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The same evening, the bedraggled and footsore soldiers waded the Fishkill where the bridge had been, but was now destroyed, and bivouacked on the heights of Saratoga.
It was not till after daylight that the British artillery could ford the Fishkill with safety. The guns were then dragged up the heights and once more pointed toward the advancing enemy. Numbness and torpor seem to have pervaded the whole movement thus far.
In consequence whereof, sundry persons, to whom the said oath hath been tendered, and who have refused to take the same, were by the commissioners directed to rendezvous at Fishkill, on Monday next, in order to embark on board a sloop to be provided at that place for the purpose.
General Heath favored us again with his barge to carry us to Head-Quarters, and after breakfast his Excellency ordered his own to convey us to our horses, which we had ordered four or five miles up the river. One principal reason of my declining the General's invitation to dinner was my impatience to return to Fishkill, that I might receive a letter from you.
Suddenly Ford spoke in a low voice: "Boys, I was in nine or ten battles of the Civil War, from Gaines's Mill to Gettysburg, but in none of them was there a scene which impressed me as so terrible as this, no situation that seemed to me so threatening of irresistible perils." Nearing Fishkill at eleven, a land breeze caught and whisked us off eastward.
We are in the valley of the Clove Creek, under the shadow of the Fishkill Mountain, in a hollow where the dusk of evening comes early, and the gloom and solitude of the shortened day make one readily understand why travelers of old halted at this north entrance to the Highlands, rather than run the chance of being overtaken by the dark in the depths of its loneliness.
The patrimonial mansion at Fishkill had historical associations which must have added to the interest with which our friend regarded it. Mr. Tuckerman relates, in the "North American Review," though without naming the place or the persons, a story in which they were brought out in a singular manner. He was there fifteen or twenty years since, a guest at Verplanck's table.
His house often became a station of the "underground railroad" in slavery times, and on one night in the depth of winter he took a hotly-pursued fugitive in his sleigh and drove him five miles on the ice, diagonally across the Hudson, to Fishkill, thence putting the brave aspirant for freedom on the way to other friends. He incurred several risks in this act.
There was no village at the place where we slept; but the house was a comfortable, and exceedingly neat Dutch tavern. After quitting Fishkill we had seen more or less of the river, until we passed Claverack, where we took our leave of it. It was covered with ice, and sleighs were moving about it, with great apparent security; but we did not like to try it.
During the revolutionary war her house was open to the British officers, General Howe, and others, accomplished men, of whom she had many anecdotes to relate to her grandson, when he came under her care. For the greater part of this time her husband remained at the country seat in Fishkill, quietly occupied with his books and the care of his estate.
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