on his knees, he returned thanks to God, and again proclaimed Bacon and his adherents rebels and traitors. There were now in Jamestown nine hundred Baconites, as they had come to be styled, under command of Colonel Hansford, commissioned by Bacon. Berkley sent in a summons for surrender of the town, with offer of pardon to all except Drummond and Lawrence. Upon this, all of them retired to their homes except Hansford, Lawrence, Drummond, and a few others, who made for the head of York River, in quest of Bacon, who had returned to that quarter. During these events Bacon was executing his designs against the Indians. As soon as he had dispatched Bland to Accomac, he crossed the James River at his own house, at Curles, and surprising the Appomattox Indians, who lived on both sides of the river of that name, a little below the falls, (now Petersburg,) he burnt their town, killed a large number of the tribe, and dispersed the rest.* Burk† places this battle or massacre on Bloody Run, a small stream emptying into the James at Richmond, but he refers to no authority, and probably had none better than a loose tradition. The Appomattox Indians, it appears, occupied both sides of the river in question, and it is altogether improbable that Indians still inhabited the north bank of the James River near Curles. Besides, if they had still inhabited that side, it would have been unnecessary to cross the James before commencing the attack. Curles was a proper point for crossing the James with a view of attacking the Indians on the Appomattox. From the falls of the Appomattox, Bacon traversed the country to the southward, destroying many towns on the banks of the Nottoway, the Meherrin, and the Roanoke. His name had become so formidable, that the natives fled everywhere before him, and having nothing to subsist upon, save the spontaneous productions of the country, several tribes perished, and they who survived were so reduced as to be never afterwards able to make any firm stand against the Long-knives, and gradually became tributary to them. * History of Bacon's Rebellion, in Va. Gazette for 1769. CHAPTER XXXVI. 1676. Bacon Marches back upon Jamestown-Singular Stratagem-Berkley's Second Flight Jamestown Burnt-Bacon proceeds to Gloucester to oppose BrentBacon dies-Circumstances of his Death and Burial-His Father an AuthorMarriage and Fortune of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr.-His Widow. BACON, having exhausted his provisions, had dismissed the greater part of his forces before Lawrence, Drummond, Hansford, and the other fugitives from Jamestown joined him. Upon receiving intelligence of the governor's return, Bacon, collecting a force variously estimated at one hundred and fifty, three hundred, and eight hundred, harangued them on the situation of affairs, and marched back upon Jamestown, leading his Indian captives in triumph before him. The contending parties came now to be distinguished by the names of Rebels and Royalists. Finding the town defended by a palisade ten paces in width, running across the neck of the peninsula, he rode along the work, and reconnoitred the governor's position. Then, dismounting from his horse, he animated his fatigued men to advance at once, and, leading them close to the palisade, sounded a defiance with the trumpet, and fired upon the garrison. The governor remained quiet, hoping that want of provisions would soon force Bacon to retire; but he supplied his troops from Sir William Berkley's seat, at Greenspring, three miles distant. He afterwards complained that "his dwelling-house at Greenspring was almost ruined; his household goods, and others of great value, totally plundered; that he had not a bed to lie on; two great beasts, three hundred sheep, seventy horses and mares, all his corn and provisions, taken away." Bacon adopted a singular stratagem, and one hardly compatible with the rules of chivalry. Sending out small parties of horse, he captured the wives of several of the principal loyalists then with the governor, and among them the lady of Colonel Bacon, Sr., Madame Bray, Madame Page, and Madame Ballard. Upon their being brought into the camp, Bacon sends one of them into Jamestown to carry word to their husbands that his purpose was to place their wives in front of his men in case of a sally.* Colonel Ludwell† reproaches the rebels with "ravishing of women from their homes, and hurrying them about the country in their rude camps, often threatening them with death." But, according to another and more impartial authority, Bacon made use of the ladies only to complete his battery, and removed them out of harm's way at the time of the sortie. He raised by moonlight a circumvallation of trees, earth, and brush-wood, around the governor's outworks. At daybreak next morning the governor's troops, being fired upon, made a sortie; but they were driven back, leaving their drum and their dead behind them. Upon the top of the work which he had thrown up, and where alone a sally could be made, Bacon exhibited the captive ladies to the views of their husbands and friends in the town, and kept them there until he completed his works. The peninsula of Jamestown is formed by the James River on the south, and a deep creek on the north encircling it within ten paces of the river. This