Private Yankee Doodle
by
Joseph Plumb Martin


Little, Brown and Company, Boston
Copyright 1962

     Editor's Introduction
     _Private _Yankee _Doodle is the title I have chosen for a
new edition of a rare, delightful, and all but unknown piece of
Americana, originally published at Hallowell, Maine, in 1830, as
__A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings
of a Revolutionary Soldier, Interspersed with Anecdotes of
Incidents That Occurred Within His Own _Observation.  Following a
literary convention of the time, it was published anonymously. 
Locally its authorship was no secret, but when first it began to
appear in bibliographies of the American Revolution it was
erroneously attributed to James Sullivan Martin, its copyright
holder, an assignment that stubbornly persisted.  However,
contemporary records leave no doubt today that its author was
Joseph Plumb Martin, father of the copyright holder, and at the
time of publication a seventy-year-old resident of a small Maine
coastal town called Prospect.
     Evidently the plain little book, cap octavo in size, bound
in wooden boards with full yellow paper labels and a calf spine,
failed to arouse wide interest; but it does seem to have added a
bit to its author's local distinction as a revered veteran of the
War for Independence.  Soon it fell into obscurity and for more
than a century remained a remote historical lode worked only
occasionally by some enterprising scholar.
     The _Narrative was first brought to my attention one evening
several years ago by Francis S. Ronalds, Superintendent of the
Morristown National Historical Park, who had discovered it in the
private collection of Lloyd W. Smith, of Morristown, which is now
part of the Park Library.  After some investigation of its
authorship, he had become convinced that it was the work of
Joseph Plumb Martin, and he was enthusiastically rediscovering it
for a number of historians.  I found the narrative so engrossing
and its infectious humor so diverting that I thought it should be
brought to the attention of modern readers; it deserved, I
thought, a permanent place in American literature, if not for the
immense value of its content, then for its buoyant charm alone. 
It was then that I learned that this had been, in fact, Dr.
Ronalds's intention, but with his usual generosity he urged me to
undertake that gratifying task.
     The passage of the years since its first publication has
transmuted Martin's modest Narrative into a work of substantial
historical value.  Revolutionary diaries and journals are to be
found in some profusion; but only a few memoirs or
autobiographies of private soldiers have weathered the ravages of
time, and the handful that have done so are, by and large,
disappointingly meager, fragmentary, or brief.  None compares
with Martin's _Narrative in scope, detail, or interest.  It is,
in my opinion, far and away the best of all surviving
first-person accounts of the life and times of a private soldier
of the Revolution.  In many of its particulars it is unique.
     Above all, Martin re-creates superbly, as no one else has
done, the full range of the daily life of the Continental
soldier.  He extenuates nothing of the hard times: the fright,
pain, and death of battle; the vermin and sickness of camp and
hospital; the grinding agony of marches without rest or sleep,
half-naked and barefoot; the cold and misery of long winter
camps; the days of belly-twisting hunger; and the nights of
lonely perilous sentry duty.  But he balances these dangers and
sufferings with accounts of diversions hunting and fishing,
boxing and games of darts; of pleasures such as an infrequent
warm billet and a solid meal washed down with "cider as good and
rich as wine"; and of pranks and frolics and of encounters with
an occasional sassy miss.
     Additionally, he illuminates a number of events, large and
small, that have engaged the attention of professional students
of the Revolution, such as the panic and confusion of Kip's Bay,
the British construction of a bridge over the Bronx River at the
Battle of White Plains, troop movements on the puzzling field of
Monmouth, the dogged defense of Fort Mifflin, and the mutiny of
the Connecticut Line.
     Happily, however, Martin's _Narrative is more than an
authentic and highly informative document.  It is a thoroughly
entertaining, robust autobiography, studded with memorable
scenes: General Israel Putnam standing in a doorway bellowing
imprecations upon his men for robbing a civilian's wine cellar;
nervous green troops drawing battle rations in a New York street
before going over to Long Island to fight; an executioner being
pelted with stones by a mob of disgusted soldiers as he jerks and
tugs the boots off a hanged deserter; Martin himself, leg-weary
and aching with hunger and thirst, bargaining his last three-
pence with a Pennsylvania soldier for a few swallows of precious
water on their first gray winter evening at Valley Forge; and he
himself returning from leave and setting out alone with three
days' rations and a canteenful of whiskey to walk four hundred
miles to overtake his regiment gone in his absence from West
Point to Virginia; General Washington in the dark of night
striking a few blows with a pickax, so that it might be said some
day that the General himself broke ground for the siege of
Cornwallis at Yorktown; and at the end, the men taking last
farewells of each other and squibbing their muskets in a final
salute to the "old man," their captain.
     If it is difficult to believe that Joseph Martin, at the age
of seventy, as he asserts, could have written so accurately
without reference to a diary or notes made a half century before,
it is more difficult to understand how, at his advanced age, he
could have turned back the leaves of memory and captured in
almost total recall not only the events but also the sensations,
reactions, and emotions of youth.  His _Narrative reads, not like
the reflections of a fireside veteran, but like the fresh,
earthy, humorous, and sometimes rowdy storytelling of a boy.
     From his _Narrative Joseph Martin himself emerges as the
kind of man to whom one is instinctively drawn.  Adventurous,
resourceful, friendly, and completely irrepressible, full of
healthy prejudices and marvelous generosities, endowed with a
sense of humor equal to every trial, he is Private Yankee Doodle,
that early American citizen-soldier, enduring the test of battle
and the tedium of camp because he was convinced he "had collected
pretty correct ideas of the contest" and was "as warm a patriot
as the best of them."
     The author of this spirited Narrative was born, as he
himself relates, on November 21, 1760, in the village of Becket,
in western Massachusetts, where his twenty-eight-year-old father,
Ebenezer Martin, was the recently ordained minister of a new
Congregational Church.  Ebenezer, a Yale College graduate of
1756, while in school had married Susanna Plumb, daughter of a
well-to-do farmer of Milford, Connecticut, a short ride from New
Haven.
     Reverend Ebenezer Martin was an impulsive man, given to
unorthodox opinion and free speech.  After six years in Becket,
he was requested by the church to leave, in the careful words of
an official history, "partly in consequence of some troubles that
had risen from ownership of Becket lands by nonresidents and
partly (it is believed) in consequence of some indiscretions of
Mr. Martin." Nearly four years passed before he was recommended
to another church, at Ashford, Connecticut, and when he went
there on a salary of sixty pounds a year, one half to be paid in
produce, he left his son Joseph, now "upwards of seven," in the
care of his affluent father-in-law at Milford.  At Ashford, he
again ran into trouble.  In 1772 he was saved from imprisonment
as an insolvent debtor only through the intervention of the
Connecticut General Assembly.  And after nine years he was again
requested to surrender his pastorate on a charge of
"unministerial conduct." Although he explained himself well
enough to win a "regular dismission," he then moved from
Connecticut forever, leaving behind church fathers who tolerantly
concluded that he was "an able, but not always wise man, one who
said smart things and odd things that were remembered sometimes
to his discredit and injury." Thenceforth, he preached and worked
at the cooper's trade in both Pennsylvania and New York until his
death in 1795. (1)
     Joseph's boyhood with his grandparents, Joseph and Rebecca
Plumb, was free of want; but it was that of any ordinary,
hardworking farm boy.  He never attended formal school, but
somewhere he acquired an ability and passion for reading and
self-expression.
     When the war came in 1775, Joseph was at first too young for
military service and then a little doubtful about a long
enlistment.  But in June 1776, when short-term state troops were
being enlisted, he resolved to engage for a limited period, "to
take a priming before I took upon me the whole coat of paint for
a soldier." Thus on the sixth of July, at the age of fifteen, he
enlisted for six months as a private in a regiment of Connecticut
state troops.  By then the war had shifted from New England to
New York, where the Milford farm boy took part in the battles at
Brooklyn, New York, Harlem, and White Plains.
     When his enlistment time was up in December, he accepted his
discharge, pocketed his four shillings fourpence "mileage" money
for his fifty-two-mile trek home, and returned to Milford,
satisfied that he had had enough of soldiering.  "But the ease of
a winter spent at home," he said, caused me to alter my mind."
When the weather turned warm, an urgent call was sounded for
regulars to serve three years or "during the war," and on April
12, 1777, he enlisted in the Continental Army, to begin a tour of
duty that did not end until the army was disbanded six years
later, in 1783.
     Martin's first Continental service was as a private in the
Eighth Connecticut Continental Regiment.  In 1778 he was
transferred briefly to the Light Infantry, which suggests that he
was well-built, taller than most, and hardy and enterprising, for
these were criteria for selecting men for that elite, special
corps.  Two years later he was assigned permanently from his line
regiment to the newly formed Corps of Sappers and Miners. 
Surviving muster rolls list him as a corporal, appointed January
1, 1781; but the rolls are so incomplete that it is entirely
likely his service began in July 1780, as he later remembered,
and that he did attain the rank he claimed of sergeant.
     His captain was the inventor David Bushnell, whose one-man
submarine had been tried out at New York in 1776 and whose
floating mines, later, created pandemonium on the Delaware.
Martin relates that when Bushnell's men chose to vent some petty
outrage by giving their captain a "bit of a hoist," appropriately
enough they devised for the purpose a mine made of a wooden
canteen loaded with powder and fused with touchwood.  And with
this instrument, worthy of the ingenuity of Bushnell himself,
they might have hoisted him "out of time," except for Martin's
level-headed intervention.
     At the close of the war, after tarrying a pleasant winter as
a schoolteacher among the upstate New York Dutch, Martin migrated
to frontier Maine, where land was being offered generously to
encourage settlement.  On a bold, picturesque headland of Cape
Jellison, at the mouth of the Penobscot River, he built a cabin,
which some years later he was able to abandon for a large frame
house on the mainland two or three miles away.  The headland was
called Fort Point, because it had been the site of Fort Pownall,
an outpost of the French and Indian War, which had been leveled
during the Revolution.  The community, called Frankfort, that had
grown up about the fort and on the mainland, now consisted of
less than thirty families, perhaps a hundred people; but it
boasted eight mills, a thousand tons of shipping, and two meeting
houses.
     In May 1794, after ten years as a respected farmer and
laborer in Frankfort, Joseph Martin was married to Lucy Clewley,
the eighteen-year-old daughter of a successful neighboring farmer
and ship carpenter on the Cape.  The year of their marriage, the
town was incorporated as Prospect, and from 1799 to 1818 Martin
served it for various periods as selectman and as justice of the
peace.
     Apparently, however, for all his intelligence and energy,
Martin never prospered.  In 1797, when he was granted a hundred
acres of bounty land in Ohio for his Revolutionary service, he
immediately assigned them to one Daniel Aiken, probably a
speculator; but whatever small sum he received was soon gone.  By
1818, when the Congress passed a bill to provide for needy
veterans, he was destitute and applied for the pension the bill
granted of eight dollars a month.  As required, he appeared in
court at Belfast and, after giving his age as fifty-nine,
declared, "I have no real nor personal estate, nor any income
whatever, my necessary bedding and wearing apparel excepted,
except two cows, six sheep, one pig.  I am a laborer, but by
reason of age and infirmity I am unable to work.  My wife is
sickly and rheumatic.  I have five children, viz: Joseph, aged
nineteen, an idiot from birth; Thomas and Nathan, fifteen, twins;
James Sullivan, eight; Susan, six.  Without my pension I am
unable to support myself and family." Two selectmen and three
citizens of Prospect testified to the validity of his claim, and
Charles Pond, an old friend at Milford, mailed testimony to his
military service.  The court ruled his total property to be worth
exactly fifty-two dollars and agreed that he was in need "of the
assistance of his country." The pension was granted.  With that
ninety-six dollars a year and his earnings as town official - he
served steadily as town clerk from 1818 to 1843 - and as an
occasional laborer he eked out a livelihood.
     Regardless of financial hardship, Martin seems never to have
lost the cultural interests of his youth.  He read extensively in
the classics and history and amused himself with antiquarianism,
pen-sketching, and versification.  In 1828, when nearly seventy,
he prepared a full description and a ground plan of old Fort
Pownall, which were later used by a number of historians.  It was
probably about this time that he wrote his Narrative.  Several of
his sketches of wild birds, dated between 1838 and 1841, survive
in the hands of a descendant.  Another owns a manuscript album of
his verses.  With these are preserved also his folding pocket sun
glass and a small screwtop wooden box which, family legend holds,
he carried throughout the war as a container for a lock of
feminine hair.  Martin's versification extended to the lyrics of
church music, and in his community he is still remembered as the
author of dedication hymns for two Congregational Churches of the
neighborhood in 1834 and 1840, when he was seventy-four and
eighty years old.
     Although he had complained of age and infirmity at fifty-
nine, Martin retained his strength and animation far into his
eighties; and even after losing his vision, when nearly ninety,
he was regarded as a sociable, highly diverting, and
"instructive" companion.  He died quietly on May 2, 1850, and was
buried in Sandy Point Cemetery on a sunny knoll upriver from his
first dwelling in Prospect on Fort Point. Sometime later the town
placed at the grave a monument which bears an epitaph he himself
might have chosen: "A Soldier of the Revolution." (2)
     For the editor republishing Joseph Martin's Narrative the
temptation to annotate heavily is almost irresistible.  Many of
the author's experiences and observations invite amplification. 
However, I have tried to resist the historian's itch to
elaborate.  Rather than impede with scholarly paraphernalia a
wonderfully racy book, I have confined my notes to
identifications, clarification of background where for modern
readers the story seemed to demand it, and a few minor
corrections, all of which I trust will enhance the reader's
enjoyment.  In order to further reduce interruptions I have added
in brackets in the text such information as rank, first names,
and a few dates and locations.
     Upon Martin's death, a Maine historian in eulogizing him
proclaimed his Narrative a "lively view of the privations and
sufferings of the common soldier in the mighty conflict for
liberty and independence," but deplored the author's failure to
submit it before publication to "some judicious friend for
revisal." Had the old self-schooled soldier done so, his prose
might have been made to conform more closely to good usage.  It
might have been wrung dry of its garrulity and its idioms.  And
in the process, doubtlessly, it would have lost much, if not all,
of its honest vigor, natural wit, and vernacular charm. 
Fortunately for posterity, it was Martin's conceit to tell his
tale his own way.  To all intents and purposes, I have left it
that way; I have neither abridged, nor changed a word or phrase
he wrote.  Even slight misspellings whose meanings are obvious
have been allowed to stand.
     However, minor mechanical changes have been made for ease of
reading.  English spellings have been Americanized.  Where
possible, some overly long paragraphs have been broken up and
some unwieldy sentences repunctuated. But most of Joseph Martin's
inventive punctuation and carefree sentence structure simply defy
correction.  This edition of his _Narrative - the first since its
original publication one hundred and thirty-two years ago -
remains, therefore, almost exactly as he wrote it, and his own
introductory remarks on this subject still apply.
     GEORGE F. SCHEER
     Chapel Hill, North Carolina
* Footnotes *
     (1) This account of Ebenezer Martin is taken from his
manuscript diaries for 1794 and 1795, in the possession of Mrs.
Victor N. Greene, Searsport, Maine, and Mrs. Grace Trundy,
Stockton Springs, Maine.  Also from: Henry J. Martin, _Notices
Genealogical and Historical of the Martin Family of New England_
(Boston, 1880), P. 289; Franklin B. Dexter, _Biographical
Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the
College History_ (New York, 1885-1912), II, 421-422; _American
Quarterly Register,_ VII, pp. 32ff; _The Congregational
Quarterly_, I, 268-269.

(2) This account of Joseph Plumb Martin is taken from the
following manuscripts in the National Archives, Washington, D.
C.: (1) Revolutionary War pension file of Joseph Plumb and Lucy
Clewley Martin, W. 1629; (2) Revolutionary bounty-land warrant
#13410-100 acres, issued April 20, 1797, and Revolutionary
bounty-land warrant #209-60 acres, Act of March 3, 1855; (3)
Return of Officers and Men belonging to the Corps of Sappers and
Miners who were considered as part of the quota of the State of
Connecticut, Revolutionary War Rolls, Publication #246, Roll 28;
(4) in Record Group 93, War Department Collection of
Revolutionary War Records: (a) Roll of a Regiment of New Levies
from Connecticut, Third Company, Commanded by William Douglas,
1776, (b) Mileage Roll of Captain Samuel Peck's Company, Colonel
Douglas's Regiment, Wadsworth's Brigade, and (c) a volume
containing debit and credit accounts with members of Captain
Samuel Peck's Company, Colonel Douglas's Connecticut Regiment,
General Wadsworth's Brigade.
     Other sources include: (1) interviews on behalf of the
editor by Dr. and Mrs. Gerald MacCarthy, Chapel Hill, N.C.,
August 1961, with Walter F. Trundy, Mrs. Grace Trundy, and Mrs.
A. V. Ellis, Stockton Springs, Maine; (2) letters to the author
from Walter F. Trundy, October 11 and 13, 1961; from Mrs. Victor
N. Greene, Searsport, Maine, October 18 and 31, 1961; (3)
"Centennial Address Delivered at Fort Pownall in Stockton, July
28, 1859," by Stephen Thurston, ms., and "Vital Statistics from
the Town of Prospect," typescript compiled by Mrs. Ellery H.
Sweetser, 1934, both in Maine Historical Society, consulted
through the courtesy of Marian B. Rowe, Librarian; (4)
_Republican Journal_ (Belfast, Me.), May 10, 1850; also similar
obituary in _New England Historical and Genealogical _Register,
XXX (July 3, 1876), 330-331; (5) Connecticut Adjutant-general's
office, _The Record of Connecticut Men in the Military and Naval
Service during the War of the _Revolution, edited by Henry P.
Johnston (Hartford, 1889); (6) Henry J. Martin, __Notices
Historical and Genealogical of the Martin Family of New _England
(Boston, 1880), 289; (7) The Town Register of Searsport, Stockton
Springs and Prospect, 1907 (Brunswick, Me.); (8) Alice V. Ellis,
The Story of Stockton Springs, Maine (Stockton Springs, 1955) ;
(9) William D. Williamson, __History of the State of _Maine
(Hallowell, Me., 1839), II, 337n, 565-566; (10) _Maine
_Historical _Magazine, IX (1894-1895), 166, 171, 192-194, 202-
204; (11) Ethel Kenney Lord, "Isaac Clewley; Father and Son,"
__Daughters of the American Revolution _Magazine, XCIII (1959),
235ff.
     Martin's gravestone states that he died at the age of ninety
years, six months, and nineteen days.  He gives his birth date as
November 21, 1760.  I am at a loss to explain the discrepancy.

     Contents
     Editor's Introduction ... vii
     MARTIN'S NARRATIVE
     Preface ... xxiii
     I. Introductory ... 3
     II. Campaign of 1776 ... 14
     III. Campaign of 1777 ... 59
     IV. Campaign of 1778 ... 107
     V. Campaign of 1779 ... 150
     VI. Campaign of 1780 ... 170
     VII. Campaign of 1781 ... 210
     VIII. Campaign of 1782 ... 249
     IX. Campaign of 1783 ... 273

Preface
     I HAVE somewhere read of a limner, who, when he had daubed a
representation of some animal, was always compelled, for the
information of the observer, to write under it what he intended
it to represent: as, "This is a goose," "This is a dog," &c.  So,
many books, and mine in particular amongst the rest, would
perhaps be quite unintelligible as to the drift of them, unless
the reader was informed beforehand what the author intended.
     I shall, therefore, by way of preface, inform the reader
that my intention is to give a succinct account of some of my
adventures, dangers, and sufferings during my several campaigns
in
the Revolutionary army.  My readers (who, by the by, will, I
hope, none of them be beyond the pale of my own neighborhood)
must not expect any great transactions to be exhibited to their
notice.  "No alpine wonders thunder through my tale," but they
are here, once for all, requested to bear it in mind, that they
are not the achievements of an officer of high grade which they
are
perusing, but the common transactions of one of the lowest in
station in an army, a private soldier.
     Should the reader chance to ask himself this question (and I
think it very natural for him to do so) how could any man of
common sense ever spend his precious time in writing such a
rhapsody of nonsense? - to satisfy his inquiring mind, I would
inform him, that, as the adage says, "Every crow thinks her own
young the whitest," so every private soldier in an army thinks
his particular services as essential to carry on the war he is
engaged in, as the services of the most influential general: and
why not? What could officers do without such men? Nothing at all.
Alexander never could have conquered the world without private
soldiers.
     But, says the reader, this is low; the author gives us
nothing but everyday occurrences; I could tell as good a story
myself.  Very true, Mr. Reader, everyone can tell what he has
done in his lifetime, but everyone has not been a soldier and
consequently can know but little or nothing of the sufferings and
fatigues incident to an army.  All know everyday occurrences, but
few know the hardships of the "tented field." I wish to have a
better opinion of my readers, whoever they may be, than even to
think that any of them would wish me to stretch the truth to
furnish them with wonders that I never saw, or acts or deeds I
never performed.  I can give them no more than I have to give,
and if they are dissatisfied after all, I must say I am sorry for
them and myself too; for them, that they expect more than I can
do, and myself, that I am so unlucky as not to have it in my
power to please them.
     But after all I have said, the real cause of my ever
undertaking to rake up circumstances and actions that have so
long rested in my own mind and to spread them upon paper was
this: my friends, and especially my juvenile friends, have often
urged me so to do.  To oblige such I undertook it, hoping it
might save me often the trouble of verbally relating them.
     The critical grammarian may find enough to feed his spleen
upon if he peruses the following pages; but I can inform him
beforehand, I do not regard his sneers; if I cannot write
grammatically, I can think, talk, and feel like other men.
Besides, if the common readers can understand it, it is all I
desire; and to give them an idea, though but a faint one, of what
the army suffered that gained and secured our independence, is
all I wish.  I never studied grammar an hour in my life; when I
ought to have been doing that, I was forced to be studying the
rules and articles of war.
     As to punctuation, my narrative is in the same predicament
as it is in respect to the other parts of grammar.  I never
learned the rules of punctuation any farther than just to assist
in fixing a comma to the British depredations in the state of New
York; a semicolon in New Jersey; a colon in Pennsylvania, and a
final period in Virginia; - a note of interrogation, why we were
made to suffer so much in so good and just a cause; and a note of
admiration to all the world, that an army voluntarily engaged to
serve their country, when starved and naked and suffering
everything short of death (and thousands even that), should be
able to persevere through an eight years war, and come off
conquerors at last!
     But lest I should make my preface longer than my story, I
will here bring it to a close.

A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings od
a Revolutionary Soldier, Interspersed with Anecdotes of Incidents
That Occurred Within His Own Observation

     CHAPTER I
     Introductory
     Have patience just to hear me out;
     And I'll tell you what I've been about.

     THE heroes of all Histories, Narratives, Adventures, Novels
and Romances have, or are supposed to have, ancestors, or some
root from which they sprang.  I conclude, then, that it is not
altogether inconsistent to suppose that I had parents, too.  I
shall not undertake to trace my pedigree (like the Welsh) some
thousand years beyond the creation, but just observe that my
father was the son of a "substantial New England farmer," as we
Yankees say, in the then colony, but now state, of Connecticut
and county of Windham.  When my father arrived at puberty he
found his constitution too feeble to endure manual labor; he
therefore directed his views to gaining a livelihood by some
other means. He, accordingly, fitted himself for and entered as a
student in Yale College, some time between the years 1750 and
'55.
     My mother was likewise a "farmer's daughter"; her native
place was in the county of New Haven, in the same state.  She had
a sister, married and settled in the vicinity of the college, who
often boarded the students when sick.  My father being once in
that condition and being at board at this aunt's, my mother
happened to be there on a visit.  My father, seeing her, it
seems, like a great many others in like circumstances, took a
fancy to her, followed up his courtship, and very possibly
obtained her consent as well as her parents - married her a year
and a half before his collegial studies were ended, which (if
known at the time) would have been cause of his expulsion from
college; but it seems it never was known there and he, of course,
escaped a keelhauling.
     After my father left college, he studied divinity, had "a
call," accepted it, and was settled in the county of Berkshire in
the (now) Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a gospel minister of
the Congregational order; in which county of Berkshire I, the
redoubtable hero of this Narrative, first made my appearance in
this crooked, fretful world, upon the twenty-first day of
November, in the year 1760.  I have been told that the day on
which I was born was Thanksgiving Day, which day is, generally,
celebrated with good cheer.  One might have thought it a little
ominous being born on such a day, but I can assure the reader it
was no omen of good to me, especially for the seven or eight
years I was in the army - nor, indeed, ever since.
     My grandsire, on my mother's side, having at this time no
other daughter but my mother (my aunt mentioned above being
dead), she, of course, became the darling, for which reason, I
suppose, I was his favorite grandson and received his Christian
and surnames as my given name.
     I lived with my parents until I was upwards of seven years
old, when I went to live with this good old grandsire; for good
he was, particularly to me.  He was wealthy, and I had everything
that was necessary for life and as many superfluities as was
consistent with my age and station.  There were none belonging to
the family, as constant residents, except the old gentleman,
lady, and myself.  It is true my grandsire kept me pretty busily
employed, but he was kind to me in every respect, always gave me
a playday when convenient, and was indulgent to me almost to a
fault.  Ah! I ought not to have left him while he lived; I fouled
my own nest most sadly when I did it, but children "are full of
notions."
     I remember the stir in the country occasioned by the Stamp
Act, but I was so young that I did not understand the meaning of
it; I likewise remember the disturbances that followed the repeal
of the Stamp Act, until the destruction of the tea at Boston and
elsewhere.  I was then thirteen or fourteen years old and began
to understand something of the works going on.  I used, about
this time, to inquire a deal about the French War, as it was
called, which had not been long ended; my grandsire would talk
with me about it while working in the fields, perhaps as much to
beguile his own time as to gratify my curiosity.  I thought then,
nothing should induce me to get caught in the toils of an army.
"I am well, so I'll keep," was my motto then, and it would have
been well for me if I had ever retained it.
     Time passed smoothly on with me till the year 1774 arrived. 
The smell of war began to be pretty strong, but I was determined
to have no hand in it, happen when it might; I felt myself to be
a real coward.  What - venture my carcass where bullets fly! That
will never do for me.  Stay at home out of harm's way, thought I,
it will be as much to your health as credit to do so.  But the
pinch of the game had not arrived yet; I had seen nothing of war
affairs and consequently was but a poor judge in such matters.
     One little circumstance that happened in the autumn of this
year will exhibit my military prowess at this time in a high
point of view.  In the afternoon, one Sabbath day, while the
people were assembled at meeting, word was brought that the
British (regulars, as the good people then called them) were
advancing from Boston, spreading death and desolation in their
route in every direction. What was the intent of spreading this
rumor, I know not, unless it was to see how the people would
stand affected; be it what it would, it caused me a terrible
fright.  I went out of the house in the dusk of the evening, when
I heard the sound of a carriage on the road in the direction of
Boston; I thought they were coming as sure as a gun; I shall be
dead or a captive before tomorrow morning.  However, I went to
bed late in the evening, dreamed of "fire and sword," I suppose,
waked in the morning, found myself alive and the house standing
just where it did the evening before. (1)
     The winter of this year passed off without any very
frightening alarms, and the spring of 1775 arrived.  Expectation
of some fatal event seemed to fill the minds of most of the
considerate people throughout the country.  I was ploughing in
the field about half a mile from home, about the twenty-first day
of April, when all of a sudden the bells fell to ringing and
three guns were repeatedly fired in succession down in the
village; what the cause was we could not conjecture.  I had some
fearful forebodings that something more than the sound of a
carriage wheel was in the wind.  The regulars are coming in good
earnest, thought I. My grandsire sighed, he "smelt the rat." He
immediately turned out the team and repaired homeward.  I set off
to see what the cause of the commotion was.  I found most of the
male kind of the people together; soldiers for Boston were in
requisition.  A dollar deposited upon the drumhead was taken up
by someone as soon as placed there, and the holder's name taken,
and he enrolled with orders to equip himself as quick as
possible. My spirits began to revive at the sight of the money
offered; the seeds of courage began to sprout; for, contrary to
my knowledge, there was a scattering of them sowed, but they had
not as yet germinated; I felt a strong inclination, when I found
I had them, to cultivate them. O, thought I, if I were but old
enough to put myself forward, I would be the possessor of one
dollar, the dangers of war to the contrary notwithstanding; but I
durst not put myself up for a soldier for fear of being refused,
and that would have quite upset all the courage I had drawn
forth.
     The men that had engaged "to go to war" went as far as the
next town, where they received orders to return, as there was a
sufficiency of men already engaged, so that I should have had but
a short campaign had I have gone. (2)
     This year there were troops raised both for Boston and New
York. (3) Some from the back towns were billeted at my
grandsire's; their company and conversation began to warm my
courage to such a degree that I resolved at all events to "go a
sogering." Accordingly I used to pump my grandsire, in a
roundabout manner, to know how he stood affected respecting it. 
For a long time he appeared to take but little notice of it.  At
length, one day, I pushed the matter so hard upon him, he was
compelled to give me a direct answer, which was, that he should
never give his consent for me to go into the army unless I had
the previous consent of my parents.  And now I was completely
graveled; my parents were too far off to obtain their consent
before it would be too late for the present campaign.  What was I
to do? Why, I must give up the idea, and that was hard; for I was
as earnest now to call myself and be called a soldier as I had
been a year before not to be called one.  I thought over many
things and formed many plans, but they all fell through, and poor
disconsolate I was forced to set down and gnaw my fingernails in
silence.
     I said but little more about "soldiering" until the troops
raised in and near the town in which I resided came to march off
for New York; then I felt bitterly again.  I accompanied them as
far as the town line, and it was hard parting with them then. 
Many of my young associates were with them, my heart and soul
went with them, but my mortal part must stay behind.  By and by,
they will come swaggering back, thought I, and tell me of all
their exploits, all their "hairbreadth 'scapes," and poor Huff
will not have a single sentence to advance. O, that was too much
to be borne with by me.
     The thoughts of the service still haunted me after the
troops were gone, and the town clear of them; but what plan to
form to get the consent of all, parents and grandparents, that I
might procure thereby to myself the (to me then) bewitching name
of a soldier, I could not devise.  Sometimes I thought I would
enlist at all hazards, let the consequences be what they would;
then again, I would think how kind my grandparents were to me,
and ever had been, my grandsire in particular: I could not bear
to hurt their feelings so much.  I did sincerely love my
grandsire; my grandma'am I did not love so well, and I feared her
less.  At length a thought struck my mind: should they affront me
grossly, I would make that a plea with my conscience to settle
the controversy with.  Accordingly, I wished nothing more than to
have them, or either of them, give "His Honor" a high affront,
that I might thereby form an excuse to engage in the service
without their consent, leave, or approbation.
     It happened that in the early part of the autumn of this
year, I was gratified in my wishes; for I thought I had received
provocation enough to justify me in engaging in the army during
life, little thinking that I was inflicting the punishment on
myself that I fancied I was laying on my grandparents for their
(as I thought) willful obstinacy.  And as this affair was one and
the chief cause of my leaving those kind people and their
hospitable house and precipitating myself into an ocean of
distress, I will minutely describe the affair.
     My grandsire, as I have before observed, often gave me
playdays, especially after the spring and fall sowing, when I
went where I pleased, a gunning, or fishing, or to whatever
recreation took my fancy.  "This fall," said the old gentleman to
me one day, "come, spring to it, and let us get the winter grain
in as soon as possible, and you shall have a playday after the
work is done." Accordingly, I did do the best I could to forward
the business, and I believe I gave him satisfaction, for he
repeated his promise to me often. Just before we had done sowing,
I told him that all my young associates were going to New Haven
to commencement this season.  "Well," said he, "you shall go too,
if you choose, and you shall have one of the horses; you shall
have your choice of them, and I will give you some pocket money."
Mighty well, thought I, I hope it will not prove delusive; I
shall be happy indeed.  Our young club often met in "caucus" to
settle the mighty business of going to commencement, formed a
thousand and one plans how we should enjoy ourselves, dropped
them all successively, and formed as many more, until the time
arrived for the consummation of our felicity.  My grandsire had a
piece of salt marsh about three miles from home, which he had
mowed three or four days before the day arrived which was to make
me completely happy, at least for a time.  Two days previous he
sent me to rake up the hay; I buffeted heat and mosquitoes and
got the hay all up; and as that sort of hay is not easily injured
by the weather, I thought there was nothing to prevent my
promised happiness.
     Well, the day arrived; I got up early, did all the little
jobs about the place, that my grandsire might have nothing to
accuse me of.  He had gone out during the morning and did not
return till breakfast time.  I was waiting with impatience for
his coming in, that I might prepare for my excursion, when, lo,
he did come - much to my sorrow; for the first words I heard
were, "Come, get up the team," I have gotten such a one, naming a
neighbor's boy somewhat older than myself, "to go with us and
cart home the salt hay." Had thunder and lightning fallen upon
the four corners of the house, it would not have struck me with
worse feelings than these words of his did.  Shame, grief, spite,
revenge, all took immediate possession of me.  What could I do;
go I must, that was certain, there was no remedy; and go I did,
but with a full determination that the old gentleman should know
that I had feelings of some sort or other, let him think of me as
he would. I, according to his orders, prepared the team, he
undertook to act teamster, and I sat off before them for the
marsh, alone, that I might indulge myself in my grief without
molestation.  The way to the marsh lay about a mile and a half on
the highway to the college.  I had hardly got into the highway
before I was overtaken by a troop of my young mates, all rigged
off for commencement, swaggering like nabobs.  The first
compliment was, "Hallo, where are you going? We thought you was
one of the foremost in the party; your grandsire never intended
to let you go, and you was a fool to believe him." I did not
believe _them - my grandsire had never deceived me in such
circumstances before and I was willing, even then, vexed as I
was, to attribute it to forgetfulness or to anything but
willfulness.  However, I was balked, no commencement for me.  I
considered myself as much injured as though it had been done ever
so designedly.
     I, however, went to the marsh.  My grandsire, team and boy
arrived soon after me.  We put a load of hay upon the cart, and,
as it was getting rather late in the day, the old gentleman
concluded to go home with the team and left the other youngster
and me to pole the rest of the hay off the marsh to the upland,
as it was dangerous going upon the lower part of it, being in
many places soft and miry.  He told us to go to some of the
fences and cut a pair of sassafras poles, those being light, and
have the remainder of the hay in readiness by his return.
     And now comes the catastrophe of the play.  I concluded now
was the time for me to show my spunk.  We went up to the upland
where was plenty of fruit; I lay down under an apple tree and
fell to eating.  The other boy eat too, but still urged me to
obey my orders; I was resolved to disobey, let the consequences
be what they would.  However, he, by his importunity, at length
got me down upon the marsh, we poled one cock of hay off the
marsh, when we saw the old gentleman coming, full drive,
Jehu-like.  Down he came, when, lo and behold, we had gotten one
cock of hay only in a condition to be taken upon the cart; what
was to be done.  To go on to the marsh was dangerous in the
extreme; to stop then to pole it off would not do, the time would
not allow it. O, my grandsire was in a woeful passion.  I stood
aloof.  Whose fault was it, he inquired; the blame was quickly
laid to my account, and justly too, for I was the only culprit. 
The old gentleman came at me, hammer and tongs, with his six-feet
cart whip.  Ah, thought I to myself, good legs, do your duty now
if ever; I houghed the gravel, or rather the marsh, in good
earnest.  There were twenty people, or more, near us at work;
they all suspended their labor to see the race.  But I was too
light-footed for the old gentleman, and the people on the marsh
setting up a laugh, it rather disconcerted him; he, however,
chased me about thirty or forty rods when he gave over the
pursuit and returned.  I ran as much further before I dared to
look back; but hearing no sound of footsteps behind me, I at last
ventured to look over my shoulder and saw him almost back to his
team; I followed him in my turn, but not quite so nimble as I
went from him.  He endeavored to spit a little of his spite upon
the other youngster, but he stepped up close to him, so that he
could not use his whip; and then plead his own cause so well that
the old gentleman said no more to him. 
     He then had to venture upon the marsh at all events.  I took
a rake and raked after the cart, but took especial care to keep
out of harm's way, till the hay was all upon the cart.  I was
then called upon to help bind the load; I complied, but I kept on
tiptoe all the time, ready to start in case I saw any symptoms of
war; but all passed off.  We got off the marsh safe and without
any hindrance; and it was well for me, after all, that we met
with no disaster.
     And here ends my Introductory Chapter.  If the reader thinks
that some passages in it record incidents not altogether to my
credit as a boy, I can tell him that I thought at the time I did
right, and, to tell the truth, I have not materially altered my
opinion respecting them since.  One thing I am certain of, and
that is, reader, if you had been me, you would have done just as
I did.  What reason have you then to cavil?

