Legends of Loudoun Part 13

Four days slowly pa.s.sed, and then an unsigned letter, in a disguised hand, was received by Lee from his sergeant, telling of his further adventures. He had, it seems, been kindly received on the galley and taken at once to the British Commandant in New York who was deeply interested in his story of his escape. The keen-witted Champe did not fail to take full advantage of his sympathetic audience and the good impression he was making. He a.s.sured the British officers "that such was the spirit of defection which prevailed among the American troops in consequence of Arnold's example, that he had no doubt, if the temper was properly cherished, Was.h.i.+ngton's ranks would not only be greatly thinned, but that some of his best corps would leave him." This did not seem, to a reflective mind, wholly consistent with the fire and spirit of the pursuit which the sergeant had so narrowly eluded, but his circ.u.mstantial narrative gave such welcome news to the British that they appear happily to have succ.u.mbed to the very human inclination to believe what they most wished were true. Their enthusiasm, however, did not cause them to forego recording a very careful description of their new ally: "his size, place of birth, form, countenance, hair, the corps in which he had served, with other remarks in conformity with the British usage." Delighted as were his new friends with the sergeant and his story and inclined to accept both as offered, they apparently had not wholly failed to profit from their long contact at home with their canny northern neighbors.

And now Champe was taken before His Majesty's Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Clinton himself. Nothing was wanting to shew the importance attached by the British to this latest deserter and the causes believed by them to have impelled him to his course. Clinton closely cross-examined the fugitive as to the possibility of the encouragement of further desertions from the American forces, the effect of Arnold's treason on Was.h.i.+ngton and the treatment being given Andre. Although there were moments when Champe's ingenuity and presence of mind appear to have been sadly taxed, yet on the whole he succeeded in so well and convincingly deporting himself that Sir Henry, at the close of his examination, gave him a couple of guineas and a.s.signed him to the service of General Arnold, with a letter telling the latter who and what he was. Arnold also received Champe cordially, expressed much satisfaction on hearing from him the manner of his escape and the fabulous effect of Arnold's example; and concluded his numerous enquiries by a.s.signing to him similar quarters to those occupied by his own recruiting sergeants.

Nothing could have developed more favorably to the American's plot. Of a surety, fickle fortune appeared at last to be broadly smiling on him.

Arnold's next move was to seek to persuade Champe to join his legion; but that was a step so repugnant to the sergeant's spirit that even devotion to Was.h.i.+ngton failed, in his mind, to justify it; so he told Arnold, with some surliness, that for his part, he had had enough of war and knew that if he ever were captured by the rebels he would be hung out-of-hand which for him made further military service doubly hazardous.[119] Arnold had reason to appreciate the sergeant's point and permitted him to retire to his quarters where at once he devoted himself to the consideration of how and when he could make contact with the American friends within the British lines who were to get for him the information sought by Was.h.i.+ngton as to the loyalty of certain of his officers. This contact, with fortune's aid, he was able to establish the next night and his new friend not only pledged himself to procure the information he sought but engaged to send out Champe's reports to Major Lee as well.

[119] Thus Lee's account, but Champe apparently afterwards found it expedient to enlist with the British, as will appear later.

Thus was communication established between Champe and Lee and promptly word came from the latter urging expedition; for Andre's situation had become desperate and further delay by Was.h.i.+ngton increasingly difficult.

And then Andre himself destroyed his own last chance and ruined the hopes and efforts of his well-wishers. Disdaining pretense or defense, he freely acknowledged the truth of the charges against him and sealed his own doom. By his acknowledgment Was.h.i.+ngton's hands were tied and Andre was promptly condemned as a spy and duly executed.

Andre's tragic fate did not diminish Was.h.i.+ngton's desire to lay his hands on Arnold. Champe was duly informed by Lee of the fatal event and again urged to bring the plot in which he was engaged to a successful outcome.

