THE TOWN OF GREENBURGH. 



333 



on the country side, it is unlikely that many of the army who could con- 

 trive to be present missed the sight. Every eye was fixed on the pris- 

 oner; and every face wore such an aspect of melancholy and gloom, 

 that the impression produced on some of our officers was not only affect- 

 ing but awful. 



Keeping pace with the melancholy notes of the dead march the pro- 

 cession marched along ; no member of it apparently less troubled than 

 he whose conduct was its cause and whose death was its object.* In 

 the beautiful Orientalism of Sir William Jones, " he dying only smiled, 

 while all around him grieved." His heart told him that a life honorably 

 spent in the pursuit of glory would not leave his name to be enrolled 

 among those of the ignoble or guilty many : and his face bespoke the 

 serenity of an approving and undismayed conscience. From time to 

 time, as he caught the eye of an acquaintance — and especially to officers 

 of the Court of Enquiry — he tendered the customary civilities of recog- 

 nition, and received their acknowledgements with composure and grace. 

 It seems that up to this moment he was persuaded that he was not to 

 be hanged, but to be shot to death ; and the inner guard in attendance 

 he took to be the firing party detailed for the occasion. Not until the 

 troops turned suddenly, at a right angle with the course they had hither- 

 to followed, and the gallows rose high before him, was he undeceived. 

 In the very moment of wheeling with his escort, his eye rested on the 

 ill-omened tree, and he recoiled and paused. " Why this emotion, sir ? " 

 asked Smith, who held one of his aims. " I am reconciled to my fate," 

 said Andre, clenching his fist and convulsively moving his arms ; " but 

 not to the mode of it." " It is unavoidable, sir," was the reply. He 

 beckoned Tallmadge, and inquired anxiously if he was not to be shot : 

 " Must I then die in this manner ? " Being told that it was so ordered, 

 " How hard is my fate ! " he cried ; " but it will soon be over." 



Ascending the hill side, the prisoner was brought to the gibbet, while 

 the outer guard secured the ceremony from interruption. During the 

 brief preparations, his manner was nervous and restless — uneasily rolling 

 a pebble to and fro beneath the ball of his foot, and the gland of his 

 throat sinking and swelling as though he choked with emotion. His 

 servant who had followed him to this point now burst forth with loud 

 weeping and lamentations, and Andre for a little turned aside and 

 privately conversed with him. He shook hands with Tallmadge, who 

 withdrew. A baggage wagon was driven beneath the cross-tree into which 



a Benjamin Abbott, a drum-major, who beat the dead march on this occasion, died at 

 Nashua, N. H., in 1851, aged 92. Peter Besancon who followed La Fayette hither from 

 France, and who died at Warsaw, New York, in 1S55. was probably the last surviving spec- 

 tator. 