* Footnotes *
     (1) On September 1, 1774, the Governor of Massachusetts,
General Thomas Gage, fearful of the rebellious mood of his
colony, ordered troops to bring into Boston two fieldpieces from
Cambridge and public powder from Charlestown. Aroused provincials
assembled briefly to protest the seizure, and although they
dispersed peaceably, a rumor flew abroad that a pitched battle
had been fought, and many New England men sprang to arms before
the story was proved false.

     (2) News of the clash between British troops and provincials
at Lexington, Mass., on April 19, 1775, probably reached Milford
on the morning of the twenty-second.  The official express rider
reached New Haven the night of the twenty-first.

     (3) In response to a resolve of the Massachusetts Provincial
Congress, April 23, 1775, that an army should be raised for the
defense of the colonies, the Connecticut Assembly, April 26,
authorized six regiments of one thousand men each.  In July, two
more smaller regiments were authorized.  The eight were adopted
by the Continental Congress as part of the Continental army.

CHAPTER II
Campaign Of 1776
     At Uncle Joe's I liv'd at ease;
     Had cider and good bread and cheese;
     But while I stay'd at Uncle Sam's
     I'd nought to eat but "faith and clams."

     DURING the winter of 1775-76, by hearing the conversation
and disputes of the good old farmer politicians of the times, I
collected pretty correct ideas of the contest between this
country and the mother country (as it was then called).  I
thought I was as warm a patriot as the best of them; the war was
waged; we had joined issue, and it would not do to "put the hand
to the plough and look back." I felt more anxious than ever, if
possible, to be called a defender of my country.  I had not
forgot the commencement affair; that still stuck in my crop; and
it would not do for me to forget it, for that affront was to be
my passport to the army.
     One evening, very early in the spring of this year, I
chanced to overhear my grandma'am telling my grandsire that I had
threatened to engage on board a man-of-war.  I had told her that
I would enter on board a privateer then fitting out in our
neighborhood.  The good old lady thought it a man-of-war, that
and privateer being synonymous terms with her.  She said she
could not bear the thought of my being on board of a man-of-war;
my grandsire told her that he supposed I was resolved to go into
the service in some way or other and he had rather I would engage
in the land service if I must engage in any.  This I thought to
be a sort of tacit consent for me to go, and I determined to take
advantage of it as quick as possible.
     Soldiers were at this time enlisting for a year's service. I
did not like that; it was too long a time for me at the first
trial; I wished only to take a priming before I took upon me the
whole coat of paint for a soldier.  However, the time soon
arrived that gratified all my wishes.  In the month of June, this
year, orders came out for enlisting men for six months from the
twenty-fifth of this month.  The troops were styled new levies.
(1) They were to go to New York.  And not-withstanding I was told
that the British army at that place was reinforced by fifteen
thousand men, it made no alteration in my mind; I did not care if
there had been fifteen times fifteen thousand, I should have gone
just as soon as if there had been but fifteen hundred.  I never
spent a thought about numbers; the Americans were invincible in
my opinion.  If anything affected me, it was a stronger desire to
see them.
     Well, as I have said, enlisting orders were out.  I used
frequently to go to the rendezvous, where I saw many of my young
associates enlist, had repeated banterings to engage with them,
but still when it came "case in hand," I had my misgivings.  If I
once undertake, thought I, I must stick to it; there will be no
receding.  Thoughts like these would, at times, almost overset my
resolutions.
     But mauger all these "doleful ideas," I one evening went off
with a full determination to enlist at all hazards.  When I
arrived at the place of rendezvous I found a number of young men
of my acquaintance there.  The old bantering began - come, if you
will enlist I will, says one; you have long been talking about
it, says another - come, now is the time.  "Thinks I to myself" I
will not be laughed into it or out of it, at any rate; I will act
my own pleasure after all.  But what did I come here for tonight?
Why, to enlist.  Then enlist I will.  So seating myself at the
table, enlisting orders were immediately presented to me; I took
up the pen, loaded it with the fatal charge, made several mimic
imitations of writing my name, but took especial care not to
touch the paper with the pen until an unlucky wight who was
leaning over my shoulder gave my hand a stroke, which caused the
pen to make a woeful scratch on the paper.  "O, he has enlisted,"
said he.  "He has made his mark; he is fast enough now." Well,
thought I, I may as well go through with the business now as not.

So I wrote my name fairly upon the indentures. (2) And now I was
a soldier, in name at least, if not in practice; but I had now to
go home, after performing this, my heroic action.  How shall I be
received there? But the report of my adventure had reached there
before I did.  In the morning when I first saw my grandparents, I
felt considerably of the sheepish order.  The old gentleman first
accosted me with, "Well, you are going a soldiering then, are
you?" I had nothing to answer; I would much rather he had not
asked me the question.  I saw that the circumstance hurt him and
the old lady, too; but it was too late now to repent.  The old
gentleman proceeded, "I suppose you must be fitted out for the
expedition, since it is so." Accordingly, they did "fit me out"
in order, with arms and accouterments, clothing, and cake, and
cheese in plenty, not forgetting to put my pocket Bible into my
knapsack.  Good old people!  They wished me well, soul and body. 
I sincerely thank them for their kindness and love to me, from
the first time I came to live with them to the last parting hour.

I hope, nay, I believe, that their spirits now rest in the realms
of bliss.  May it be my happy lot to meet them there.
     I was now what I had long wished to be, a soldier.  I had
obtained my heart's desire; it was now my business to prove
myself equal to my profession.  Well, to be short, I went with
several others of the company on board a sloop bound to New York;
had a pleasant though protracted passage; passed through the
straight called Hell Gate, where all who had not before passed it
had to pay a treat (I had been through it before); arrived at New
York; marched up into the city, and joined the rest of the
regiment that were already there. (3)
     And now I had left my good old grandsire's house, as a
constant resident, forever, and had to commence exercising my
function.  I was called out every morning at reveille beating,
which was at daybreak, to go to our regimental parade in Broad
Street, (4) and there practice the manual exercise, which was the
most that was known in our new levies, if they knew even that.  I
was brought to an allowance of provisions which, while we lay in
New York, was not bad; if there was any deficiency it could in
some measure be supplied by procuring some kind of sauce; but I
was a stranger to such living; I began soon to miss grandsire's
table and cellar.  However, I reconciled myself to my condition
as well as I could; it was my own seeking. I had had no
compulsion.
     Soon after my arrival at New York, a forty-four-gun ship
(the Phoenix) and a small frigate (the Rose, I think) came down
the North or Hudson River (they had been some time in the river)
and passed the city in fine style, amidst a cannonade from all
our fortifications in and near the city.  I went into what was
then called the Grand Battery, where I had a complete view of the
whole affair.  Here I first heard the muttering of cannon shot,
but they did not disturb my feelings so much as I apprehended
they would before I had heard them; I rather thought the sound
was musical, or at least grand.  I heard enough of them
afterwards to form what ideas I pleased of them, whether musical,
grand, or doleful, and perhaps I have formed each of those ideas
upon different occasions. (5)
     I would here, once for all, remark that as I write
altogether from memory, the reader must not expect to have an
exact account of dates, I mean of days and weeks; as to years and
months I shall not be wide from the mark.
     And as I have entitled my book "The Adventures, &c., of a
Revolutionary Soldier," it is possible the reader may expect to
have a minute detail of all my adventures.  I have not promised
any such thing, it was what belonged to me and what transpired in
my line of duty that I proposed to narrate.  But when some
mischievous incident occurred, I am willing to give a short
detail of it.  I never wished to do anyone an injury, through
malice, in my life; nor did I ever do anyone an intentional
injury while I was in the army, unless it was when sheer
necessity drove me to it, and my conscience bears me witness that
innumerable times I have suffered rather than take from anyone
what belonged of right to them, even to satisfy the cravings of
nature.  But I cannot say so much in favor of my levity that
would often get the hand of me, do what I would; and sometimes it
would upper run riot with me; but still I did not mean to do
harm, only recreation, reader, recreation.  I wanted often to
recreate myself to keep the blood from stagnating.
     The soldiers at New York had an idea that the enemy, when
they took possession of the town, would make a general seizure of
all property that could be of use to them as military or
commissary stores; hence they imagined that it was no injury to
supply themselves when they thought they could do so with
impunity, which was the cause of my having any hand in the
transaction I am going to relate.  Whether the reader will
attribute it to levity, necessity, or roguery, I am not able to
say; perhaps to one or the other of them; it may be to all.
     I was stationed in Stone Street, (6) near the southwest
angle of the city.  Directly opposite to my quarters was a wine
cellar. There were in the cellar at this time several pipes of
Madeira wine.  By some means the soldiers had "smelt it out."
Some of them had at midday taken the iron grating from a window
in the back yard, and one had entered the cellar, and by means of
a powder horn divested of its bottom, had supplied himself with
wine and was helping his comrades through the window with a
"delicious draught" when the owner of the wine, having discovered
what they were about, very wisely as it seemed, came into the
street and opened an outer door to the cellar in open view of
every passenger.  The soldiers quickly filled the cellar when he,
to save his property, proposed to sell it, at what he called a
cheap rate, I think a dollar a gallon.  In one corner of the
cellar lay a large pile of oil flasks, holding from a half a
gallon to a gallon each.  They were empty and not very savory
neither, as they had lain there till the oil which adhered to the
sides and bottoms had become quite rancid.  While the owner was
drawing for his purchasers on one side of the cellar, behind him
on the other side another set of purchasers were drawing for
themselves, filling those flasks.  As it appeared to have a brisk
sale, especially in the latter case, I concluded I would take a
flask amongst the rest, which I accordingly did, and conveyed it
in safety to my room and went back into the street to see the
end. 
     The owner of the wine soon found out what was going forward
on his premises and began remonstrating, but he preached to the
wind.  Finding that he could effect nothing with them, he went to
General [Israel] Putnam's quarters, which was not more than three
or four rods off; (7) the General immediately repaired in person
to the field of action.  The soldiers, getting wind of his
approach, hurried out into the street, when he, mounting himself
upon the doorsteps of my quarters, began "haranguing the
multitude," threatening to hang every mother's son of them. 
Whether he was to be hangman or not, he did not say, but I took
every word he said for gospel and expected nothing else but to be
hanged before the morrow night.  I sincerely wished him hanged
and out of the way, for fixing himself upon the steps of our
door; but he soon ended his discourse and came down from his
rostrum, and the soldiers dispersed, no doubt much edified.  I
got home as soon as the General had left the coast clear, took a
draught of the wine, and then flung the flask and the remainder
of the wine out of my window, from the third story into the water
cistern in the back yard, where it remains to this day for aught
I know.  However, I might have kept it, if I had not been in too
much haste to free myself from being hanged by General Putnam, or
by his order.  I never heard anything further about the wine or
being hanged about it; he doubtless forgot it.
     I remained in New York two or three months, in which time
several things occurred, but so trifling that I shall not mention
them; when, sometime in the latter part of the month of August, I
was ordered upon a fatigue party.  We had scarcely reached the
grand parade when I saw our sergeant major directing his course
up Broadway, towards us, in rather an unusual step for him. He
soon arrived and informed us and then the commanding officer of
the party that he had orders to take off all belonging to our
regiment and march us to our quarters, as the regiment was
ordered to Long Island, the British having landed in force there.
(8) Although this was not unexpected to me, yet it gave me rather
a disagreeable feeling, as I was pretty well assured I should
have to snuff a little gunpowder.  However, I kept my cogitations
to myself, went to my quarters, packed up my clothes, and got
myself in readiness for the expedition as soon as possible.  I
then went to the top of the house where I had a full view of that
part of the Island; I distinctly saw the smoke of the field
artillery, but the distance and the unfavorableness of the wind
prevented my hearing their report, at least but faintly. The
horrors of battle then presented themselves to my mind in all
their hideousness; I must come to it now, thought I.  Well, I
will endeavor to do my duty as well as I am able and leave the
event with Providence.  We were soon ordered to our regimental
parade, from which, as soon as the regiment was formed, we were
marched off for the ferry. (9)
     At the lower end of the street were placed several casks of
sea bread, made, I believe, of canel and peas-meal, nearly hard
enough for musket flints; the casks were unheaded and each man
was allowed to take as many as he could as he marched by.  As my
good luck would have it, there was a momentary halt made; I
improved the opportunity thus offered me, as every good soldier
should upon all important occasions, to get as many of the
biscuit as I possibly could; no one said anything to me and I
filled my bosom and took as many as I could hold in my hand, a
dozen or more in all, and when we arrived at the ferry stairs I
stowed them away in my knapsack.  We quickly embarked on board
the boats.  As each boat started, three cheers were given by
those on board, which was returned by the numerous spectators who
thronged the wharves; they all wished us good luck, apparently;
although it was with most of them perhaps nothing more than
ceremony.
     We soon landed at Brooklyn, upon the Island, marched up the
ascent from the ferry to the plain.  We now began to meet the
wounded men, another sight I was unacquainted with, some with
broken arms, some with broken legs, and some with broken heads. 
The sight of these a little daunted me, and made me think of
home, but the sight and thought vanished together.  We marched a
short distance, when we halted to refresh ourselves.  Whether we
had any other victuals besides the hard bread I do not remember,
but I remember my gnawing at them; they were hard enough to break
the teeth of a rat.  One of the soldiers complaining of thirst to
his officer - "Look at that man," said he, pointing to me; "he is
not thirsty, I will warrant it." I felt a little elevated to be
styled a man.
     While resting here, which was not more than twenty minutes
or half an hour, the Americans and British were warmly engaged
within sight of us.  What were the feelings of most or all the
young soldiers at this time, I know not, but I know what were
mine.  But let mine or theirs be what they might, I saw a
lieutenant who appeared to have feelings not very enviable;
whether he was actuated by fear or the canteen I cannot determine
now.  I thought it fear at the time, for he ran round among the
men of his company, sniveling and blubbering, praying each one if
he had aught against him, or if he had injured anyone that they
would forgive him, declaring at the same time that he, from his
heart, forgave them if they had offended him, and I gave him full
credit for his assertion; for had he been at the gallows with a
halter about his neck, he could not have shown more fear or
penitence. A fine soldier you are, I thought, a fine officer, an
exemplary man for young soldiers! I would have then suffered
anything short of death rather than have made such an exhibition
of myself; but as the poet says:

     "Fear does things so like a witch,
     "'Tis hard to distinguish which is which."

     The officers of the new levies wore cockades of different
colors to distinguish them from the standing forces, as they were
called; the field officers wore red, the captains white, and the
subaltern officers green.  While we were resting here our
lieutenant colonel [James Arnold] and major [Phineas Porter] (our
colonel not being with us) took their cockades from their hats;
being asked the reason, the lieutenant colonel replied that he
was willing to risk his life in the cause of his country, but
unwilling to stand a particular mark for the enemy to fire at. 
He was a fine officer and a brave soldier.
     We were soon called upon to fall in and proceed.  We had not
gone far, about half a mile, when I heard one in the rear ask
another where his musket was.  I looked round and saw one of the
soldiers stemming off without his gun, having left it where we
last halted; he was inspecting his side as if undetermined
whether he had it or not, he then fell out of the ranks to go in
search of it.  One of the company, who had brought it on (wishing
to see how far he would go before he missed it) gave it to him. 
The reader will naturally enough conclude that he was a brave
soldier.  Well, he was a brave fellow for all this accident, and
received two severe wounds, by musket balls, while fearlessly
fighting for his country at the battle of White Plains.  So true
is the proverb, "A singed cat may make a good mouser." Stranger
things may happen.
     We overtook a small party of the artillery here, dragging a
heavy twelve-pounder upon a field carriage, sinking halfway to
the naves in the sandy soil.  They plead hard for some of us to
assist them to get on their piece; our officers, however, paid no
attention to their entreaties, but pressed forward towards a
creek, where a large party of Americans and British were engaged.

By the time we arrived, the enemy had driven our men into the
creek, or rather millpond, (the tide being up), where such as
could swim got across; those that could not swim, and could not
procure anything to buoy them up, sunk.  The British, having
several fieldpieces stationed by a brick house, were pouring the
canister and grape upon the Americans like a shower of hail. 
They would doubt have done them much more damage than they did,
but less for the twelve-pounder mentioned above; the men, having
gotten it within sufficient distance to reach them, and opening a
fire upon them, soon obliged them to shift their quarters.  There
was in this action a regiment of Maryland troops, (volunteers)
all young gentlemen.  When they came out of the water and mud to
us, looking like water rats, it was a truly pitiful sight.  Many
of them were killed in the pond, and more were drowned.  Some of
us went into the water after the fall of the tide, and took out a
number of corpses and a great many arms that were sunk in the
pond and creek. (10)
     Our regiment lay on the ground we then occupied the
following night.  The next day, in the afternoon, we had a
considerable tight scratch with about an equal number of the
British, which began rather unexpectedly, and a little
whimsically.  A few of our men, (I mean of our regiment,) went
over the creek upon business that usually employed us, that is,
in search of something to eat.  There was a field of Indian corn
at a short distance from the creek, with several cocks of hay
about halfway from the creek to the cornfield; the men purposed
to get some of the corn, or anything else that was eatable.  When
they got up with the haycocks, they were fired upon by about an
equal number of the British, from the cornfield; our people took
to the hay, and the others to the fence, where they exchanged a
number of shots at each other, neither side inclining to give
back.  A number, say forty or fifty more of our men, went over
and drove the British from the fence; they were by this time
reinforced in their turn, and drove us back.  The two parties
kept thus alternately reinforcing until we had the most of our
regiment in the action.  After the officers came to command, the
English were soon routed from the place, but we dare not follow
them for fear of falling into some snare, as the whole British
army was in the vicinity of us; I do not recollect that we had
anyone killed outright, but we had several severely wounded, and
some, I believe, mortally.
     Our regiment was alone, no other troops being near where we
were lying.  We were upon a rising ground, covered with a young
growth of trees; we felled a fence of trees around us to prevent
the approach of the enemies' horse.  We lay there a day longer. 
In the latter part of the afternoon there fell a very heavy
shower of rain which wet us all to the skin and much damaged our
ammunition.  About sunset, when the shower had passed over, we
were ordered to parade and discharge our pieces.  We attempted to
fire by platoons for improvement, but we made blundering work of
it; it was more like a running fire than firing by divisions. 
However, we got our muskets as empty as our stomachs, and with
half the trouble, nor was it half the trouble to have reloaded
them, for we had wherewithal to do that, but not so with our
stomachs.
     Just at dusk, I, with one or two others of our company, went
off to a barn, about half a mile distant, with intent to get some
straw to lodge upon, the ground and leaves being drenched in
water, and we as wet as they.  It was quite dark in the barn, and
while I was fumbling about the floor someone called to me from
the top of the mow, inquiring where I was from.  I told him.  He
asked me if we had not had an engagement there, having heard us
discharging our guns, I told him we had, and a severe one, too;
he asked if many were killed; I told him that I saw none killed,
nor any very badly wounded.  I then heard several others, as it
appeared, speaking on the mow.  Poor fellows, they had better
have been at their posts than skulking in a barn on account of a
little wet, for I have not the least doubt but that the British
had possession of their mortal parts before the noon of the next
day.
     I could not find any straw, but I found some wheat in the
sheaf, standing by the side of the floor; I took a sheaf or two
and returned as fast as I could to the regiment.  When I arrived
the men were all paraded to march off the ground; I left my
wheat, seized my musket and fell into the ranks. We were strictly
enjoined not to speak, or even cough, while on the march.  All
orders were given from officer to officer, and communicated to
the men in whispers.  What such secrecy could mean we could not
divine.  We marched off in the same way that we had come on to
the island, forming various conjectures among ourselves as to our
destination. Some were of opinion that we were to endeavor to get
on the flank, or in the rear of the enemy.  Others, that we were
going up the East River to attack them in that quarter; but none,
it seems, knew the right of the matter.  We marched on, however,
until we arrived at the ferry, where we immediately embarked on
board the batteaux and were conveyed safely to New York, where we
were landed about three o'clock in the morning, nothing against
our inclinations. (11)
     The next day the British showed themselves to be in
possession of our works upon the island by firing upon some of
our boats passing to and from Governors Island.  Our regiment was
employed during this day in throwing up a sort of breastwork at
their alarm post upon the wharves facing the enemy, composed of
spars and logs and filling the space between with the materials
of which the wharves were composed - old broken junk bottles,
flint stones, &c., which, had a cannon ball passed through, would
have chanced to kill five men where the ball would one.  But the
enemy did not see fit to molest us.
     We stayed several days longer in the city, when one morning
we discovered that a small frigate had advanced up and was lying
above Governors Island, close under the Long Island shore. 
Several other ships had come up and were lying just below the
town. (12) They seemed to portend evil.  In the evening, just at
dark, our regiment was ordered to march to Turtle Bay, (13) a
place about four miles distant on the East River, where were a
large warehouse or two, called then the King's stores, built for
the storing of marine stores belonging to the government before
the war.  There was at this time about twenty-five hundred,
barrels of flour in those storehouses, and it was conjectured
that the design of the forementioned frigate, or rather the
officers and crew of her, was to seize on this flour.  We were,
therefore, ordered to secure it before the British should have an
opportunity to lay their unhallowed hands upon it.  We arrived at
the place about midnight, and by sunrise or a little after had
secured the whole of it by rolling it up a steep bank and piling
it behind a ledge of rocks. While we were employed in doing this,
some other troops were constructing a small battery on a point of
land opposite the frigate (she having arrived during the night
and anchored just below us, not being able to get quite up by the
failure of the wind), and as soon as we had finished our work at
the flour, the battery opened upon her with two long
twelve-pounders, which so galled her ribs that her situation
began to grow rather uneasy to her.  She never returned a shot at
the battery, but got under weigh as quick as possible and ran by
us, there being then a little wind.  We all stood gazing at her
as she passed, when she sent us a nine-pound shot, perhaps the
best she had to send us, which passed through amongst us without
injuring anyone; she ran a little way up the river and came to
anchor again. We continued here some days to guard the flour.  We
were forbidden by our officers to use any of it, except our daily
allowance.  We used, however, to purloin some of it to eat and
exchange with the inhabitants for milk, sauce, and such small
matters as we could get for it of them.  While we lay here I saw
a piece of American workmanship that was, as I thought, rather
remarkable.  Going one evening upon a Picket guard in a subaltern
officer's command, a mile or two farther up the river, we had to
march through the enclosures close upon the bank of the river. 
There was a small party of British upon an island in the river,
known generally by a queer name given it upon as queer an
occasion, which I shall not stop now to unfold.  These British
soldiers seemed to be very busy in chasing some scattering sheep
that happened to be so unlucky as to fall in their way.  One of
the soldiers, however, thinking perhaps he could do more mischief
by killing some of us, had posted himself on a point of rocks at
the southern extremity of the island and kept firing at us as we
passed along the bank.  Several of his shots passed between our
files, but we took little notice of him, thinking he was so far
off that he could do us but little hurt and that we could do him
none at all, until one of the guard asked the officer if he might
discharge his piece at him.  As it was charged and would not
hinder us long, the officer gave his consent.  He rested his old
six-feet barrel across a fence and sent an express to him.  The
man dropped, but as we then thought it was only to amuse us, we
took no further notice of it but passed on.  In the morning upon
our return, we saw the brick-colored coat still lying in the same
position we had left it in the evening before.  It was a long
distance to hit a single man with a musket; it was certainly over
half a mile.
     One evening while lying here, we heard a heavy cannonade at
the city, and before dark saw four of the enemy's ships that had
passed the town and were coming up the East River. They anchored
just below us.  These ships were the _Phoenix of forty-four guns;
the _Roebuck of forty-four; the _Rose of thirty-two; and another,
the name of which I have forgotten." Half of our regiment was
sent off under the command of our major to man something that
were called "lines," although they were nothing more than a ditch
dug the dirt thrown out to  along on the bank of the river with
dirt thrown out towards the water.  They stayed in these lines
during the night and returned to the camp in the morning
unmolested. (15)
     The other half of the regiment went the next night under the
command of the lieutenant colonel upon the like errand.  We
arrived at the lines about dark and were ordered to leave our
packs in a copse wood under a guard and go into the lines without
them. What was the cause of this piece of _wise policy I never
knew, but I knew the effects of it, which was that I never saw my
knapsack from that day to this, nor did any of the rest of our
party unless they came across them by accident in our retreat. 
We "manned the lines" and lay quite as unmolested during the
whole night as Samson did the half of his in the city of Gaza and
upon about as foolish a business, though there was some
difference in our getting away: we did not go off in so much
triumph quite as he did.  We had a chain of sentinels quite up
the river, for four or five miles in length.  At an interval of
every half hour, they passed the watchword to each other, "All is
well." I heard the British on board their shipping answer, "We
will alter your tune before tomorrow night." And they were as
good as their word for once.
     It was quite a dark night, and at daybreak [September 15]
the first thing that "saluted our eyes" was all the four ships at
anchor with springs upon their cables and within musket shot of
us.  The _Phoenix lying a little quartering and her stern towards
me, I could read her name as distinctly as though I had been
directly under her stern.  What is the meaning of all this,
thought I, what is coming forward now? They appeared to be very
busy on shipboard, but we lay still and showed our good breeding
by not interfering with them, as they were strangers, and we knew
not but they were bashful withal.  As soon as it was fairly
light, we saw their boats coming out of a creek or cove on the
Long Island side of the water, filled with British soldiers. 
When they came to the edge of the tide, they formed their boats
in line.  They continued to augment their forces from the island
until they appeared like a large clover field in full bloom.  And
now was coming on the famous Kip's Bay affair, which has been
criticized so much by the historians of the Revolution.  I was
there and will give a true statement of all that I saw during
that day. (16)
     It was on a Sabbath morning, the day in which the British
were always employed about their deviltry if possible, because,
they said, they had the prayers of the church on that day.  We
lay very quiet in our ditch waiting their motions, till the sun
was an hour or two high.  We heard a cannonade at the city, but
our attention was drawn toward our own guests.  But they being a
little dilatory in their operations, I stepped into an old
warehouse which stood close by me with the door open inviting me
in and sat down upon a stool.  The floor was strewed with papers
which had in some former period been used in the concerns of the
house but were then lying in "woeful confusion." I was very
demurely perusing these papers when all of a sudden there came
such a peal of thunder from the British shipping that I thought
my head would go with the sound.  I made a frog's leap for the
ditch and lay as still as I possibly could and began to consider
which part of my carcass was to go first.  The British played
their parts well; indeed they had nothing to hinder them.  We
kept the lines till they were almost leveled upon us, when our
officers, seeing we could make no resistance and no orders coming
from any superior officer and that we must soon be entirely
exposed to the rake of their guns, gave the order to leave the
lines. (17) In retreating we had to cross a level, clear spot of
ground forty or fifty rods wide, exposed to the whole of the
enemy's fire, and they gave it to us in prime order.  The
grapeshot and language flew merrily, which served to quicken our
motions.  When I had gotten a little out of the reach of their
combustibles, I found myself in company with one who was a
neighbor of mine when at home and one other man belonging to our
regiment.  Where the rest of them were I knew not.  We went into
a house by the highway in which were two women and some small
children, all crying most bitterly. We asked the women if they
had any spirits in the house.  They placed a case bottle of rum
upon the table and bid us help ourselves.  We each of us drank a
glass and bidding them good-by betook ourselves to the highway
again.
     We had not gone far before we saw a party of men, apparently
hurrying on in the same direction with ourselves.  We endeavored
hard to overtake them, but on approaching them we found that they
were not of our way of thinking: they were Hessians.  We
immediately altered our course and took the main road leading to
King's Bridge. (18)  We had not long been on this road before we
saw another party, just ahead of us, whom we knew to be
Americans.  Just as we overtook these, they were fired upon by a
party of British from a cornfield and all was immediately in
confusion again.  I believe the enemy's party was small, but our
people were all militia, and the demons of fear and disorder
seemed to take full possession of all and everything on that day.

