UNCROWNED QUEENS AND KINGS, AS SHOWN THROUGH HUMOROUS INCIDENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.

UNCROWNED QUEENS AND KINGS, AS SHOWN THROUGH HUMOROUS INCIDENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.

One by one the years have dropped into the abyss of the past, since the close of the war for American Independence. Time has spread his brooding wings over the gulf and much of the horror and of the pathos of that tremendous struggle is now veiled from us; yet we are still perhaps too prone to remember only the dreadful in the events of the war, too anxious to recall only the dark days, leaving out the traces of cheerfulness which even in those troublous times, were experienced here and there; for there were many incidents connected with the American Revolution which were in lighter vein; incidents which did not, it is true, abolish the gloom and the suffering, but which lightened the sombreness and shed rays of glimmering light through the shade.

It has always seemed to me almost incredible, that the Colonists could have found anything to laugh at during those awful years. They were threatened with absolute loss of liberty as a country; they were menaced by starvation, and they were obliged to pass through the rigors of the winters, without proper food or clothing. The sanctity of their homes was invaded by the grim monster of war, who was no respecter of persons, and to whose voracious palate all persons were equally attractive.

If the British won their cause, the Colonists had nothing better to which to look forward than slavery and injustice; if the colonists won theirs, they must face the future poorly equipped in every way. The waste of their country must be repaired, their desolate homes must be rebuilt; their business, which was crushed, must be restored, they must begin from the beginning. Whatever the result, the outlook was dark. As the days went on, the husbands and fathers were obliged to forsake their plows, and go, perhaps with but a moment's warning, to bloody fields of battle. Poorly clothed, they fought in their shirt sleeves and with their feet bare, their bloody foot prints often standing out as symbols of the struggle. The women must remain at home, to plow and sow and reap. The American soldiers must have spent many sleepless nights thinking of their unprotected ones at home, alone and defenceless. How could there be anything of humor connected with the struggle? And yet, while the American Revolution can in no sense of the word be said to have had its humorous side, yet there was much of humor connected with many Revolutionary occurrences, the stories of which have lived until the present time and have gained perhaps in their humorous aspect since the close of the great struggle.

One of the first incidents of the war, which I have found to savor of the humorous, was the meeting of General John Burgoyne and the Irish patriot immediately after the surrender of the British General. All through the march of the General, to Saratoga, he had boasted of the of the calamities which he would bring upon the Americans. Pompously up and down his quarters he would strut, composing high sounding sentences and listening to the fine roll of his voice, revelling in his verbosity and smiling with satisfaction at his thoughts which he deemed so great. The manifestos which he issued so frequently, were words, words, words, and these reiterated over and over again, the direful things which would encompass the Americans, did they not surrender with all haste and with becoming deference. He made himself ridiculous by the manifestos, but he did not realize this until he made his way through the streets of Albany, a conquered rather than a conquering hero, and met a funny little Irishman, who had evidently studied the harangues of the General to good purpose.

On the march through the Albany streets, Burgoyne was surrounded by men, women and children, who would fain look upon the face of this pompous British General. Suddenly in the crowded part of the street, there bobbed up in front of him, a blue-eyed, red-haired Celt, his bright eyes dancing with mirth and his tongue ready with the wit of his mother country. "Make way there, ye spalpeens," he shouted, "sure don't ye see the great Ginral Burgyne a comin' along? Sthand back fer the great Ginral. Wud yees be standin' in the way of the conquerer? If ye don't sthand back and give the great man room, shure I'll murther ivy mither's son of ye."

History does not record how the boasting Briton received the onslaught of the Irishman, but we can readily imagine that his face lengthened a little, as he heard the laughs on every side. Still it is quite possible that he did not see the joke until the following week. Someway, that march of Burgoyne and his army, always struck me as humorous to a certain extent. While there was the sadness caused by the loss of many lives, and while the battle of Saratoga was one of the great battles of the world, still Burgoyne himself, with his verbosity and his pomposity, was so ludicrous a figure oft times, that he gave a humorous tinge to the entire campaign.

