Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-06-12
CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II.
Amid the ancient forests Of land,
Wild, gloomy, vast, magnihcently
grand"
At the period to which We have
brought the reader, there was slender
and delicate boy residing in the family
of his brother-in-law, in the town Of
Litchfield, Connecticut, almost wholly
unknown beyond the circle of his i'm
mediate friends and relatives, and
scarcely appreciated at his Just value
even by them. Left an orphan wnie
he was yet in his nurses arms, he be-
came the inheritor Of considerable
estate, and the baneful privilege of
regulating his conduct according to the
bent of his own inclinations. At the
early age of sixteen he graduated at
Princeton college, in his native state.
and soon afterwards devoted himself
to the study Of history particularly
those portions which detailed the
achievements of the great military
commanders who had from time to
time played their busy parts upon the
theater of the world. Even at that day
he "oresaw that a period was at hand
when his country would need all the
knowledge thus acquired, and shaped
his studies in accordance with the
dictates of patriotism. Too young to
take any part in the discussions to
which the alarming enactments of the
British Parliament gave rise, he yet
made himself familiar with all the
points of the controversy, and his reso-
luton to peril life ard fortune in the
cause of the colonists was the result
of a deliberate conviction that justice
was on their side The battle of Lex
ington, followed in less than two
months by that of Bunkers Hill, hur-
ried him away to Cambridge, where
the American army was then encamp-
ed. Possessing all the theoretical
knowledge necessary to make an accom-
plished soldier, he was wholly with
out experience, and the high idea he
had formed of the order and discipline
essential in an army were grievously
shocked by the license of the raw mill
tia, upon whom the colonies chiefly de-
pended to carry them successfully
through a bloody contest with the
mightiest empire of Europe. What
such troops can accomplish when ami
mated by an ardent love of liberty is
even yet a mystery to the mere tac-
tician; and it is not to be wondered at,
that, at a time when regular armies
alone decided the fate Of nations, a
youth like Aaron Burr should have in
dulged in gloomy forebodings, when
| forced to witness the idleness, confu-
sion, and dissipation that pervaded
every rank of the early Continental
troops. Their courage, their energy,
and their patriotism he knew to be
unquestionable; but, reasoning from the
result of military operations in former
times, his heart sickened at the con-
viction that these high qualities might
serve no other purpose than to give a
bloodier character to the struggle. So
great was his mental disquietude at
the total want of subordination and
| training among the men, that shortly
after his arrival in camp he was
stretched upon a sick bed and for the
first time in his life suffered for the
want of those physical comforts that
wealth is generally able to purchase
for the invalid.
The career of the soldier is hard
one at best. The daily drillings, long
marches, incessant fatigue duties, and
often hunger and thirst, are but por-
tion of the evils he has to encounter.
When the body sinks, as it sometimes
must, under these heavy assaults, he
is thrown into a hospital, surrounded
| by a hundred groaning comrades, as
if to add to his sufferings, by compell-
ing him to witness the agonies OF his
friends. When an army is in the field,
| these hospitals are nothing more than
large tents, where the men are placed
upon beds of blankets, in long rows.
through which the surgeon passes once
or twice a day, making hasty prescrip-
tions as he goes that the hospital
steward administers or not according
to his own convenience. There was
enough in this beginning to have
damped the ardOr of a less enthusiastic
patriot; but so far from any wavering
in the cause in which he had en-
barked, Burr seemed only to gather a
fresher determination to endure ALL and
peril all for his country. In few days
he exhibited to his astonished comrades
one of those remarkable instances OF
the mastery of mind over matter-of
the mental over the physical man
which sometimes astonishes the disci-
pie of Fsculapius. Tossing on fever
ish bed. he overheard a conversation
between two officers of his acquaint-
ance. from which he gathered the fact
that Benedict Arnold was preparing
an expedition for the invasion of Can
ada and the capture of Quebec. The
news acted like healing medicine OF
his debilitated frame, and, rising from
his bed. he announced his purpose tC
join the expedition. RemOnstrances
were i'm vain. The commands, and ther
the entreaties of his uncle and guar
; dian, were alike in vain. All the kindly