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Page 43
Obeying instructions from my paper, I hastened back to the United States,
where important events were pending. Von Hindenburg, after his Trenton
victory, had strangely delayed his advance against Philadelphia--we were
to learn the reason for this shortly--but, as we passed through Savannah,
we had news that the invading army was moving southward against General
Wood's reconstructed line of defence that spread from Bristol on the
Delaware to Jenkintown to a point three miles below Norristown on the
Schuylkill.
The next morning we reached Richmond and here, I should explain, I said
good-bye to the rescued lieutenant, an attractive young fellow, Randolph
Ryerson, whose home was in Richmond, and whose sister, Miss Mary Ryerson,
a strikingly beautiful girl, had met us at Charleston the night before in
response to a telegram that her brother was coming and was ill. She
nursed him through the night in an uncomfortable stateroom and came to me
in the morning greatly disturbed about his condition. The young man had a
high fever, she said, and had raved for hours calling out a name, a
rather peculiar name--Widding--Widding--Lemuel A. Widding--over and over
again in his delirium.
I tried to reassure her and said laughingly that, as long as it was not a
woman's name he was raving about, there was no ground for anxiety. She
gave me her address in Richmond and thanked me very sweetly for what I
had done. I must admit that for days I was haunted by that girl's face
and by the glorious beauty of her eyes.
When we reached Washington we found that city in a panic over news of
another American defeat. Philadelphia had fallen and all communications
were cut off. Furthermore, a third force of Germans had landed in
Chesapeake Bay, which meant that the national capital was threatened by
two German armies. We now understood von Hindenburg's deliberation.
In this emergency, Marshall Reid, brother-in-law of Lieutenant Dustin,
the crack aviator of the navy, who had been aboard the _Pennsylvania_,
volunteered to carry messages from the President to Philadelphia and to
bring back news. Reid himself was one of the best amateur flying men in
the country and he did me the honour to choose me as his companion.
We started late in the afternoon of August 17 in Mr. Reid's swift Burgess
machine and made the distance in two hours. I shall never forget our
feelings as we circled over the City of Brotherly Love and looked down
upon wrecks of railroad bridges that lay across the Schuylkill. Shots
were fired at us from the aerodrome of the League Island Navy Yard; so we
flew on, searching for a safer landing place.
We tried to make the roof landing on the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, but
the wind was too high and we finally chanced it among the maples of
Rittenhouse Square, after narrowly missing the sharp steeple of St.
Mark's Church. Here, with a few bruises, we came to earth just in front
of the Rittenhouse Club and were assisted by Dr. J. William White, who
rushed out and did what he could to help us.
Five hours later, Reid started back to Washington with details of
reverses sent by military and city authorities that decided the
administration to move the seat of government to Chicago without delay.
He also carried from me (I remained in Philadelphia) a hastily written
despatch to be transmitted from Washington via Kingston to the London
_Times_, in which I summed up the situation on the basis of facts given
me by my friend, Richard J. Beamish, owner of the Philadelphia _Press_,
my conclusion being that the American cause was lost. And I included
other valuable information gleaned from reporter friends of mine on the
_North American_ and the _Bulletin_. I even ventured a prophecy that the
United States would sue for peace within ten days.
"What were General Wood's losses in the battle of Philadelphia?" I asked
Beamish.
"Terribly heavy--nearly half of his army in killed, wounded and
prisoners. What could we do? Von Hindenburg outnumbered us from two to
one and we were short of ammunition, artillery, horses, aeroplanes,
everything."
"Who blew up those railroad bridges and cut the wires?"
"German spies--there are a lot of them here. They sank a barge loaded
with bricks in the Schuylkill just above its joining with the Delaware
and blocked the channel so that ten battleships in the naval basin at
League Island couldn't get out."
"What became of the battleships?"
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