|
OLD TICONDEROGA - A PICTURE OF THE PAST
OLD TICONDEROGA - A PICTURE OF THE PAST NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE The greatest attraction in this vicinity is the famous old fortress of
Ticonderoga the remains of which are visible from the piazza of the
tavern on a swell of land that shuts in the prospect of the lake. Those
celebrated heights Mount Defiance and Mount Independence familiar to
all Americans in history stand too prominent not to be recognized
though neither of them precisely corresponds to the images excited by
their names. In truth the whole scene except the interior of the
fortress disappointed me. Mount Defiance which one pictures as a
steep lofty and rugged hill of most formidable aspect frowning down
with the grim visage of a precipice on old Ticonderoga is merely a long
and wooded ridge; and bore at some former period the gentle name of
Sugar Hill. The brow is certainly difficult to climb and high enough to
look into every corner of the fortress. St. Clair's most probable
reason however for neglecting to occupy it was the deficiency of
troops to man the works already constructed rather than the supposed
inaccessibility of Mount Defiance. It is singular that the French never
fortified this height standing as it does in the quarter whence they
must have looked for the advance of a British army.
In my first view of the ruins I was favored with the scientific guidance
of a young lieutenant of engineers recently from West Point where he
bad gained credit for great military genius. I saw nothing but confusion
in what chiefly interested him; straight lines and zigzags defence
within defence wall opposed to wall and ditch intersecting ditch;
oblong squares of masonry below the surface of the earth and huge
mounds or turf-covered hills of stone above it. On one of these
artificial hillocks a pine-tree has rooted itself and grown tall and
strong since the banner-staff was levelled. But where my unmilitary
glance could trace no regularity the young lieutenant was perfectly at
home. He fathomed the meaning of every ditch and formed an entire plan
of the fortress from its half-obliterated lines. His description of
Ticonderoga would be as accurate as a geometrical theorem and as barren
of the poetry that has clustered round its decay. I viewed Ticonderoga
as a place of ancient strength in ruins for half a century: where the
flags of three nations had successively waved and none waved now; where
armies had struggled so long ago that the bones of the slain were
mouldered; where Peace had found a heritage in the forsaken haunts of
War. Now the young West-Pointer with his lectures on ravelins
counterscarps angles and covered ways made it an affair of brick and
mortar and hewn stone arranged on certain regular principles having a
good deal to do with mathematics but nothing at all with poetry.
I should have been glad of a hoary veteran to totter by my side and tell
me perhaps of the French garrisons and their Indian allies--of
Abercrombie Lord Howe and Amherst--of Ethan Allen's triumph and St.
Clair's surrender. The old soldier and the old fortress would be emblems
of each other. His reminiscences though vivid as the image of
Ticonderoga in the lake would harmonize with the gray influence of the
scene. A survivor of the long-disbanded garrisons though but a private
soldier might have mustered his dead chiefs and comrades--some from
Westminster Abbey and English churchyards and battle-fields in Europe
--others from their graves here in America--others not a few who lie
sleeping round the fortress; he might have mustered them all and bid
them march through the ruined gateway turning their old historic faces
on me as they passed. Next to such a companion the best is one's own
fancy.
At another visit I was alone and after rambling all over the ramparts
sat down to rest myself in one of the roofless barracks. These are old
French structures and appear to have occupied three sides of a large
area now overgrown with grass nettles and thistles. The one in which
I sat was long and narrow as all the rest had been with peaked gables.
The exterior walls were nearly entire constructed of gray flat
unpicked stones the aged strength of which promised long to resist the
elements if no other violence should precipitate their fall.--The roof
floors partitions and the rest of the wood-work had probably been
burnt except some bars of stanch old oak which were blackened with
fire but still remained imbedded into the window-sills and over the
doors. There were a few particles of plastering near the chimney
scratched with rude figures perhaps by a soldier's hand. A most
luxuriant crop of weeds had sprung up within the edifice and hid the
scattered fragments of the wall. Grass and weeds grew in the windows
and in all the crevices of the stone climbing step by step till a tuft
of yellow flowers was waving on the highest peak of the gable. Some
spicy herb diffused a pleasant odor through the ruin. A verdant heap of
vegetation had covered the hearth of the second floor clustering on the
very spot where the huge logs had mouldered to glowing coals and
flourished beneath the broad flue which had so often puffed the smoke
over a circle of French or English soldiers. I felt that there was no
other token of decay so impressive as that bed of weeds in the place of
the backlog.