But Champe needed no urging. With such alacrity had he and his confederates been working, that soon he was able to send a report to Lee completely vindicating the American general officer toward whom Was.h.i.+ngton's doubts had been directed, which report Lee duly transmitted to his chief; with the result that "the distrust heretofore entertained of the accused was forever dismissed."

And now Champe had but to secure the person of Arnold to crown his task with success and to wholly justify the confidence reposed in him by Lee and Was.h.i.+ngton. On the 19th October, 1780, Major Lee received from him a full report of his progress toward that end and the plan he had made.

Again Lee laid his communication before his general, from whom he received the following letter in Was.h.i.+ngton's own handwriting, shewing how carefully the latter sought to guard the secret and protect his emissary:

"Headquarters October 20, 1780

"Dear Sir: The plan proposed for taking A----d (the outlines of which are communicated in your letter, which was this moment put into my hands without date) has every mark of a good one. I therefore agree to the promised rewards; and have such entire confidence in your management of the business, as to give it my fullest approbation; and leave the whole to the guidance of your judgment, with this express stipulation and pointed injunction, that he (A----d) is to be brought to me alive.

"No circ.u.mstance whatever shall obtain my consent to his being put to death. The idea which would accompany such an event, would be that ruffians had been hired to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. My aim is to make a public example of him; and this should be strongly impressed upon those who are employed to bring him off. The Sergeant must be very circ.u.mspect--too much zeal may create suspicion, and too much precipitency may defeat the project. The most inviolable secrecy must be observed on all hands. I send you five guineas; but I am not satisfied of the propriety of the Sergeant's appearing with much specie. This circ.u.mstance may also lead to suspicion, as it is but too well known to the enemy that we do not abound in this article.

"The interviews between the party in and out of the city, should be managed with much caution and seeming indifference; or else the frequency of their meetings, etc., may betray the design, and involve bad consequences; but I am persuaded that you will place every matter in a proper point of view to the conductors of this interesting business, and therefore I shall only add that

"I am, dear sir, etc., etc.

"G. WAs.h.i.+NGTON."

Written communications between Champe and Lee continued. In ten days Champe had added the final touches to his plan for the abduction and so informed Lee, asking that on the third subsequent night a party of dragoons meet him at Hoboken to whom he hoped to deliver Arnold.

Our sergeant was by this time familiar with Arnold's habits and movements. He knew that it was Arnold's custom to return to his home about midnight and to visit the garden before retiring. It was at that time that Champe and the allies he, through Lee's letters, had obtained, planned to seize and gag the renegade and remove him by way of an adjoining alley to a boat, manned by other trusted conspirators, at one of the wharves on the nearby Hudson.

When the appointed day arrived, Was.h.i.+ngton directed Lee to himself take command of the small detachment of dragoons who were to meet Champe and his prisoner. "The day arrived," quoting Lee again "and Lee with a party of dragoons left camp late in the evening, with three led horses; one for Arnold, one for the sergeant and the third for his a.s.sociate; never doubting the success of the enterprise from the tenor of the last received communication. The party reached Hoboken about midnight, where they were concealed in the adjoining wood--Lee with three dragoons stationing himself near the river sh.o.r.e. Hour after hour pa.s.sed--no boat approached. At length the day broke and the major retired to his party and with his led horses returned to camp, where he proceeded to headquarters to inform the general of the disappointment as mortifying as inexplicable."

Deeply concerned as were both Was.h.i.+ngton and Lee over the failure of the plan, they were also very apprehensive as to Champe's fate, but in a few days one of the sergeant's a.s.sociates succeeded in getting through to them an anonymous letter explaining the failure of their plans. On the day preceding that fixed for the abduction, Arnold most unexpectedly removed his quarters to another part of the town to facilitate the supervision by him of the embarkation of troops on a special mission to be commanded by him and wholly unforeseen by the conspirators--an expeditionary force made up largely of American deserters. "Thus it happened" Lee explains "that John Champe, instead of crossing the Hudson that night, was safely deposited on board one of the fleet of transports, from whence he never departed until Arnold landed in Virginia! Nor was he able to escape from the British Army until after the junction of Lord Cornwallis at Petersburg, when he deserted; and proceeding high up into Virginia, he pa.s.sed into North Carolina near the Saura towns, and keeping in the friendly districts of that State, safely joined the army soon after it had pa.s.sed the Congaree in pursuit of Lord Rawdon.

