hundred men.' ""Then," said the former, "it will poured in on the British a destructive fire; but be another Gates defeat." "I hope to God it will continuing to advance with the bayonet on our be another Tarleton's defeat," replied the gallant militia, the latter retired and gained the second son of Middletown Valley. "I am Col. Tarleton, line. Here, with part of the corps, Pickens took sir." "And I am Sergeant Everheart, sir." It post on Howard's right, and the rest fled to their was a reply worthy of Roman or Spartan courage. horses. Tarleton pushed forward, and was receivSuffering intensely from his wounds, they were ed by Morgan with unshaken firmness. Each speedily dressed by the British surgeon, and he party struggled hard for victory; the enemy was treated with distinguished kindness. Now a ordered up his reserve. McArthur's regiment prisoner of war, he was taken with the enemy's animated the whole British line, which, outstretcharmy to the scene of action. At eight o'clock in ing our front, endangered Howard. That officer the morning, Morgan halting near the Broad river, defended his flank by directing his right company awaited the approach of his adversary. The to change its front; but by mistake it fell back; ground about the Cowpens was covered with open the line began to retire, and they were ordered to wood, allowing the cavalry to operate with ease, retreat to the cavalry. This manœuvre being in which the British trebled our forces. The de- quickly performed, the new position was immetachment of Tarleton numbered one thousand;-diately resumed. The British line now rushed on that of Morgan, eight hundred. Although the with impetuosity, but as it drew near, Howard plan of battle on the part of the American briga- faced about, and delivered a close and severe fire. dier, was, in the estimation of some military men, The enemy recoiled;—the advantage was followed rather injudicious, yet it was impossible that the up with the bayonet, and the day was ours. At issue could have been more fortunate. The first this instant, Washington charged, as Major SiJine was composed of militia under Major Mc-mons has stated, on the enemy's cavalry, who had Dowel, of North Carolina, and Major Cunning- gained our rear, and were "cutting down" our ham, of Georgia, who were ordered to feel the militia. He proved himself the "thunderbolt of enemy as he approached, then to fall back on the war." What language can paint the emotions front line, and renew the conflict. The main which then filled the bosom of his friend, a captive body of militia composed this line, under Gen. in the hands of that enemy whom the colonel was Pickens. In the rear of the first line was station-destroying; himself liable at every moment to ed a second, composed of the continental infantry, fall by the hands of his countrymen? His beloved and Virginia militia, under Captains Triplett and chief was then in the prime of life, six feet in Taite, commanded by Howard. Washington's height, broad, strong, and corpulent, courting cavalry, reinforced by a company of mounted mi- danger, impetuous and irresistible. In proof of litia, was held in reserve, convenient to support the this, Marshall, in his 4th vol. page 347, says: “In infantry, and to protect the horses of the rifle the eagerness of pursuit, Washington advanced corps, which, agreeably to usage, were tied in the near thirty yards in front of his regiment. Obrear. "The gloomy host" now advanced, sure of serving this, three British officers wheeled about conquest. At this solemn period, Morgan, who and made a charge upon him? The officer on his had fought at Quebec under Montgomery, and right was aiming to cut him down, when a sergeant fully established his fame at Saratoga, addressed came up and intercepted the blow, by disabling his troops in a style worthy of a Hannibal or his sword arm. At the same instant, the officer Scipio Africanus. Uneducated as he was, his elo- on his left was about to make a stroke at him, quence was from the heart, and thrilled through when a waiter, too small to wield a sword, saved every bosom. He exhorted the militia to the ex-him by wounding the officer with a ball discharged ercise of firmness and zeal, and declared his entire from a pistol. At this moment, the officer in the confidence in their valor and patriotism. He point-centre, who was believed to be Tarleton, made a ed them to the fields of his exploits; to his fortune thrust at him, which he parried, upon which the and experience; to the destructive fire of his un-officer retreated a few paces, and then discharged erring riflemen; to the mortification he had expe- a pistol at him, which wounded his knee." The rienced at being hitherto forced to retire before the enemy; and that now was the time to strike for their country. To the continentals he said little, except to remind them that they needed no exhortation to do their duty. He took his station. The situation of Everheart, when the first line fell back, and the shout of the enemy was heard in all directions, must have