When I came to the spot where the militia were fired upon, the
ground was literally covered with arms, knapsacks, staves, coats,
hats, and old oil flasks, perhaps some of those from the Maderia
wine cellar in New York.  All I picked up of the plunder was a
block-tin syringe, which afterwards helped to procure me a
Thanksgiving dinner.  Myself and the man whom I mentioned as
belonging to our company were all who were in company at this
time, the other man having gone on with those who were fired
upon; they did not tarry to let the grass grow much under their
feet.
     We had to advance slowly, for my comrade having been some
time unwell was now so overcome by heat, hunger, and fatigue that
he became suddenly and violently sick.  I took his musket and
endeavored to encourage him on.  He was, as I before observed, a
nigh neighbor of mine when at home and I was loath to leave him
behind, although I was anxious to find the main part of the
regiment if possible before night, for I thought that that part
of it which was not in the lines was in a body somewhere.  We
soon came in sight of a large party of Americans ahead of us who
appeared to have come into this road by some other route.  We
were within sight of them when they were fired upon by another
party of the enemy.  They returned but a very few shots and then
scampered off as fast as their legs would carry them.  When we
came to the ground they had occupied, the same display of lumber
presented itself as at the other place.  We here found a wounded
man and some of his comrades endeavoring to get him off.  I
stopped to assist them in constructing a sort of litter to lay
him upon, when my sick companion growing impatient moved on, and
as soon as we had placed the wounded man upon the litter I
followed him.
     While I was here, one or two of our regiment came up and we
went on together.  We had proceeded but a short distance,
however, before we found our retreat cut off by a party of the
enemy stretched across the island.  I immediately quitted the
road and went into the fields, where there happened to be a small
spot of boggy land covered with low bushes and weeds.  Into these
I ran and squatting down concealed myself from their sight. 
Several of the British came so near to me that I could see the
buttons on their clothes.  They, however, soon withdrew and left
the coast clear for me again.  I then came out of my covert and
went on, but what had become of my sick comrade or the rest of my
companions I knew not.  I still kept the sick man's musket.  I
was unwilling to leave it, for it was his own property and I knew
he valued it highly and I had a great esteem for him.  I had
indeed enough to do to take care of my own concerns; it was
exceeding hot weather, and I was faint, having slept but very
little the preceding night, nor had I eaten a mouthful of
victuals for more than twenty-four hours.
     I waddled on as well and as fast as I could, and soon came
up with a number of men at a small brook, where they had stopped
to drink and rest themselves a few moments. Just as I arrived, a
man had lain down to drink at the brook, and as he did not rise
very soon, one of the company observed that he would kill himself
with drinking, upon which another, touching him without his
appearing to notice it, said he had already killed himself, which
was the case.  Leaving them, I went on again and directly came to
a foul place in the road, where the soldiers had taken down the
fence to pass into the fields. I passed across the corner of one
field and through a gap in a cross fence into another. Here I
found a number of men resting under the trees and bushes in the
fences. Almost the first I saw, after passing the gap in the
fence, was my sick friend. I was exceeding glad to find him, for
I had but little hope of ever seeing him again. He was sitting
near the fence with his head between his knees.  I tapped him
upon the shoulder and asked him to get up and go on with me.
"No," said he, at the same time regarding me with a most pitiful
look, "I must die here." I endeavored to argue the case with him,
but all to no purpose; he insisted upon dying there. I told him
he should not die there nor anywhere else that day if I could
help it, and at length with more persuasion and some force I
succeeded in getting him upon his feet again and to moving on. 
     There happened just at this instant a considerable shower of
rain, which wet us all to the skin, being very thinly clad. We,
however, continued to move forward, although but slowly. After
proceeding about half a mile we came to a place where our people
had begun to make a stand. A number, say two or three hundred,
had collected here, having been stopped by the artillery
officers; they had two or three fieldpieces fixed and fitted for
action in case the British came on, which was momentarily
expected. I and my comrades (for I had found another of our
company when I found my sick man) were stopped here, a sentinel
being placed in the road to prevent our going any further.  I
felt very much chagrined to be thus hindered from proceeding, as
I felt confident that our regiment or some considerable part of
it was not far ahead, unless they had been more unlucky than I
had.  I remonstrated with the officer who detained us.  I told
him that our regiment was just ahead.  He asked me how I knew
that.  I could not tell him, but I told him I had a sick man with
me who was wet and would die if exposed all night to the damp
cold air, hoping by this to move his compassion, but it would not
do.  He was inexorable.  I shall not soon forget the answer he
gave me when I made the last-mentioned observation respecting the
sick man. "Well," said he, "if he dies the country will be rid of
one who can do it no good." Pretty fellow! thought I, a very
compassionate gentleman! When a man has got his bane in his
country's cause, let him die like an old horse or dog, because he
can do no more! The only wish I would wish such men would be to
let them have exactly the same treatment which they would give to
others.
     I saw but little chance of escaping from this very humane
gentleman by fair means, so I told my two comrades to stick by me
and keep together and we would get from them by some means or
other during the evening.  It was now almost sundown and the air
quite chilly after the shower, and we were as wet as water could
make us.  I was really afraid my sick man would die in earnest. 
I had not stayed there long after this entertaining dialogue with
my obliging friend, the officer, waiting for an opportunity to
escape, before one offered.  There came to the sentinel I suppose
an old acquaintance of his, with a canteen containing some sort
of spirits.  After drinking himself, he gave it to the sentinel
who took a large pull upon it.  They then fell into conversation
together, but soon taking a hare from the same hound, it put them
into quite "a talkative mood." I kept my eyes upon them and when
I thought I saw a chance of getting from them, I gave my
companions a wink and we passed by the sentinel without his
noticing us at all.  A walk of a very few rods concealed us from
his view by a turn in the road and some bushes, and thus we
escaped from prison, for we thought we were hardly dealt by to be
confined boy those whom we took to be our friends, after having
labored so hard to escape being made prisoners by the common
enemy.
     We went on a little distance when we overtook another man
belonging to our company.  He had just been refreshing himself
with some bread and dry salt fish and was putting "the fragments"
into his knapsack.  I longed for a bite, but I felt too bashful
to ask him and he was too thoughtless or stingy to offer it.  We
still proceeded, but had not gone far when we came up with the
regiment, resting themselves on the "cold ground" after the
fatigues of the day.  Our company all appeared to rejoice to see
us, thinking we were killed or prisoners.  I was sincerely glad
to see them, for I was once more among friends or at least
acquaintances.  Several of the regiment were missing, among whom
was our major.  He was a fine man and his loss was much regretted
by the men of the regiment.  We were the last who came up, all
the others who were missing were either killed or taken
prisoners. (19)
     And here ends the Kip's Bay affair, which caused at the time
and has since caused much "inkshed." Anecdotes, jests,
imprecations and sarcasms have been multiplied, and even the
grave writers of the Revolution have said and written more about
it than it deserved.  I could make some observations, but it is
beyond my province.
     One anecdote which I have seen more than once in print, I
will notice.  A certain man or the friends of a certain man have
said that this certain man was sitting by the highway side when
the Commander in Chief passed by and asked him why he sat there. 
His answer, as he or they say, was "that he had rather be killed
or taken by the enemy than trodden to death by cowards." A brave
man, he!  I doubt whether there was such another there that day,
and I must doubt whether he himself was there under such
circumstances as he or his friends relate.  Every man that I saw
was endeavoring by all sober means to escape from death or
captivity, which at that period of the war was almost certain
death.  The men were confused, being without officers to command
them.  I do not recollect of seeing a commissioned officer from
the time I left the lines on the banks of the East River in the
morning until I met with the gentlemanly one in the evening.  How
could the men fight without officers? The man who represented
himself as being so valiant was a braggadocio, and I never yet
met with one of that class who was not at heart a sheer coward.
     We lay that night upon the ground which the regiment
occupied when I came up with it.  The next day, in the forenoon,
the enemy, as we expected, followed us "hard up" and were
advancing through a level field.  Our Rangers and some few other
light troops under the command of Colonel [Thomas] Knowlton of
Connecticut and Major [Andrew] Leitch of, I believe, Virginia
were in waiting for them.  Seeing them advancing, the Rangers &c.
concealed themselves in a deep gully overgrown with bushes.  Upon
the western verge of this defile was a post and rail fence, and
over that, the afore-mentioned field.  Our people let the enemy
advance until they arrived at the fence, when they arose and
poured in volley upon them.  How many of the enemy were killed
and wounded could not be known, as the British were always as
careful as Indians to conceal their losses.  There were doubtless
some killed, as I myself counted nineteen ball holes through a
single rail of the fence at which the enemy were standing when
the action began.  The British gave back and our people advanced
into the field.  The action soon became warm.
     Colonel Knowlton, a brave man and commander of the
detachment, fell in the early part of the engagement.  It was
said by those who saw it that he lost his valuable life by
unadvisedly exposing himself singly to the enemy.  In my boyhood
I had been acquainted with him.  He was a brave man and an
excellent citizen.  Major Leitch fell soon after, and the troops
who were then engaged were left with no higher commanders than
their captains, but they still kept the enemy retreating.
     Our regiment was now ordered into the field, and we arrived
on the ground just as the retreating enemy were entering a thick
wood, a circumstance as disagreeable to them as it was agreeable
to us at that period of the war.  We soon came to action with
them.  The troops engaged, being reinforced by our regiment, kept
them still retreating until they found shelter under the cannon
of some of their shipping lying in the North River. (20)
     We remained on the battleground till nearly sunset,
expecting the enemy to attack us again, but they showed no such
inclination that day.  The men were very much fatigued and faint,
having had nothing to eat for forty-eight hours; at least, the
greater part were in this condition, and I among the rest.  While
standing on the field after the action had ceased, one of the men
near the lieutenant colonel complained of being hungry.  The
colonel, putting his hand into ear of Indian corn his coat
pocket, took out a piece of an ear of Indian corn burnt as black
as a coal.  "Here," said he to the man complaining, "eat this and
learn to be a soldier."
     We now returned to camp, if camp it was: our tent held the
whole regiment and might have held ten millions more.  When we
arrived on the ground we had occupied previous to going into
action, we found that our invalids, consisting of the sick, the
lame, and the lazy, had obtained some fresh beef.  Where the
commissaries found the beef or the men found the commissaries in
this time of confusion I know not, nor did I stop to ask.  They
were broiling the beef on small sticks in Indian style round
blazing fires made of dry chestnut rails.  The meat when cooked
was as black as a coal on the outside and as raw on the inside as
if it had not been near the fire.  "I asked no questions for
conscience's sake," but fell to and helped myself to a feast of
this raw beef, without bread or salt.
     We had eight or ten of our regiment killed in the action and
a number wounded, but none of them belonged to our company.  Our
lieutenant colonel was hit by a grapeshot which went through his
coat, waistcoat and shirt to the skin on his shoulder, without
doing any other damage than cutting up his epaulette.
     A circumstance occurred on the evening after this action
which, although trifling in its nature, excited in me feelings 
which I shall never forget.  When we came off the field we
brought away a man who had been shot dead upon the spot, and
after we had refreshed ourselves we proceeded to bury him. 
Having provided a grave, which was near a gentleman's country
seat (at that time occupied by the Commander in Chief), (21) we
proceeded, just in the dusk of evening, to commit the poor man,
then far from friends and relatives, to the bosom of his Mother
Earth. Just as we had laid him in the grave in as decent a
posture as existing circumstances would admit, there came from
the house towards the grave two young ladies who appeared to be
sisters.  As they approached the grave, the soldiers immediately
made way for them with those feelings of respect which beauty and
modesty combined seldom fail to produce, more especially when as
in this instance accompanied by piety.  Upon arriving at the head
of the grave, they stopped and with their arms around each
other's neck stooped forward and looked into it, and with a sweet
pensiveness of countenance which might have warmed the heart of a
misogynist, asked if we were going to put the earth upon his
naked face. Being answered in the affirmative, one of them took a
fine white gauze handkerchief from her neck and desired that it
might be spread upon his face, tears at the same time flowing
down their cheeks.  After the grave was filled up, they retired
to the house in the same manner they came.  Although the dead
soldier had no acquaintance present (for there were none at his
burial who knew him) yet he had mourners and females too. Worthy
young ladies! You and such as you are deserving the regard of the
greatest of men. What sisters, what wives, what mothers and what
neighbors would you make! Such a sight as those ladies afforded
at that time and on that occasion was worthy and doubtless
received the attention of angels.
     Another affair which transpired during and after the
above-mentioned engagement deserves to be recorded by me, as no
one else has, to my knowledge, ever mentioned it.  A sergeant
belonging to the Connecticut forces, being sent by his officers
in the heat of the action to procure ammunition, was met by a
superior officer, an aide-de-camp to some general officer, I
believe, who accused him of deserting his post in time of action.

He remonstrated with the officer and informed him of the absolute
necessity there was of his obeying the orders of his own
officers, that the failure of his procuring a supply of
ammunition might endanger the success of the day.  But all to no
purpose.  The officer would not allow himself to believe him, but
drew his sword and threatened to take his life on the spot if he
did not immediately return to his corps.  The sergeant, fired
with just indignation at hearing and seeing his life threatened,
cocked his musket, and stood in his own defense.  He was,
however, taken, confined and tried for mutiny, and condemned to
be shot.
     The sentence of the court-martial was approved by the
Commander in Chief, and the day for his execution set. When it
arrived, an embankment was thrown up to prevent the shot fired at
him from doing other damage, and all things requisite on such
occasions were in readiness.  The Connecticut troops were then
drawn out and formed in a square and the prisoner brought forth. 
After being blindfolded and pinioned, he knelt upon the ground. 
The corporal with his six executioners were then brought up
before him, ready at the fatal word of command to send a brave
soldier into the eternal world because he persisted in doing his
duty and obeying the lawful and urgent orders of his superior
officers, the failure of which might, for aught the officer who
stopped him knew, have caused the loss of hundreds of lives.  But
the sergeant was reprieved, and I believe it was well that he
was, for his blood would not have been the only blood that would
have been spilt: the troops were greatly exasperated, and they
showed what their feelings were by their lively and repeated
cheerings after the reprieve, but more so by their secret and
open threats before it.
     The reprieve was read by one of the chaplains of the army
after a long harangue to the soldiers setting forth the enormity
of the crime charged upon the prisoner, repeatedly using this
sentence, "crimes for which men ought to die," which did much to
further the resentment of the troops already raised to a high
pitch.  But, as I said before, it was well that it ended as it
did, both on account of the honor of the soldiers and the safety
of some others.  I was informed that this same sergeant was
honored the year following, by those who better knew his merits,
with a captain's commission. (22)
     We remained here till sometime in the month of October
without anything very material transpiring, excepting starvation
and that had by this time become quite a secondary matter; hard
duty and nakedness were considered the prime evils, for the
reader will recollect that we lost all our clothing in the Kip's
Bay affair.  The British were quite indulgent to us, not having
interrupted our happiness since the check they received
in the action before mentioned, but left us at our leisure to see
that they did not get amongst us before we were apprised of their
approach, and that, in all its bearings, was enough.  It now
began to be cool weather, especially the nights.  To have to lie
as I did almost every night (for our duty required it) on the
cold and often wet ground without a blanket and with nothing but
thin summer clothing was tedious.  I have often while upon guard
lain on one side until the upper side smarted with cold, then
turned that side down to the place warmed by my body and let the
other take its turn at smarting, while the one on the ground
warmed.  Thus, alternately turning for four or six hours till
called upon to go on sentry, as the soldiers term it, and when
relieved from a tour of two long hours at that business and
returned to the guard again, have had to go through the operation
of freezing and thawing for four or six hours more.  In the
morning the ground as white as snow with hoar frost.  Or perhaps
it would rain all night like a flood; all that could be done in
that case was to lie down (if one could lie down), take our
musket in our arms and place the lock between our thighs and
"weather it out."
     A simple affair happened, while I was upon guard at a time
while we were here, which made considerable disturbance amongst
the guard and caused me some extra hours of fatigue at the time. 
As I was the cause of it at first, I will relate it.  The guard
consisted of nearly two hundred men, commanded by a field
officer. We kept a long chain of sentinels placed almost within
speaking distance of each other, and being in close neighborhood
with the enemy we were necessitated to be pretty alert. I was
upon my post as sentinel about the middle of the night.  Thinking
we had overgone the time in which we ought to have been relieved,
I stepped a little off my post towards one of the next sentries,
it being quite dark, and asked him in a low voice how long he had
been on sentry.  He started as if attacked by the enemy and
roared out, "Who comes there?" I saw I had alarmed him and stole
back to my post as quick as possible.  He still kept up his cry,
"Who comes there?", and receiving no answer, he discharged his
piece, which alarmed the whole guard, who immediately formed and
prepared for action and sent off a non-commissioned officer and
file of men to ascertain the cause of alarm.
     They came first to the man who had fired and asked him what
was the matter.  He said that someone had made an abrupt advance
upon his premises and demanded, "How comes you on, sentry?" They
next came to me, inquiring what I had seen.  I told them that I
had not seen or heard anything to alarm me but what the other
sentinel had caused.  The men returned to the guard, and we were
soon relieved, which was all I had wanted.
     Upon our return to the guard I found, as was to be expected,
that the alarm was the subject of general conversation among
them.  They were confident that a spy or something worse had been
amongst us and consequently greater vigilance was necessary.  We
were accordingly kept the rest of the night under arms, and I
cursed my indiscretion for causing the disturbance, as I could
get no more rest during the night.  I could have set all to
rights by speaking a word, but it would not do for me to betray
my own secret.  But it was diverting to me to see how much the
story gained by being carried about, both among the guard and
after its arrival in the camp.
     I had been one night upon a picket guard, that is, a guard
only for the night.  Having been dismissed early in the morning,
I was returning through a byroad to my quarters.  This road led
from the main road to the shore of the North River.  I was alone,
the rest of the guard having, for some cause which I have now
forgotten, passed on and were out of sight.  I saw General Putnam
on horseback and alone, coming up the road in my rear.  In my
front and nearer to me than I was to the General, was a high
fence and a set of high and very heavy bars, composed of pretty
large poles or young trees.  I had only just to go through the
bars and cross another fence on my left and I should be in the
deep gully and at the very spot where the late action began. 
This was the way I was actually to go to reach the camp.
     The General, seeing me near the bars, bawled out, "Soldier,
let down those bars." I was then at the bars, but seeing that the
General was some distance off, I took down one bar and slipped
through, leaving him to let down the bars himself.  He was
apparently in a dreadful passion.  Drawing a pistol from his
holsters, he came after me to the bars, with his usual
exclamation, "Curse ye!" but I was where he could not see me,
although I could see him and hear him, too. I was safe and
perhaps it was well for me that I was, for I verily believe the
old fellow would have shot me or endeavored to have done it if he
could have got within reach of me. Thus was my life twice
threatened by him, here and at the wine cellar in New York. But I
was not too much afraid of his putting either of his threats into
execution.
     Sometime in October, the British landed at Frog's Neck, or
Point, and by their motions seemed to threaten to cut off our
retreat to York Island." We were there upon ordered to leave the
island. We crossed King's Bridge and directed our course toward
the White Plains. We saw parties of the enemy foraging in the
country, but they were generally too alert for us. We encamped on
the heights called Valentine's Hill, where we continued some
days, keeping up the old system of starving. (24) A sheep's head
which I begged of the butchers who were killing some for the
"gentlemen officers" was all the provisions I had for two or
three days.
     While lying here, I one day rambled into the woods and
fields in order, if possible, to procure something to satisfy the
cravings of nature. I found and ate a considerable quantity of
chestnuts which are, as Bloomfield says of his acorns, "hot
thirsty food," which was I suppose the cause of our doctor's
blunder, as I shall relate directly. I returned to camp just at
sunset and met our orderly sergeant who immediately warned me to
prepare for a two-days command.  What is termed going on command
is what is generally called going on a scouting party or
something similar.  I told the sergeant I was sick and could not
go.  He said I must go to the doctor and if he said I was unfit
for duty, he must excuse me.  I saw our surgeon's mate close by,
endeavoring to cook his supper, blowing the fire and scratching
his eyes.  We both stepped up to him and he felt my pulse, at the
same time very demurely shutting his eyes while I was laughing in
his face.  After a minute's consultation with his medical
talisman, he very gravely told the sergeant that I was unfit for
duty, having a high fever upon me.  I was as well as he was; all
the medicine I needed was a bellyful of victuals.  The sergeant
turned to go off for another man when I told him that I would go,
for I meant to go; I only felt a little cross and did not know
how just then to vent my spleen in any other way.  I had much
rather go on such an expedition than stay in camp, as I stood
some chance while in the country to get something to eat.  But I
admired the doctor's skill, although perhaps not more
extraordinary than that of many others of the "faculty."
     We marched from Valentine's Hill for the White Plains in the
night.  There were but three of our men present.  We had our
cooking utensils (at that time the most useless things in the
army) to carry in our hands.  They were made of cast iron and
consequently heavy.  I was so beat out before morning with hunger
and fatigue that I could hardly move one foot before the other. 
I told my messmates that I could not carry our kettle any
further. They said they would not carry it any further.  Of what
use was it? They had nothing to cook and did not want anything to
cook with.  We were sitting down on the ascent of a hill when
this discourse happened.  We got up to proceed when I took up the
kettle, which held nearly a common pailful.  I could not carry
it.  My arms were almost dislocated.  I sat it down in the road
and one of the others gave it a shove with his foot and it rolled
down against the fence, and that was the last I ever saw of it. 
When we got through the night's march, we found our mess was not
the only one that was rid of their iron bondage.
     We arrived at the White Plains just at dawn of day, tired
and faint, encamped on the plains a few days and then removed
to the hills in the rear of the plains. (25) Nothing remarkable
transpired while lying here for some time.  One day after roll
call, one of my messmates with me sat off upon a little jaunt
into the country to get some sauce of some kind or other.  We
soon came to a field of English turnips, but the owner was there
and we could not get any of them without paying for them in some
way or other.  We soon agreed with the man to pull and cut off
the tops of the turnips at the halves, until we got as many as we
needed.  After the good man had sat us to work and chatted with
us a few minutes, he went off and left us.  After he was gone and
we had pulled and cut as many as we wanted, we packed them up and
decamped, leaving the owner of the turnips to pull his share
himself.
     When we arrived at the camp, the troops were all parading.
Upon inquiry we found that the British were advancing upon us. 
We flung our turnip plunder into the tent, packed up our things,
which was easily done for we had but a trifle to pack, and fell
into the ranks.  Before we were ready to march, the battle had
begun.  Our regiment then marched off, crossed a considerable
stream of water which crosses the plain, and formed behind a
stone wall in company with several other regiments and waited the
approach of the enemy. (26)
     They were not far distant, at least that part of them with
which we were quickly after engaged.  They were constructing a
sort of bridge to convey their artillery &c. across the
before-mentioned stream.  They, however, soon made their
appearance in our neighborhood.  There was in our front, about
ten rods distant, an orchard of apple trees.  The ground on which
the orchard stood was lower than the ground that we occupied but
was level from our post to the verge of the orchard, when it fell
off so abruptly that we could not see the lower parts of the
trees.  A party of Hessian troops and some English soon took
possession of this ground.  They would advance so far as just to
show themselves above the rising ground, fire, and fall back and
reload their muskets.  Our chance upon them was, as soon as they
showed themselves above the level ground, or when they fired, to
aim at the flashes of their guns; their position was as
advantageous to them as a breastwork.  We were engaged in this
manner for some time, when, finding ourselves flanked and in
danger of being surrounded, we were compelled to make a hasty
retreat from the stone wall.  We lost, comparatively speaking,
very few at the fence, but when forced to retreat we lost in
killed and wounded a considerable number.  One man who belonged
to our company, when we marched from the parade, said, "Now I am
going out to the field to be killed," and he said more than once
afterwards that he should be killed, and he was.  He was shot
dead on the field.  I never saw a man so prepossessed with the
idea of any mishap as he was.  We fell back a little distance and
made a stand, detached parties engaging in almost every
direction.
     We did not come in contact with the enemy again that day,
and just at night we fell back to our encampment. (27) In the
course of the afternoon, the British took possession of a hill on
the right of our encampment, which had in the early part of the
day been occupied by some of the New York troops.  This hill
overlooked the one upon which we were and was not more than half
or three fourths of a mile distant.  The enemy had several pieces
of field artillery upon this hill and, as might be expected,
entertained us with their music all the evening.  We entrenched
ourselves where we now lay, expecting another attack.  But the
British were very civil, and indeed they generally were after
they had received a check from Brother Jonathan for any of their
rude actions.  They seldom repeated them, at least not till the 
affair that caused the reprimand had ceased in some measure to be
remembered.
     During the night we remained in our new-made trenches, the
ground of which was in many parts springy.  In that part where I
happened to be stationed, the water before morning was nearly
over shoes, which caused many of us to take violent colds by
being exposed upon the wet ground after a profuse perspiration. 
I was one who felt the effects of it and was the next day sent
back to the baggage to get well again, if I could, for it was
left to my own exertions to do it and no other assistance was
afforded me.  I was not alone in misery; there were a number in
the same circumstances.  When I arrived at the baggage, which was
not more than a mile or two, I had the canopy of heaven for my
hospital and the ground for my hammock.  I found a spot where the
dry leaves had collected between the knolls.  I made up a bed of
these and nestled in it, having no other friend present but the
sun to smile upon me.  I had nothing to eat or drink, not even
water, and was unable to go after any myself, for I was sick
indeed.  In the evening, one of my messmates found me out and
soon after brought me some boiled hog's flesh (it was not pork)
and turnips, without either bread or salt.  I could not eat it,
but I felt obliged to him notwithstanding.  He did all he could
do.  He gave me the best he had to give, and had to steal that,
poor fellow.  Necessity drove him to do it to satisfy the
cravings of his own hunger as well as to assist a fellow
sufferer.
     The British, soon after this, left the White Plains and
passed the Hudson into New Jersey.  We likewise fell back to New
Castle and Wright's Mills. (28) Here a number of our sick were
sent off to Norwalk in Connecticut to recruit.  I was sent with
them as a nurse.  We were billeted among the inhabitants.  I had
in my ward seven or eight _sick soldiers who were (at least, soon
after their arrival there) as well in health as I was.  All they
wanted was a cook and something for a cook to exercise his
functions upon.  The inhabitants here were almost entirely what
were in those days termed Tories.  An old lady, of whom I often
procured milk, used always when I went to her house to give me a
lecture on my opposition to our good King George.  She had
always said, she told me, that the regulars would make us fly
like pigeons.  My patients would not use any of the milk I had of
her for fear, as they said, of poison.  I told them I was not
afraid of her poisoning the milk; she had not wit enough to think
of such a thing, nor resolution enough to do it if she did think
of it.
     The man of the house where I was quartered had a smart
looking Negro man, a great politician.  I chanced one day to go
into the barn where he was threshing.  He quickly began to
upbraid me with my opposition to the British.  The King of
England was a very powerful prince, he said, a very powerful
prince, and it was a pity that the colonists had fallen out with
him; but as we had, we must abide by the consequences.  I had no
inclination to waste the shafts of my rhetoric upon a Negro
slave.  I concluded he had heard his betters say so.  As the old
cock crows, so crows the young one, and I thought as the white
cock crows, so crows the black one.  He ran away from his master
before I left there and went to Long Island to assist King
George.  But it seems the King of Terrors was more potent than
King George, for his master had certain intelligence that poor
Cuff was laid flat on his back. 
     This man had likewise a Negress who, as he was a widower,
kept his house.  She was as great a doctress as Cuff was a
politician, and she wished to be a surgeon.  There was an annual
Thanksgiving while we were here.  The sick men of my ward had
procured a fine roasting pig, and the old Negro Woman having seen
the syringe that I picked up in the retreat from Kip's Bay, fell
violently in love with it and offered me a number of pies of one
sort or other for it.  Of the pig and the pies we made an
excellent Thanksgiving dinner, the best meal I had eaten since I
left my grandsire's table.
     Our surgeon came amongst us soon after this and packed us
all off to camp, save two or three who were discharged.  I
arrived at camp with the rest, where we remained, moving from
place to place as occasion required, undergoing hunger, cold, and
fatigue until the twenty-fifth day of December, 1776, when I was
discharged, my term of service having expired, at Philipse Manor
in the state of New York near Hudson's River. (29)
     Here ends my first campaign.  I learned something of a
soldier's life, enough, I thought, to keep me at home for the
future. Indeed, I was then fully determined to rest easy with the
knowledge I had acquired in the affairs of the army.  But the
reader will find, if he has patience to follow me a little longer
in my details, that the ease of a winter spent at home caused me
to alter my mind.  I had several kind invitations to enlist into
the standing army then about to be raised, especially a very
pressing one to engage in a regiment of horse, but I concluded to
try a short journey on foot first.  Accordingly, I sat off for my
good old grandsire's, where I arrived, I think, on the
twenty-seventh, two days after my discharge, and found my friends
all alive and well.  They appeared to be glad to see me, and I am
sure I was really glad to see them.

