The Life of Major John André, Adjutant-General of the British Army in America

By WINTHROP SARGENT. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 1871.

ONE of the most interesting episodes of our War of the Revolution has been treated at length and in full detail by one of the most promising of our younger historical students, the late Mr. Winthrop Sargent. His Life of Major André is at once a romance, a tragedy, and a passage of history.

The story of the unfortunate victim of military necessity begins with love that resulted in disappointment, and passes through varying adventures, until the one risk too many led to the discovery which ended in the strangling of a gallant and accomplished gentleman upon the gallows. The convicted spy, who died a felon’s death, was commemorated by a stately monument in Westminster Abbey, and his dust now lies in that sepulchre of kings. England lost no soldier in the war whose loss was so long and widely mourned ; and no sentence supposed to be dictated by the laws of warfare, ami enforced under the pressure of the time, was ever more regretted by those who pronounced the doom and exacted the penalty.

It is impossible to read the record of André’s youth, with its many friendships and its one passion, to see how full he was of generous ambition, and how richly adorned with the brighter graces which captivated even those who had to call him their enemy ; to look upon his handsome features, preserved in the miniature traced by his own hand, and not to wish that it had been possible to spare such a victim to the rules of organized barbarism. If Arnold’s neck could have been slipped into André’s noose, the rejoicing would have been universal on one side, and very little regret would have been wasted on the other.

Mr. Sargents "Life of André” is now republished in a second edition by the care of the loving friends who can never cease to lament the young historian’s yet recent loss.

One of these has introduced the volume with a brief note, tenderly expressing the feeling which must rise in the heart of every reader. The work is a double monument. It commemorates one who died too early by the hand of violence, snatched rudely away from the affections that cherished him, from the fame which, as he hoped, not without reason, awaited him. It embalms the memory of his biographer, young, if no longer youthful, full of promise, full of hope, looking forward to larger labors in those peaceful fields of research where he had already become known as a modest, faithful, intelligent worker. He, too, was called away with his task unfinished. The soldier met his death in the midst of his enemies, surrounded by circumstances of ignominy which his brave soul could hardly endure to contemplate. The scholar was summoned gently by slow disease, and breathed his last surrounded by those who were dearest to him. It was fitting that the young soldier’s story should be told by a young writer, and Mr. Sargent’s memoir is very evidently a labor of love, such as a companion of his own age might have bestowed upon his memory.

The reader will find entertainment in the pleasant account of André’s early life, his romantic friendships, his lively letters, the glimpses of noted people with whom he was in friendly relation, — Miss Anna Seward, “Julia,” as she called herself in her highflown letters, the Corinna of Lichfield, sometimes called the Swan of that locality, a few of whose stilted heroic lines have picked their way down to posterity in virtue of the events and characters with which they dealt; Mr. Thomas Day, the author of Sandford and Merton, — Cœlebs in search of a wife, as he figures in this story ; Richard Lovell Edgeworth, who carried off the object of André’s attachment, the fair Honora Sneyd ; the fascinating Honora herself, who made everybody in love with her, and, as she could not love everybody, by her refusal “sent poor Mr. Day to bed to be bled for a fever,” and poor “ cher Jean ” — Mr. André—to the wars, and so to the gallows: all which personages, with glimpses of many more, give life to this most agreeable record of André’s youthful days.

Many readers will follow with deep interest the historical sketch of the course of events which led to the situation of affairs where Arnold’s treason brought him into relation with André, and thus betrayed the latter to his doom. A large number, perhaps, will hurry on to the last act of the tragedy. If they begin with this most saddening yet most absorbing portion of the drama, they will be sure to turn back and read the tale of the intrigues, the indiscretions, the blunders, that ended so disastrously to the young and adventurous soldier. And they will find everywhere the marks of diligent research, a genuine enthusiasm for the subject, and a simple and pleasing narrative style.

The two portraits prefixed to the volume are remarkably well executed. That of André, from his own miniature, shows a face of great delicacy and refinement, with more of the Frenchman than the Englishman in its features. Those who knew Mr. Sargent will agree that his portrait is an admirable likeness of one who looked like what he was, — a man with the best instincts of the scholar, and the finest feelings and manners of a gentleman.