My uncle's wife was the only daughter of a Mr. Hamilton, and at the age of eighteen, when the romance of her life began, was living with her father at Chatham. Her mother, I believe, was dead at this time. I never knew anything about her, nor heard her name mentioned. Chatham was then, as it is now, a garrison town, and Mr. Hamilton had some post connected with the Military which brought him into contact with the officers, and his daughter naturally became acquainted with her father's friends. Amongst these was a Captain Lyon, a young man of good family and very poor. Little more than this is known about him; his early death prevented him from distinguishing himself in the world, as he would probably have done if he had lived, for I always thought there must have been something more than common in the character of a man who inspired such enduring affection in a woman like my aunt.
Mary Hamilton, at the age of eighteen, was a lovely girl. Hers was not so much the beauty of regular features as of expression, combined with a graceful figure and most charming manners. Even when I can remember her, when she was quite an old woman, she still retained this look of high breeding, the charm of air and manner, and to see her when she occasionally mixed in the small society of the village, where my uncle lived, was to see a queen moving amongst her subjects. She was proud of her fine old Scotch family, but not arrogantly so. Captain Lyon fell in love with her, fascinated, as other men were, both then and later. The attachment was mutual, and though both these young people were as poor as they could be, the marriage was settled, Mr. Hamilton giving his consent, though not his approval. It was the same story, as old as the world. Love was to compensate for everything — food, clothing, house, and servants would come to them, they were sure, and if not, all would be right as long as they were together. They were married, and for a short time — alas! for a very short time — were as happy as possible. Then came the blow. War had just been declared with America, and troops were being sent out fast; amongst them Captain Lyon's regiment received orders for foreign service.
His bride determined to go with him. In those days a troopship was a terrible place, and it was no trifling proof of affection on her part to forgo all the comforts of her home and to launch herself upon the new and strange life before her. But she never hesitated, and bravely accompanied her husband without even a servant to help her. Anything was better than to be parted from him. How the scene had changed from all she had pictured to herself, and how it was to change still more till she came to think that all the discomforts of a troopship were bliss compared with what she had afterwards to endure! Romance was all laid low in the stern realities of her present position.
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received orders to march at once with his men to Bunkers Hill. It did not seem a wise thing to march men just off from a long voyage to the battlefield, and it turned out afterwards that this was a mistake and was never intended by the military authorities, so it made the after consequences still more sad. My poor aunt was thus left alone in a strange country to find her way as she could to rest and shelter. The action of Bunkers Hill had commenced when Captain Lyon and his detachment landed, and the only shelter my aunt could find was a house within earshot of the battlefield. In her own words she described her terrible position. " I closed the shutters of the only room I was able to obtain to deaden the horrible noise of the firing, and then kneeling on the floor I buried my head under the cushions of a sofa to try and shut out both sight and sound." Can anything be imagined more desolate and sad than the position of this young creature, scarcely more than a child in years, left alone in a strange country, in delicate health, as she then was, whilst her dearly loved husband was perhaps dead or dying within reach of her hand!
She never saw him again. Captain Lyon was one of the first who fell in that action, and what agony of mind he must have endured, if he had power or time to think, when he remembered the position in which he had left his wife I No one can tell this; there is but one evidence of the poor fellow's feelings, which was only known to her when she was nearly past all feeling herself.