* Footnotes *
     (1) Three classes of troops fought the Revolution:
Continentals, militia, and state.  The Continentals were the
regulars.  An American Continental Army was authorized by the
Continental Congress in June, 1775; but that year, instead of
raising such a force, Congress "adopted" the New England troops
mustered around Boston and Ticonderoga following the Lexington
alarm.  During the next and subsequent years, Congress raised
troops for the common army, subject to its regulations respecting
pay, subsistence, and term of service.  All others troops raised
during the war, militia or state, were to act as reinforcements
or relief troops for the Continental army.
     The standing militia was a local body in which all able men
between six-teen and sixty-five (except certain exempts) were
required to serve.
     The state troops, or levies, were raised mainly in the early
part of the war on authority of the state or the governor by
voluntary enlistment to act temporarily in or out of the state as
reinforcements for the army, usually for a specified and limited
term.
     On June 14, 1776, in response to a requisition from the
Continental Congress for more troops to reinforce the Continental
army now at New York, Connecticut enlisted seven battalions
(i.e., regiments) of state troops for service until December 25,
1776.
     After 1776, when the militia was more thoroughly organized,
the regiments designated as "state" usually were made up of
detachments from the militia and in contemporary records are
frequently described indiscriminately as militia.

     (2) Martin enlisted July 6, 1776, in Samuel Peck's Third
Company, William Douglas's Fifth Battalion, James Wadsworth,
Jr.'s Brigade of new levies.

     (3) The British high command, having relinquished Boston to
General Washington's besieging Continentals in March, 1776,
adopted a new strategy: division of the American colonies along
the line of the Hudson River.  Its first objective was New York
City, to which Washington had hurried his army.  British
transports began arriving off New York, June 29; and on July 3,
General Sir William Howe landed nine thousand men on undefended
Staten Island, his first step in an assault on Manhattan.  On
July 12, arrived the British reinforcement of fifteen thousand
about which Martin had heard in New England.  In ensuing weeks,
further reinforcements swelled Howe's force to over a third more
fighting men than Washington's twenty-three thousand defenders.

     (4) Broad Street, east of and paralleling Broadway, ran from
the Exchange at Dock Street to Wall.  New York City at the time
occupied only the southern tip of Manhattan Island, an area about
a mile square.  Its northern boundary ran roughly from today's
Grand Street on the East River to Vestry Street on the Hudson. 
Northward lay farmlands, woods, and marshes.

     (5) The )Phoenix, the _Rose, an accompanying schooner, and
two tenders had sailed up the Hudson past an American cannonade,
July 12, and anchored in the Tappan Sea, severing river
communication between New York and Albany.  On August 17 they had
been attacked by American fire-rafts, which burned the schooner,
and on the eighteenth the surviving vessels ran down the river
and rejoined their fleet in the lower harbor.  The Grand Battery
was the fortification at the southern tip of Manhattan.

     (6) Stone Street, one block long, ran from Broad Street to
Whitehall.

     (7) Israel Putnam, one of the original major generals
appointed by the Continental Congress in June, 1775, now
commanded one of Washington's five divisions in New York.  His
quarters are sometimes said to have been at Number 1 Broadway,
later the quarters of General Henry Knox.  Number 1 Broadway was
much farther than three or four rods from Martin's quarters.

     (8) The date was August 27.  Howe had landed his forces near
Gravesend, Long Island, August 22.  To defend New York,
Washington had scattered his five divisions, placing one under
Putnam on Long Island, where Brooklyn Heights commanded New York.

Putnam had placed half his nine thousand men behind a line of
thickly wooded hills about a mile and a half advanced from his
Brooklyn works. During the night of August 26, Howe had moved up
to attack.  At daylight, his left began playing on the American
right with cannon fire, while he successfully made his way in
command of a turning column behind the American left.

(9) The Manhattan terminus of the Long Island ferry was at the
foot of Maiden Lane.

     (10) American Brigadier General William Alexander (Lord
Stirling), left alone with the Maryland and Delaware regiments on
the hills by the collapse of the American left and center, made a
courageous withdrawal through Gowanus Creek and its marshes. The
heaviest fighting developed around the Vechte-Cortelyou house,
commanding the road to South Brooklyn.  The house has been
reconstructed at present-day Fifth Avenue and Third Street,
Brooklyn, about a city block from its original location.

(11) The northeaster that blew sporadically from the afternoon of
the twenty-eighth prevented Howe's fleet from coming up East
River and cutting the rebels off from New York.  Washington
successfully withdrew to Manhattan on the night of the
twenty-ninth.

     (12) On the night of September 3, the _Rose, with twenty
flatboats, went up East River and anchored under Blackwell's
(present-day Welfare) Island. 
     (13} Turtle Bay was an indentation in the East River shore
line of Manhattan Island at about present-day Forty-sixth and
Forty-seventh streets.


     (14) The _Rose had gone up on September 3. The four ships
were the _Phoenix, _Roebuck, _Orpheus, and _Carysfort.

     (15) The lines were at Kip's Bay, a cove that reached to
between present-day First and Second avenues from Thirty-second
Street to about Thirty-eighth.  It was an especially likely enemy
landing place because it was easily navigable and from its shore
rose a large, open, V-shaped meadow, an excellent beachhead and
assembly area.  Douglas's new levies and three militia regiments
at Kip's Bay were supported downstream on their right by militia
and Continentals at present-day Twenty-third Street, Sixteenth
Street, and Corlear's Hook, now a small park on Franklin D.
Roosevelt Drive, just south of the Williamsburg Bridge.

     (16) Martin's recollection that the ships came up from their
anchorage off Long Island during the night of September 14 has
been disputed, but quite likely they did anchor near enough
during the night to be heard and then early on the morning of the
fifteenth maneuvered into broadside positions.

     (17) A few days earlier, when Washington thought Howe was
preparing to land in the vicinity of Kings Bridge to cut off his
exit from New York, he had begun to evacuate the city.  King's
Bridge crossed Spuyten Duyvil from the mainland into the Bronx
near what is now West 230th Street and Marble Hill Avenue. 
Washington planned to mass most of his strength on the rocky
plateau called Harlem Heights, north of present-day 125th Street,
which he felt he could defend.  Only about half of his force was
behind the bluffs at Harlem when Howe struck; the rest were still
in the city and on the East River lines.

     (18) This was the principal evacuation route, the Post Road
from New York to Boston.  It skirted Sunfish Pond west of Kip's
Bay, followed roughly the course of present-day Lexington Avenue,
climbed a broad hill called Iclenberg (later Murray Hill)
beginning about Thirty-second Street, turned east toward Kip's
Bay, swung westward again toward the center of the island, ran
northwestward through McGowan's Pass across Harlem Heights and
the Harlem Plains to King's Bridge.

     (19) After landing unopposed at Kip's Bay, Howe failed to
drive across the waist of the island, which allowed some three
thousand American troops to escape along the Bloomingdale Road up
the west side of the island.  All but some four hundred of the
defenders of the East River shore also reached Harlem Heights. 
The missing major of Martin's regiment was Phineas Porter, who
had been captured.

     (20) Knowlton's Rangers was a special corps of hand-picked
volunteers raised after the Battle of Long Island to do light
scouting and duties involving extraordinary hazard and
initiative.  On the morning of September 16, they worked south
from a line at present-day 147th Street to reconnoiter.  On their
first encounter with a party of the enemy they were repulsed,
when Washington determined on an encircling movement.  It was in
this renewal of action in the Battle of Harlem Heights that
Knowlton and Leitch fell and that Martin's regiment was
committed.

     (21) The Roger Morris house, now called the Jumel Mansion,
at 160th Street and Edgecombe Avenue.

     (22) The officer was Colonel Joseph Reed, and the soldier
was Ebenezer Leffingwell, of Captain Wills Clift's Company,
Colonel John Durkee's Twentieth Continental (Connecticut)
Regiment.  Leffingwell was court-martialed on September 22 for
his behavior on the sixteenth.  His "former good character" and
Reed's intercession won his last-minute pardon.  Although it is
possible he was later promoted, no record of a captain of his
name appears in the usual records, such as __Heitman's Historical
Register of Officers of the Continental _Army, and his name does
not appear at all after 1776 in surviving Connecticut muster
rolls.

     (23) Frog's (Throckmorton's, Throck's, and sometimes Throgs)
Neck was the point of land on the north shore where the East
River joins Long Island Sound (present-day Fort Schuyler Park in
the Bronx). Howe landed on October 22.

     (24) To meet Howe's move on his flank and rear, Washington
set up a succession of posts west of the Bronx River. The
position at Valentine's Hill was east of Harlem River, some two
or three miles from King's Bridge.

     (25) Martin's regiment marched to White Plains on the
evening of October 20, arriving at 9 A.M., the twenty-first.
Evidently, when Martin returned from detached duty he marched
with Heath's Division, which marched all night the twenty-first
and arrived at White Plains at 4 A.M., the twenty-second.

     (26) On the morning of October 28, American militia was
entrenching on Chatterton Hill, an eminence beyond the Bronx
River, about a mile from White Plains, slightly in advance of
Washington's right wing.  Continentals were moving to support the
militia when Howe attacked.  A force under General Joseph
Spencer, including Martin's regiment, marched to meet the enemy
in front. 

     (27) After driving back Spencer's division, Howe
concentrated on Chatterton Hill until he possessed it.  Then he
made no further aggressive movement.

     (28) Washington, on November 1, withdrew from his lines at
White Plains to strong defensive positions to the north,
eventually encamping at North Castle beyond Croton River, some
thirteen miles away.  Wright's Mills, later the village of
Kensico and now Kensico Reservoir, was some four miles north of
White Plains.  Undoubtedly Martin meant North Castle for New
Castle.

     (29) Although Martin recalled that he was discharged
December 25, the roll of Douglas's regiment and a pay record of
Captain Peck's company, surviving in the War Department
Collection of Revolutionary War Records, National Archives,
Record Group 93, indicate that he was discharged on December 15.
     The manor of Loyalist Colonel Frederick Philipse consisted
of his handsome house, a sawmill, gristmill, and some laborers'
cottages at the mouth of the Sawmill River, about four miles
north of King's Bridge.

     CHAPTER III
Campaign of 1777

     When troubles fall within your dish,
     And things don't tally with your wish:
     It's just as well to laugh as cry -
     To sing and joke, as moan and sigh: -
     For a pound of sorrow never yet
     Cancel'd a single ounce of debt.

     THE spring of 1777 arrived.  I had got recruited during the
winter, (1) and begun to think again about the army.  In the
month of April, as the weather warmed, the young men began to
enlist. Orders were out for enlisting men for three years, or
during the war.  The general opinion of the people was that the
war would not continue three years longer; what reasons they had
for making such conjectures I cannot imagine, but so it was. 
Perhaps it was their wish that it might be so, induced them to
think that it would be so.
     One of my mates, and my most familiar associate, who had
been out ever since the war commenced, and who had been with me
the last campaign, had enlisted for the term of the war, in the
capacity of sergeant.  He had enlisting orders, and was, every
time he saw me, which was often, harassing me with temptations to
engage in the service again.  At length he so far overcame my
resolution as to get me into the scrape again, although it was,
at this time, against my inclination, for I had not fully
determined with myself, that if I did engage again, into what
corps I should enter.  But I would here just inform the reader,
that that little insignificant monosyllable - No - was the
hardest word in the language for me to pronounce, especially when
solicited to do a thing which was in the least degree indifferent
to me.  I could say Yes, with half the trouble.
     But I had enlisted.  However, when I was alone, and had time
to reflect, I began sorely to repent.  The next day I met the
sergeant and told him that I repented my bargain; he endeavored
to persuade me to stick to it, but I could the say - No.  He told
me that he would speak to his captain about the matter, and as I
had taken no bounty money, he thought that he would dismiss me.
Accordingly, he told the captain of my unwillingness to be held,
and he let me run at large once more.  I then determined to wait
my own time before I engaged again.
     The inhabitants of the town were about this time put into
what were called squads, according to their ratable property.  Of
some of the most opulent, one formed a squad; of others, two or
three, and of the lower sort of the people, several formed a
squad.  Each of these squads were to furnish a man for the army,
either by hiring or by sending one of their own number.
     I had an elbow relation, a sort of (as the Irishman said)
cousin-in-law, who had been in the army the two preceding
campaigns, and now had a lieutenant's commission in the standing
army.  He was continually urging my grandparents to give their
consent for me to go with him.  He told the old gentleman a power
of fine stories, and made him promises, respecting his behavior
to me, which he never intended to perform, until he obtained my
grandsire's consent, and at length, after much persuasion, my
consent likewise.
     One of the above-mentioned squads, wanting to procure a man,
the lieutenant told them that he thought they might persuade me
to go for them, and they accordingly attacked me, front, rear and
flank.  I thought, as I must go, I might as well endeavor to get
as much for my skin as I could.  Accordingly, I told them that I
would go for them, and fixed upon a day when I would meet them
and clinch the bargain.  The day, which was a muster day of the
militia of the town, arrived.  I went to the parade, where all
was liveliness, as it generally is upon such occasions; but poor
I felt miserably; my execution day was come.  I kept wandering
about till the afternoon, among the crowd, when I saw the
lieutenant, who went with me into a house where the men of the
squad were, and there I put my name to enlisting indentures for
the last time. (2) And now I was hampered again.  The men gave me
what they agreed to, I forget the sum, perhaps enough to keep the
blood circulating during the short space of time which I tarried
at home after I had enlisted.  They were now freed from any
further trouble, at least for the present, and I had become the
scapegoat for them.
     Well, I was again a soldier! I stayed at home a few days,
which I endeavored to make as agreeable as possible, well knowing
that the army would bring trouble enough to counterbalance all
the happiness I could procure for myself in the short time I had
to tarry at home.
     Just at this time the British landed in Connecticut, and
marched twenty miles into the country, where they burnt the town
of Danbury with all the public stores it contained, which were
considerable, among which was all the clothing of our regiment.
The militia were generally turned out and sent to settle the
account with them.  The newly enlisted soldiers went with the
militia.  The enemy had, however, executed his commission, and
made considerable progress on his return before we came up.  We
had some pretty severe scratches with them; killed some, wounded
some, and took some prisoners.  The remainder reached their
shipping, embarked, and cleared out for New York, where they
arrived soon after, I suppose, much gratified with the mischief
they had done.  We likewise returned home, with the loss of three
men belonging to the town, one of whom was an enlisted soldier. 
Major General David Wooster, of New Haven, an old and experienced
officer, likewise fell in this expedition.  General [Benedict]
Arnold had a very close rub, but escaped. (3)
     Soon after the above transaction, we had orders to join our
regiment, or rather, to begin to assemble the regiment, at
Newtown, the residence of our colonel [John Chandler]. We
accordingly marched and arrived there.  Here we drew our arms and
equipments.  Uncle Sam was always careful to supply us with these
articles, even if he could not give us anything to eat, drink, or
wear.  We stayed but a short time here, but went on to Danbury,
where I had an ample opportunity to see the devastation caused
there by the British.  The town had been laid in ashes, a number
of the inhabitants murdered and cast into their burning houses,
because they presumed to defend their persons and property, or to
be avenged on a cruel, vindictive invading enemy.  I saw the
inhabitants, after the fire was out, endeavoring to find the
burnt bones of their relatives amongst the rubbish of their
demolished houses.  The streets, in many places, were literally
flooded by the fat which ran from the piles of barrels of pork
burnt by the enemy.  They fully executed their design.
     We stayed here but a short time, and then marched to
Peekskill, on the Hudson River, and encamped in the edge of the
Highlands, at a place called Old Orchard. (4) Here we were
tormented by the whippoorwills.  A potent enemy! says the reader.

Well, a potent enemy they were, particularly to our rest at
night.  They would begin their imposing music the twilight and
continue it till ten or eleven o'clock, and commence again before
the dawn, when they would be in a continual roar.  No man, unless
he were stupified, could get a wink of sleep during the serenade,
which, in the short nights in the month of May, was almost the
whole of the night.
     I was one day, while lying here, upon what was called a camp
guard.  We kept a considerable chain of sentinels.  In the night
there came what in military phrase is called the visiting rounds,
which is, an officer attended by a small escort to inspect the
condition of the guards, and see that they do their duty.  The
officer, at the time I mention, was a field officer, a young man.
He went to the extreme end of the line of sentinels and began his
examination - one sentry, he found, who had stowed himself away
snugly in an old papermill; another had left his post to procure
a draught of milk from the cows in a farmer's yard, and others
were found, here and there, neglecting their duty.  He brought
off all the delinquents to deliver them up to the _righteous
sentence of a court-martial.  In his progress he came to me, I
being at the time on sentry duty too.  I hailed him and demanded
of him the countersign, which he regularly gave me and passed on.

I did not expect to hear anything further about it, as I
concluded that I had done my duty to perfection.
     In the morning, before guard relieving, I happened to be
posted at the colonel's marquee door, when the above-mentioned
officer came into the tent, and was telling some of our officers
the consequences of his last night's expedition.  I listened
attentively to his recital.  "At last," said he, "I came to a
sentinel who challenged me like a man.  I thought I had found a
soldier after detecting so many scoundrels, but what think ye! As
soon as I had given him the countersign, the puppy shouldered his
piece, and had I been an enemy I could have knocked his brains
out." At the first part of his recital, I grew a foot, in my own
estimation, in a minute, and I shrunk as much and as fast at the
latter part of it.  I was confident he did not know me, and I as
well knew it was me he had reference to.  Aha! thought !, this
admonition shall not lose its effect upon me; nor did it so long
as I remained in the army.
     I was soon after this transaction ordered off, in company
with about four hundred others of the Connecticut forces, to a
set of old barracks, a mile or two distant in the Highlands, to
be inoculated with the smallpox.  We arrived at and cleaned out
the barracks, and after two or three days received the infection,
which was on the last day of May.  We had a guard of
Massachusetts troops to attend us.  Our hospital stores were
deposited in a farmer's barn in the vicinity of our quarters. (5)
     One day, about noon, the farmer's house took fire and was
totally consumed, with every article of household stuff it
contained, although there were five hundred men within fifty rods
of it, and many of them within five, when the fire was
discovered, which was not till the roof had fallen in.  Our
officers would not let any of the inoculated men go near the
fire, and the guard had enough to do to save the barn, the fire
frequently catching in the yard and on the roof, which was
covered with thatch or straw.  I was so near to the house,
however, that I saw a cat come out from the cellar window, after
the house had apparently fallen into the cellar.  She was all in
flames when she emerged from her premises and directed her course
for the barn, but her nimble gait had so fanned her carcass
before she reached the place of her destination that she caused
no damage at all.
     I had the smallpox favorably as did the rest, generally. We
lost none, but it was more by good luck, or rather a kind
Providence interfering, than by my good conduct that I escaped
with life.  There was a considerable large rivulet which ran
directly in front of the barracks; in this rivulet were many deep
places and plenty of a species of fish called suckers.  One of my
roommates, with myself, went off one day, the very day on which
the pock began to turn upon me.  We went up the brook until we
were out of sight of the people at the barracks, when we
undressed ourselves and went into the water, where it was often
to our shoulders, to catch suckers by means of a fishhook
fastened to the end of a rod.  We continued at this business
three or four hours, and when we came out of the water the
pustules of the smallpox were well cleansed.  We then returned to
the barracks, and I, feeling a pretty sharp appetite after my
expedition, went to the side of the brook where the nurses had
been cooking and eating their dinners.  I found a kettle standing
there half full of stewed peas, and, if I remember rightly, a
small piece of pork with them.  I knew the kettle belonged to the
nurses in our room, and therefore conceived myself the better
entitled to its contents; accordingly I fell to and helped
myself.  I believe I should have killed myself in good earnest,
had not the owners come and caught me at it, and broke up my
feast.  It had like to have done the job for me as it was.  I had
a sorry night of it, and had I not got rid of my freight, I know
not what would have been the final consequences of my
indiscretion.
     I left the hospital on the sixteenth day after I was
inoculated, and soon after joined the regiment, when I was
attacked with a severe turn of the dysentery, and immediately
after recovering from that, I broke out all over with boils. 
Good old Job could scarcely have been worse handled by them than
I was.  I had eleven at one time upon my arm, each as big as half
a hen's egg, and the rest of my carcass was much in the same
condition. I attributed it to my not having been properly
physicked after the smallpox, in consequence of our hospital
stores being in about the same state as the commissary's.
     In the latter part of the month of June, or the beginning of
July, I was ordered off in a detachment of about a hundred men,
under the command of a captain, to the lines near King's Bridge,
to join two regiments of New York troops which belonged to our
brigade.  Upon the march (which was very fatiguing, it being
exceeding hot weather) we halted to rest.  I went into a house,
hoping to get something to eat, of which I, as usual, stood in
much need.  The woman of the house had just been churning.  I
asked her for a drink of buttermilk; she told me to drink as much
as I pleased.  I drank as much as I could swallow and went out,
but soon after returned and drank again; and as we stayed here
some hours, I improved the time by helping myself to the
buttermilk.  I could never before relish buttermilk, but extreme
hunger at this time gave it a new relish.  So true is the
observation of the wise man, "A full belly loatheth a honeycomb,
but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet."
     While I was in this house I went into the kitchen where I
saw a simple incident which excited my risibility, mauger my
fatigue. There was a large pot hanging over a considerable fire,
but more smoke.  The pot contained, to appearance, a large hock
of fresh beef; the water in the pot had ebbed considerably and
the meat made its appearance some way above it.  Upon the top of
the meat, surrounded by fire and smoke, sat the old house cat
wreathing her head one way and the other, and twisting the beef
into her face as fast as possible, winking and blinking in the
steam and smoke like a toad in a shower.  I left her at her
occupation and went out.
     We arrived upon the lines and joined the other corps which
was already there.  No one who has never been upon such duty as
those advanced parties have to perform, can form any adequate
idea of the trouble, fatigue and dangers is spent in which they
have to encounter.  Their whole time is spent in marches,
especially night marches, watching, starving, and, in cold
weather, freezing and sickness.  If they get any chance to rest,
it must be in the woods or fields, under the side of a fence, in
an orchard or in any other place but a comfortable one, lying
down on the cold and often wet ground, and, perhaps, before the
eyes can be closed with a moment's sleep, alarmed and compelled
to stand under arms an hour or two, or to receive an attack from
the enemy; and when permitted again to endeavor to rest, called
upon immediately to remove some four or five miles to seek some
other place, to go through the same maneuvering as before.  For
it was dangerous to remain any length of time in one place for
fear of being informed of by some Tory inhabitant (for there were
a plenty of this sort of savage beast during the Revolutionary
War) and ten thousand other causes to harass, fatigue and
perplex, which time and room will not permit me to enumerate.
     We were once on one of those night marches, advancing toward
the enemy and not far from them, when, towards the latter part of
the night, there came on a heavy thunder-shower.  We were ordered
into some barns nearby, the officers, as usual, ordering
themselves into the houses. I thought I might get a nap if it did
storm, but hardly had I sunk into a slumber when we were informed
that we were discovered by the enemy, and that two or three
thousand Hessians were advancing upon, and very near us.  We were
immediately hurried out, the shower then being at its height and
the night as dark as Egypt, except when it lightened, which, when
passed, only served to render it, if possible, still darker.  We
were then marched across fields and fences, pastures and brooks,
swamps and ravines, a distance of two or three miles, and
stationed upon a hill, or rather a ledge of rocks, which was as
completely fortified by nature with a breastwork of rocks as it
could have been by art.  Here we waited for Mynheer till the sun
was two hours high, but no one coming to visit us, we marched
off, and left the enemy to do the same, if they had not already
done it.
     We remained on this hard and fatiguing duty about six weeks,
during which time many things transpired incidental to a military
life, but which would be of little interest to the reader, and
tedious for me to relate.
     We marched to Peekskill and rejoined our regiments sometime
in the fore part of the month of August.  A short time after my
arrival at Peekskill, I was sent off to King's Ferry, about five
miles below, to take some batteaux that were there and carry them
to Fort Montgomery, in the edge of the Highlands. (6) While upon
this tour of duty, an accident happened to me which caused me
much trouble and pain.  After we had arrived at the fort with the
boats, we tarried an hour or two to rest ourselves, after which
we were ordered to take couple of the boats and return again to
King's Ferry.  Wishing to be the first in the boat, I ran down
the wharf and jumped into it.  There happened to be the butt part
of an oar lying on the bottom of the boat, and my right foot, on
bore, alighted, in my which the whole weight of my body leap,
directly upon it, lengthwise.  It rolled over and turned my foot
almost up to my ankle, so much so, that my foot lay nearly in a
right angle with my leg.  I had then to go to the ferry, where I
was landed, and having no acquaintance with any of the party,
most of whom were New Yorkers, and consequently, at that time, no
great friends to the Yankees, I was obliged to hop on one foot
all the way, upwards of five miles) not being able in the whole
distance to procure a stick to assist me, although I often
hobbled to the fences on each side of the road in hopes to obtain
one.  It was dark when I was landed at the ferry, and it was
quite late before I arrived at the camp.  Some of my messmates
went immediately for the surgeon, but he was at a game of
backgammon and could not attend to minor affairs.  However, in
about an hour he arrived, bathed my foot, which was swelled like
a bladder, fumbled about it for some time, when he gave it a
wrench, which made me, like the old woman's dying cat, "merely
yawl out."
     The next day, as I was sitting under the shade before my
tent, my foot lying upon a bench, swelled like a puffball, my
captain passed by and must needs have a peep at it.  I indulged
his curiosity, upon which he said it was not set right, and
taking hold of it, he gave it a twist, which put it nearly in the
same condition it was at first.  I had then to send for Mr.
Surgeon again, but he was not to be found.  There was a corporal
in our company who professed to act the surgeon in such cases,
and he happening at the time to be present, undertook the job and
accomplished it, but it was attended with more difficulty than at
the first time, and with more pain to me.  It was a long time
before it got well and strong again, indeed it never has been
entirely so well as it was before the accident happened.  I was
not long confined by it, however, but was soon able to perform my
duty in the army again.
     Our troops, not long after this, marched to join the main
army in Pennsylvania. (7) The heavy baggage was left to come on
after them, and I, being an invalid, was left as one of the guard
to conduct it.  The baggage soon followed the troops, and I
underwent not a little trouble on the march in consequence of my
lame foot. When I joined the regiment the baggage was immediately
sent back to Bethlehem, nearly fifty miles in the country, and I
was again sent with it as a guard.  It was much against my
inclination to go on this business, for I had for some time past
been under the command of other officers than my own, and now I
must continue longer under them.  Soldiers always like to be
under the command of their own officers; they are generally bad
enough, but strangers are worse. I was obliged to obey my
officers' orders and go on this duty, but when I was away they
could not hinder me from coming back again. I was resolved not to
stay at Bethlehem, and as soon as we arrived there I contrived to
get the permission of the officers of the guard to return to camp
again immediately.  I arrived at camp the second day after
leaving the baggage.  My officers inquired of me why I had
returned? If I was able to do hard duty, they said they were glad
that I had joined the company again; if not, they were sorry.  I
endeavored to appear to be as well as possible, for I had no
notion of being sent away from my officers and old messmates
again, if I could avoid it.
     When I arrived at camp it was just dark, the troops were all
preparing for a march. Their provisions (what they had) were all
cooked, and their arms and ammunition strictly inspected and all
deficiencies supplied. Early in the evening we marched in the
direction of Philadelphia. We naturally concluded there was
something serious in the wind. We marched slowly all night. In
the morning there was a low vapor lying on the land which made it
very difficult to distinguish objects at any considerable
distance.
     About daybreak our advanced guard and the British outposts
came in contact. The curs began to bark first and then the
bulldogs. Our brigade moved off to the right into the fields. We
saw a body of the enemy drawn up behind a rail fence on our right
flank; we immediately formed in line and advanced upon them. Our
orders were not to fire till we could see the buttons upon their
clothes, but they were so coy that they would not give us an
opportunity to be so curious, for they hid their clothes in fire
and smoke before we had either time or leisure to examine their
buttons.  They soon fell back and we advanced, when the action
became general.  The enemy were driven quite through their camp. 
They left their kettles, in which they were cooking their
breakfasts, on the fires, and some of their garments were lying
on the ground, which the owners had not time to put on.
     Affairs went on well for some time.  The enemy were
retreating before us, until the first division that was engaged
had expended their ammunition.  Some of the men unadvisedly
calling out that their ammunition was spent, the enemy were so
near that they overheard them, when they first made a stand and
then returned upon our people, who, for want of ammunition and
reinforcements, were obliged in their turn to retreat, which
ultimately resulted in the rout of the whole army. (8)
     There were several other circumstances which contributed to
the defeat of our army on that day, but as I am narrating my own
adventures, and not a history of the war, I shall omit to mention
them.  Those who wish to know more may consult any or all the
authors who have given the history of the Revolutionary War.
     I had now to travel the rest of the day, after marching all
the day and night before and fighting all the morning. (9) I had
eaten nothing since the noon of the preceding day, nor did I eat
a morsel till the forenoon of the next day, and I needed rest as
much as victuals.  I could have procured that if I had had time
to seek it, but victuals was not to be found.  I was tormented
with thirst all the morning, fighting being warm work; but after
the retreat commenced I found ample means to satisfy my thirst. 
"I could drink at the brook," but I could not "bite at the bank."
     There was one thing in such cases as I have just mentioned
(I mean, in retreating from an enemy) that always galled my
feelings, and that was, whenever I was forced to a quick retreat
to be obliged to run till I was worried down. The Yankees are
generally very nimble of foot and in those cases are very apt to
practice what they have the ability of performing. Some of our
men at this time seemed to think that they could never run fast
or far enough. I never wanted to run, if I was forced to run,
further than to be beyond the reach of the enemy's shot, after
which I had no more fear of their overtaking me than I should
have of an army of lobsters doing it, unless it were their
horsemen, and they dared not do it.
     After the army had collected again and recovered from their
panic, we were kept marching and countermarching, starving and
freezing, nothing else happening, although that was enough, until
we encamped at a place called the White Marsh, about twelve miles
to the northward of Philadelphia. (10)  While we lay here, there
was a spell of soft still weather, there not being wind enough
for several days to dispel the smoke caused by the fires in camp.