island, for it is so styled, is about two miles long, east and west, and one mile broad. It is low, consisting mainly of marshes and swamps, and in consequence very unhealthy. There are no springs, and the water of the wells is brackish. Jamestown stood along the river bank about three-quarters of a mile, containing a church, and some sixteen or eighteen wellbuilt brick houses. The population of this diminutive metropolis consisted of about a dozen families, (for all of the houses were not inhabited,) "getting their living by keeping of ordinaries at extraordinary rates." Bacon, after completing his works, in which he was much assisted by the conspicuous white aprons of the ladies, now mounted a small battery of two or three cannon, according to some commanding the shipping, but not the town, according to others *Mrs. Cotton's Letter. † Letter in Chalmers' Annals, 349. Narrative of Indian and Civil Wars. commanding both. Sir William Berkley had three great guns planted at the distance of about one hundred and fifty paces. But such was the cowardice of his motley crowd of followers, the bulk of them mere spoilsmen, "rogues and royalists," intent only on the plunder of forfeited estates promised them by "his honor," that although superior to Bacon's force in time, place, and numbers, yet out of six hundred of them, only twenty gentlemen were found willing to stand by him. So great was their fear, that in two or three days after the sortie they embarked in the night with all the town people and their goods, and leaving the guns spiked, weighing anchor secretly, and dropping silently down the river; retreating from a force inferior in number, and which, during a rainy week of the sickliest season, had been exposed, lying in open trenches, to far more hardship and privation than themselves. At the dawn of the following day, Bacon entered, where he found empty houses, a few horses, two or three cellars of wine, a small quantity of Indian-corn, "and many tanned hides." It being determined that it should be burned, so that the "rogues should harbor there no more," Lawrence and Drummond, who owned two of the best houses, set fire to them in the evening with their own hands, and the soldiers, following their example, laid in ashes Jamestown, including the church, the first brick one erected in the colony. Sir William Berkley and his people beheld the flames of the conflagration from the vessels riding at anchor, about twenty miles below. Bacon now marched to York River, and crossed at Tindall's (Gloucester) Point, in order to encounter Colonel Brent, who was marching against him from the Potomac, with twelve hundred men. But the greater part of his men, hearing of Bacon's success, deserting their colors declared for him, "resolving with the Persians, to go and worship the rising sun."* Bacon, making his headquarters at Colonel Warmer's, called a convention in Gloucester, and administered the oath to the people of that county, and began to plan another expedition against the Indians, or, as some report, against Accomac, when he fell sick of a dysentery brought on by exposure. Retiring to the house of a Dr. *Mrs. Cotton's Letter. Some of the Pate, and, lingering for some weeks, he died. loyalists afterwards reported that he died of a loathsome disease, and by a visitation of God; which is disproven by T. M.'s Account, by that published in the Virginia Gazette, and by the Report of the King's Commissioners. Some of Bacon's friends suspected that he was taken off by poison; but of this there is no proof. In his last hours he requested the assistance of a minister named Wading, whom he had arrested not long before for his opposition to the taking of the oath in Gloucester, telling him that "it was his place to preach in the church, and not in the camp." The place of Bacon's interment has never been discovered, it having been concealed by his friends, lest his remains should be insulted by the vindictive Berkley, in whom old age appears not to have mitigated the fury of the passions. According to one tradition, in order to screen Bacon's body from indignity, stones were laid on his coffin by his friend Lawrence, as was supposed; according to others, it was conjectured that his body had been buried in the bosom of the majestic York where the winds and the waves might still repeat his requiem: "While none shall dare his obsequies to sing In deserved measures; until time shall bring Truth crowned with freedom, and from danger free, Lord Chatham, in his letters addressed to his nephew, the Earl of Camelford, advises him to read "Nathaniel Bacon's Historical and Political Observations, which is, without exception, the best and most instructive book we have on matters of that kind." This book, though at present little known, formerly enjoyed a high reputation. It is written with a very evident bias to the principles of the parliamentary party, to which Bacon adhered. It was published in 1647, again in 1651, secretly reprinted in 1672, and again in 1682, for which edition the publisher was indicted and outlawed. The author was probably related to the * Extract from verses on his death, attributed to a servant, or attendant, who was with him in his last moments, and entitled "Bacon's Epitaph made by his Man.” (Force's Hist. Tracts, i.) |