Mary Newton Stanard

“ When at last, after a loss of eleven of their own hardy comrades, the exhausted Baconians withdrew from the fray, the island fort had been entirely demolished and vast numbers of the Indians slain.
While Sir William Berkeley possessed his soul in as much patience as he could command at the Falls of the James, lying in wait for Bacon's return, the inhabitants farther down toward Jamestown began to [56] "draw into arms," and to proclaim against the useless and costly forts. Open war with the Indians was the one thing that would content them, and war they were bent upon having. ”

“ I know you can and dare fight, while they will lie in their place of refuge and dare not so much as appear in the field before you. Your hardiness shall invite all the country along, as we march, to come in and second you.
"The Indians we bear along with us shall be as so many motives to cause relief from every hand to be brought to you. The ignominy of their actions cannot but so reflect upon their spirits as they will have no courage left to fight you. I know you have the prayers and well wishes of all the people of Virginia, while the others are loaded with their curses." ”

“ They vowed that they would make war upon all Indians who would not "come in with their arms" and give hostages for their fidelity and pledge themselves to join with the English against all others. "If we must be hanged for rebels for killing those that will destroy us," said they, "let them hang us; we will venture that rather than lie at the mercy of a barbarous enemy and be murdered as we are."
In a "Manifesto," defending the rights of the people, issued soon after his return, Bacon made a scornful and spirited reply to Governor Berkeley's charges of rebellion and treason. ”

“ His brief career was that of a meteor—springing in the twinkling of an eye into a dazzling being, dashing headlong upon its brilliant way, then going out in mystery, leaving only the memory of an existence that was all fire and motion. If he had lived a hundred years later the number of heroes of the American Revolution would doubtless have been increased by one—and his name would have been at the top of the list, or near it. ”

“ Indeed, the savages, not the colonists, were the protected ones, for the gain from the Indian beaver and otter fur trade, which the Governor and his friends monopolized, was believed to be a stronger argument with Sir William Berkeley for keeping in league with the red men than the massacre of the King's subjects was for making war upon them. The helpless people could only shake their heads despairingly and whisper under their breath, "Bullets cannot pierce beaver skins." ”

“ Wading—the same whom Bacon had arrested and debarred from "preaching in camp"? Perhaps, but the deponent saith not.
Those who had loved the Rebel in life were faithful to him in death, and tenderly laid his body away beyond the reach of the insults of his enemies. So closely guarded was the secret of the place and manner of his burial that it is unto this day a mystery; but tradition has it that stones were placed in his coffin and he was put to bed beneath the deep waters of the majestic York River, whose waves chant him a perpetual "requiescat in pace." ”

“ At last the Grand Assembly's work was done and everything but one was ready for the march against the Indians—the commission which Sir William Berkeley had publicly promised Bacon, and for which alone Bacon and his army tarried at Jamestown, was not yet forthcoming. The perfidious old man, crazed with jealousy of his prosperous young rival in the affections of the people, postponed granting it from day to day, while he secretly plotted Bacon's ruin. ”

“ No matter what the provocation to rebellion might be, the crime of presuming to resist the King's government was one that could not be justified, and the chief policy of Sir William's administration was to keep the people where they were as little as possible likely to commit it. Recognizing that ideas might become dangerous weapons in their possession, he took pains lest they should develop them, and thanked God that there were no public schools or printing-presses in Virginia. ”

“ Amen!" they cried. "We are all ready to die in the field rather than be hanged like rogues, or perish in the woods exposed to the favors of the merciless Indians!" And without more ado, they wheeled about and marched, a thousand strong, to meet their pursuers.
There was, however, to be no battle that day. It is true, as has been shown, that the Governor had raised forces under the pretense of going himself to aid in the Indian warfare, but really for the purpose of pursuing and surprising Bacon and (in true Indian-gift fashion) taking the commission away from him. ”

“ We have a series of characteristic pictures in the dusky "Queen of Pamunkey" upbraiding the Virginians for the death of her consort, the "mighty Totapotamoy"; the house-wives running out of their homes to see the victorious Rebel pass and heap him with blessings and gifts of food; the white-aproned ladies guarding the Rebel fort from the guns of their own husbands, [165] and, at the end of all, the wife of Major Cheesman upon her knees before the Governor, praying to be hanged in her husband's place. Madam Sarah Drummond seems to have been as ardent an admirer of Bacon as her husband. ”

“ When Bacon reached the island he saw at once that it would be nothing short of madness to pit his handful of foot-sore and half-starved men against the combined strength of the Ockinagees and the Susquehannocks, so, adopting a policy patterned after the savages' own crafty methods of warfare, he made friends with one tribe and persuaded them to fall upon the other. ”

“ But if here be, as sure is, a just God to appeal to, if religion and justice be a sanctuary here, if to plead the cause of the oppressed, if sincerely to aim at his Majesty's honor and the public good without any reservation or by-interest, if to stand in the gap after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold, if after the loss of a great part of his Majesty's colony, deserted and dispeopled, freely with our lives and estates to endeavor to save the remainders, be treason, Lord Almighty judge and let the guilty die. ”

“ And so it happened that upon this newcomer the whole country, ripe for rebellion, casting about for a leading spirit to give [45] the signal for the uprising, set its hope and its love. In him choice had fallen upon one who had the courage to plan and the ability to put into execution, and who, for want of a commission from the Governor to lead a campaign against the Indians accepted one "from the people's affections, signed by the emergencies of affairs and the country's danger." ”