been truly appalling, because he knew not that this movement formed part of the plan of battle. But rushing on the front line, which held its station, they instantly sergeant here spoken of was Everheart. Under Providence, he was his shield and buckler. How great the benefit conferred on his country! Had Washington fallen, we should not only have lost his all-important services on that day, when victory settled on our banner, but also his valor and skill at the subsequent actions of Guilford and Eutaw, at which last place he was, to the great grief of the whole army, thrown from his horse while charging the enemy, and carried away a prisoner to Charleston. Morgan now pressed his success; the pursuit became general. The Bri- armies. He was, during the whole time, within tish cavalry were covering the retreat; but, ac- range of the enemy's shot. I cannot forbear recording to the evidence of Major Simons, nothing|lating a singular event detailed to me by Charles could restrain the ardor of the colonel. He pursued them twenty-two miles, within a short distance of Cornwallis' camp, at Fisher's creek, where the British under Tarleton retreated. Sometime after this affair, the British colonel observed in company, that he should be pleased to see Mr. Washington, of whom he had heard so much; to which a lady very significantly replied, that he might have been gratified had he only looked behind him at the Cowpens! Magill, Esq., late of Winchester, Virginia, who was aid-de-camp to Greene during this engagement. A captain was under arrest for cowardice, As the enemy displayed their columns, and formed their line, the unfortunate man, after protesting his innocence of the charge, desired the major to gallop to the general, and ask a suspension only during the action, that he might retrieve his character. It was soon done, and he was placed at the head of his company. On the first fire he fled from In this action, of the enemy there were one his station, and sheltered himself behind an apple hundred, including ten officers, killed; twenty-tree. Magill invoked him in the strongest terms three officers and five hundred privates were taken. to reflect on his conduct and situation, and urged Their artillery, 800 muskets, two standards, thir-him to resume his command. At the first step he ty-five baggage wagons, and one hundred horses fell took from behind the tree, a ball from the enemy into our hands; while our loss was only seventy, laid him dead at the feet of his friend. It was his of whom twelve were killed. Everheart informs opinion that the captain was born a coward; but me, that while the dragoons were making the that he would have been in less danger at his comcharges described by Major Simons, he could mand, than in the situation he had assumed. As hear them distinctly cry out as their watchword, Everheart did not participate in the battle of Guil"Buford's play," referring to the odious massacre ford, I shall notice only a few of its particulars, perpetrated on the detachment commanded by that connected with the part which his colonel performofficer, as before detailed. Yet for all this, al-ed on that occasion. At the most important crithough the innocent blood of their companions, sis, Washington charged the British guards with shed contrary to the laws of civilized warfare, yet tremendous fury, and perceiving an officer at remained unavenged; and the very persons who some distance surrounded by aids-de-camp, whom did the foul deed, were now in the open field of he supposed to be Cornwallis, he rushed on with honorable combat, or held as prisoners fairly van- the hope of making him prisoner, but was prequished; no instance occurred on the part of our vented by accident. His cap fell on the ground, troops in which the dreadful precedent was follow- and, as he dismounted to recover it, the officer ed. Washington now returning from the chase, leading the column was shot through the body, with joy embraced his wounded friend, and sent and rendered incapable of managing his horse. him, under the care of two dragoons, three miles The animal wheeled round with his rider and galdistant from the Cowpens, where his wounds were loped off the field. The cavalry followed, supposdressed by Dr. Pindall, formerly of Hagerstown, ing that this movement had been ordered. But Maryland, then surgeon of the regiment. He re- for this circumstance, it is highly probable that mained at this position until the last of February, the amiable and accomplished Cornwallis would and then set out for Catawba river. Passing have been spared the pain of surrendering his through Salem, he arrived at Guilford Court whole army shortly afterwards at York, in VirHouse immediately before the battle fought there, ginia. Greene, it is true, retreated-but only after March 15, 1781. Here it is expedient to explain a part of the affidavit of Major Simons, where it is said that the subject of this memoir had retired from the army. That officer, not being at Guilford, did not of course see Everheart there; and no doubt thinking that