CHAPTER XV. Colonel Warren Johnson and Governor M "I came through the Valley of Sorrow, And my soul through the Valley of Sorrow -Idyls of Israel. AJOR-GENERAL TRYON and his men, as if aware of the hostility shared by the townsfolk, sought no shelter with the villagers but camped for the night on a high hill overlooking the Sound about a mile from the Ridgefield Tavern south. His troops had suffered greatly in their harassed retreat and engagement. Many of the wounded were carried into the Stebbins house, as well as the patriots, until the old house had much the appearance of a slaughter house, the floors being saturated with blood. Colonel Gould, of the patriots, was killed about eighty rods east of the house. Many of the wounded were quartered in the Ridgefield Tavern. The dead were hastily buried about the field of battle, and it took them all the afternoon and well into the night to perform these last rites for their comrades. The wounded of the British, who were not too seriously injured to stand the journey, were taken with them in their retreat to their ships. It had given General Tryon much uneasiness to find Colonel Johnson was so badly wounded and he determined to send his surgeon to inquire into his injuries. Dr. Hunter, the younger of the two celebrated London surgeons and anatomists, had accompanied General Tryon upon his recent return to America being a personal friend, and on being informed there was likely to be much surgery to engage his skill and give him an opportunity to carry out some original ideas of his own in gunshot wounds and injuries in the field of battle. He was also present a few years before in Paris, when our Dr. Franklin was one of the Committee of the Academy of Sciences to inquire into Hypnotism as advanced by Dr. Mesmer. It had occurred to Dr. Hunter at that time that the trance-like state into which a person was thrown when under mesmeric influence might be used as an anesthetic in surgery for operations while in that state without the person experiencing any pain. The great drawback Dr. Hunter found after delicate and major operations, was the pain or torture under the knife, which was prolonged into a nervous shock to a patient afterward; together with the wound was in many cases the direct cause of the large fatalities attending the major operations. He was quite convinced that the hypnotic state could be taken advantage of in some cases where it had been clearly demonstrated that while persons were in such a cataleptic condition they experienced no pain as demonstrated by thrusting needles into the flesh. Colonel Johnson happened to have accompanied Franklin to this conference and was an interested eyewitness to those seances. General Tryon was at a loss to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion how Colonel Johnson came to be a participant in the struggle; he had not known that he was in the neighborhood-also it puzzled him to know why he happened to be so far to the front-right close to the Colonists line-but construed it must have been evidence of Colonel Johnson's valor to rush into the thickest of the fray until he found himself in the midst of the enemies line where he received his wound. On the evening of the day of battle General Tryon, accompanied by Dr. Hunter, the younger, went to the Tavern to inquire into his Aide-deCamp's condition and obtain more information about him to his satisfaction. Dr. Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, from Litchfield, had joined the militia and was present during the battle and attended to the wounded, and had seen the Colonel after his removal to the Tavern. Hopkins, a graduate of Yale, was a very skillful disciple of Esculapius. In person tall, lean, stooping, long-limbed, with large features, with light eyes, and to this uncouth appearance was added great eccentricity of manner rendering him, at first sight, a very striking spectacle. At the first sight of Colonel Johnson, Dr. Hopkins was as much taken with his striking personality as with his calm demeanor and helpless condition. He found on gently probing the wound to ascertain the direction that the bullet had taken, that it had struck the Colonel obliquely, passing through the deeper layer of the muscles of the back in the direction of the spine. "How do you feel, Colonel?" was asked. "I have hardly any pain, Doctor, but my legs don't seem right-I can't move them-in fact, I cannot feel them," was the answer. Pinching his legs, the Doctor asked if he felt it; on replying in the negative a serious look came into the Doctor's face. Making a few more tests, without communicating the_gravity of the symptoms to the patient, he found Colonel Johnson was without sensation and motion from the waist down or below the point where the bullet was thought to have embedded itself. Leaving the patient with an encouraging remark he did not share, he met Sarah Bishop just outside the door anxiously waiting for intelligence of his condition. "Is he seriously wounded, will he recover?" she quickly asked. "He is very seriously wounded. I have very grave suspicions that the ball has struck the spine, if it has not injured the spinal cord; he seems to have completely lost the power of his lower limbs, which is a very grave circumstance," was the answer. "Is he suffering pain?" she asked. "He does not suffer pain, I wish he did," and when he perceived a puzzled expression on Sarah's face, he made haste to explain, "paralysis of the lower limbs from gunshot wounds in the direction of the spine mean perhaps irreparable injury to the cord and that means slow death." Seeing that his words were torturing her by the intense mental anguish depicted on her face, he hastily added: "I hope we are anticipating and that our fears will not be realized." At this point Major-General Tryon and Dr. Hunter were announced. The doctors greeted each other with much warmth, and after chatting for a few moments on events that had brought them together in Paris and London, as well as those that had transpired since that time, the trio entered the room of Colonel Johnson. "It grieves me much, Colonel, to see you here in such a bad plight. How came you to be present during our skirmish?” asked General Tryon. "Thank you, Governor, for your sympathy. I will be able to be up and about in a few days. It is only a mere scratch. I learned from expresses this morning that you were skirmishing around as usual, I thought I would see some fighting, answered the Colonel, at the same time wondering how much or how little he knew of the turn events had taken in his career. If he was still ignorant of the position he had recently assumed he did not then wish to enlighten him further and let him harass his friends by the knowledge until he could tell them in person, therefore, he thought "Prudence is the better part of valor." General Tryon had taken it for granted that Colonel Johnson was on the side of the British. It never occurred to him that it could be otherwise. "I trust you are no whit worse than you think; however, I have brought my surgeon, Dr. Hunter, whom I'm informed you have already met on the other side, to consult with your attendant." |