"His appearance excited extreme surprise among his former comrades, which was not a little increased when they saw the cordial reception he met with from Lieutenant Colonel Lee. His whole story soon became known to the corps, which reproduced the love and respect of officer and soldier, heightened by universal admiration of his daring and arduous attempt.

"Champe was introduced to General Green, who cheerfully complied with the promises made by the commander-in-chief, so far as in his power; and having provided the sergeant with a good horse and money for his journey, sent him to General Was.h.i.+ngton, who munificently antic.i.p.ated every desire of the sergeant, and presented him with a discharge from further service lest he might in the vicissitudes of war, fall into the enemy's hands, when if recognized, he was sure to die on a gibbet."

Here ends Lee's account, apparently as first written; but subsequently he seems to have acquired some further information of his sergeant's later life which he appends in a note, as will appear later.

When Champe was with the British in New York, he, according to Lee and as appears above, refused to enlist in the enemy's forces; but there is another account which says that when he arrived in New York "he was placed in the company of Captain Cameron." In the Champe family is the tradition that he wrote to Lee of this:

"I was yesterday compelled to a most affecting step, but one indispensable the success of my plan. It was necessary for me to accept a commission in the traitor's legion that I might have uninterrupted access to his house."

This Captain Cameron, after the termination of the war, married in Virginia and fortunately kept a diary, a part of which was published in _The British United Service Journal_. From it we learn, through Howe,[120] that Cameron had occasion to traverse the forests of Loudoun with a single servant and--familiar touch--was caught in one of those violent thunderstorms so characteristic of upper Piedmont. Night came on, no habitation or shelter of any kind was discernible to our travellers in that wilderness and, believing themselves in grave peril, they were becoming really alarmed when they saw through the woods a faint light. Riding toward it, they discovered it came from one of the typical log-houses of a frontier clearing and they lost no time in seeking shelter. The owner of the little home received them with true backwoods hospitality. And now quoting from Captain Cameron's journal:

[120] _Historic Collections of Virginia_, by Henry Howe, 1849.

"He would not permit either master or man to think of their horses, but insisted that we should enter the house, where fire and changes of apparel awaited us, he himself led the jaded animals to a shed, rubbed them down and provided them with forage. It would have been affectation of the worst kind to dispute his pleasure in this instance, so I readily sought the shelter of his roof, to which a comely dame bade me welcome, and busied herself in preventing my wishes. My drenched uniform was exchanged for a suit of my host's apparel; my servant was accomodated in the same manner, and we soon afterwards found ourselves seated before a blazing fire of wood, by the light of which our hostess a.s.siduously laid out a well-stocked supper table. I need not say that all this was in the highest degree comfortable. Yet I was not destined to sit down to supper without discovering still greater cause for wonder. In due time our host returned and the first glance which I cast towards him satisfied me that he was no stranger. The second set everything like doubt at rest.

Sergeant Champe stood before me; the same in complexion, in feature, though somewhat less thoughtful in the expression of his eye, as when he first joined my company in New York.

"I cannot say my sensations on recognizing my ci-devant sergeant were altogether agreeable. The mysterious manner in which he both came and went, the success with which he had thrown a veil over his own movements, and the recollection that I was the guest of a man who probably entertained no sense of honour, either public or private, excited in me a vague and indefinite alarm, which I found it impossible on the instant to conceal. I started, and the movement was not lost upon Champe. He examined my face closely; and a light appearing to burst all at once upon his memory, he ran forward toward the spot where I sat.