My eyes were so affected by it that I was not able to open them
for hours together.  The ground, which was soft and loamy, was
converted into mortar, and so dirty was it, that any hogsty as
preferable to our tents to sleep in; and to cap the climax of our
misery, we had nothing to eat, nor scarcely anything to wear.
     Being pinched with hunger, I one day strolled to a place,
where sometime before some cattle had been slaughtered.  Here I
had the good luck (or rather bad luck, as it turned the out in
the end) to find an ox's milt, which had escaped hogs and dogs. 
With this prize I steered off to my tent, threw it upon the fire
and broiled it, and then sat down to at it, without either bread
or salt.  I had not had it long in my stomach before it began to
make strong remonstrances and to manifest a great inclination to
be set at liberty again.  I was very willing to listen to its
requests, and with eyes overflowing with tears at parting with
what I had thought to be a friend, I gave it a discharge.  But
the very thoughts of it would for some time after almost make me
think that I had another milt in my stomach.
     About this time information was received at headquarters
that a considerable body of British troops were advanced and
encamped on the western side of the river Schuylkill, near the
lower bridge, two or three miles from Philadelphia.  Forces were
immediately put in requisition to rout them from thence.  Our
brigade was ordered off, with some detachments from other parts
of the army.  We marched from camp just before night as light
troops, light in everything, especially in eatables.  We marched
to a place called Barren Hill, about twelve or fifteen miles from
the city.  From here, about ten o'clock in the evening, we forded
the Schuylkill where the river, including a bare gravelly island,
or flat, which we crossed, was about forty rods wide, as near as
I could judge, and the water about to the waist.  It was quite a
cool night, in the month of October; the water which spattered on
to our clothes froze as we passed the river.  Many of the young
and small soldiers fell while in the water and were completely
drenched.  We, however, got over and marched two or three miles
on a dreary road, for that part of the country, surrounded by
high hills and thick woods. All of a sudden we were ordered to
halt.  We were, to appearance, in an unfrequented road, cold and
wet to our middles, and half starved.  We were sorry to be
stopped from traveling, as exercise kept us warm in some degree. 
We endeavored to kindle fires, but were ordered by the officers
immediately to extinguish them, which was done by all except one,
which having been kindled in a hollow tree could not be put out. 
I got so near to this that I could just see it between the men's
legs, which was all the benefit that I derived from it.
     We lay there freezing, about two hours, and then were
ordered to fall in and march back again.  About an hour before
day we dashed through the river again, at the same place at which
we had crossed the preceding evening, and I can assure the reader
that neither the water nor weather had become one degree warmer
than it was then.
     We went on to Barren Hill again, where we lay all the day,
waiting, as it appeared, for reinforcements, which arrived and
joined us towards night.  We drew a day's ration of beef and
flour, what was called a pound of each.  The flour, perhaps, was
not far from its nominal weight, but the beef was, as it always
was in such cases, and indeed in all others in the army, not more
than three fourths of a pound, and that, at the best, half bone. 
And how was it cooked? Why, as it usually was when we had no
cooking utensils with us, - that is, the flour was laid upon a
flat rock and mixed up with cold water, then daubed upon a flat
stone and scorched on one side, while the beef was broiling on a
stick in the fire.  This was the common way of cookery when on
marches, and we could get anything to cook, and this was the mode
at the time mentioned.  After I had satisfied my hunger, I lay
down upon the ground and slept till within about half an hour of
sunset.  When I awoke I was turned quite about; I thought it was
morning instead of evening.  However, I was soon convinced of my
error, and the sun had the good manners to wheel about and put
himself in his proper position again.
     Just at dark, the reinforcements having arrived and all
things being put in order, we marched again, and about nine or
ten o'clock we tried the waters of the Schuylkill once more, at
the same place where we crossed the preceding night.  It was not
so cold as it was then and the crossing was not so tedious, but
it was bad enough at this time.
     We marched slowly the remainder of the night.  At the dawn
of day we found ourselves in the neighborhood of the enemy.  I
mean in the neighborhood of where they had been, for when we were
about to spring the net, we discovered that the birds had flown
and there was not one on the bed.  There was a British guard at a
little distance from the bridge, upon the opposite side of the
river.  They turned out to do us honor and sent off an express to
the city to inform their friends that the Yankees had come to pay
them a visit, but they were so unmannerly as to take no notice of
us.  After we had taken so much pains and been at so much trouble
to come to see them, they might have shown a little more
politeness, considering that it would not have cost them half the
trouble to meet us as we had been at to meet them. But perhaps
they thought that, as we had undergone so much fatigue and
vexation on our journey, we might feel cross and peevish, and
perchance some unlucky accidents might have happened. The British
were politic, and it is good to be cautious and discreet.
     We had nothing to do now but to return as we came. 
Accordingly, we marched off slowly, hoping that the enemy would
think better of it and follow us, for we were loath to return
without seeing them. However, they kept to themselves and we went
on. I was hungry, tired and sleepy.  About noon we halted an hour
or two, and I went a little way into the fields, where I found a
black walnut tree with a plenty of nuts under it. These nuts are
very nutritious, and I cracked and ate of them till I was
satisfied.
     We marched again. In the course of the afternoon, I
somewhere procured about half a dozen turnips, which I carried
all the way to camp in my hand, so much did we value anything
that we could get to eat.  About sunsetting we again waded the
Schuylkill, at a ford a little higher up the river. The river was
not so wide here as at the former place, but the water was
deeper, it was to the breast. When we had crossed, and it had
become dark, we met the quartermasters, who had come out to meet
us with wagons and hogsheads of whiskey, thinking, perhaps, that
we might take cold by being so much exposed in the cold water.
They had better have brought us something more substantial, but
we thought that better than nothing. The casks were unheaded, and
the quartermaster sergeants stood in the wagons and dealt out the
liquor to the platoons, each platoon halting as it came up, till
served.  The intention of the quartermaster sergeants was to give
each man a gill of liquor, but as measuring it out by gills was
tedious, it was dealt out to us in pint measures, with directions
to divide a pint between four men.  But as it was dark and the
actions of the men could not be well seen by those who served out
the liquor, each one drank as much as he pleased; some, perhaps,
half a gill, some a gill, and as many as chose it drained the
pint.
     We again moved on for the camp, distant about five miles. We
had not proceeded far before we entered a lane fenced on either
side with rails, in which was a water plash, or puddle.  The
fence was taken down on one side of the road to enable us to pass
round the water.  It was what is called a five-rail fence, only
the two upper rails of which were taken out; here was fun.  We
had been on the march since we had drank the whiskey just long
enough for the liquor to assume its height of operation; our
stomachs being empty the whiskey took rank hold and the poor
brain fared accordingly.  When the men came to the fence, not
being able, many or most of them, to keep a regular balance
between head and heels, they would pile themselves up on each
side of the fence, swearing and hallooing, some losing their
arms, some their hats, some their shoes, and some themselves. 
Had the enemy come upon us at this time, there would have been an
action worth recording.  But they did not, and we, that is, such
as could, arrived at camp about midnight, where "those who had
remained with the stuff" had made up some comfortable fires for
our accommodation.  Poor fellows! It was all they could do; as to
victuals, they had none for themselves.  I had then been nearly
thirty hours without a mouthful of anything to eat, excepting the
walnuts, having been the whole time on my feet (unless I happened
to fall over the fence, which I do not remember to have done) and
wading in, and being wet with the water of the river.  I roasted
some of my turnips, ate them, rolled myself up in my innocency,
lay down on the leaves and forgot my misery till morning.
     Soon after this affair our two Connecticut regiments
[Durkee's Fourth and Chandler's Eighth] (they being the only
troops of that state then with the main army) were ordered off to
defend the forts on the Delaware River, below the city. (11) We
marched about dark, hungry and cold, and kept on till we could
proceed no further, from sheer hunger and fatigue.  We halted
about one o'clock at night, in a village, and were put into
houses of the inhabitants, much, I suppose, to their contentment,
especially at that time of night.  Sleep took such strong hold of
me and most of the others, that we soon forgot our wants.  Not so
with some five or six of our company, who were determined not to
die of hunger that night, if any means could be devised to
prevent it. They, therefore, as soon as all was still, sallied
out on an expedition.  They could not find anything eatable but
the contents of a beehive, which they took the liberty to remove
from the beehouse to a place which they thought more convenient. 
I had no hand in the battle and consequently no share in the
spoil.  One man who belonged to this foraging party had rather an
uncouth visage; he had very thick lips, especially the upper one,
a large flat nose, and quite a wide mouth, which gave him, as the
Irishman said, really an open countenance.  One of the
inhabitants of the city he had helped to sack, not quite
forgetting his resentment for the ill usage he had received from
this paragon of beauty and his associates in the outrage, gave
him a severe wound directly in the middle of the upper lip, which
added very much to its dimensions.  In the morning, when we came
to march off, O! the woeful figure the poor fellow exhibited.  A
minister in his pulpit would have found it difficult to have kept
his risible faculties in due subjection.  To see him on the
parade endeavoring to conceal his face from the men, and
especially from the officers, was ludicrous in the extreme, and
as long as it lasted it diverted our thoughts from resting on our
own calamities.
     We crossed the Delaware, between the town of Bristol, in
Pennsylvania, and the city of Burlington, in New Jersey.  We
halted for the night at the latter place, where we procured some
carrion beef, for it was not better.  We cooked it and ate some,
and carried the remainder away with us.  We had always, in the
army, to carry our cooking utensils in our hands by turns, and at
this time, as we were not overburthened with provisions, our mess
had put ours into our kettle, it not being very heavy, as it was
made of plated iron.  Before noon, I had the carriage of the
kettle and its contents, and thinking that I had carried it more
than my turn, and the troops just then making a momentary halt, I
put the kettle down in the road, telling my messmates that they
would not take their turns at carrying it I would carry it no
further.  They were cross and refused to take it up I was as
contrary as they were, so we all went on and left it. One of our
company in the next platoon, in the rear of us, took it up and
brought it on.  We marched about half a mile and made another
halt, when I turned round and saw the man who had taken care of
our kettle, with one or two others helping themselves to the
contents of it.  I wished the kettle in their throats, but I had
nothing to say, it was in part my own fault.  My messmates looked
rather grum, but had as little to say for themselves as I had. 
After the men had quieted their appetites one of them very
civilly came and gave me up the kettle, but the provisions were
mostly absent without leave.
     We halted for the night at a village called Haddington. (12)
We had nothing to eat, nor should we have had if our kettle had
kept us constant company.  We were put into the houses for
quarters during the night.  Myself and about a dozen more of the
company were put into a chamber where there was a fireplace but
no fire nor anything to make one with; it looked as if there had
been no fire there for seven years.  We, however, soon procured
wherewithal to make a fire with and were thus enabled to keep the
outside comfortable, let the inside do as it would.  There was no
other furniture in the room excepting an old quill wheel and an
old chair frame.  We procured a thick board and placed the ends
upon the wheel and chair and all sat down to regale ourselves
with the warmth, when the cat happening to come under the bench
to partake of the bounty, the board bending by the weight upon
it, both ends slipped off at once and brought us all slap to the
floor.  Upon taking up the board to replace it again we found the
poor cat, pressed as flat as a pancake, with her eyes started out
two inches from her head.  We did not eat her although my
appetite was sharp enough to have eaten almost anything that
could be eaten.
     After we had got regulated again, we began to contrive how
we were to behave in our present circumstances, as it regarded
belly timber.  At length, after several plans had been devised,
many "resolves proposed and all refused a passage," it was
finally determined that two or three of the most expert at the
business should sally forth and endeavor to procure something by
foraging.  Accordingly two of the club went out and shortly after
returned with a Hissian, a cant word with the soldiers, for a
goose.  The next difficulty was, how to pluck it; we were in a
chamber and had nothing to contain the feathers.  However, we
concluded at last to pick her over the fire and let that take
care of the feathers.  We dressed her and then divided her
amongst us.  If I remember rightly, I got one wing.  Each one
broiled his share and ate it, as usual, without bread or salt. 
After this sumptuous repast, I lay down and slept as well as a
gnawing stomach would permit. ln the morning we found a sad
witness of our overnight's adventure to testify against us; the
whole funnel of the chimney was stuck full of feathers from top
to bottom, and it being a very calm night the street opposite the
house was as full of them as the chimney. We would have set the
chimney on fire, but having nothing to do it with, we concluded
to let chimney and street unite in their testimony against us if
they pleased; but as we marched off early in the morning we heard
no more about the goose.
     There had been an expedition of the enemy's forces against a
fort of ours at a place called Red Bank, near this town. (13) Two
thousand Germans under the command of Colonel Commandant [Carl
von] Donop, who had begged the favor of the British Commander in
Chief of having the privilege of cutting the throats of about
five hundred brave Rhode Island Yankees, under the command of
Colonel [Christopher] Greene (uncle to the General of that name)
who commanded the garrison there.  And here was fought as
brilliant an action as was fought during the Revolutionary War,
considering the numbers engaged, Bunker Hill "to the contrary
notwithstanding." Five hundred men defeated two thousand of the
enemy, killed and wounded a large number, and mortally wounded
and took prisoner their commander.  So complete was the
discomfiture that the enemy threw their cannon into a creek that
they might have the carriages to carry off their wounded officers
on, left their provisions behind, and fled for their lives.  The
loss of the garrison was twenty-four killed and wounded.  This
action happened on the twenty-second day of October, 1777. I
could give a full description of it and of the consequences which
resulted from it, but that is foreign from my business, as I was
not personally engaged in it.  But why it has not been more
noticed by the historians of the times I cannot tell.
     This day we arrived at Woodbury, New Jersey, which was the
end of our present journey.  We encamped near the village,
planted our artillery in the road at each end of it, placed our
guards and prepared to go into Fort Mifflin, on Mud Island. (14)
The reason of my referring to the above-mentioned battle was that
we found several barrels of salted herrings which the enemy had
left in their flight, and as we had but a very small quantity of
provisions we were glad to get these. I endeavored to eat some of
them but found them miserable food. They appeared to have been
caught soon after the flood, and could neither be broiled nor
boiled so as to be made eatable.
     Immediately after our arrival at Woodbury, I was ordered
upon an advanced guard, about half a mile in advance of a bridge
which lay across a large creek, into which the tide flowed.  The
enemy's shipping lay in the river a little below us.  They had
also a fortification on the shore opposite to their shipping, at
a place called Billingsport.  There was a guard of the Jersey
militia in advance of us.  We used to make excursions in parties
of three or four, from our guard, into the neighborhood of the
enemy, and often picked up stragglers from their post and
shipping.
     I was soon relieved from this guard, and with those who were
able, of our two regiments, sent to reinforce those in the fort,
which was then besieged by the British.  Here I endured hardships
sufficient to kill half a dozen horses.  Let the reader only
consider for a moment and he will be satisfied if not sickened. 
In the cold month of November, without provisions, without
clothing, not a scrap of either shoes or stockings to my feet or
legs, and in this condition to endure a siege in such a place as
that was appalling in the highest degree.
     In confirmation of what I have here said, I will give the
reader a short description of the pen that I was confined in.
Confined I was, for it was next to impossible to have got away
from it, if I had been so disposed.  Well, the island, as it is
called, is nothing more than a mud flat in the Delaware, lying
upon the west side of the channel.  It is diked around the fort,
with sluices so constructed that the fort can be laid under water
at pleasure, (at least, it was so when I was there, and I presume
it has not grown much higher since.) On the eastern side, next
the main river, was a zigzag wall built of hewn stone built, as I
was informed, before the Revolution at the king's cost.  At the
southeastern part of the fortification (for fort it could not
with propriety be called) was a battery of several long
eighteen-pounders.  At the southwestern angle was another battery
with four or five twelve- and eighteen-pounders and one
thirty-two-pounder. At the northwestern corner was another small
battery with three twelve-pounders.  There were also three
blockhouses in different parts of the enclosure, but no cannon
mounted upon them, nor were they of any use whatever to us while
I was there.  On the western side, between the batteries, was a
high embankment, within which was a tier of palisadoes.  In front
of the stone wall, for about half its length, was another
embankment, with palisadoes on the inside of it, and a narrow
ditch between them and the stone wall.  On the western side of
the fortification was a row of barracks, extending from the
northern part of the works to about half the length of the fort. 
On the northern end was another block of barracks which reached
nearly across the fort from east to west.  In front of these was
a large square two-story house, for the accommodation of the
officers of the garrison.  Neither this house nor the barracks
were of much use at this time, for it was as much as a man's life
was worth to enter them, the enemy often directing their shot at
them in particular.  In front of the barracks and other necessary
places were parades and walks; the rest of the ground was soft
mud.  I have seen the enemy's shells fall upon it and sink so low
that their report could not be heard when they burst, and I could
only feel a tremulous motion of the earth at the time.  At other
times, when they burst near the surface of the ground, they would
throw the mud fifty feet in the air.
     The British had erected five batteries with six heavy guns
in each and a bomb battery with three long mortars in it on the
opposite side of the water, which separated the island from the
main on the west, and which was but a short distance across. 
They had also a battery of six guns a little higher up the river,
at a place called the Hospital Point.  This is a short
description of the place which I was destined, with a few others,
to defend against whatever force, land or marine, the enemy might
see fit to bring against it.
     The first attempt the British made against the place after I
entered it was by the _Augusta, a sixty-four-gun ship.  While
maneuvering one dark night she got on the chevaux-de-frise which
had been sunk in the channel of the river.  As soon as she was
discovered in the morning we plied her so well with hot shot,
that she was soon in flames.  Boats were sent from the shipping
below to her assistance, but our shot proving too hot for them,
they were obliged to leave her to her fate.  In an hour or two
she blew up with an explosion which seemed to shake the earth to
its center, leaving a volume of smoke like a thundercloud, which,
as the air was calm, remained an hour or two.  A twenty-gun ship
[the _Merlin] which had come to the assistance of the _Augusta in
her distress shared her fate soon after. (15)
     Our batteries were nothing more than old spars and timber
laid up in parallel lines and filled between with mud and dirt. 
The British batteries in the course of the day would nearly level
our works, and we were, like the beaver, obliged to repair our
dams in the night.  During the whole night, at intervals of a
quarter or half an hour, the enemy would let off all their
pieces, and although we had sentinels to watch them and at every
flash of their guns to cry, "a shot," upon hearing which everyone
endeavored to take care of himself, yet they would ever and anon,
in spite of all our precautions, cut up some of us.
     The engineer in the fort was a French officer by the name of
[Francois Louis de] Fleury, the same who struck the British flag
at the storming of Stony Point.  He was a very austere man and
kept us constantly employed day and night; there was no chance of
escaping from his vigilance.
     Between the stone wall and the palisadoes was a kind of yard
or pen, at the southern end of which was a narrow entrance not
more than eight or ten feet wide, with a ditch about four feet
wide in the middle, extending the whole length of the pen.  Here,
on the eastern side of the wall, was the only place in the fort
that anyone could be in any degree of safety.  Into this place we
used to gather the splinters broken off the palisadoes by the
enemy's shot and make a little fire, just enough to keep from
suffering.  We would watch an opportunity to escape from the
vigilance of Colonel Fleury, and run into this place for a minute
or two's respite from fatigue and cold.  When the engineer found
that the workmen began to grow scarce, he would come to the
entrance and call us out.  He had always his cane in his hand,
and woe betided him he could get a stroke at.  At his approach I
always jumped over the ditch and ran down on the other side, so
that he could not reach me, but he often noticed me and as often
threatened me, but threatening was all, he could never get a
stroke at me, and I cared but little for his threats.
     It was utterly impossible to lie down to get any rest or
sleep on account of the mud, if the enemy's shot would have
suffered us to do so.  Sometimes some of the men, when overcome
with fatigue and want of sleep, would slip away into the barracks
to catch a nap of sleep, but it seldom happened that they all
came out again alive.  I was in this place a fortnight and can
say in sincerity that I never lay down to sleep a minute in all
that time.
     The British knew the situation of the place as well as we
did.  And as their point-blank shot would not reach us behind the
wall, they would throw elevated grapeshot from their mortar, and
when the sentries had cried, "a shot," and the soldiers, seeing
no shot arrive, had become careless, the grapeshot would come
down like a shower of hail about our ears.
     I will here just mention one thing which will show the
apathy of our people at this time.  We had, as I mentioned
before, a thirty-two-pound cannon in the fort, but had not a
single shot for it.  The British also had one in their battery
upon the Hospital Point, which, as I said before, raked the fort,
or rather it was so fixed as to rake the parade in front of the
barracks, the only place we could pass up and down the fort.  The
artillery officers offered a gill of rum for each shot fired from
that piece, which the soldiers would procure.  I have seen from
twenty to fifty men standing on the parade waiting with
impatience the coming of the, shot, which would often be seized
before its motion had fully ceased and conveyed off to our gun to
be sent back again to its former owners.  When the lucky fellow
who had caught it had swallowed his rum, he would return to wait
for another, exulting that he had been more lucky or more
dexterous than his fellows.
     What little provisions we had was cooked by the invalids in
our camp and brought to the island in old flour barrels; it was
mostly corned beef and hard bread, but it was not much trouble to
cook or fetch what we had.
     We continued here, suffering cold, hunger and other
miseries, till the fourteenth day of November.  On that day, at
the dawn, we discovered six ships of the line, all sixty-fours, a
frigate of thirty-six guns, and a galley in a line just below the
_chevaux-de-frise; a twenty-four-gun ship (being an old ship cut
down,) her guns said to be all brass twenty-four-pounders, and a
sloop of six guns in company with her, both within pistol shot of
the fort, on the western side.  We immediately opened our
batteries upon them, but they appeared to take very little notice
of us.  We heated some shot, but by mistake twenty-four-pound
shot were heated instead of eighteen, which was the caliber of
the guns in that part of the fort.  The enemy soon began their
firing upon us and there was music indeed.  The soldiers were all
ordered to take their posts at the palisadoes, which they were
ordered to defend to the last extremity, as it was expected the
British would land under the fire of their cannon and attempt to
storm the fort. The cannonade was severe, as well it might be,
six sixty-four-gun ships, a thirty-six-gun frigate, a twenty-
four-gun ship, a galley and a sloop of six guns, together with
six batteries of six guns each and a bomb battery of three
mortars, all playing at once upon our poor little fort, if fort
it might be called.
     Some of our officers endeavored to ascertain how many guns
were fired in a minute by the enemy, but it was impossible, the
fire was incessant.  In the height of the cannonade it was
desirable to hoist a signal flag for some of our galleys that
were lying above us to come down to our assistance.  The officers
inquired who would undertake it.  As none appeared willing for
some time, I was about to offer my services.  I considered it no
more exposure of my life than it was to remain where I was.  The
flagstaff was of easy ascent, being an old ship's mast, having
shrouds to the ground, and the round top still remaining.  While
I was still hesitating, a sergeant of the artillery offered
himself. He accordingly ascended to the round top, pulled down
the flag to affix the signal flag to the halyard, upon which the
enemy, thinking we had struck, ceased firing in every direction
and cheered.  "Up with the flag!" was the cry of our officers in
every part of the fort.  The flags were accordingly hoisted, and
the firing was immediately renewed.  The sergeant then came down
and had not gone half a rod from the foot of the staff when he
was cut in two by a cannon shot.  This caused me some serious
reflections at the time.  He was killed! Had I been at the same
business I might have been killed, but it might have been
otherwise ordered by Divine Providence, we might have both lived.

I am not predestinarian enough to determine it.  The enemy's shot
cut us up.  I saw five artillerists belonging to one gun cut down
by a single shot, and I saw men who were stooping to be protected
by the works, but not stooping low enough, split like fish to be
broiled.
     About the middle of the day some of our galleys and floating
batteries, with a frigate, fell down and engaged the British with
their long guns, which in some measure took off the enemy's fire
from the fort.  The cannonade continued without interruption on
the side of the British throughout the day.  Nearly every gun in
the fort was silenced by mid-day. Our men were cut up like
cornstalks.  I do not know the exact number of the killed and
wounded but can say it was not small, considering the numbers in
the fort, which were only the able part of the Fourth and Eighth
Connecticut regiments, with a company or two of artillery,
perhaps less than five hundred in all.
     The cannonade continued, directed mostly at the fort, till
the dusk of the evening.  As soon as it was dark we began to make
preparations for evacuating the fort and endeavoring to escape to
the Jersey shore. (16) When the firing had in some measure
subsided and I could look about me, I found the fort exhibited a
picture of desolation.  The whole area of the fort was as
completely ploughed as a field.  The buildings of every kind
[were] hanging in broken fragments, and the guns all dismounted,
and how many of the garrison sent to the world of spirits, I knew
not.  If ever destruction was complete, it was here.  The
surviving part of the garrison were now drawn off and such of the
stores as could conveniently be taken away were carried to the
Jersey shore.
     I happened to be left with a party of seventy or eighty men
to destroy and burn all that was left in the place.  I was in the
northwest battery just after dark when the enemy were hauling
their shipping on that side higher up to a more commanding
position.  They were so nigh that I could hear distinctly what
they said on board the sloop.  One expression of theirs I well
remember.  "We will give it to the d--d rebels in the morning."
The thought that then occupied my mind I as well remember, "The
d--d rebels will show you a trick which the devil never will;
they will go off and leave you." After the troops had left the
fort and were embarking at the wharf, I went to the waterside to
find one of my messmates to whom I had lent my canteen in the
morning, as there were three or four hogsheads of rum in the
fort, the heads of which we were about to knock in, and I was
desirous to save a trifle of their contents.  There being nothing
to eat I thought I might have something to drink.  I found him,
indeed, but lying in a long line of dead men who had been brought
out of the fort to be conveyed to the main, to have the last
honors conferred upon them which it was in our power to give. 
Poor young man! He was the most intimate associate I had in the
army, but he was gone, with many more as deserving of regard as
himself.
     I returned directly back into the fort to my party and
proceeded to set fire to everything that would burn, and then
repaired immediately to the wharf where three batteaux were
waiting to convey us across the river.  And now came on another
trial.  Before we could embark the buildings in the fort were
completely in flames. and they threw such a light upon the water
that we were as plainly seen by the British as though it had been
broad day.  Almost their whole fire was directed at us. 
Sometimes our boat seemed to be almost thrown out of the water,
and at length a shot took the sternpost out of the rear boat.  We
had then to stop and take the men from the crippled boat into the
other two, and now the shot and water flew merrily, but by the
assistance of a kind Providence we escaped without any further
injury and landed, a little after midnight, on the Jersey shore.
     We marched a little back into some pitch-pine woods, where
we found the rest of the troops that had arrived before us.  They
had made up some comfortable fires and were enjoying the warmth,
and that was all the comfort they had to partake of, except rest,
for victuals was out of the question.  I wrapped myself up in my
blanket and lay down upon the leaves and soon fell asleep and
continued so till past noon, when I awoke from the first sound
sleep I had had for a fortnight.  Indeed, I had not laid down in
all that time.  The little sleep I had obtained was in cat naps,
sitting up and leaning against the wall, and I thought myself
fortunate if I could do that much.  When I awoke I was as crazy
as a goose shot through the head.
     We left our flag flying when we left the island, and the
enemy did not take possession of the fort till late in the
morning after we left it.  We left one man in the fort who had
taken too large a dose of "the good creature." He was a deserter
from the German forces in the British service.  The British took
him to Philadelphia, where, not being known by them, he engaged
again in their service, received two or three guineas bounty,
drew a British uniform and came back to us again at the Valley
Forge. So they did not make themselves independent fortunes by
the capture of him.
     Here ends the account of as hard and fatiguing a job, for
the time it lasted, as occurred during the Revolutionary War. 
Thomas Paine, in one of his political essays, speaking of the
siege and defense of this post, says, "They had nothing but their
bravery and good conduct to cover them." He spoke the truth.  I
was at the siege and capture of Lord Cornwallis, and the
hardships of that were no more to be compared with this than the
sting of a bee is to the bite of a rattlesnake.  But there has
been but little notice taken of it, the reason of which is, there
was no Washington, Putnam, or Wayne there.  Had there been, the
affair would have been extolled to the skies.  No, it was only a
few officers and soldiers who accomplished it in a remote quarter
of the army.  Such circumstances and such troops generally get
but little notice taken of them, do what they will. Great men get
great praise; little men, nothing.  But it always was so and
always will be.  Said the officers in King David's army, when
going out against rebel Absalom, "Thou shalt not go out with us,
for if half of us die they will not care for us.  But now thou
art worth ten thousand of us." And this has been the burden of
the song ever since, and I presume ever will be.
     We now prepared to leave Red Bank. (17) I was ordered on a
baggage guard; it was not disagreeable to me as I had a chance to
ride in a wagon a considerable part of the night.  We went in
advance of the troops, which made it much easier getting along.
We had been encouraged during the whole siege with the promise of
relief.  "Stand it out a little longer and we shall be relieved,"
had been the constant cry.  The second day of our march we met
two regiments advancing to relieve us.  When asked where they
were going, they said to relieve the garrison in the fort.  We
informed them that the British had done that already.
     Our guard passed through Haddington (18) in the night; heard
nothing of the goose or murdered cat.  We arrived early in the
morning at a pretty village called Milltown or Mount Holly.  Here
we waited for the troops to come up.  I was as near starved with
hunger as ever I wish to be.  I strolled into a large yard where
was several sawmills and a gristmill.  I went into the latter,
thinking it probable that the dust made there was more palatable
than that made in the former, but I found nothing there to
satisfy my hunger.  But there was a barrel standing behind the
door with some salt in it. Salt was as valuable as gold with the
soldiers.  I filled my pocket with it and went out.  In the yard
and about it was a plenty of geese, turkeys, ducks, and barn-door
fowls.  I obtained a piece of an ear of Indian corn, and seating
myself on a pile of boards, began throwing the corn to the fowls,
which soon drew a fine battalion of them about me.  I might have
taken as many as I pleased, but I took up one only, wrung off its
head, dressed and washed it in the stream seasoned it with some
of my salt, and stalked into the first house that fell in my way,
invited myself into the kitchen, took down the gridiron and put
my fowl to cooking upon the coals.  The women of the house were
all the time going and coming to and from the room.  They looked
at me but said nothing.  "They asked me no questions and I told
them no lies." When my game was sufficiently broiled, I took it
by the hind leg and made my exit from the house with as little
ceremony as I had made my entrance.  When I got into the street I
devoured it after a very short grace and felt as refreshed as the
old Indian did when he had eaten his crow roasted in the ashes
with the feathers and entrails.
     We marched from hence and crossed the Delaware again between
Burlington and Bristol.  Here we procured a day's ration of
southern salt pork (three fourths of a pound) and a pound of sea
bread.  We marched a little distance and stopped "to refresh
ourselves." We kindled some fires in the road, and some broiled
their meat; as for myself, I ate mine raw.  We quickly started on
and marched till evening, when we went into a wood for the night.

We did not pitch our tents, and about midnight it began to rain
very hard, which soon put out all our fires and we had to lie
"and weather it out." The troops marched again before day.  I had
sadly sprained my ankle the day before and it was much swelled. 
My lieutenant told me to stay where I was till day and then come
on. Just as I was about to start off, our Brigadier General
[James M. Varnum] and suite passed by and seeing me there alone,
stopped his horse and asked me what I did there.  I told him that
Lieutenant S-- ordered me to remain there till daylight. Says he,
"Lieutenant S-- deserves to have his throat cut," and then went
on.  I had finished my pork and bread for supper, consequently
had nothing for this day.  I hobbled on as well as I could.  The
rain and traveling of the troops and baggage had converted the
road into perfect mortar and it was extremely difficult for me to
make headway.  I worried on, however, till sometime in the
afternoon, when I went into a house where I procured a piece of a
buckwheat slapjack.  With this little refreshment I proceeded on
and just before night overtook the troops.  We continued our
march until sometime after dark, when we arrived in the vicinity
of the main army.  We again turned into a wood for the night. 
The leaves and ground were as wet as water could make them.  It
was then foggy and the water dropping from the trees like a
shower.  We endeavored to get fire by flashing powder on the
leaves, but this and every other expedient that we could employ
failing, we were forced by our old master, Necessity, to lay down
and sleep if we could, with three others of our constant
companions, Fatigue, Hunger, and Cold.
     Next morning we joined the grand army near Philadelphia, and
the heavy baggage being sent back to the rear of the army, we
were obliged to put us up huts by laying up poles and covering
them with leaves, a capital shelter from winter storms.  Here we
continued to fast; indeed we kept a continual Lent as faithfully
as ever any of the most rigorous of the Roman Catholics did.  But
there was this exception, we had no fish or eggs or any other
substitute for our commons.  Ours was a real fast and, depend
upon it, we were sufficiently mortified.
     About this time the whole British army left the city, came
out, and encamped, or rather lay, on Chestnut Hill in our
immediate neighborhood.  We hourly expected an attack from them;
we had a commanding position and were very sensible of it.  We
were kept constantly on the alert, and wished nothing more than
to have them engage us, for we were sure of giving them a
drubbing, being in excellent fighting trim, as we were starved
and as cross and ill-natured as curs.  The British, however,
thought better of the matter, and, after several days maneuvering
on the hill, very civilly walked off into Philadelphia again.
     Starvation seemed to be entailed upon the army and every
animal connected with it.  The oxen, brought from New England for
draught, all died, and the southern horses fared no better; even
the wild animals that had any concern with us suffered.  A poor
little squirrel, who had the ill luck to get cut off from the
woods and fixing himself on a tree standing alone and surrounded
by several of the soldier's huts, sat upon the tree till he
starved to death and fell off the tree.  He, however, got rid of
his misery soon.  He did not live to starve by piecemeal six or
seven years.
     While we lay here, there happened very remarkable northern
lights.  At one time the a whole visible heavens appeared for
some time as if covered with crimson velvet.  Some of the
soldiers prognosticated a bloody battle about to be fought, but
time, which always speaks the truth, proved them to be false
prophets.
     Soon after the British had quit their position on Chestnut
Hill, we left this place and after marching and countermarching
back and forward some days, we crossed the Schuylkill in a cold,
rainy and snowy night [December 12] upon a bridge of wagons set
end to end and joined together by boards and planks.  And after a
few days more maneuvering we at last settled down at a place
called "the Gulf" (19) (so named on account of a remarkable chasm
in the hills) and here we encamped some time, and here we had
liked to have encamped forever - for starvation here _rioted in
its glory.  But lest the reader should be disgusted at hearing so
much said about "starvation," I will give him something that,
perhaps, may in some measure alleviate his ill humor. 
     While we lay here there was a Continental Thanksgiving
ordered by Congress; and as the army had all the cause in the
world to be particularly thankful, if not for being well off, at
least that it was no worse, we were ordered to participate in it.