Here I sat with those roofless walls about me the clear sky over my
head and the afternoon sunshine falling gently bright through the
window-frames and doorway. I heard the tinkling of a cow-bell the
twittering of birds and the pleasant hum of insects. Once a gay
butterfly with four gold-speckled wings came and fluttered about my
head then flew up and lighted on the highest tuft of yellow flowers and
at last took wing across the lake. Next a bee buzzed through the
sunshine and found much sweetness among the weeds. After watching him
till he went off to his distant hive I closed my eyes on Ticonderoga in
ruins and cast a dream-like glance over pictures of the past and scenes
of which this spot had been the theatre.
At first my fancy saw only the stern hills lonely lakes and venerable
woods. Not a tree since their seeds were first scattered over the
infant soil had felt the axe but had grown up and flourished through
its long generation had fallen beneath the weight of years been buried
in green moss and nourished the roots of others as gigantic. Hark! A
light paddle dips into the lake a birch canoe glides round the point
and an Indian chief has passed painted and feather-crested armed with a
bow of hickory a stone tomahawk and flint-headed arrows. But the
ripple had hardly vanished from the water when a white flag caught the
breeze over a castle in the wilderness with frowning ramparts and a
hundred cannon. There stood a French chevalier commandant of the
fortress paying court to a copper-colored lady the princess of the
land and winning her wild love by the arts which had been successful
with Parisian dames. A war-party of French and Indians were issuing from
the gate to lay waste some village of New England. Near the fortress
there was a group of dancers. The merry soldiers footing it with the
swart savage maids; deeper in the wood some red men were growing frantic
around a keg of the fire-water; and elsewhere a Jesuit preached the faith
of high cathedrals beneath a canopy of forest boughs and distributed
crucifixes to be worn beside English scalps.
I tried to make a series of pictures from the old French war when fleets
were on the lake and armies in the woods and especially of Abercrombie's
disastrous repulse where thousands of lives were utterly thrown away;
but being at a loss how to order the battle I chose an evening scene in
the barracks after the fortress had surrendered to Sir Jeffrey Amherst.
What an immense fire blazes on that hearth gleaming on swords bayonets
and musket-barrels and blending with the hue of the scarlet coats till
the whole barrack-room is quivering with ruddy light! One soldier has
thrown himself down to rest after a deer-hunt or perhaps a long run
through the woods with Indians on his trail. Two stand up to wrestle
and are on the point of coming to blows. A fifer plays a shrill
accompaniment to a drummer's song--a strain of light love and bloody
war with a chorus thundered forth by twenty voices. Meantime a veteran
in the corner is prosing about Dettingen and Fontenoy and relates camp-
traditions of Marlborough's battles till his pipe having been roguishly
charged with gunpowder makes a terrible explosion under his nose. And
now they all vanish in a puff of smoke from the chimney.
I merely glanced at the ensuing twenty years which glided peacefully
over the frontier fortress till Ethan Allen's shout was heard summoning
it to surrender "in the name of the great Jehovah and of the Continental
Congress." Strange allies! thought the British captain. Next came the
hurried muster of the soldiers of liberty when the cannon of Burgoyne
pointing down upon their stronghold from the brow of Mount Defiance
announced a new conqueror of Ticonderoga. No virgin fortress this!
Forth rushed the motley throng from the barracks one man wearing the
blue and buff of the Union another the red coat of Britain a third a
dragoon's jacket and a fourth a cotton frock; here was a pair of leather
breeches and striped trousers there; a grenadier's cap on one head and
a broad-brimmed hat with a tall feather on the next; this fellow
shouldering a king's arm that might throw a bullet to Crown Point and
his comrade a long fowling-piece admirable to shoot ducks on the lake.
In the midst of the bustle when the fortress was all alive with its last
warlike scene the ringing of a bell on the lake made me suddenly unclose
my eyes and behold only the gray and weed-grown ruins. They were as
peaceful in the sun as a warrior's grave.
Hastening to the rampart I perceived that the signal had been given by
the steamboat Franklin which landed a passenger from Whitehall at the
tavern and resumed its progress northward to reach Canada the next
morning. A sloop was pursuing the same track; a little skiff had just
crossed the ferry; while a scow laden with lumber spread its huge
square sail and went up the lake. The whole country was a cultivated
farm. Within musket-shot of the ramparts lay the neat villa of Mr. Pell
who since the Revolution has become proprietor of a spot for which
France England and America have so often struggled. How forcibly the
lapse of time and change of circumstances came home to my apprehension!
Banner would never wave again nor cannon roar nor blood be shed nor
trumpet stir up a soldier's heart in this old fort of Ticonderoga. Tall
trees have grown upon its ramparts since the last garrison marched out
to return no more or only at some dreamer's summons gliding from the
twilight past to vanish among realities.
...
|
