with the evidence
Of war. The quiet desolation or barrenness
CT the former and the broad, green mead
ows, the song Of birds, the harmonious hush
CT nature and calmness of the evening skies
at the latter point were in marked contrast
with the hell lying close at hand. Had the
devil come on earth in his proper person, as
some poet has made him out to have done,
and landed in New York, he would have
rubbed his hands and switched his barbed
tail in glee at the work OF his emissaries who
were serving him as but few so-called Chris
tians serve the Almighty.
Barefaced inhumanity stalked before So
ciety and caused laugh. Cruelty had be-
come a pastima. Domesticity was dead.
Robbery seemed set to the music of pop
uiar song, so universal it became, nor was