We had nothing to eat for two or three days previous, except what
the trees of the fields and forests afforded us. But we must now
have what Congress said, a sumptuous Thanksgiving to close the
year of high living we nearly seen brought to a close.  Well, to
add something extraordinary to our present stock of provisions
our country, ever mindful of its suffering army, opened her
sympathizing heart so wide, upon this occasion, as to give us
something to make the world stare.  And what do you think it was,
reader? Guess.  You cannot guess, be you as much of a Yankee as
you will. I will tell you; it gave each and every man _half _a
_gill of rice and a _tablespoonful of vinegar!
     After we had made sure of this extraordinary superabundant
donation, we were ordered out to attend a meeting and hear a
sermon delivered upon the happy occasion.  We accordingly went,
for we could not help it.  I heard a sermon, "thanksgiving
sermon," what sort of one I do not know now, nor did I at the
time I heard it.  I had something else to think upon.  My belly
put me in remembrance of the fine Thanksgiving dinner I was to
partake of when I could get it. I can I remember the text, like
an attentive lad at church.  I can _still remember that it was
this, "And the soldiers said unto him, And what shall we do? And
he said unto them, Do violence to no man, nor accuse anyone
falsely." The preacher ought to have added the remainder of the
sentence to have made it complete, "And be content with your
wages." But that would not do, it would be too apropos.  However,
he heard it as soon as the service was over, it was shouted from
a hundred tongues.  Well, we had got through the services of the
day and had nothing to do but to return in good order to our
tents and fare as we could.  As we returned to our camp, we
passed by our commissary's quarters. All his stores, consisting
of a barrel about two-thirds full of hocks of fresh beef, stood
directly in our way, but there was sentinel guarding even that. 
However, one of my messmates purloined a piece of it, four or
five pounds perhaps.  I was exceeding glad to see him take it; I
thought it might help to eke out our Thanksgiving supper, but
alas I how soon my expectations were blasted! The sentinel saw
him have it as soon as I did and obliged him to return it to the
barrel again.  So I had nothing else to do but to go home and
make out my supper as usual, upon a leg of nothing and no
turnips.
     The army was now not only starved but naked.  The greatest
part were not only shirtless and barefoot, but destitute of all
other clothing, especially blankets.  I procured a small piece of
raw cowhide and made myself a pair of moccasins, which kept my
feet (while they lasted) from the frozen ground, although, as I
well remember, the hard edges so galled my ankles, while on a
march, that it was with much difficulty and pain that I could
wear them afterwards; but the only alternative I had was to
endure this inconvenience or to go barefoot, as hundreds of my
companions had to, till they might be tracked by their blood upon
the rough frozen ground.  But hunger, nakedness and sore shins
were not the only difficulties we had at that time to encounter;
we had hard duty to perform and little or no strength to perform
it with.
     The army continued at and near the Gulf for some days, after
which we marched for the Valley Forge in order to take up our
winter quarters.  We were now in a truly forlorn condition, - no
clothing, no provisions and as disheartened as need be.  We
arrived, however, at our destination a few days before Christmas.

Our prospect was indeed dreary.  In our miserable condition, to
go into the wild woods and build us habitations to stay (not to
live) in, in such a weak, starved and naked condition, was
appalling in the highest degree, especially to New Englanders,
unaccustomed to such kind of hardships at home.  However, there
was no remedy, no alternative but this or dispersion.  But
dispersion, I believe, was not thought of, at least, I did not
think of it.  We had engaged in the defense of our injured
country and were willing, nay, we were determined to persevere as
long as such hardships were not altogether intolerable.  I had
experienced what I thought sufficient of the hardships of a
military life the year before, although nothing in comparison to
what I had suffered the present campaign, and therefore expected
to meet with rubbers.  But we were now absolutely in danger of
perishing, and that too, in the midst of a plentiful country. We
then had but little and often nothing to eat for days together;
but now we had nothing and saw no likelihood of any betterment of
our condition.  Had there fallen deep snows (and it was the time
of year to expect them) or even heavy and long rainstorms, the
whole army must inevitably have perished. Or had the enemy,
strong and well provided as he then was, thought fit to pursue
us, our poor emaciated carcasses must have "strewed the plain."
But a kind and holy Providence took more notice and better care
of us than did the country in whose service we were wearing away
our lives by piecemeal.
     We arrived at the Valley Forge in the evening [December 18].
It was dark; there was no water to be found and I was perishing
with thirst.  I searched for water till I was weary and came to
my tent without finding any.  Fatigue and thirst, joined with
hunger, almost made me desperate.  I felt at that instant as if I
would have taken victuals or drink from the best friend I had on
earth by force.  I am not writing fiction, all are sober
realities.  Just after I arrived at my tent, two soldiers, whom I
did not know, passed by.  They had some water in their canteens
which they told me they had found a good distance off, but could
not direct me to the place as it was very dark.  I tried to beg a
draught of water from them but they were as rigid as Arabs.  At
length I persuaded them to sell me a drink for three pence,
Pennsylvania currency, which was every cent of property I could
then call my own, so great was the necessity I was then reduced
to.
     I lay here two nights and one day and had not a morsel of
anything to eat all the time, save half of a small pumpkin, which
I cooked by placing it upon a rock, the skin side uppermost, and
making a fire upon it.  By the time it was heat through I
devoured it with as keen an appetite as I should a pie made of it
at some other time.
     The second evening after our arrival here I was warned to be
ready for a two days command.  I never heard a summons to duty
with so much disgust before or since as I did that.  How I could
endure two days more fatigue without nourishment of some sort I
could not tell, for I heard nothing said about "provisions."
However, in the morning at roll call, I was obliged to comply.  I
went to the parade where I found a considerable number, ordered
upon the same business, whatever it was.  We were ordered to go
to the quartermaster general and receive from him our final
orders.  We accordingly repaired to his quarters, which was about
three miles from camp. (20) Here we understood that our
destiny was to go into the country on a foraging expedition,
which was nothing more nor less than to procure provisions from
the inhabitants for the men in the army and forage for the poor
perishing cattle belonging to it, at the point of the bayonet. 
We stayed at the quartermaster general's quarters till sometime
in the afternoon, during which time a beef creature was butchered
for us.  I well remember what fine stuff it was, it was quite
transparent.  I thought at that time what an excellent lantern it
would make.  I was, notwithstanding, very glad to get some of it,
bad as it looked.  We got, I think, two days allowance of it and
some sort of bread kind, I suppose, for I do not remember
particularly about that, but it is probable we did.  We were then
divided into several parties and sent off upon our expedition.
     Our party consisted of a lieutenant, a sergeant, a corporal
and eighteen privates.  We marched till night when we halted and
took up our quarters at a large farmhouse.  The lieutenant,
attended by his waiter, took up his quarters for the night in the
hall with the people of the house.  We were put into the kitchen.
We had a snug room and a comfortable fire, and we began to think
about cooking some of our _fat beef.  One of the men proposed to
the landlady to sell her a shirt for some sauce.  She very
readily took the shirt, which was worth a dollar at least.  She
might have given us a mess of sauce, for I think she would not
have suffered poverty by so doing, as she seemed to have a plenty
of all things.  After we had received the sauce, we went to work
to cook our supper.  By the time it was eatable the family had
gone to rest.  We saw where the woman went into the cellar, and,
she having left us a candle, we took it into our heads that a
little good cider would not make our supper relish any the worse;
so some of the men took the water pail and drew it full of
excellent cider, which did not fail to raise our spirits
considerably.  Before we lay down the man who sold the shirt,
having observed that the landlady had flung it into a closet,
took a notion to repossess it again.  We marched off early in the
morning before the people of the house were stirring,
consequently did not know or see the woman's chagrin at having
been overreached by the soldiers.
     This day we arrived at Milltown, or Downingstown, a small
village halfway between Philadelphia and Lancaster, which was to
be our quarters for the winter.  It was dark when we had finished
our day's march.  There was a commissary and a wagon master
general stationed here, the commissary to take into custody the
provisions and forage that we collected, and the wagon master
general to regulate the conduct of the wagoners and direct their
motions.  The next day after our arrival at this place we were
put into a small house in which was only one room, in the center
of the village.  We were immediately furnished with rations of
good and wholesome beef and flour, built us up some berths to
sleep in, and filled them with straw, and felt as happy as any
other pigs that were no better off than ourselves.  And now
having got into winter quarters and ready to commence our
foraging business, I shall here end my account of my second
campaign.

* Footnotes *
     (1) The term "recruited" is used here for resting and
restoring strength.

     (2) The first two years of the war had demonstrated that the
contest could not be carried on successfully with short-term
troops. Therefore, in the fall of 1776, Congress authorized
eighty-eight infantry regiments to serve until the end of the
war, unless otherwise ordered.  Connecticut was to furnish eight
regiments.  Soldiers could enlist for one of two terms of
service, either for three years or "during the war." On April 12,
1777, Martin reenlisted for the duration in Captain David Smith's
Company, Colonel John Chandler's Eighth Connecticut Regiment of
Continentals.

     (3) General William Tryon raided Danbury on April 76, 1777. 
The hastily assembled American troops attacked him on his
withdrawal to his transports on the twenty-seventh and
twenty-eighth. Arnold's horse was shot, and he narrowly escaped
capture.

     (4) Absent from the army from Christmas, 1776, until April,
1777, Martin had participated neither in Washington's
disheartening retreat into New Jersey after the loss of New York
nor in his brilliant actions at Trenton and Princeton.  Following
these engagements, Washington had gone into winter quarters at
Morristown, New Jersey, with what was left of his army, 
diminished to almost nothing by the expiration of short-term
enlistments, to await spring and new forces.  Apprehending enemy
operations from both the headwaters and the mouth of the Hudson,
he concentrated the incoming New Englanders at Peekskill to
reinforce the troops already guarding the Hudson Highlands.

     (5) When a smallpox epidemic threatened his army in the
winter of 1776, Washington, realizing "we should have more to
dread from it, than from the Sword of the Enemy," determined that
all troops should be inoculated.  Inoculation usually induced
typical smallpox and was often greatly feared.  Patients were
quarantined under guard in inoculation hospitals to prevent their
going abroad before being medically discharged and spreading the
disease.  To conceal from the enemy the weakening of his army by
mass inoculation, Washington cautioned his physician in chief to
keep "the matter as secret as possible."

     (6) Forts Montgomery and neighboring Clinton, west of the
Hudson about four miles north of Peekskill, were considered
guardian defenses of the Highlands

     (7) The Connecticut Line remained at Peekskill for some
months, with occasional expeditions toward King's Bridge, while
Washington met Howe at Brandywine on September 11, 1777, was
outflanked, and lost Philadelphia to the enemy.  When Washington
then planned to attack Howe's main body, which Howe had encamped
some five miles northwest of Philadelphia at Germantown, he
ordered Putnam, in command in the Highlands, to send
reinforcements.  Martin's regiment was one of four forwarded
under General Alexander McDougall, who was assigned to General
Nathanael Greene's Division on the left flank of the army.

     (8)  Thus Martin recounts the Battle of Germantown, October
4, 1777

     (9) Following the battle, Washington marched his men back
twenty-four miles to Pennypacker's Mill before encamping.

     (10) Washington moved in to White Marsh after he learned, on
October 15, that Howe had withdrawn his whole force into
Philadelphia.

     (11) To protect the capital city, the Americans had
fortified the Delaware River with three forts and
_chevaux-de-frise in the river. Unless Howe could open the river
for communication and supply, he could neither use Philadelphia
to advantage nor hold it against rebel assault.  He had taken
possession of one of the forts, at Billingsport, twelve miles
below Camden, on September 9. 

     (12) Haddonfield, New Jersey.

     (13) This was Fort Mercer, five miles above Billingsport.

     (14) Fort Mifflin was on Port Island in the river, some
nineteen hundred yards from Fort Mercer at Red Bank. In
contemporary accounts Mud Island often was confused with Port
Island, a few hundred yards downstream.  Woodbury was a village
where Woodbury Creek flowed into the river at Red Bank.

     (15) The _Augusta and the _Merlin were destroyed in the
October 22 assault on Fort Mercer.  In placing this action during
the assault on Fort Mifflin, Martin seems to have made one of his
few errors of recollection.  If he arrived at Red Bank on October
22, as he implies, he might well have seen the destruction of the
ships on the morning of the twenty-third and later confused it
with the naval action which preceded the collapse of Fort Mifflin
in November.  The vessels met their fate exactly as he describes
it.

     (16) The fort was evacuated during the night of November
15-16.

     (17) Fort Mercer at Red Bank was evacuated during the night
of November 20-21.

     (18) Haddonfield, New Jersey.

     (19) Three miles beyond the Schuylkill on Gulf Creek,
Present-day West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

     (20) General Thomas Mifflin was acting quartermaster
general, though he had resigned.  However, he was not at valley
Forge at this time.

CHAPTER IV
Campaign of 1778

     A serene and cloudless atmosphere
     Betokens that a storm is near;
     So when Dame Fortune proves most kind,
     Be sure, Miss-Fortune's close behind.

     As there was no cessation of duty in the army, I must
commence another campaign as soon as the succeeding one is ended.
There was no going home and spending the winter season among
friends and procuring a new recruit of strength and spirits.  No,
it was one constant drill, summer and winter; like an old horse
in a mill, it was a continual routine.
     The first expedition I undertook in my new vocation was a
foraging cruise.  I was ordered off into the country in a party
consisting of a corporal and six men.  What our success was I do
not now remember, but I will remember the transactions of the
party in the latter part of the journey.  We were returning to
our quarters on Christmas afternoon, when we met three ladies,
one a young married woman with an infant in her arms, the other
two were maidens, for aught I knew then or since, they passed for
such. They were all comely, particularly one of them; she was
handsome.  They immediately fell into familiar discourse with us,
were very inquisitive like the rest of the sex, asked us a
thousand questions respecting our business, where we had been and
where going, &c.  After we had satisfied their curiosity, or at
least had endeavored to do so, they told us that they (that is,
the two youngest) lived a little way on our road in a house which
they described, desired us to call in and rest ourselves a few
minutes, and said they would return as soon as they had seen
their sister and babe safe home.
     As for myself, I was very unwell, occasioned by a violent
cold I had recently taken, and I was very glad to stop a short
time to rest my bones.  Accordingly, we stopped at the house
described by the young ladies, and in a few minutes they returned
as full of chat as they were when we met them in the road.  After
a little more information respecting our business, they proposed
to us to visit one of their neighbors, against whom it seemed
they had a grudge and upon whom they wished to wreak their
vengeance through our agency.  To oblige the ladies we undertook
to obey their injunctions.  They very readily agreed to be our
guides as the way lay across fields and pastures full of bushes. 
The distance was about half a mile and directly out of our way to
our quarters.  The girls went with us until we came in sight of
the house.  We concluded we could do no less than fulfill our
engagements with them; so we went into the house, the people of
which appeared to be genuine Pennsylvania farmers and very fine
folks.
     We all now began to relent, and after telling them our
business, we concluded that if they would give us a canteen
(which held about a quart) full of whiskey and some bread and
cheese, we would depart without any further exactions.  To get
rid of us, doubtless, the man of the house gave us our canteen of
whiskey and the good woman gave us a fine loaf of wheaten flour
bread and the whole of a small cheese, and we raised the siege
and departed.  I was several times afterwards at this house and
was always well treated.  I believe the people did not recollect
me and I was glad they did not, for when I saw them I had always
a twinge or two of conscience for thus dissembling with them at
the instigation of persons who certainly were no better than they
should be, or they would not have employed strangers to glut
their vengeance upon innocent people, innocent at least as it
respected us.  But after, it turned much in their favor.  It was
in our power to take cattle or horses, hay, or any other produce
from them, but we felt that we had done wrong in listening to the
tattle of malicious neighbors and for that cause we refrained
from meddling with any property of theirs ever after.  So that
good came to them out of intended evil.
     After we had received our bread, cheese and whiskey, we
struck across the fields into the highway again.  It was now
nearly sunset, and as soon as we had got into the road, the
youngest of the girls, and handsomest and chattiest, overtook us
again, riding on horseback with a gallant.  As soon as she came
up with us, "O here is my little Captain again," said she. (It
appeared it was our corporal that attracted her attention.) "I am
glad to see you again."
     The young man, her sweetheart, did not seem to wish her to
be quite so familiar with her "little Captain," and urged on his
horse as fast as possible.  But female policy is generally too
subtle for the male's, and she exhibited a proof of it, for they
had scarcely passed us when she slid from the horse upon her
feet, into the road, with a shriek as though some frightful
accident had happened to her.  There was nothing handy to serve  
as a horse block, so the "little Captain" must take her in his
arms and set her upon her horse again, much, I suppose, to their
mutual satisfaction, but not so to her gallant, who, as I
thought, looked rather grum.
     We had now five miles to travel to reach our quarters, and I
was sick indeed, but we got to our home sometime in the evening,
and I soon went to sleep; in the morning I was better.
     When I was inoculated with the smallpox I took that
delectable disease, the itch; it was given us, we supposed, in
the infection.  We had no opportunity, or, at least, we had
nothing to cure ourselves with during the whole season.  All who
had the smallpox at Peekskill had it.  We often applied to our
officers for assistance to clear ourselves from it, but all we
could get was, "Bear it as patiently as you can, when we get into
winter quarters you will have leisure and means to rid yourselves
of it." I had it to such a degree that by the time I got into
winter quarters I could scarcely lift my hands to my head.  Some
of our foraging party had acquaintances in the artillery and by
their means we procured sulphur enough to cure all that belonged
to our detachment. Accordingly, we made preparations for a
general attack upon it.
     The first night one half of the party commenced the action
by mixing a sufficient quantity of brimstone and tallow, which
was the only grease we could get, at the same time not forgetting
to mix a plenty of hot whiskey toddy, making up a hot blazing
fire and laying down an oxhide upon the hearth.  Thus prepared
with arms and ammunition, we began the operation by plying each
other's outsides with brimstone and tallow and the inside with
hot whiskey sling.  Had the animalcule of the itch been endowed
with reason they would have quit their entrenchments and taken
care of themselves when we had made such a formidable attack upon
them, but as it was we had to engage, arms in hand, and we
obtained a complete victory, though it had like to have cost some
of us our lives.  Two of the assailants were so overcome, not by
the enemy, but by their too great exertions in the action, that
they lay all night naked upon the field.  The rest of us got to
our berths somehow, as well as we could; but we killed the itch
and we were satisfied, for it had almost killed us.  This was a
decisive victory, the only one we had achieved lately.  The next
night the other half of our men took their turn, but, taking
warning by our mishaps, they conducted their part of the battle
with comparatively little trouble or danger to what we had
experienced on our part.
     I shall not relate all the minute transactions which passed
while I was on this foraging party, as it would swell my
narrative to too large a size.  I will, however, give the reader
a brief account of some of my movements that I may not leave him
entirely ignorant how I spent my time.  We fared much better than
I had ever done in the army before, or ever did afterwards.  We
had very good provisions all winter and generally enough of them.

Some of us were constantly in the country with the wagons; we
went out by turns and had no one to control us.  Our lieutenant
scarcely ever saw us or we him.  Our sergeant never went out with
us once, all the time we were there, nor our corporal but once,
and that was when he was the "little Captain." When we were in
the country we were pretty sure to fare well, for the inhabitants
were remarkably kind to us.  We had no guards to keep; our only
duty was to help load the wagons with hay, corn, meal, or
whatever they were to take off, and when they were thus loaded,
to keep them company till they arrived at the commissary's, at
Milltown; from thence the articles, whatever they were, were
carried to camp in other vehicles under other guards.
     I do not remember that during the time I was employed in
this business, which was from Christmas to the latter part of
April, even to have met with the least resistance from the
inhabitants, take what we would from their barns, mills,
corncribs, or stalls, but when came to their stables, then look
out for the women.  Take what horse you would, it was one or the
other's "pony" and they had no other ride to church.  And when we
had got possession of a horse we were sure to have half a dozen
or more women pressing upon us, until by some means or other, if
possible, they would slip the bridle from the horse's head, and
then we might catch him again if we could.  They would take no
more notice of a charged bayonet than a blind horse would of a
cocked pistol.  It would answer no purpose to threaten to kill
them with the bayonet or musket; they knew as well as we did that
we would not put our threats in execution, and when they had thus
liberated a horse (which happened but seldom) they would laugh at
us and ask us why we did not do as we threatened, kill them, and
then they would generally ask us into their houses and treat with
as much kindness as though nothing had happened.
     The women of Pennsylvania, taken in general, are certainly
very worthy characters.  It is but justice, as far as I am
concerned, for me to say that I was always well treated both by
them and the men, especially the Friends or Quakers, in every
part of the state through which I passed, and that was the
greater part of what was then inhabited.  But the southern ladies
had a queer idea of the Yankees (as they always called the New
Englanders); they seemed to think that they were a people quite
different from themselves, as indeed they were in many respects. 
I could mention things and ways in which they differed, but it is
of no consequence; they were clever and that is sufficient.  I
will, however, mention one little incident, just to show what
their conceptions were of us.
     I happened once to be with some wagons, one of which was
detached from the party.  I went with this team as its guard.  We
stopped at a house, the mistress of which and the wagoner were
acquainted. (These foraging teams all belonged in the
neighborhood of our quarters.) She had a pretty female child
about four years old.  The teamster was praising the child,
extolling its gentleness and quietness, when the mother observed
that it had been quite cross and crying all day.  "I have been
threatening," said she, "to give her to the Yankees." "Take
care," said the wagoner, "how you speak of the Yankees, I have
one of them here with me." "La!" said the woman.  "Is he a
Yankee? I thought he was a Pennsylvanian.  I don't see any
difference between him and other people."
     I have before said that I should not narrate all the little
affairs which transpired while I was on this foraging party.  But
if I pass them all over in silence the reader may perhaps think
that I had nothing to do all winter, or at least, that I did
nothing, when in truth it was quite the reverse.  Our duty was
hard, but generally not altogether unpleasant.  I had to travel
far and near, in cold and in storms, by day and by night, and at
all times to run the _risk of abuse, if not of injury, from the
inhabitants when _plundering them of their property, for I could
not, while in the very act of taking their cattle, hay, corn and
grain from them against their wills, consider it a whit better
than plundering - sheer privateering. But I will give them the
credit of never receiving the least abuse or injury from an
individual during the whole time I was employed in this business.