The saying of General Starke at Bennington which has come down to us with such pleasing patriotism: "Here come the Red Coats and we must beat them to-day, or Mollie Starke is a widow," was not a humorous saying, nor was the battle of Bennington a humorous incident. But Bill Nye, the immortal, has written something exceedingly funny concerning both. Nye said, "This little remark of Starke's made an instantaneous hit, and when they counted up their prisoners at night they found they had six hundred souls and a Hessian." Nye's description of Burgoyne's surrender is well worth repeating. He wrote: "A council was now held in Burgoyne's tent and on the question of renewing the fight, stood six to six, when an eighteen pound hot shot went through the tent, knocking a stylograph pen out of Burgoyne's hand. Almost at once he decided to surrender, and the entire army of 6999 men was surrendered, together with arms, portable bath tubs and leather hat boxes."

Nearly all of our American soldiers were brave; that goes without saying. One of the bravest of these was Lieutenant Manning. His deeds of prowess were many and great. He was hero in one extremely humorous incident at the battle of Eutaw. After the British line had been broken, the "Old Buffs" started to run. This particular regiment was as boastful as General Burgoyne. Manning knew this and he was delighted to follow hard after them with his platoon. Excited in his pursuit he did not notice that he was getting away from his men, until he found himself surrounded by British soldiers and not an American in sight. Something must be done at once and Manning was the man to do it. He siezed a British officer standing near, and much to that officer's amazement he not only felt himself violently handled, but he heard the stentorian voice of the American shouting—"You are my prisoner." His sword was wrested from his grasp, and he was made a human shield for this preposterously impudent American. But instead of making a break for liberty, he began to relate his various titles to Manning. "I am sir," he said, "Sir Henry Barry, Deputy Adjutant General of the British Army, Captain in the 52d Regiment, Secretary to the Commandant of Charleston."

"Enough Sir," said Manning, "You are just the man I have been looking for. Fear nothing; you shall screen me from danger and I will take special care of you," which he did, holding the astonished man of title in front of him, until he reached the Americans and handed him over as a prisoner.

Colonel Peter Horry was another brave man of the south. He was afflicted by an impediment in his speech and at one time the impediment nearly worked disaster for him. He was ordered to await in ambuscade with his regiment for a British detachment, and he soon had them completely within his power; but when he tried to command his men to fire, his speech failed him. In vain he corrugated his brows and twisted his jaws; the word would not come out. "Fi, fi, fi, fi," he shouted, but could get no further. Finally in his desperation he howled, "shoot, blank you, shoot. You know very well what I would say. Shoot and be blanked to you." Horry was a determined character. At one time in battle a brother officer called to him:

"I am wounded, Colonel." "Think no more of it, Baxter, but stand to your post," called back Horry. "But I can't stand, Colonel, I am wounded a second time." "Then lie down, Baxter, but quit not your post." "Colonel," cried the suffering man, "they have shot me again, and if I remain longer here I shall be shot to pieces." "Be it so Baxter," returned Horry, "but stir not."

The part that women took in the Revolution has been sung by poets and made the nucleus of writers' efforts for a hundred years and more. Those Revolutionary women had brawn as well as brain. They were able to defend their homes from the depredations of the Royalists; they could bid the Indian begone, not only by word of mouth but at the musket's end. They could plow and sow and reap; they could care for their families and they could take up arms in liberty's cause if the need arose. Oh, those women of the American Revolution! What a history of bravery and fortitude and endurance they bequeathed to their descendants! There is some humor, too, in the stories left to us in record of their heroism.