his wounds were so very severe as to compel him to retire from service, and not hearing any thing to the contrary, he took for granted that it was the fact. At this place, the interview between the colonel and sergeant was truly joyous. He apprised Washington that his debility would prevent his participating in the coming conflict, and he was requested by that officer merely to take charge of the baggage wagons. Yet such was his love of battle, that he took his station on a hill where he could distinctly see every movement, and hear every shock of both such an obstinate contest as induced Charles Fox, in the House of Commons, to tell the ministry, with bis usual sarcasm, that such another victory would destroy the British army. The official accounts estimate our loss in killed, wounded and missing, at fourteen commissioned officers, and three hundred and twelve non-commissioned officers and privates of the continental line. In the militia, there were four captains and seventeen privates killed; and besides General Stephens, there were one major, three captains, eight subalterns, and sixty privates wounded. The loss of the British was five hundred and thirty-two men ; among them several officers of distinguished talents. Cornwallis retired to Ramsay's mills, and Greene set out in pursuit of him. The sergeant remained for several weeks in the vicinity of the court house, that he might have the benefit of the professional skill of Dr. Wallis, in the healing of his wounds. During the summer, being once more ready for service, he was, by the order of Greene, employed in collecting horses in North Carolina, for the use of the army; and on the 18th of October, 1781, was present at the capitulation of the British army at Yorktown. Here his acquaintance with Lafayette commenced, which to the satisfaction of both parties, was renewed at Baltimore in 1825, when the patriot revisited our shores. He now returned to his county; but in November following, at the request of Col. Baylor, who had been exchanged, and restored to the command of his regiment, he repaired to Petersburg. With him he remained through the succeeding summer, and, in the fall of 1782, was honorably discharged, and once more returned to his lovely valley. With him, "the sword was converted into the plough-share." Embarking in agricultural pursuits, the sternness of the warrior was now subdued. Having married, and become the father of several children, his time was chiefly employed in providing for their wants by honest industry and toil. After some years, he became a preacher in the respectable denomination of christians called Methodists. Even here, as I am informed, "the ruling passion" would at times follow him; and when in the pulpit was a soldier still. He would sometimes introduce his discour ses by informing his hearers, that, in his youth, he drew his sword in behalf of his country, but now in behalf of his Saviour! Washington frequently wrote to Everheart, offering to make him wealthy if he would emigrate to Carolina, but he declined his solicitations. When the troops of the United States were stationed at Harper's ferry, in 1799, his colonel, then holding a distinguished rank in that corps, passed through Middletown, and inquired for his old and faithful friend, desiring that he would pass the next day with him in Frederick. A large collection of citizens assembled to witness the interview. On approaching, they rushed into each other's arms, kissed and gave vent to their feelings in tears of joy. This was the last time they ever met. Everheart tells me, that on this occasion they walked together over those fields, where, in 1780, the regiment was disciplined for service; and that the feelings and scenes of those days were again revived; that he was urged by his chief to remove to Carolina, where wealth, ease and happiness awaited him. It was in vain. The colonel wrung the hand which had saved his life at Cowpens, and disappeared forever. gene. The present disposition of minds, together with ral circumstances, is not the most favorable to a full is but little, if any community of feelings and docappreciation of Luther's character and times. There trines between the nineteenth and the sixteenth centu ries. Questions of a purely dogmatic nature are no longer invested with the sovereign importance which they once possessed. Proverbially fierce as the spirit of religious controversy may be; we seldom admit, in our theological wrangles, the fanatical acerbity, which quailed not before the imminent danger of the Turk, encamped at the gates of Vienna, and which stood undaunted by the cruel extravagances of the followers of John of Leyden, and the awakened passions of the peasants of Muntzer, ravaging the plains of Germany. the temporal aggressions of the church ;-to reduce the To curb the ambitious cupidity of popes, and check excessive number of its ministers and the exorbitant increase of its wealth;-to shake off the yoke of spiritual despotism, and conquer the rights of conscience, in behalf of man; are no longer