Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/275

 there can be no protector but the God of battles. Is he not also a God of the widow?"

But from the details of war I have ever shrunk, and now my trembling hand, and fluttering heart admonish me to be brief. Seldom has one, who possessed such native aversion from all the varieties of strife, such an instinctive horrour at the sight of blood-shed, been appointed to share the fortunes of a soldier. During the investment of Yorktown, in the autumn of 1781, he was almost constantly divided from me, either on some post of fatigue, or exposure. The minute scenes of that eventful period are engraved on my memory, as with the point of a diamond. Often have I retraced the circumstances of the last night which I passed in that fatal spot. The atmosphere was faintly lighted by stars, shedding that dim, doubtful beam, which disposes the mind to melancholy contemplation. I was alone, and the heaviness of my solitude in a strange land oppressed my heart like a physical weight. The works of the allied French and Americans were every day brought more nearly to us. In the form of a crescent they spread themselves before us, cutting off our communication with the neighbouring country. The ships of France, anchored at the mouth of York River, prevented our receiving supplies from thence, or aid from Sir Henry Clinton, who in New-York awaited our fate with anxiety. A fixed gloom might be seen on the countenance of Cornwallis; and Tarleton, who had hitherto poured his bold soul into the enterprise, was suffering pain, and dejection