I doubt whether the people of New England would have borne it as
patiently, their "steady habits" to the contrary notwithstanding.
     Being once in a party among the Welch mountains, (1) there
came on a tedious rainstorm which continued three or four days. 
I happened to be at a farmer's house with one or two of the wagon
masters.  The man of the house was from home and the old lady
rather crabbed; she knew our business and was therefore inclined
to be rather unsociable.  The first day she would not give us
anything to eat but some scraps of cold victuals, the second day
she grew a little more condescending, and on the third day she
boiled a potful of good beef, pork, and sauerkraut for us. "Never
mind," said one of the wagon masters to me, "mother comes on, she
will give us roasted turkeys directly."
     There was a little Negro boy belonging to the house, about
five or six years of age, who, the whole time I was there, sat
upon a stool in the chimney corner; indeed, he looked as if he
had sat there ever since he was born.  One of the wagon masters
said to the landlady one day, "Mother, is that your son that sits
in the corner?" "My son!" said she. "Why don't you see he is a
Negro?" "A Negro! Is he?" said the man.  "Why I really thought he
was your son, only that he had sat there until he was
smoke-dried."
     While the storm continued, to pass our time several of our
party went to a tavern in the neighborhood.  We here gambled a
little for some liquor by throwing a small dart or stick, armed
at one end with a pin, at a mark on the ceiling of the room. 
While I was at this amusement I found that the landlord and I
bore the same name, and upon further discourse I found that he
had a son about my age, whose given name was the same as mine. 
This son was taken prisoner at Fort Lee, on the Hudson River, in
the year 1776, and died on his way home.  These good people were
almost willing to persuade themselves that I was their son. 
There were two very pretty girls, sisters to the deceased young
man, who seemed wonderfully taken up with me, called me
"brother," and I fared none the worse for my name.  I used often,
afterwards, in my cruises to that part of the state, to call in
as I passed, and was always well treated by the whole family. 
The landlord used to fill my canteen with whiskey or peach or
cider brandy to enable me, as he said, to climb the Welch
mountains.  I always went there with pleasure and left with
regret.  I often wished afterwards that I could find more
namesakes.
     I was sent one day, with another man of our party, to drive
some cattle to the quartermaster general's quarters.  It was dark
when we arrived there.  After we had delivered the cattle, an
officer belonging to the quartermaster general's department asked
me if I had a canteen.  I answered in the negative.  I had left
mine at my quarters.  "A soldier," said he, "should always have a
canteen," and I was sorry that I was just then deficient of that
article, for he gave us a half-pint tumblerful of genuine old
Jamaica spirits, which was, like Boniface's ale, "as smooth as
oil." It was too late to return to our quarters that night, so we
concluded to go to camp, about three miles distant, and see our
old messmates.  Our stomachs being empty, the spirits began to
take hold of both belly and brains.  I soon became very faint,
but, as good luck would have it, my companion happened to have a
part of a dried neat's tongue, which he had plundered somewhere
in his travels.  We fell to work upon that and soon demolished
it, which refreshed us much and enabled us to reach camp without
suffering shipwreck.  There was nothing to be had at camp but a
little rest and that was all we asked.
     In the morning it was necessary to have a pass from the
commander of the regiment to enable us to pass the guards on our
return to our quarters in the country.  My captain gave me one,
and then it must be countersigned by the colonel.  When I entered
the colonel's hut, "Where have you been" (calling me by name)
"this winter?" said he.  "Why, you are as fat as a pig.  I told
him I had been foraging in the country.  "I think," said he, "you
have taken care of yourself; I believe we must keep you here and
send another man in your stead, that he may recruit himself a
little." I told him that I was sent to camp on _particular
business and with strict orders to return, and that no one else
could do so well.  Finally, he signed my pass and I soon hunted
up the other man when we left the camp in as great a hurry as
though the plague had been there.
     But the time at length came when we were obliged to go to
camp for good and all, whether we chose it or not.  An order from
headquarters required all stationed parties and guards to be
relieved, that all who had not had the smallpox might have an
opportunity to have it before the warm weather came on. 
Accordingly about the last of April we were relieved by a party
of southern troops.  The commissary, who was a native of
Connecticut, although at the commencement of the war he resided
in Philadelphia, told us that he was sorry we were going away,
for, said he, "I do not much like these men with one eye
(alluding to their practice of gouging).  I am acquainted with
you and if any men are wanted here I should prefer those from my
own section of the country to entire strangers." Although we
would have very willingly obliged him with our company, yet it
could not be so, we must go to camp at all events.  We
accordingly marched off and arrived at camp the next day, much to
the seeming satisfaction of our old messmates, and as much to the
real dissatisfaction of ourselves.  At least, it was so with me.
     Thus far, since the year commenced, "Dame Fortune had been
kind," but now "Miss-Fortune" was coming in for her set in the
reel.  I had now to enter again on my old system of starving;
there was nothing to eat.  I had brought two or three days'
rations in my knapsack, and while that lasted I made shift to get
along, but that was soon gone and I was then obliged to come to
it again, which was sorely against my grain.  During the past
winter I had had enough to eat and been under no restraint; I had
picked up a few articles of comfortable summer clothing among the
inhabitants; our lieutenant had never concerned himself about us;
we had scarcely seen him during the whole time.  When we were off
duty we went when and where we pleased "and had none to make us
afraid," but now the scene was changed.  We must go and come at
bidding and suffer hunger besides.
     After I had joined my regiment I was kept constantly, when
off other duty, engaged in learning the Baron de Steuben's new
Prussian exercise.  It was a continual drill.
     About this time I was sent off from camp in a detachment
consisting of about three thousand men, with four fieldpieces,
under the command of the young General Lafayette.  We marched to
Barren Hill, about twelve miles from Philadelphia. (2) There are
crossroads upon this hill, a branch of which leads to the city. 
We halted here, placed our guards, sent off our scouting parties,
and waited for - I know not what.  A company of about a hundred
Indians, from some northern tribe, (3) joined us here.  There
were three or four young Frenchmen with them.  The Indians were
stout-looking fellows and remarkably neat for that race of
mortals, but they were Indians.  There was upon the hill, and
just where we were lying, an old church built of stone, entirely
divested of all its entrails.  The Indians were amusing
themselves and the soldiers by shooting with their bows, in and
about the church.  I observed something in a corner of the roof
which did not appear to belong to the building, and desired an
Indian who was standing near me to shoot an arrow at it.  He did
so and it proved to be a cluster of bats; I should think there
were nearly a bushel of them, all hanging upon one another.  The
house was immediately alive with them, and it was likewise
instantly full of Indians and soldiers. The poor bats fared hard;
it was sport for all hands.  They killed I know not how many, but
there was a great slaughter among them. I never saw so many bats
before nor since, nor indeed in my whole life put all together.
     The next day I was one of a guard to protect the horses
belonging to the detachment.  They were in a meadow of six or
eight acres, entirely surrounded by tall trees.  It was cloudy
and a low fog hung all night upon the meadow, and for several
hours during the night there was a jack-o'-lantern cruising in
the eddying air.  The poor thing seemed to wish to get out of the
meadow, but could not, the air circulating within the enclosure
of trees would not permit it.  Several of the guard endeavored to
catch it but did not succeed. *
     Just at the dawn of day the officers' waiters came, almost
breathless, after the horses.  Upon inquiring for the cause of
the unusual hurry, we were told that the British were advancing
upon us in our rear.  How they could get there was to us a
mystery, but they were there.  We helped the waiters to catch
their horses and immediately returned to the main body of the
detachment.  We found the troops all under arms and in motion,
preparing for an onset.  Those of the troops belonging to our
brigade were put into the churchyard, which was enclosed by a
wall of stone and lime about breast high, a good defense against
musketry but poor against artillery.  I began to think I should
soon have some better sport than killing bats.  But our commander
found that the enemy was too strong to be engaged in the position
we then occupied.  He therefore wisely ordered a retreat from
this place to the Schuylkill, where we might choose any position
that we pleased, having ragged woody-hills in our rear and the
river in front.
     It was about three miles to the river.  The weather was
exceeding warm, and I was in the rear platoon of the detachment
except two platoons of General Washington's Guards. (5) The quick
motion in front kept the rear on a constant trot.  Two pieces of
artillery were in front and two in the rear.  The enemy had
nearly surrounded us by the time our retreat commenced, but the
road we were in was very favorable for us, it being for the most
part and especially the first part of it through small woods and
copses.  When I was about halfway to the river, I saw the right
wing of the enemy through a lawn about half a mile distant, but
they were too late.  Besides, they made a blunder here.  They saw
our rear guard with the two fieldpieces in its front, and
thinking it the front of the detachment, they closed in to secure
their prey, but when they had sprung their net they found that
they had not a single bird under it.
     We crossed the Schuylkill in good order, very near the spot
where I had crossed it four times in the month of October the
preceding autumn.  As fast as the troops crossed they formed and
prepared for action, and waited for them to attack us; but we saw
no more of them that time, for before we had reached the river
the alarm guns were fired in our camp and the whole army was
immediately in motion.  The British, fearing that they should be
outnumbered in their turn, directly set their faces for
Philadelphia and set off in as much or more haste than we had
left Barren Hill.  They had, during the night, left the city with
such silence and secrecy, and by taking what was called the New
York road, that they escaped detection by all our parties, and
the first knowledge they obtained of the enemy's movements was
that he was upon their backs, between them and us on the hill. 
The Indians, with all their alertness, had like to have "bought
the rabbit." They kept coming in all the afternoon, in parties of
four or five, whooping and hallooing like wild beasts.  After
they had got collected they vanished; I never saw any more of
them.  Our scouting parties all came in safe, but I was
afterwards informed by a British deserter that several of the
enemy perished by the heat and their exertions to get away from a
retreating enemy.
     The place that our detachment was now at was the Gulf,
mentioned in the preceding chapter, where we kept the rice and
vinegar Thanksgiving of starving memory.  We stayed here till
nearly night, when, no one coming to visit us, we marched off and
took up our lodgings for the night in a wood.  The next day we
crossed the Schuylkill again and went on to Barren Hill once
more.  We stayed there a day or two and then returned to camp
with keen appetites and empty purses.  If anyone asks why we did
not stay on Barren Hill till the British came up, and have taken
and given a few bloody noses - all I have to say in answer is,
that the General well knew what he was about; he was not
deficient in either courage or conduct, and that was well known
to all the Revolutionary army.
     Soon after this affair we left our winter cantonments,
crossed the Schuylkill and encamped on the left bank of that
river, just opposite to our winter quarters.  We had lain here
but a few days when we heard that the British army had left
Philadelphia and were proceeding to New York, through the
Jerseys.  We marched immediately in pursuit.  We crossed the
Delaware at Carroll's Ferry, (6) above Trenton, and encamped a
day or two between that town and Princeton.  Here I was again
detached with a party of one thousand men, as light troops, to
get into the enemy's route and follow him close, to favor
desertion and pick up stragglers. (7)
     The day we were drafted [June 24] the sun was eclipsed.  Had
this happened upon such an occasion in "olden time," it would
have been considered ominous either of good or bad fortune, but
we took no notice of it.  Our detachment marched in the afternoon
and towards night we passed through Princeton.  Some of the
patriotic inhabitants of the town had brought out to the end of
the street we passed through some casks of ready-made toddy.  It
was dealt out to the men as they passed by, which caused the
detachment to move slowly at this place.  The young ladies of the
town, and perhaps of the vicinity, had collected and were sitting
in the stoops and at the windows to see the noble exhibition of a
thousand half-starved and three-quarters naked soldiers pass in
review before them.  I chanced to be on the wing of a platoon
next to the houses, as they were chiefly on one side of the
street, and had a good chance to notice the ladies, and I declare
that I never before nor since saw more beauty, considering the
numbers, than I saw at that time.  They were all beautiful. New
Jersey and Pennsylvania ladies are, in my opinion, collectively
handsome, the most so of any in the United States.  But I hope
our Yankee ladies will not be jealous at hearing this. I allow
that they have as many mental beauties as the others have
personal, perhaps more; I know nothing about it.  They are all
handsome.
     We passed through Princeton and encamped on the open fields
for the night, the canopy of heaven for our tent.  Early next
morning we marched again and came up with the rear of the British
army.  We followed them several days, arriving upon their camping
ground within an hour after their departure from it.  We had
ample opportunity to see the devastation they made in their rout;
cattle killed and lying about the fields and pastures, some just
in the position they were in when shot down, others with a small
spot of skin taken off their hind quarters and a mess of steak
taken out; household furniture hacked and broken to pieces; wells
filled up and mechanics' and farmers' tools destroyed.  It was in
the height of the season of cherries; the innocent industrious
creatures could not climb the trees for the fruit, but
universally cut them down.  Such conduct did not give the
Americans any more agreeable feelings toward them than they
entertained before.
     It was extremely hot weather, and the sandy plains of that
part of New Jersey did not cool the air to any great degree, but
we still kept close to the rear of the British army.  Deserters
were almost hourly coming over to us, but of stragglers we took
only a few.  
     My risibility was always pretty easily excited at any
innocent ludicrous incident.  The following circumstance gave me
cause to laugh as well as all the rest who heard it.  We halted
in a wood for a few minutes in the heat of the day, on the ascent
of a hill, and were lolling on the sides of the road, when there
passed by two old men, both upon one horse that looked as if the
crows had bespoken him.  I did not know but Sancho Panza had lost
his Dapple and was mounted behind Don Quixote upon Rosinante and
bound upon some adventure with the British.  However, they had
not long been gone past us before another, about the same age and
complexion, came stemming by on foot. Just as he had arrived
where I was sitting, he stopped short and, looking toward the
soldiers, said, "Did you see two old horses riding a Dutchman
this road up? Hoh!" The soldiers set up a laugh, as well they
might, and the poor old Dutchman, finding he had gone "dail
foremost" in his question, made the best of his way off out of
hearing of us.  We this night turned into a new ploughed field,
and I laid down between two furrows and slept as sweet as though
I had laid upon a bed of down.
     The next morning, as soon as the enemy began their march, we
were again in motion and came to their last night's encamping
ground just after sunrise.  Here we halted an hour or two, as we
often had to do, to give the enemy time to advance, our orders
being not to attack them unless in self-defense.  We were
marching on as usual, when, about ten or eleven o'clock, we were
ordered to halt and then to face to the rightabout.  As this
order was given by the officers in rather a different way than
usual, we began to think something was out of joint somewhere,
but what or where our united wisdom could not explain.  The
general opinion of the soldiers was that some part of the enemy
had by some means got into our rear.  We, however, retraced our
steps till we came to our last night's encamping ground, when we
left the route of the enemy and went off a few miles to a place
called Englishtown.  It was uncommonly hot weather and we put up
booths to protect us from the heat of the sun, which was almost
insupportable. Whether we lay here one or two nights I do not
remember; it matters not which.  We were early in the morning
mustered out and ordered to leave all our baggage under the care
of a guard (our baggage was trifling), taking only our blankets
and provisions (our provisions were less), and prepare for
immediate march and action."
     The officer who commanded the platoon that I belonged to was
a captain, belonging to the Rhode Island troops, and a fine brave
man he was; he feared nobody nor nothing.  When we were paraded,
- "Now," said he to us, "you have been wishing for some days past
to come up with the British you have been wanting to fight, - now
you shall have fighting enough before night." The men did not
need much haranguing to raise their courage, for when the
officers came to order the sick and lame to stay behind as
guards, they were forced to exercise their authority to the full
extent before they could make even the invalids stay behind, and
when some of their arms were about to be exchanged with those who
were going into the field, they would not part with them.  "If
their arms went," they said, "they would go with them at all
events."
     After all things were put in order, we marched, but halted a
few minutes in the village, where we were joined by a few other
troops, and then proceeded on.  We now heard a few reports of
cannon ahead.  We went in a road running through a deep narrow
valley, which was for a considerable way covered with thick wood;
we were some time in passing this defile.  While in the wood we
heard a volley or two of musketry, and upon inquiry we found it
to be a party of our troops who had fired upon a party of British
horse, but there was no fear of horse in the place in which we
then were.
     It was ten or eleven o'clock before we got through these
woods and came into the open fields.  The first cleared land we
came to was an Indian cornfield, surrounded on the east, west and
north sides by thick tall trees.  The sun shining full upon the
field, the soil of which was sandy, the mouth of a heated oven
seemed to me to be but a trifle hotter than this ploughed field;
it was almost impossible to breathe.  We had to fall back again
as soon as we could, into the woods.  By the time we had got
under the shade of the trees and had taken breath, of which we
had been almost deprived, we received orders to retreat, as all
the left wing of the army that part being under the command of
General [Charles] Lee, were retreating.  Grating as this order
was to our feelings, we were obliged to comply.
     We had not retreated far before we came to a defile, a
muddy, sloughy brook. While the artillery were passing this
place, we sat down by the roadside. In a few minutes the
Commander in Chief and suite crossed the road just where we were
sitting.  I heard him ask our officers "by whose order the troops
were retreating," and being answered, "by General Lee's," he said
something, but as he was moving forward all the time this was
passing, he was too far off for me to hear it distinctly.  Those
that were nearer to him said that his words were "d--n him."
Whether he did thus express himself or not I do not know.  It was
certainly very unlike him, but he seemed at the instant to be in
a great passion; his looks if not his words seemed to indicate as
much.  After passing us, he rode on to the plain field and took
an observation of the advancing enemy.  He remained there some
time upon his old English charger, while the shot from the
British artillery were rending up the earth all around him. 
After he had taken a view of the enemy, he returned and ordered
the two Connecticut brigades to make a stand at a fence, in order
to keep the enemy in check while the artillery and other troops
crossed the before-mentioned was the Connecticut and Rhode Island
forces defile. (It which occupied this post, notwithstanding what
Dr. [David] Ramsay says to the contrary. (9) He seems willing, to
say the least, to give the southern troops the credit due to the
northern.  A historian ought to be sure of the truth of
circumstances before he relates them).  When we had secured our
retreat, the artillery formed a line of pieces upon a long piece
of elevated ground.  Our detachment formed directly in front of
the artillery, as a covering party, so far below on the declivity
of the hill that the pieces could play over our heads.  And here
we waited the approach of the enemy, should he see fit to attack
us.
     By this time the British had come in contact with the New
England forces at the fence, when a sharp conflict ensued.  These
troops maintained their ground, till the whole force of the enemy
that could be brought to bear had charged upon them through the
fence, and after being overpowered by numbers and the platoon
officers had given orders for their several platoons to leave the
fence, they had to force them to retreat, so eager were they to
be revenged on the invaders of their country and rights.
     As soon as the troops had left this ground the British
planted their cannon upon the place and began a violent attack
upon the artillery and our detachment, but neither could be
routed.  The cannonade continued for some time without
intermission, when the British pieces being mostly disabled, they
reluctantly crawled back from the height which they had occupied
and hid themselves from our sight.  
     Before the cannonade had commenced, a part of the right wing
of the British army had advanced across a low meadow and brook
and occupied an orchard on our left.  The weather was almost too
hot to live in, and the British troops in the orchard were forced
by the heat to shelter themselves from it under the trees.  We
had a four-pounder on the left of our pieces which kept a
constant fire upon the enemy during the whole contest.  After the
British artillery had fallen back and the cannonade had mostly
ceased in this quarter, and our detachment had an opportunity to
look about us, Colonel [Joseph] Cilly of the New Hampshire Line,
who was attached to our detachment, passed along in front of our
line, inquiring for General Varnum's men, who were the
Connecticut and Rhode Island men belonging to our command.  We
answered) "Here we are." He did not hear us in his hurry, but
passed on.  In a few minutes he returned, making the same
inquiry.  We again answered, "Here we are." "Ah!" said he, "you
are the boys I want to assist in driving those rascals from yon
orchard."
     We were immediately ordered from our old detachment and
joined another, the whole composing a corps of about five hundred
men.  We instantly marched towards the enemy's right wing, which
was in the orchard, and kept concealed from them as long as
possible by keeping behind the bushes.  When we could no longer
keep ourselves concealed, we marched into the open fields and
formed our line.  The British immediately formed and began to
retreat to the main body of their army.  Colonel Cilly, finding
that we were not likely to overtake the enemy before they reached
the main body of the army, on account of fences and other
obstructions, ordered three or four platoons from the right of
our corps to pursue and attack them, and thus keep them in play
till the rest of the detachment could come up.  I was in this
party; we pursued without order.  As I passed through the orchard
I saw a number of the enemy lying under the trees, killed by our
fieldpiece mentioned before.  We overtook the enemy just as they
were entering upon the meadow which was rather bushy.  When
within about five rods of the rear of the retreating foe, I could
distinguish everything about them.  They were retreating in line,
though in some disorder.  I singled out a man and took my aim
directly between his shoulders. (They were divested of their
packs.) He was a good mark, being a broad-shouldered fellow. 
What became of him I know not; the fire and smoke hid him from my
sight.  One thing I know, that is, I took as deliberate aim at
him as ever I did at any game in my life.  But after all, I hope
I did not kill him, although I intended to at the time.
     By this time our whole party had arrived, and the British
had obtained a position that suited them, as I suppose, for they
returned our fire in good earnest, and we played the second part
of the same tune.  They occupied a much higher piece of ground
than we did, and had a small piece of artillery, which the
soldiers called a grasshopper.  We had no artillery with us.  The
first shot they gave us from this piece cut off the thigh bone of
a captain, just above the knee, and the whole heel of a private
in the rear of him.  We gave it to poor Sawney (for they were
Scotch troops) so hot that he was forced to fall back and leave
the ground they occupied.  When our commander saw them retreating
and nearly joined with their main body, he shouted, "Come, my
boys, reload your pieces, and we will give them a set-off." We
did so, and gave them the parting salute, and the firing on both
sides ceased.  We then laid ourselves down under the fences and
bushes to take breath, for we had need of it.  I presume everyone
has heard of the heat of that day, but none can realize it that
did not feel it.  Fighting is hot work in cool weather, how much
more so in such weather as it was on the twenty-eighth of June,
1778.
     After the action in our part of the army had ceased, I went
to a well, a few rods off, to get some water.  Here I found the
wounded captain, mentioned before, lying on the ground and
begging his sergeant, who pretended to have the care of him, to
help him off the field or he should bleed to death.  The sergeant
and a man or two he had with him were taken up in hunting after
plunder. It grieved me to see the poor man in such distress, and
I asked the sergeant why he did not carry his officer to the
surgeons.  He said he would directly.  "Directly!" said I, "why
he will die directly." I then offered to assist them in carrying
him to a meetinghouse a short distance off, where the rest of the
wounded men and the surgeons were. (10) At length he condescended
to be persuaded to carry him off.  I helped him to the place, and
tarried a few minutes to see the wounded and two or three limbs
amputated, and then returned to my party again, where we remained
the rest of the day and the following night, expecting to have
another hack at them in the morning, but they gave us the slip.
     As soon as our party had ceased firing, it began in the
center, and then upon the right, but as I was not in that part of
the army, I had no "adventure" in it, but the firing was
continued in one part or the other of the field the whole
afternoon.  Our troops remained on the field all night with he
Commander in Chief.  A regiment of Connecticut forces were sent
to lie as near the enemy as possible and to watch their motions,
but they disappointed us all.  If my readers wish to know how
they escaped so slyly without our knowledge, after such
precautions being used to prevent it, I must tell them I know
nothing about it.  But if they will take the trouble to call upon
John Trumbull, Esq., perhaps he will satisfy their curiosity.  If
he should chance to be out of the way (and ten chances to one if
he is not) apply to _McFingal, Canto 4th. (11)
     One little incident happened during the heat of the
cannonade, which I was eyewitness to, and which I think would be
unpardonable not to mention.  A woman whose husband belonged to
the artillery and who was then attached to a piece in the
engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole
time.  While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of
her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot
from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any
other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her
petticoat.  Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed
that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that
case it might have carried away something else, and continued her
occupation. (12)
     The next day after the action each man received a gill of
rum, but nothing to eat.  We then joined our regiments in the
line and marched for Hudson's River.  We marched by what was
called "easy marches," that is, we struck our tents at three
o'clock in the morning, marched ten miles and then encamped,
which would be about one or two o'clock in the afternoon.  Every
third day we rested all day.  In this way we went to King's
Ferry," (13) where we crossed the Hudson.  Each brigade furnished
its own ferrymen to carry the troops across.  I was one of the
men from our brigade; we were still suffering for provisions. 
Nearly the last trip the batteau that I was in made, while
crossing the river empty, a large sturgeon (a fish in which this
river abounds) seven or eight feet in length, in his gambolings,
sprang directly into the boat, without doing any other damage
than breaking down one of the seats of the boat.  We crossed and
took in our freight and recrossed, landed the men and our prize,
gave orders to our several messmates as to the disposal of it,
and proceeded on our business till the whole of the brigade had
crossed the river, which was not long, we working with new energy
in expectation of having something to eat when we had done our
job.  We then repaired to our messes to partake of the bounty of
Providence, which we had so unexpectedly received.  I found my
share, which was about the seventh part of it, cooked, that is,
it was boiled in salt and water, and I fell to it and ate,
perhaps, a pound and a half, for I well remember that I was as
hungry as a vulture and as empty as a blown bladder.  Many of the
poor fellows thought us happy in being thus supplied; for my part
I felt happy.
     From King's Ferry the army proceeded to Tarrytown, and from
thence to the White Plains. (14) Here we drew some small supplies
of summer clothing of which we stood in great need. While we lay
here, I, with some of my comrades who were in the battle of the
White Plains in the year '76, one day took a ramble on the ground
where we were then engaged with the British and took a survey of
the place.  We saw a number of the graves of those who fell in
that battle.  Some of the bodies had been so slightly buried that
the dogs or hogs, or both, had dug them out of the ground.  The
skulls and other bones and hair were scattered about the place. 
Here were Hessian skulls as thick as a bombshell. Poor fellows!
They were left unburied in a foreign land.  They had, perhaps, as
near and dear friends to lament their sad destiny as the
Americans who lay buried near them.  But they should have kept at
home; we should then never have gone after them to kill them in
their own country.  But, the reader will say, they were forced to
come and be killed here, forced by their rulers who have absolute
power of life and death over their subjects.  Well then, reader,
bless a kind Providence that has made such a distinction between
_your condition and _theirs.  And be careful, too, that you do
not allow yourself ever to be brought to such an abject, servile
and debased condition.
     We lay at the White Plains some time.  While here I was
transferred to the Light Infantry, (15) when I was immediately
marched down to the lines.  I had hard duty to perform during the
cruel remainder of the campaign.  I shall not go into every
particular, but only mention a few incidents and accidents which
transpired.
     There were three regiments of Light Infantry, composed of
men from the whole main army.  It was a motley group Yankees,
Irishmen, Buckskins and what not.  The regiment that I belonged
to was made up of about one half New Englanders and the remainder
were chiefly Pennsylvanians - two sets of people as opposite in
manners and customs as light and darkness.  Consequently, there
was not much cordiality subsisting between us, for, to tell the
sober truth, I had in those days as lief have been incorporated
with a tribe of western Indians as with any of the southern
troops, especially of those which consisted mostly, as the
Pennsylvanians did, of foreigners.  But I was among them and in
the same regiment too, and under their officers (but the
officers, in general, were gentlemen) and had to do duty with
them. To make a bad matter worse, I was often, when on duty, the
only Yankee that happened to be on the same tour for several days
together.  "The bloody Yankee," or "the d--d Yankee," was the
mildest epithets that they would bestow upon me at such times. 
It often made me think of home, or at least of my regiment of
fellow Yankees.
     Our regiment was commanded by a Colonel [Richard] Butler, a
Pennsylvanian, the same, I believe, who was afterwards General
Butler and was slain by the Indians at the defeat of General
[Arthur] St. Clair at the Miamis, but of this I am not certain. 
He was a brave officer, but a fiery, austere hothead. Whenever he
had a dispute with a brother officer, and that was pretty often,
he would never resort to pistols and swords, but always to his
fists.  I have more than once or twice seen him with a "black
eye," and have seen other officers that he had honored with the
same badge.
     As I have said before, I shall not be very minute in
relating my "adventures" during my continuance in this service. 
The duty of the Light Infantry is the hardest, while in the
field, of any troops in the army, if there is any _hardest about
it.  During the time the army keeps the field they are always on
the lines near the enemy, and consequently always on the alert,
constantly on the watch.  Marching and guardkeeping, with all the
other duties of troops in the field, fall plentifully to their
share.  There is never any great danger of Light Infantry men
dying of the scurvy.
     We had not been long on the lines when our regiment was sent
off, lower down towards the enemy, upon a scouting expedition. 
We marched all night. Just at day-dawn we halted in a field and
concealed ourselves in some bushes.  We placed our sentinels near
the road, lying down behind bushes rocks and stoneheaps.  The
officers had got wind of a party of the enemy that was near us. 
A detachment of cavalry which accompanied us had taken the same
precaution to prevent being discovered that the infantry had.
     We had not been long in our present situation before we
discovered a party of Hessian horsemen advancing up the road,
directly to where we were lying in ambush for them.  When the
front of them had arrived "within hail," our colonel rose up from
his lurking place and very civilly ordered them to come to him. 
The party immediately halted, and as they saw but one man of us,
the commander seemed to hesitate, and concluded, I suppose, not
to be in too much of a hurry in obeying our colonel's command,
but that it was the best way for him to retrace his steps.  Our
colonel then, in a voice like thunder, called out to him, "Come
here, you rascal!" but he paid very little attention to the
colonel's summons and began to endeavor to free himself from
what, I suppose, he thought a bad neighborhood.  Upon which our
colonel ordered the whole regiment to rise from their ambush and
fire upon them.  The order was quickly obeyed and served to
quicken their steps considerably. Our horsemen had, while these
transactions were in progress, by going round behind a small
wood, got into their rear.  We followed the enemy hard up, and
when they met our horsemen there was a trifle of clashing.  A
part forced themselves past our cavalry and escaped; about thirty
were taken and a number killed. We had none killed and but two or
three of the horsemen slightly wounded.  The enemy were armed
with short rifles.
     There was an Irishman belonging to our infantry, who, after
the affray was over, seeing a wounded man belonging to the enemy
lying in the road and unable to help himself, took pity on him,
as he was in danger of being trodden upon by the horses, and
having shouldered him was staggering off with his load, in order
to get him to a place of more safety.  While crossing a small
worn-out bridge over a very muddy brook, he happened to jostle
the poor fellow more than usual, who cried out, "Good rebel,
don't hurt poor Hushman." "Who do you call a rebel, you
scoundrel?" said the Irishman, and tossed him off his shoulders
as unceremoniously as though he had been a log of wood. He fell
with his head into the mud, and as I passed I saw him struggling
for life, but I had other business on my hands than to stop to
assist him.  I did sincerely pity the poor mortal, but pity him
was all I could then do.  What became of him after I saw him in
the mud, I never knew; most likely he there made his final exit. 
The infantry marched off with the prisoners, and left the
horsemen to keep the field, till we were out of danger with our
prize; consequently I never heard anything more of him.  But the
Irishman reminded me "that the tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel." 
     Soon after this I had another fatiguing job to perform.
There was a militia officer, a colonel, (his name I have
forgotten, though I think it was Jones) who had collected some
stores of flour, pork, &c. for the use of the militia in his
neighborhood, when any small parties of them were required for
actual service.  A party of the enemy, denominated "Cowboys"
(Refugees) had destroyed his stores. (16) He solicited some men
from the Light Infantry, to endeavor to capture some of the gang
whom he was personally acquainted with, who belonged to, or were
often at, Westchester, a village near King's Bridge. 
Accordingly, a captain and two subaltern officers and about
eighty men, of which I was one, was sent from our regiment, then
lying at a village called Bedford, to his assistance.
     We marched from our camp in the dusk of the evening and
continued our march all night.  We heard repeatedly, during the
night, the Tories firing on our sentries that belonged to the
horse guards, who were stationed on the lines near the enemy. 
This was often practiced by those villains, not only upon the
cavalry but the infantry also, when they thought they could do it
with impunity.  We arrived at the colonel's early in the morning
and stayed there through the day.  At night the lieutenant of our
detachment with a small party of our men, guided by two or three
militia officers, were sent off in pursuit of some of those
shooting gentry whom the colonel suspected.
     We first went to a house where were a couple of free blacks
who were strongly suspected of being of the number.  The people
of the house denied having any knowledge of such persons, but
some of the men inquiring of a small boy belonging to the house,
he very innocently told us that there were such men there and
that they lay in a loft over the hogsty.  We soon found their
nest but the birds had flown.  Upon further inquiry, however, we
found their skulking place and took them both.
     We then proceeded to another house, a mile or two distant.
Here we could not get any intelligence of the vermin we were in
pursuit of.  We, however, searched the house but found none.  But
we (the soldiers) desired the man who attended us with a light to
show us into the dairy-house, pretending that the suspected
persons might be there, and he accordingly accompanied us there. 
We found no enemy in this place, but we found a friend indeed,
because a friend in need.  Here was a plenty of good bread, milk
and butter. We were as hungry as Indians, and immediately "fell
to, and spared not," while the man of the house held the candle 
and looked at us as we were devouring his eatables.  I could not
see his heart and of course could not tell what sort of thoughts
"harbored there," but I could see his face and that indicated
pretty distinctly what passed in his mind.  He said _nothing, but
I believe he had as lief his bread and butter had been arsenic as
what it was.  We cared little for his thoughts or his
maledictions; they did not do us half so much hurt as his
victuals did us good.
     We then returned to our party at the colonel's, where we
arrived before daybreak.  We stayed here through the day, drew
some pork and biscuit, and prepared for our expedition after the
Cowboys.  At dark we sat off, accompanied by the militia colonel
and three or four subaltern militia officers.  This was the third
night I had been on my feet, the whole time without any sleep,
but go we must.  We marched but a short way in the road, and then
turned into the fields and pastures, over brooks and fences,
through swamps, mire and woods, endeavoring to keep as clear of
the inhabitants as possible.  About midnight we crossed a road
near a house, the inmates of which, I suppose, were friendly to
our cause, as the officers ordered us to stand still and not to
speak nor leave our places on any account whatever, while they
all entered the house for a few minutes, upon what errand I know
not. As soon as the officers joined us again we marched off.  One
of our sergeants having disobeyed orders and gone round to the
back side of the house, unobserved by the rest of us, it being
quite dark, upon some occasion best known to himself, we marched
off and left him. We had not gone fifty yards before he returned
to the place where we were standing when he left us, and not
finding us there he hallooed like a brave fellow; but the militia
officers said that it would not do to answer, so we marched on
and left him to find the way to camp, through what might with
propriety be called an enemy's country, as well as he could.  He,
however, arrived there, with some considerable difficulty, safe
and sound.
     We kept on still through the fields, avoiding the houses as
much as possible.  I shall never forget how tired and beat out I
was.  Every grove of trees or piece of woods I could discern, I
hoped would prove a resting place, but there was no rest.  About
two o'clock we took to the high road when we were between the
village of Westchester and King's Bridge.  We then came back to
the village, where we were separated into small divisions, each
led by an officer, either of our own or of the militia, and
immediately entered all the suspected houses at once.  What we
had to do must be done quickly, as the enemy were so near that
they might have been informed of us in less than half an hour. 
There were several men in the house into which I was led, but one
only appeared to be obnoxious to the officer who led us.  This
man was a Tory Refugee, in green uniform; we immediately secured
him.  An old man as blind as a bat came out of a bedroom, who
appeared to be in great distress for fear there would be murder
committed, as he termed it.  I told him it was impossible to
commit murder with Refugees. We directly left the house with our
prisoner, and joined the other parties and hurried off with all
possible speed.
     When we had got away and daylight appeared, we found that we
had twelve or fourteen prisoners, the most or all of whom had
been concerned in the destruction of the colonel's stores.  We
did not suffer the grass to grow long under our feet until we
considered ourselves safe from the enemy that and took we had
left behind us.  We then slackened our pace took to the
road, where it was easier getting along than in the fields.  Oh!
I was so tired and hungry when we arrived at the colonel's, which
was not till sundown or after. The most of the fellows we had
taken belonged in the neighborhood of this place.  As we passed a
house just at night, there stood in the door an elderly woman,
who seeing among the prisoners some that she knew, she began to
open her batteries of blackguardism upon us for disturbing what
she termed the king's peaceable subjects.  Upon a little closer
inspection, who should her ladyship spy amongst the herd but one
of her own sons.  Her resentment was then raised to the highest
pitch and we had a drenching shower of imprecations let down upon
our heads.  "Hell for war!" said she, "why, you have got my son
Josey, too." Poor old simpleton! She might as well have saved her
breath to cool her porridge.
     We here procured another day's ration of the good colonel's
pork and bread.  We stayed through the night, and got some sleep
and rest.  Early next morning we left our prisoners, blacks and
all, to the care of the militia, who could take care of them
after we had taken them for them, and marched off for our
encampment, at Bedford, where we arrived at night, sufficiently
beat out and in a good condition to add another night's sleep to
our stock of rest.
     We lay at Bedford till the close of the season.  Late in the
autumn, the main army lay at New Milford, in the northwestern
part of Connecticut; (17) while there, the Connecticut troops
drew some winter clothing.  The men belonging to that state, who
were in the Light Infantry, had none sent them; they, therefore,
thought themselves hardly dealt by. Many of them, fearing they
should lose their share of the clothing (of which they stood in
great need), absconded from the camp at Bedford and went to New
Milford.  This caused our officers to keep patrolling parties
around the camp during the night to prevent their going off.  In
consequence of this, I had one evening nearly obtained a final
discharge from the army.
     I had been, in the afternoon, at a small brook in the rear
of the camp, where the troops mostly got their water, to wash
some clothes.  Among the rest was a handkerchief, which I laid
upon a stone or stump, and when I went to my tent I forgot to
take it with me.  Missing it after roll call, I went to the place
to get it.  It was almost dark, and quite so in the bushes, when
I got there.  I was puzzled for some time to find the place, and
longer before I could find the handkerchief.  After finding it I
did not hurry back, but loitered till the patrols were out, for I
did not once think of them.  It had now become quite dark and I
had to pass through a place where the soldiers had cut firewood. 
It was a young growth of wood, and the ground was covered with
brush and the stumps about knee-high, quite thick. Just as I
entered upon this spot I heard somebody challenge with "Who comes
there?" I had no idea of being the person hailed, and kept very
orderly on my way, blundering through the brush.  I, however,
received a second and third invitation to declare myself, but
paid no attention to the request.
     The next compliment I received was a shot from them.  The
ball passed very near to me but I still kept advancing, when
instantly I had another salute.  I then thought, that since I had
been the cause of so much noise and alarm, it would be best for
me to get off if possible, for I knew that if I was brought
before our hotspur of a colonel I should "buy the rabbit."
Accordingly, I put my best foot foremost.  The patrol, which
consisted of twelve or fifteen men, all had a hack at me, some of
the balls passing very near me indeed.  One in particular passed
so near my head as to cause my ear to ring for some time after. 
I now sprang to it for dear life, and I was in those days
tolerable "light of foot"; but I had not made many leaps before I
ran my knee with all my force against a white oak stump, which
brought me up so short that I went heels over head over the
stumps.  I hardly knew whether I was dead or alive.  However, I
got up and blundered on till I reached my tent, into which I
pitched and lay as still as the pain in my knee would allow me.
My messmates were all asleep and knew nothing of the affair then,
nor did I ever let them or anyone else know of it till after the
close of the campaign, when I had joined my regiment in the line
and was clear of the southern officers. But my knee was in a fine
pickle; the next morning it was swelled as big as my head, and
lame enough.  However, it did not long remain so.  When I was
questioned by the officers or any of the men how I came by my
wound, I told them I fell down, and thus far I told the truth;
but when anyone asked me how I came to fall down, I was compelled
to equivocate a little.
     I had often heard of some of the lowbred Europeans,
especially Irishmen, boxing with each other in good fellowship,
as they termed it, but I could not believe it till I was
convinced by actual demonstration.  While we tarried here, I was
one day at a sutler's tent, or hut, where were a number of what
we Yankees call "Old Countrymen." Soon after entering the hut, I
observed one who was, to appearance, "pretty well over the bay."
Directly there came in another who, it appeared, was an old
acquaintance of the former's.  They seemed exceeding glad to see
each other, and so must take a drop of "the cratur" together;
they then entered into conversation about former times.  The
first-mentioned was a stout athletic fellow; the other was a much
smaller man.  All of a sudden the first says, "Faith, Jammy, will
you take a box?" "Aye, and thank ye, too," replied the other.  No
sooner said than done, out they went, and all followed to see the
sport, as they thought it, I suppose.
     It was a cold, frosty day in the month of December; the
ground all around the place was ploughed and frozen as hard as a
pavement.  They immediately stripped to the buff, and a broad
ring was directly formed for the combatants (and they needed a
broad one), when they prepared for the battle.  The first pass
they made at each other, their arms drawing their bodies forward,
they passed without even touching either.  The first that picked
them up was the frozen ground, which made the claret, as they
called the blood, flow plentifully.  They, however, with
considerable difficulty, put themselves into a position for a
second bout, when they made the same pass-by as at the first. 
The little fellow, after getting upon his feet again, as well as
he could, cried out, "I am too drunk to fight," and crawled off
as fast as he was able, to the sutler's hut again; the other
followed, both as bloody as butchers, to drink friends again,
where no friendship had been lost.  And there I left them and
went to my tent, thankful that Yankees, with all their follies,
lacked such a refined folly as this.
     The main army, about this time, quitted the eastern side of
the Hudson River and passed into New Jersey, to winter quarters. 
The Connecticut and New Hampshire troops went to Reading and
Danbury, in the western part of Connecticut.  The Light Infantry,
likewise, broke up their encampment at Bedford, and separated to
join their respective regiments in the line. (18) On our march to
join our regiment, some of our _gentlemen _officers, happening to
stop at a tavern, or rather a sort of grogshop, took such a
seasoning that two or three of them became "quite frisky," as the
old Indian said of his young squaw.  They kept running and
chasing each other backward and forward by the troops, as they
walked along the road, acting ridiculously.  They soon, however,
broke up the sport, for two of them at last, got by the ears, to
the no small diversion of the soldiers, for nothing could please
them better than to see the officers quarrel amongst themselves. 
One of the officers used his sword in the scabbard, the other a
cane, and as the song says,

     "At every stroke their jackets did smoke
     As though they had been all on fire."