exclusive objects of attainment with the apostles of reform in our day. The various revolutions through which Europe has passed within the last three hundred years, have as sumed the task of mainly redressing the grievances which induced the reformation. Its pretensions, inasmuch as our country is concerned, are realized. As an instrument of revolution, it has no provisional mission period, the tendency of which is to throw off the rub to perform it can exercise no salutary influence on a bish of worn-out principles, collected by ages of fraud, on the natural and political rights of mankind; and the crowning development of which must be the sure, though gradual, reconstruction of the social fabric out of new elements of sociability. This reference, therefore, to the great schism of the sixteenth century, is intended to show Luther rather as an individual than as a reformer;-rather as the living representative of new ideas, than the assailer of mere church corruptions. Indeed we do not think that Luther appears to the best advantage as the reformer of abuses. Admired and beloved by all, this venerable man yet retains uncommon vigor and elasticity of body illusion, to imagine him bound to an unwavering faith It were a strange, though an habitual and unbroken health. Florid in countenance, in his work, or sustained by an enlightened conscience erect in gait, with every mark of military deport- in his principles and aim. His memoirs exhibit him ment; possessing great decision of character, and reforming himself at each step which he took. Hum a name unsullied by a single stain; he is the de-ble and subdued, at first, in the presence of Rome's au thority-then kindling into a spirit of disputatious merry evening-an evening of poetry and song-with pride-insolent even to brutality and vulgar beyond several of his friends; he entered, in the dead of night, measure-ignorant of the definite bearing of the dis- the cloisters of the Augustine monks at Erfurth. Plaucussion which he had started-alarmed at the very tus and Virgil,* were the only companions that he enthusiasm with which his first theses were received- brought along. With his life of seclusion began a life shrinking before the consequences of the principles of sadness, of anguish and of doubts :-then arose that that he had laid down in his polemics, and driven, by fearful conflict between daring thoughts and checked some irresistible fatality, from negation to negation;—| propensities, which assailed him throughout his existwe find him denying the pope the power of indulgen-ence. There is a wide difference between the spices, denying the merits of good works, denying the ritual trials of the German reformer and those of the institution of the papacy, denying the church as a visi- eremites, saints and doctors of the primitive church. ble body, denying the prayers for the dead, denying Temptation never reached the faith of the latter; it the freedom of will and the indissolubility of the mar- assailed the flesh merely, which neither fastings nor riage bond. He successively revolutionized not only the macerations, vigils nor prayers, could entirely subdue: discipline of the church, and its religious and dogmatic while, in Luther, we find, at once, the temptings of the authority, but also the received opinions of mankind | spirit and the flesh-the rebellion of the intellect and the concerning morals, the family state, and political society itself. Breathing in turn the most sublime eloquence, and in turn sinking into the most abject foolery; denouncing the temporal powers, and then bending in ignominious subserviency to their views; Luther could at times command the language of protection and mercy in behalf of the wretched peasantry, who had reared the standard of rebellion in the name of his reformation; at others, mark them out for the cruel butcheries of the inexorable barons, and solicit their arm to the work of carnage and torture. "The peasantry," he writes, "deserve no mercy-no toleration; but the indignation of the vilest of men. They are under the ban of God and of the empire. It is lawful | to kill them like mad dogs!" He was truly of that stern race of Saxons, whom Karl the Great could not bring under the christian law, until converted by fire and sword. A dark and fatal predestination of trials and confiets harbingered Luther's birth. He was born in blood. Jahn Luther, his father, having accidentally killed a man, who tended his flock, was compelled to fly. His wife, who had followed him in spite of her critical | situation, gave birth to Martin on reaching the town of Eisleben. His father's cognizance-for the mechanics and even the serfs of those days, in imitation of the nobility, bore armorial devices-has a miner's sledge. With this sledge the son was destined to dint the papal tiara and shiver the pastoral staff of the catholic hierarchy: the same instrument, which, in the course of time, passing through the hands of Cromwell, Robespierre and Napoleon, hammered regal crowns and regal baubles into fragments. Early