"'Welcome, welcome, Captain Cameron' said he 'a thousand times welcome to my roof; you behaved well to me when I was under your command, and deserve more of hospitality than I possess the power to offer; but what I do possess is very much at your service, and heartily glad am I that accident should have thus brought us together again. You have doubtless looked upon me as a twofold traitor, and I cannot blame you if you have.

Yet I should wish to stand well in your estimation too; and therefore I will, if you please, give a faithful narrative of the causes which led both to my arrival in New York, and to my abandonment of the British Army on the sh.o.r.es of the Chesapeake. You are tired with your day's travel; you stand in need of food and rest. Eat and drink, I pray you, and sleep soundly; and tomorrow, if you are so disposed, I will try to put my character straight in the estimation of the only British officer of whose good opinion I am covetous.'

"There was so much frankness and apparent sincerity in this, that I could not resist it, so I sat down to supper with a mind perfectly at ease and having eaten heartily I soon afterwards retired to rest, on a clean pallet which was spread for me on the floor. Sleep was not slow in visiting my eyelids; nor did I awake until long after the sun had risen on the morrow, and the hardy and active settlers, to whose kindness I was indebted, had gone through a considerable portion of their day's labour.

"I found my host next morning the same open, candid and hospitable man that he had shewn himself on first recognizing me. He made no allusion, indeed, during breakfast, to what had fallen from him over night; but when he heard me talk of getting my horses ready, he begged to have a few minutes' conversation with me. His wife, for such my hostess was, immediately withdrew, under the pretext of attending to her household affairs, upon which he took a seat beside me and began his story."

After the war and, it is said, on the personal recommendation of General Was.h.i.+ngton, Sergeant Champe was appointed to the position of doorkeeper or sergeant-at-arms of the Continental Congress, then meeting at Philadelphia, but obliged, on account of rioting, to remove to Trenton.

His name appears on a roll of the 25th August, 1783, as holding that position. Soon afterwards he returned to Loudoun, married and acquired a small holding near what is now Dover, between the later towns of Aldie and Middleburg, close by the present Little River Turnpike. The State of Virginia has erected one of its excellent road markers adjacent to the spot, bearing the following words:

"A Revolutionary Hero

"Here stood the home of John Champ, Continental soldier. Champ deserted and enlisted in Benedict Arnold's British Command for the purpose of capturing the traitor, 1780. Failing in this attempt Champ rejoined the American Army."

Nearby there is a pool of water still known locally as "Champe's Spring."

According to local tradition, he later lived in a log cabin on the old Military Road near the old Ketoctin Baptist Church and on lands afterward owned by Robert Braden. Thence he in turn moved to Kentucky where, it is believed he died in or about the year 1797.

And now we may return to General Lee's narrative for the note he appended thereto:

"When General Was.h.i.+ngton was called by President Adams to the command of the Army prepared to defend the country from French hostility, he sent to Lieutenant-Colonel Lee to inquire for Champe, being determined to bring him into the field at the head of a company of infantry. Lee sent to Loudoun County, where Champe settled after his discharge from the Army, and learned that the gallant soldier had removed to Kentucky, and had soon after died."

Of the sergeant's children, one son, Nathaniel, was born in Virginia on the 22nd December, 1792, and in 1812 enlisted in Colonel Duncan McArthur's regiment at Dayton, Ohio, that command comprising a part of Hull's Army sent for the relief of Detroit. He was in the battle of Monguagon, was among those captured at Detroit and subsequently, in the regular army, saw further fighting and was with General Arthur's advance-guard when Detroit was reoccupied. After the war he engaged in business in Detroit, was a buyer and seller of real estate and built Detroit's first "Temperance Hotel" of which he acted as landlord and in which he was succeeded by his son William. Later he moved to Onondago, Ohio, where he died on the 13th February, 1870.[121]

[121] Vol. 3, Balch Library Clippings, p. 30.