“ Sir William Berkeley, in a rage at their daring to take steps for their own defense without a commission from him, but powerless to put a stop to such unheard-of proceedings, promptly proclaimed leader and followers "rebels and mutineers," and getting a troop of soldiers together, set out toward the falls of James River, in hot pursuit, resolved either to overtake and capture "General" Bacon, or to seize him on his return. ”

“ While the Governor had the advantage of numbers, and his men were fresh and unwearied, Bacon had the greater advantage of motive. Sir William Berkeley's soldiers were bent upon plunder, and when they found that the Rebel's determined "hearts of gold" meant to keep them blocked up in such comfortless quarters, and that the prospects were that there was nothing to be gained in Sir William's service, they began to fall away from him in such numbers that, upon the day after the placing of Bacon's great guns, the old man found that there was nothing left for him but a second flight. ”

“ The most ghastly accounts of the sly and savage incursions of the Indians, and of the way in which they served their victims, such as flaying them alive, knocking out their teeth with clubs and tearing out their finger-nails and toe-nails, flew from lip to lip. The terror-stricken planters upon the frontiers and more exposed places deserted their homes, left the crops upon which they depended for existence to waste and ruin, and huddled together in the more sheltered places, still not knowing "upon whom the storm would light." ”

“ Bacon ordered supplies to be taken to the Falls of James River, and upon Monday morning, bright and early, flags were unfurled, drums and trumpets sounded, and with the authority of the cherished commission as "General of all the forces in Virginia against the Indians," and the God-speed of men, women and children, he marched away at the head of his thousand troops. ”

“ No sooner had the fugitive Bacon reached the "up country" than the inhabitants crowded around him, clamoring for news of the Assembly and eager to know the fate of his request for a commission to fight the Indians. When they learned the truth they "began to set up their throats in one common cry of oaths and curses." Toward evening of the same day a rumor reached Jamestown that Bacon was coming back at the head of a "raging tumult," who threatened to pull down the town if the Governor's promises to their leader were not kept. ”

“ He was a man born to sway the hearts of his fellows, which he understood and drew after him with magnetic power, and upon which he could play with the sureness of a master of music touching the keys of a delicate musical instrument. ”

“ An oath was drawn up, by Bacon, to be taken by the people of Virginia, "of what quality soever, excepting servants." By it the people were bound to aid their General with their lives and estates in the Indian war; to oppose and hinder the Governor's designs, "if he had any," and to resist any forces that might be sent over from England to suppress Bacon until time was allowed to acquaint his Majesty with [93] the "grievances" of the colony, and to receive a reply.
The oath was put into due form and read to the convention by the clerk of the Assembly. ”

“ The beginning of serious war with the Indians happened in this wise. One Sunday morning in the summer of 1675, as some of the settlers of Stafford County took their way peacefully to church, with no thought of immediate danger in their minds, they were greeted, as they passed the house of one Robert Hen, a herdsman, by the ghastly spectacle of the bloodstained bodies of Hen himself, and an Indian, lying across Hen's doorstep. ”

“ Not until March did the Assembly meet to take steps for the safety and defense of the colonists, three hundred of whom had by that time been cut off, and then, under Governor Berkeley's influence, the only action taken was the establishment of forts at the heads of the rivers and on the frontiers, and of course heavy taxes were laid upon the people to build and maintain them. These fortifications afforded no real defense, as the garrisons within them were [36] prohibited from firing upon Indians without special permission from the Governor, and were only a new burden upon the people. ”

“ Drawing his sword, he next proposed to settle the matter with Bacon, then and there, in single combat.
"Sir," said Bacon, "I came not, nor intend, to hurt a hair of your Honor's head, and as for your sword, your Honor may please to put it up; it shall rust in the scabbard before ever I shall desire you to draw it. I come for a commission against the heathen who daily inhumanly murder us and spill our brethren's blood, and no care [78] is taken to prevent it," adding, "God damn my blood, I came for a commission, and a commission I will have before I go!" ”

“ The worst of all the grievances—the Indian atrocities—was removed once and forever, for Bacon had inspired the savages with a wholesome fear of the pale faces, so that many of them removed their settlements to [163] a safe distance from their English neighbors, and a general treaty of peace, which seems to have been faithfully kept, was effected with the others. And so the colonists never had any more trouble with the red men until they began to make settlements beyond the Blue Ridge. ”

“ The report of the guns gave the alarm to Bacon and his troops, who were about half a mile distant, and who marched in great haste and confusion to the settlement. The Indians took refuge in the edge of the swamp, which was so miry that their pursuers could not follow, and the only result of the chase, to the Englishmen, was the not over-glorious feat of killing a woman and capturing a child. ”

“ Bacon at once began making ready to continue his oft-interrupted Indian campaign, but first, to be sure of leaving the country safe from Berkeley's ire,—for he feared lest "while he went abroad to destroy the wolves, the foxes, in the mean time, should come and devour the sheep,"—he seized Captain Larrimore's ship, then lying in the James, and manned her with two hundred men and guns. ”

“ He assured them that their enemies had not the courage to maintain the charges so boldly made that they were rebels and traitors.
"Come on, my hearts of gold!" he cried. "He that dies in the field, lies in the bed of honor!"
With these words the Rebel once more moved onward, and drew up his "small tired body of men" in an old Indian field just outside of Jamestown. ”

“ Bacon had by this time returned from his march into the wilderness and the countryside was ringing with glowing reports of his success against the Indians. The people welcomed him with wild enthusiasm, for they not only regarded him as their champion against the brutalities of savages, but attributed to him the calling of the new Assembly, to which they looked for relief from the "hard times." ”