indications of talent, given by Luther, induced in his mother, who though grossly illiterate, seems to have been a woman of high energies, a desire to see him trained up as a scholar. How far her laudable, | maternal ambition was realized, the after life of the reformer abundantly proves. The courses of his youth, however, were wild and unruly:-it required the voice of thunder to call young Luther away from the proverbial excesses of a German student's life. Like St. Paul, on the road to Damascus, he was solemnly warned by the voice of God. In the year 1505, Luther, whilst walking with a bosom friend, saw him struck into a heap of cinders by the lightning of heaven. He shrieked a vow to St Anne; and that vow was to take orders, if spared. On the seventeenth of July of the same year, therefore, after having spent a war of the senses-hot passions and racking doubtsSatan rushing on his soul, and, according to his own quaint expression, "beating it with his fists." Many and bitter were the nights, as he relates himself, which he spent in monastic solitude; wrestling with the spirit of evil, and clinging in prayerful watches to the foot of the cross. The mind-sick and restless monk resolved to carry his doubts to the very centre of faith; and, in the hope of certainty and peace, to lay down his agony before St. Peter's chair. He left, therefore, his cell at Erfurth to visit the Vatican; but, like one of the greatest living geniuses of the age, he returned, from the capital of the christian world, to curse the vanity of his pilgrimage and the obstinacy of the pope. In the year 1517, after his return from Italy, Luther began his attacks against the church of Rome; and published and maintained his propositions against the doctrine of indulgences. The records of the revolutions of the mind do not furnish a more striking instance of total disproportion between effect and cause, than do the annals of the great reformation of the sixteenth century in its origin and its development. Singular indeed as it may appear, we may, without straining probabilities, trace up the most important schism in the church of Christ, since the heresies of Arianism, to motives of personal interest and baffled lucre.‡ No event in history has proven, more forcibly than the reformation, how the tendencies of a period may overmaster the spirit of man, even when that man is The choice of these two authors is measurably characteristic of Luther's disposition. Virgil's melancholy tenderness harmonises with Luther's keen sensibilities-ever an adjunct of true genius; while the somewhat coarse and vulgar style of Plautus' comedies assimilates with the unaccountable tendency to ribaldry, which marks many of the compositions of the reformer. Lamennais, the democratic priest, and powerful editor of the Avenir. Admonished by Gregory the XVI, of the "libertine tendencies" of his editorial labors, he repaired to Rome to explain his views of political and religious freedom; and they were answered by the memorable encyclic letter of the month and bishops to stem the torrent of innovations sweeping over of August, 1932, urging all patriarchs, primates, archbishops christendom. It is not intended, neither is this the place, to renew the interminable disputes of Staupitz and Tetzel; but those who are acquainted with the history of the sixteenth century, will find a clue to the allusion, in the contest of the Augustinians and Dominicans in the monopoly of the indulgences. bread and wine are not transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. After Urban the VI, no pope should be acknowledged; but we should live according to our own conscience, and after the manner of the Greeks. It is repugnant to the gospel that churchmen should hold personal property. All mendicant monks are heretics. The people have a right to correct their rulers when they fall into error. Whoever enters a convent is less fitted for the observance of God's com mandments. Those who establish monasteries are sinners; and those who live in them are devils. The election of the pope by the cardinals is a device of Satan. Belief in the sovereignty of the church of Rome, is not necessary to the salvation of souls. one of confessed and commanding genius. We have mentioned Luther's alarm at the enthusiasm which hailed the appearance of his propositions through Germany; and adverted to his controversial propensities, his waverings, his contradictions and his doubts. The latter are so peculiarly characteristic of his course, that he may be said to have rather followed than directed the onward march of intellectual freedom. Of the reform of abuses, as far as it went, Luther cannot fairly claim the exclusive merit:-it had, for three centuries at least, been a question of internal church discipline the object of the meditations and censures of the most illustrious and venerated of its members of St. Bernard, Gerson, Pietro, Alliaco, among other champions of the hierarchy. Three famous councils-those of Pisa, Con- Besides these theological propositions, closely assimi