CHAPTER XIII

EARLY FEDERAL PERIOD

From the close of the Revolution to the War of 1812, there were at least four outstanding movements in Loudoun: the restoration of the fertility of her soil, the disestablishment of the church, the loss of a substantial part of her area which returned to Fairfax and the erection of large country mansions. The great project of Was.h.i.+ngton's Potomac Company, involving the extensive improvement of that river for navigation, was not, of course a Loudoun enterprise, although the welfare of her people was greatly affected and such Loudoun men as Joseph Janney, Benjamin Shreve, John Hough, Benjamin Dulaney, William Brown, John Harper, William Ellzey, and Leven Powell were at one time or another, as directors or stockholders, interested in the undertaking.

In the settlement of county, the Virginians from Tidewater had brought with them their improvident methods of farming. From the earliest days, when land was more available than labor, scant attention had been given by the Virginia planter or farmer to the conservation or restoration of the fertility of his soil. A field was planted and replanted to heavy-feeding crops, with perhaps an occasional fallow year intervening; and when the inevitable result registered itself in the falling off of production to a point where the planting of that field became unprofitable, it was abandoned and new ground broken up to be put through the same disastrous course. Rotation of crops and the manuring of the land were seldom, if ever, practiced outside perhaps the Quaker and German Settlements. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, so far had this reckless agriculture gone, that even the fertile lands of the Piedmont were recording the result in no uncertain manner. The yield of corn and wheat to the acre had been steadily declining, followed by an emigration of many of the Loudoun people to Kentucky and elsewhere. It was then that there arose in the county a farmer and leader who, measured by the results of his work, may be considered as the most valuable man to her own interests that Loudoun has thus far produced.

John Alexander Binns was the son of Charles Binns, the first clerk of Loudoun and of his wife, Ann Alexander, a daughter of "John Alexander the Eldest of Stafford County. Gent." as he is described in a deed to his daughter in 1760. The son was born probably about 1761, although the exact date seems uncertain. In March, 1781, he was, as we have seen, recommended by the County Court of Loudoun to the governor for appointment as a first lieutenant in the Virginia forces and at the same time his brother, Charles Binns, Jr., later to succeed his father as county clerk, was recommended for a commission as second lieutenant.

After the war, John Binns turned his attention to farming and grappled with the problem of restoring the fertility of the soil. He had learned of the use of land plaster (gypsum) and clover for that purpose in the Philadelphia neighborhood, whence it is said the system had been brought from Leipsic in Saxony. As early as 1780 he began his experiments, using not only the land plaster and clover but practicing deeper ploughing and rotating crops. At first he was, of course, ridiculed by his farmer neighbors, for the reluctance of the husbandman to change his methods is an old, old story. But Binns persisted. As he improved one farm and his profits rose, he purchased other worn-out lands from their discouraged owners and in time was profiting handsomely from his intelligence and industry. At length, in 1803, his labors crowned with success and the agricultural wealth of his home county rapidly rising as a result of his long and patient work, he sat himself down to write the story of what he had accomplished. His little book was printed in a very small edition, due probably to the high price and scarcity of paper, and was offered for sale at fifty cents, under the comprehensive t.i.tle "_A Treatise on Practical Farming, embracing particularly the following subjects, viz.

The Use of Plaster of Paris, with Directions for Using it; and General Observations on the Use of Other Manures. On Deep Ploughing; thick Sowing of Grain; Method of Preventing Fruit Trees from Decaying and Farming in General._ By John A. Binns Of Loudoun County, Virginia, Farmer." It was published at "Frederick-Town, Maryland," and "Printed by John B. Colvin, Editor of the _Republican Advocate_, 1803." "The little book" writes Rodney H. True "is now hard to find and the first edition, but for the copy preserved by Jefferson and now treasured among the great man's books in the Library of Congress, would well-nigh be lost."