It was the fashion among certain circles of Whig women, during the dark days of the Revolution, to wear deep mourning as an indication of their feelings. The black typified the darkness of the times and was worn by the town ladies who could afford it. One of these ladies, a Mrs. Brewton, was walking along Broad street in Charleston one morning, when she was joined by an insolently familiar British officer. At that very moment, the crepe flounce on her dress was accidently torn off. She quickly picked it up and passing just at that time the house of the absent Governor, John Rutledge, she sprang up the steps before the astonished eyes of the officer and decked the door with crepe, saying in ringing tones, "Where are you, dearest Governor? Surely the magnanimous Britons will not deem it a crime if I cause your house as well as your friends to mourn your absence." Colonel Moncrief, the English engineer, was occupying the house at the time, and his feelings were hurt at the action of Mrs. Brewton, as were those of the officer who had been with her, and she was arrested a few hours afterward and sent to Philadelphia.

One of the most marked women of the Revolution, a woman who figured in many a ludicrous as well as serious incident, was Nancy Hart, of Georgia. Nancy had a frightful temper, a big ungainly body, and she suffered from a most marked obliquity of sight. In fact Nancy was so cross-eyed, that her own children never could tell when their mother was looking at them and were perhaps better behaved on that very account. One time a party of Tories entered her modest home on food intent. They had taken the precaution of providing food for themselves, shooting Nancy's last remaining gobbler. Mrs. Hart had her head muffled up and no one had noticed her cross-eyes. The soldiers stacked their arms within reach and Nancy passed between them and the table, assiduous in her attention to the diners. The party had a jug, of course, and when they were becoming right merry, Nancy suddenly tore the mufflers from her head and snatching up one of the guns, swore that she would kill every last man who tried to get his gun or who delayed in getting out of the cabin. The men looked at Nancy's eyes and each man thinking she was aiming at him only, made a hasty and determined exit. But the terrible woman killed three Tories that day with her own hands. One day Nancy was boiling soap. As she industriously stirred, one of her eyes caught a glimpse of a Tory peeking through a chink in the cabin. Stirring busily away, Nancy kept one eye on the soap and the other on the chink. When the spy again appeared she let drive full at the chink, a good big ladle full of hot soap. A scream satisfied her that she had hit the mark, and she finished her soap-making with great satisfaction. This woman was termed by one of the patriots: "A honey of a patriot, but the devil of a wife."

The Revolutionary woman's resources were indeed great, and the strategy she employed was as satisfactory as it was many times humorous. A Whig woman of New York State, a Mrs. Fisher, was one morning surprised by the hurried entrance of a Whig neighbor, who begged of her to conceal him as the Tories were pursuing him. Just outside her door was an ash heap four or five feet high. Seizing a shovel, Mrs. Fisher immediately excavated a place in the ashes and buried her friend in it. But first she had taken precaution to place a number of quills one in the other and extend them from the prisoner's mouth to the air, that he might breathe, and there he remained snugly ensconced until the Tories had come and gone, and even though they ran over the ash heap, they never suspected what lay beneath it.

Equally resourceful was that woman of the Revolution, who when her husband was pursued by Tories, hustled him down cellar and into a meat barrel partially filled with brine and meat. The Tories went into the cellar and even peered into the barrel, but they did not discover the man, who at the risk of terribly inflamed eyes, ducked his head beneath the brine, when he heard the soldiers' hands on the head of the barrel. Inflamed eyes were easier to bear than imprisonment in the hands of the British.

Bill Nye's description of the close of the war is as humorous as it is correct. Nye wrote: "The country was free and independent, but oh, how ignorant it was about the science of government. The author does not wish to be personal when he states that the country at that time did not know enough about affairs to carry water for a circus elephant. It was heavily in debt, with no power to raise money. New England refused to pay tribute to King George and he in turn directed his hired men to overturn the government; but a felon broke out on his thumb and before he could put it down, the crisis was averted and the country saved."

And so it goes; the sad and the humorous are blended on every side in life's struggles either in war or peace. Fortunate is the man or woman who can halt a little by the wayside and for a few moments laugh dull care away.—Compiled from Federation Magazine.