stance and Basil-had begun the reform, which was lating with Luther's, it may not be irrelevant to quote repelled by the church as soon as attempted to be en- a few philosophic dicta, which will more fully charac forced by violence. Inasmuch as dogmas were con- terise Wycleff's theories. He maintained that the idea cerned, the different heresies of the sectarians, Peter of all things is in God from all eternity; and, therefore, de Bruys, Berengarius, Abeilard, Roscelyn, Arnoldo that all things occurring in the course of time are eter di Brescia, Savonarola,* Wycleff, John Huss and Je-nal. According to his doctrines, everything in God is rome of Praga-had amply smoothed the way for God. Hence this, for the fourteenth century, bold propoLuther, and stripped his task of much of its arduous-sition, which is not far removed from the pantheism of ness. In 1546, the very year of his death, he witnessed Spinosa and Schelling-every creature is God. He the achievement of the great revolution, attempted by also laid down the thesis, that God can annihilate nothose whom we have mentioned, and brought to a suc- thing; and that all things happen through an invincible cessful close by his agency. All who had preceded necessity; a broad confession of fatalism, which may him in this perilous career, had either been satisfied be put in juxtaposition with Luther's tenets on the with the fame of the schoolmen, or had perished by freedom of man, which the reformer completely subor fire and steel. In matters depending on opinion merely,dinated to divine grace. opinion is all powerful:-John Huss and Jerome of Praga, were burned, at the council of Constance, for the defence of a majority of the propositions, which a hundred years afterwards convulsed Europe through Luther's lips, and cut off one half of its dominions from the spiritual authority of the pope. The Henricians, the Waldenses, the Petrobrusians and the Hussites form one unbroken chain of innovators, whose exertions and life-blood prepared the triumph of the reformation under political influences. Wycleff's heresies had barely gone beyond the thres hold of the schools; and it was not until the year 1415, sometime after his death, that they passed the precincts of the university and were summoned before the council held at Constance. His works were amerced, instead of his body; his books and bones were publicly burned, and his memory ritually damned. John Huss, though not half as daring as Wycleff, was certainly more unfortunate. The despotism of the popes and the dere lictions of the clergy--the protracted schism of the It cannot be proven from the scriptures, says Wy-church and total depravation of the ecclesiastic body, cleff, who wrote in the course of the fourteenth century, that Christ has instituted the rites of the mass. The * After the mercantile aristocracy of Florence had opened their career of oppression, and the conflict begun between the corrupt ambition of immoderate wealth and the laborious pride of the democracy; there suddenly rose a champion, who was at once a priest--a tribune--and a martyr. While Machia. velli was reducing the doctrines of despotism into systematic and ingenious forms; Savonarola, the poor Dominican Monk, terrorised the soul of the Medici; and, from the pulpits, and in the streets and thoroughfares of Florence, preached, not only the reform of abuses and fear of God; but also the love of freedom and the equality of human rights. With a boldly democratic hand he inscribed, over the judgment seat of the great council, the following republican stanza, in direct opposition to a contemplated treaty with the banished Medici. Carlo Coechi, for a mere attempt to induce a departure from the poetical monitions of this religious tribune, was doomed to the block: "Se questo popolar consiglio, e certo loudly called for the reform of so many and scandalous abuses. The very council, before which Huss appeared, deposed three popes, who had mutually excommuni cated each other; and one of whom, John XXIII, if not belied by history, was steeped in execrable crimes. Huss was condemned, and burnt alive, in violation of the safe conduct granted him by king Sigismund, who was present at the council. This breach of plighted faith, is one of the most remarkable in the annals of the world; because committed after mature reflection and by a pious senate of prelates, doctors and priests. Universal christendom was made a partici pant, through its representatives, in this felon deed; and never did a more solemn conclave taint their souls with an act of more solemn perfidy. Swayed by a perversion of principle and a lust of cruelty which have no parallel in the blood-written pages of fanaticism, they remorsely gave to a horrid death, one who had been entrapped by the lying promises of their safe conduct. A few independent minds and honest hearts did blame the execution of Huss; but the council issued an ordinance to allay the seru ples of the weaklings and muzzle the officiousness of the censors. The text of the rescript, by which the |