     Some of the other officers who had not dipped their bills
quite so deep, parted them, at the same time representing to them
the ridiculous situation they stood in, fighting like blackguards
in sight of the soldiers.  At length, shame, so far as they had
reason to let it operate, beginning to take hold of them, the
other officers persuaded them to shake hands in token of future
friendship, but they carried wonderful long faces all the rest of
the day.
     We arrived at Reading about Christmas or a little before,
and prepared to build huts for our winter quarters.  And now came
on the time again between grass and hay, that is, the winter
campaign of starving.  We had not long been under the command of
General Putnam, before the old gentleman heard, or fancied he
heard, that a party of the enemy were out somewhere "down below."
We were alarmed about midnight, and as cold a night as need be,
and marched off to find the enemy, if he could be found.  We
marched all the remaining part of the night and all the forenoon
of the next day, and when we came where they were, they were not
there at all at all, as the Irishman said.  We now had nothing
more to do but to return as we came, which we immediately set
about.
     We marched back to Bedford, near the encamping ground I had
just left.  We were conducted into our bedroom, a large wood, by
our landlords, the officers, and left to our repose, while the
officers stowed themselves away snugly in the houses of the
village, about half a mile distant.  We struck us up fires and
lay down to rest our weary bones, all but our jawbones, they had
nothing to weary them.  About midnight it began to rain, which
soon put out all our fires, and by three or four o'clock it came
down in torrents.  There we were, but where our careful officers
were, or what had become of them we knew not, nor did we much
care.  The men began to squib off their pieces in derision of the
officers, supposing they were somewhere amongst us, and careless
of our condition; but none of them appearing, the men began
firing louder and louder, till they had brought it to almost a
running fire.  At the dawn, the officers, having, I suppose,
heard the firing, came running from their warm, dry beds, almost
out of breath, exclaiming, "Poor fellows! Are you not almost
dead?" We might have been for aught they knew or cared.  However,
they marched us off to the village, wet as drowned rats, put us
into the houses, where we remained till the afternoon and dried
ourselves.
     It cleared off towards night and about sundown we marched
again for camp, which was about twenty miles distant.  We marched
till sometime in the evening when we were ordered to get into the
houses, under the care of the noncommissioned officers, the
commissioned officers having again taken care of themselves at an
early hour of the night.  Myself and ten or fifteen others of our
company, being under the charge of our orderly sergeant, could
not get any quarters, as the people at every house made some
excuse, which he thought all true.  We kept pushing on till we
had got three or four miles in advance of the troops.  We then
concluded to try for lodgings no longer, but to make the best of
our way to camp, which we did, and arrived there in the latter
part of the night.  I had nothing to do but to endeavor to get a
little rest, for I had no cooking, although I should have been
very glad to have had it to do.
     The rest of the troops arrived in the course of the day, and
at night, I think, we got a little something to eat, but if we
did not, I know what I got by the jaunt, for I got a pleurisy
which laid me up for some time.  When I got so well as to work I
assisted in building our winter huts.  We got them in such a
state of readiness that we moved into them about New Year's Day. 
The reader may take my word, if he pleases, when I tell him we
had nothing extraordinary, either of eatables or drinkables, to
keep a new year or housewarming.  And as I have got into winter
quarters again, I will here bring my third campaign to a close.

* Footnotes *
     (1) In Chester and Lancaster counties, Pennsylvania.

     (2) In early May, 1778, Washington heard that Howe was
preparing to evacuate Philadelphia.  On the eighteenth he sent
Lafayette to find out the enemy's "motions and designs."

     (3) Washington, believing Indians "mixed with our own
Parties" would be valuable as scouts and light troops, had been
authorized to raise four hundred.  The first of them, Iroquois,
arrived at Valley Forge on May 13.  By then, with the military
situation altered, Washington had changed his mind and suggested
that no more be sent to camp.  The Iroquois joined Lafayette's
movement.

     (*) MARTIN'S NOTE: Professor Silliman (4) has said, on the
authority of a certain Dr. Somebody, that jack-o'-lanterns never
move.  With due submission to such high authority, I would crave
their pardon for telling them that they labor under a mistake.  I
have seen many of these exhalations, two of which I am satisfied
beyond a doubt were moving when I saw them, the one mentioned in
the text and the other when I was a youngster.  I was one evening
walking in a lane in a sequestered place, the road crossing a low
boggy piece of land, when I saw one of these meteors, if they may
be so called, coming down the low ground before the wind, which
was quick.  It crossed the road within ten feet of me and passed
on till it was lost in the distance.  Now I could not be deceived
in this instance; I saw it, and I could see with my natural eyes
as well as a philosopher could with his. But I have lately heard
of a new idea concerning them, - that is, that they are a species
of glowworm in their butterfly state.  If that is the case, they
must of necessity move, the opinion of those scientific gentlemen
to the contrary, notwithstanding.

     (4) Probably Benjamin Silliman, 1779-1864, distinguished
professor of natural science at Yale University.

     (5) On March 11, 1776, Washington had ordered the commanding
officer of each regiment to recommend four men from the total of
whom he could pick a corps as a guard for himself and his
baggage.  They were to be men of "sobriety, honesty and good
behavior ... handsomely and well made ... neat and spruce."

     (6) Coryell's Ferry, between New Hope, Pennsylvania and
Lambertville, New Jersey.

     (7) On June 18, the British army, now under command of
General Sir Henry Clinton, evacuated Philadelphia.  As Clinton
moved sluggishly through New Jersey toward New York, Washington
broke up from Valley Forge and followed him, throwing a
Continental brigade, a rifle corps, and New Jersey militia ahead
to harass the enemy line of march.  Martin marched with a second
detachment sent off the twenty-fourth to reinforce the troops
already advanced toward the enemy.

(8) On June 27, Washington had brought his main army to
Cranberry. His advance forces on the road to Monmouth Court House
(Freehold), where Clinton was now encamped, were too far
separated from his main body, so he drew them back toward
Englishtown.  On Sunday morning, the twenty-eighth, the American
advance, under General Charles Lee, moved to attack Clinton, as
Washington came up to support it.  Martin's regiment, in General
James M. Varnum's Brigade (now commanded by Colonel John Durkee
in Varnum's absence on leave), was in the front.  The confused
Battle of Monmouth ensued.

     (90 David Ramsay's __History of the American _Revolution,
published in 1789, credits this particular action to Walter
Stewart's Thirteenth Pennsylvania Regiment and Nathaniel Ramsay's
Third Maryland Regiment, "Southerners" in Martin's New England
eyes.

     (10) Old Tennent Church, still standing (1962), beautifully
preserved, on the road between Freehold and Englishtown.

     (11) Clinton, in his report of July 5, 1778, to Lord George
Germain, said he rested his troops until ten at night, then "took
the advantage of the moon light" to move them off.  In his
__Historical Detail of Seven Years' _Campaigns, written later,
and published with notes by William B. Willcox as _The _American
_Rebellion, in 1954, Clinton omits the reference to moonlight. 
His original statement amused American contemporaries who knew
that he filed off silently about midnight and that the new moon
set that night at 10:55 P.M. John Trumbull, one of the
Connecticut Wits, tells in Canto Four of __M'Fingal: A Modern
Epic _Poem, a satire published during the war, how Clinton
"steals off on tiptoe in the dark," but writes his king "in
boasting tone, how grand he marched by light of moon."

     (12) Mary Ludwig Hayes, wife of a Pennsylvania private whom
she followed to war and who, this day, seems to have been
assigned to a gun battery.  A woman of no education who smoked,
chewed tobacco, and "swore like a trooper," she won immortal fame
as Molly Pitcher. 
     (13) The crossing from Stony Point to Verplanck's Point.

     (14) Following Monmouth, with Clinton in New York, active
operations came to an end for more than a year.  "It is not a
little pleasing," Washington observed, "nor less wonderful to
contemplate that, after two years Manoeuvring ... both Armies are
brought back to the very point they set out from."

     (15) Washington formed his first Light Infantry Corps in
August, 1777, by drawing off picked men from the brigades.  The
chosen men were young, agile, and good shots.  The corps proved
so useful that Washington obtained authority to organize in every
regiment a Light Company; during a campaign the companies were
formed into a separate corps.  The corps brought together after
Monmouth was commanded by Colonel David Henley.


     (16) When British headquarters were in New York, their
outposts extended from King's Bridge to West Farms on the Bronx
River.  American outposts, with headquarters at Peekskill,
extended from Mamaroneck on Long Island Sound to Dobbs Ferry on
the Hudson.  The area between was known as the neutral ground and
was roamed by freebooters.  The Tory sympathizers called
themselves Cowboys or Refugees, and the rebel sympathizers called
themselves Skinners - and both were more interested in booty than
in principle.

     (17) Washington remained in the "grand camp" at White Plains
and Fredericksburg until almost the end of the year before
transferring his main body to Middlebrook, New Jersey.  On
October 22, the Connecticut Division under McDougall (not the
"main army") set out to winter at Redding, Connecticut.  On the
twenty-fifth it reached New Milford and encamped until November
nineteenth.

     (18) When Martin rejoined his regiment at Redding, it was
brigaded with the Second, Fourth, and Sixth Connecticut regiments
in Samuel H. Parsons's First Brigade, an arrangement that
continued until 1781.  Giles Russell was now colonel of the
Eighth Regiment, Chandler having resigned for disability.

     CHAPTER V
     Campaign of 1779

     You may think what you please, sir, I too can think -
     I think I can't live without victuals and drink;
     Your oxen can't plough, nor your horses can't draw,
     Unless they have something more hearty than straw; - 
     If that is their food, sir, their spirits must fall -
     How then can I labor with -  nothing at all?

     WE got settled in our winter quarters at the commencement of
the new year and went on in our old Continental line of starving
and freezing.  We now and then got a little bad bread and salt
beef (I believe chiefly horse-beef, for it was generally thought
to be such at the time).  The month of January was very stormy, a
good deal of snow fell, and in such weather it was a mere chance
if we got anything at all to eat. Our condition, at length,
became insupportable.  We concluded that we could not or would
not bear it any longer.  We were now in our own state and were
determined that if our officers would not see some of our
grievances redressed, the state should.  Accordingly, one evening
after roll calling, the men generally turned out, but without
their arms, and paraded in front of their huts.  We had no need
of informing the officers; we well knew that they would hear of
our muster without our troubling ourselves to inform them.
     We had hardly got paraded, before all our officers, with the
colonel at their head, came in front of the regiment, expressing
a deal of sorrow for the hardships we were compelled to undergo,
but much more for what they were pleased to call our mutinous
conduct.  This latter expression of their sorrow only served to
exasperate the men, which the officers observing, changed their
tone and endeavored to soothe the Yankee temper they had excited,
and, with an abundance of fair promises, persuaded us to return
to our quarters again.  But hunger was not to be so easily
pacified, and would not suffer many of us to sleep.  We were
therefore determined that none others should sleep.  Martial law
was very strict against firing muskets in camp.  Nothing could,
therefore, raise the officers' "lofty ideas" sooner, or more,
than to fire in camp; but it was beyond the power or vigilance of
all the officers to prevent the men from "making void the law" on
that night.  Finding they were watched by the officers, they got
an old gun barrel which they placed in a hut that was unfinished.

This they loaded a third part full and putting a slow match to
it, would then escape to their own huts, when the old barrel
would speak for itself, with a voice that would be heard.  The
officers would then muster out, and some running and scolding
would ensue; but none knew who made the noise, or where it came
from.  This farce was carried on the greater part of the night;
but at length the officers getting tired of running so often to
catch Mr. Nobody, without finding him, that they soon gave up the
chase, and the men seeing they could no longer gull the officers,
gave up the business likewise.
     We fared a little better for a few days after this memento
to the officers, but it soon became an old story and the old
system commenced again as regular as fair weather to foul. We
endeavored to bear it with our usual fortitude, until it again
became intolerable, and the soldiers determined to try once more
to raise some provisions, if not, at least to raise another dust.
     Accordingly, one evening, after dark, we all turned out
again with our arms, appointed a commander and were determined
that time, if we could not be better accommodated, to march into
the center of the state and disperse to our homes, in presence of
as many of our fellow citizens as chose to be spectators. (1)
After we had organized ourselves and regulated the plan for our
future operations, it was the design of our regiment to have
marched to our field officers' quarters, and through them to
demand of our country better usage. But before we had got all our
little matters of etiquette settled, our adjutant came up (he
having been over at the village on some errand best known to
himself) and seeing us in arms upon the parade at that time of
night, mistrusted something was in the wind. He passed us without
saying a word and went directly and informed the other officers,
all of whom were soon upon the parade. Our major was the first
that arrived; he was a fine, bold-looking man, and made a fine
appearance. He came on to the right of the regiment, and soon
after the colonel and other officers came in front.  The
commanding sergeant ordered the men to shoulder arms and then to
present (which is a token of respect) and then to order them
again.  The major then addressed the sergeant thus: "Well,
Sergeant ---- you have got a larger regiment than we had this
evening at roll call, but I should think it would be more
agreeable for the men to be asleep in their huts this cold night,
than to be standing on the parade, for I remember that they were
very impatient at roll call on account of the cold."
     "Yes, sir," said the sergeant, "Solomon says that 'the
abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep,' and we find
that the abundance of poverty will not suffer us to sleep." By
this time the colonel had come to where the major and sergeant
were arguing the case, and the old mode of flattery and promising
was resorted to and produced the usual effect.  We all once more
returned to our huts and fires, and there spent the remainder of
the night, muttering over our forlorn condition.
     It was now the beginning of February.  Many of the men had
obtained furloughs to go home and visit their friends, before I
had left the Light Infantry, and many since.  I now made
application and obtained one for fifteen days' absence.  I
prepared for the journey, which was about thirty miles, and
started from the camp about nine o'clock in the morning,
intending to go the whole distance that day.  I had not a
mouthful of anything to eat or to carry with me.  I had, it is
true, two or three shillings of old Continental money, worth
about as much as its weight in rags. I, however, sat off for
home.  The hopes of soon seeing my friends and the expectation of
there filling my belly once more buoyed up my spirits until I had
got within about five miles of home. When coming to a tavern
about sunset, I consulted with myself whether I had not better
call and get me a glass of spirits, as I did not possess
wherewith to procure me a meal of victuals, concluding that I
should soon be where I could get that gratis.  I accordingly did
call and drank a glass of spirits and water, and immediately
pursued my journey.
     I soon came to where I was obliged to leave the high road
and take to one that struck across the country and a ferry.  By
the time I had got to this road I had become so faint that I
thought I could not reach the nearest house, which was more than
a mile distant.  I was acquainted with this road, but the main
road which led to a large village I was unacquainted with any
further than where I then was.  I sat down and rested myself a
few minutes, and I had need of it.  I concluded to keep on the
main road, being confident that I should find a house in a less
distance than on the other.  I went on, often having to rest
myself from mere faintness.
     I traveled, however, nearly a mile and a half without seeing
the least sign of a house.  At length, after much fatigue, I came
to an old house, standing, as the Irishman said, out of doors.  I
made up to it and knocked at the door.  "Who's there?" cried an
old woman from within.  "A friend," I replied.  "What do you
want?" said she.  "I want to rest here tonight." "I cannot
entertain you," said she.  "I am alone and cannot let a stranger
in." I told her I could not and would not go any further.  After
some inquiring on her part and answering on mine, she
condescended to admit me.  She need not to have feared me, for
had she been a virgin and as beautiful as Helen, I should have
had no inclination to have soiled her chastity that night; I had
something else to employ my thoughts upon.  However loath the old
lady was to admit me, she used me extremely well, for she
provided me with a good supper and a field bed before the fire,
where I slept soundly till the morning, nor would she let me
depart in the morning till I had breakfasted.  While she was
preparing my breakfast, I chopped off a backlog and put it on the
fire, which was all the compensation she required, nor even that,
it was my own will.  We then parted with mutual thanks and I
proceeded on my journey.
     On the evening before, the ground was quite clear of snow,
but during the night there fell nearly a foot in depth of light
snow and I had to return to the road I had left the preceding
evening.  There was no track in the new-fallen snow until I came
to the crossroad, when I found a footman had passed before me. 
He appeared, by his track and the mark of a cane he used, to be
an old man.  I could not help being diverted by observing at
every few rods distance that the poor fellow had slipped down on
the ice, which was covered by the snow, when he would spatter the
snow about like a horse.  I soon overtook him; he was an old
black man.
     When I came to the ferry it was frozen over and covered with
snow a foot deep.  I went into the ferryman's house, one of whose
daughters was wife to the drum major of our regiment.  She made a
bitter complaint to me against her husband, said he came home
from the army and spent all her earnings, gave the whole family
the itch, and then went off to camp, leaving her and her children
to shift for themselves as well as they could.  I could have told
her a little more of his amiable conduct than she knew, but I
thought she might as well get her information from some other
quarter.
     The people here told me that it was dangerous crossing the
river, as the ice was full of holes which were mostly covered by
the snow.  There was no way for me but to venture on the ice, or
go five or six miles lower down the river to another ferry.  I
did not like the first and the second I could not agree to at
all.  I therefore ventured upon the ice and passed over to the
opposite shore in safety, with some danger and trouble.  When I
arrived at the other side, I found the tide up and the edge of
the ice a rod or two from the shore.  I then had to travel up the
river on the ice, three times the distance that it was to cross
the river, and with more danger, before I could get off.  I got
off, however, without drowning.  I then had two miles to go, and
frequently met people belonging to the town, but very few
recollected me.
     I arrived at my good old grandsire's about eight or nine
o'clock in the morning, with a keen appetite for my breakfast,
although I had ate one that day.  I believe the old people were
glad to see me.  They appeared to be much so, and I am quite sure
I was glad to see them and all my other friends, if I had any.  I
had now an opportunity of seeing the place of my boyhood, visit
old acquaintance, and ramble over my old haunts; but my time was
short, and I had, of course, to employ every minute to the best
advantage.
     I remained at home till my furlough had fully expired.  I
intended my country should give me a day to return to camp.  The
day before I intended to set off for the army, my lieutenant
arrived at home to spend a week with his family.  He called upon
me and told me that if I chose I might stay and accompany him to
camp, and he would be responsible for me. I did not want much
persuasion to comply with his desire, and accordingly remained
another week and then went with the lieutenant to camp and had no
fault found.
     I had not been at camp more than a week before I was sent
off with a large detachment to New London to guard the
fortifications in and about that town. (2) On our march we passed
through the place of my residence when at home.  The detachment
tarried a night there, so I had an opportunity of being at home
another night.
     We marched in the morning and remained the following night
at New Haven.  I was quartered for the night in a house in the
skirts of the town.  There was a young lady belonging to the
house, who, as it was Sabbath eve, had gone out to see the
"daughters of the land," like Dinah of old. Just as we were about
to lie down, I went to the back door of the house, where was a
small field of dry cornstalks.  I met the young lady with a
gallant, just at the door.  The moment he saw me he left his
sweetheart and went off through the cornstalks, making as much
noise as if a whirlwind had passed through them.  I thought he
was a brave fellow, thus to leave his mistress in the power of
those he was afraid of himself, and not stop so long as to ask
quarters for her, but, upon the first alarm, to desert her to
save his own four quarters from receiving damage.  Many pretended
heroes have done the same, perhaps worse.
     We went by easy marches and nothing of consequence occurred
until we arrived at New London.  Here we were put into houses,
and here, too, we almost starved to death, and I believe should
have quite starved, had we not found some clams, which kept us
from absolutely dying.  We had nothing to eat except now and then
a little miserable beef or a little fresh fish and a very little
bread, baked by a baker belonging to the town, which had some
villainous drug incorporated with it that took all the skin off
our mouths.  I sincerely believe it was done on purpose to
prevent our eating.  I was not free from a sore mouth the whole
time I stayed there.
     Just before we left this place a privateer brig arrived from
a cruise.  She was hauled up and dismantled.  One day I went on
board her, and in the bread room I found one or two bushels of
sea biscuit.  At night I again went on board and filled my
knapsack, which was a relief to my hungry stomach.  But this
bread had nearly as much flesh as bread, being as full of worms
as ever the dry sapwood of a white ash pole was.  Consequently,
it required a deal of circumspection in eating it.  However, it
was better than snowballs.  The other men in my room, likewise,
used to avail themselves of the opportunity to procure some,
after I had told them where it might be obtained.
     Several funny and some serious accidents occurred while I
remained here, but as they would be tedious to narrate and
perhaps uninteresting to the reader, I shall pass them by
unnoticed.
     We stayed here, starving, until the first of May, when we
received orders to march to camp and join our regiments.  The
troops belonging to New Hampshire marched sometime before we did.

While on our march, we halted in a village. Here I went into a
house, with several other soldiers, which happened to be a
deacon's.  While there some of the men chanced to swear (a
circumstance extremely uncommon with the soldiers), upon which
the good woman of the house checked them.  "Is there any harm in
it?" said one of them.  "Yes," said she.  "Well," said he, "may I
not say swamp it?" "No," said she, "nor maple log roll over me,
neither." She then turned to me and said, "I do not like you
soldiers." I asked her why.  "Because," said she, "there came
some along here the other day and they stole every morsel of my
dinner from the pot, while it was boiling over the fire, pudding
bag and all." I told her that her case was, upon the whole,
rather a calamitous one, but, said I, "I suppose the soldiers
thought your pot could be easier replenished than their kettles."
She made me no answer, whatever she thought.
     We went on to New Haven where we arrived upon a Sabbath eve
and stayed till Wednesday.  On the Tuesday following there was to
be a muster of the militia.  On Monday we washed our clothes and,
as we understood we were to remain here during the next day, we
put ourselves into as decent a condition as we possibly could to
witness the militia exhibition the next day.  Early next morning,
there was a general stir in the town, a regiment of foot and a
troop of horse were paraded on the green, and they made a very
good appearance (considering the times), to speak the truth; but
they seemed to be rather shy of displaying their knowledge of
military tactics before regular troops.  However, they did very
well and deserved praise, whether they received it or not.
     The next morning we marched again.  I then applied to our
commander and obtained permission to go in advance of the troops
and see my grandparents again.  I would have done this sooner,
but I could not forego the pleasure of seeing the militia muster.

I remained at home that day and the next, and then started for
camp.  I was acquainted with the country, and consequently could
reach camp by a much shorter way than the troops went, as they
kept the country roads, by which means I arrived there within a
few hours after them.
     On some duty, I do not recollect what, I was deprived of my
rest for a night or two; the next day I took a ramble into the
woods near the camp, determined, if I could, to take a nap.  The
trees had just began to leaf out and "all nature was gay." I
walked about half a mile, when I came to a flat ledge of rocks
covered with soft, thick moss, as smooth as a carpet.  I laid
myself down and soon fell into a sound sleep.
     I had not slept long before I was attacked by that
delectable disorder, the nightmare.  I recovered partly from the
first attack, but before I could fully overcome it, it took a
second gripe upon me more serious than the first.  I had often
heard people say, when they had been under the influence of this
disorder, that they were confident they were awake and had the
full possession of their faculties, and I had many times thought
so myself.  Recollecting this, tormented as I was, I thought I
would now satisfy myself whether it was so or not.  Accordingly,
I took a survey of the trees about me, which I imagined I saw
distinctly.  One tree in particular I noticed, a large black
birch tree, which had a limb broken off, leaving a stump some
five or six feet long and a foot in diameter.  But when I was
fully recovered there was no such tree there, which convinced me
that I was not awake and had not so full command of my reason as
I thought I had.  I should not have mentioned so trivial a matter
but to satisfy those that read this, that they may be as much
deceived in their conjectures as I was at the time I have
mentioned.
     We remained here a short time after my return from New
London when we received information that the British were moving
up the Hudson River in force, had taken possession of Stony
Point, and were fortifying it.  We were immediately ordered to
march, which order was quickly put in execution.  We went
directly to the Fishkill, on the Hudson, and from thence down
nearly opposite to West Point.  We remained here some days.  I
was the most of that time on a stationed guard, keeping the
horses that belonged to the army at pasture.  I procured some
damaged cartridges, and after converting the balls into shot and
getting out of hearing from the camp, diverted myself by killing
birds or squirrels or any such game.  This I often practiced,
though I ran the risk of a keelhauling if detected.  Here I had a
good opportunity to exercise myself at the business, being at a
considerable distance from camp.  Pigeons were plenty and we
fared pretty comfortably with what provisions we were allowed
otherwise.
     After being relieved from this guard, I was detached with a
small party to the Peekskill, in the southern edge of the
Highlands.  We took up our quarters in some old barracks.  There
was a number of bombshells and some old damaged wagon wheels
lying near the barracks.  One day, after diverting ourselves by
filling the shells with water, plugging them up, and wetting them
on the fire, while the water boiling, the steam would force the
plug out with a report as loud as that of a pistol.  Tired with
exercising ourselves at this diversion, we began to contrive some
other mischief, when four or five of us took one of the old wagon
wheels and after considerable trouble and fatigue, we carried the
wheel about thirty or forty rods up the mountain, at the back of
the barracks and a considerable distance from them, when we gave
the wheel the liberty to shift for itself and find its own way
back.  It went very regular for a few turns, when taking a
glancing stroke against something, it took a course directly for
the barracks and just in that part, too, where the men were, who
we could hear distinctly laughing and talking.  Ah me! What would
I not have given had I never meddled with the ugly thing, but it
was then too late to repent, the evil one had come.  I confess I
felt myself in a forlorn case.  The barracks were only a single
board thick, and those rotten and old, and the wheel might have
gone through them and the men, too, that stood in its route,
without scarcely retarding its progress.  We all stood
breathless, waiting the result, when, as it happened (and well
for us there was such a thing as chance) the wheel, when within
about fifteen feet of the barracks, and with the motion almost of
a cannon ball, struck something that gave it an elevation of
twenty or thirty feet into the air, and passed over the barracks
and several rods beyond them before it struck the ground again. 
The reader may rest satisfied that this last circumstance did not
cause many tears of grief to fall.
     The Americans had a fortification upon Verplanck's Point, on
the eastern side of the Hudson, opposite Stony Point, garrisoned
by a captain and about one hundred men.  The British took this
place and made the garrison prisoners, after a close siege of
about a week, and fortified the Point. (3) They appeared, by
their conduct, to have a strong inclination to possess West
Point.  To make a diversion in their own favor and draw off some
of our forces from the vicinity of that fortress, they sent the
infamous Governor [William] Tryon into Connecticut with his
banditti, who took possession first of New Haven and plundered
it, and then embarked and went and plundered and burnt Fairfield
and Norwalk.  The two Connecticut brigades [Parsons's and
Huntington's] were then sent in pursuit of them.  We marched
nearly down to the seacoast when, the enemy getting scent of us,
they took to their shipping and made the best of their way back
to New York.  We returned as soon as possible.
     Being on our march the fifteenth day of July and destitute
of all kinds of eatables, just at night I observed a cheese in a
press before a farmer's door, and we being about to halt for the
night, I determined to return after dark and lay siege to it; but
we went further than I expected before we halted, and a smart
shower of rain with thunder happening at the time, the cheese
escaped.  It cleared off with a brisk wind at northwest and cold;
we were all wet to the skin and had no tents with us, lying on
the western side of a cleared hill.  I never came nearer
perishing with the cold in the middle of summer in all my life,
either before or since.
     In the night we heard the cannon at Stony Point, and early
next morning had information of the taking of that place by the
Light Infantry of our army under the command of General [Anthony]
Wayne.  Our officers were all on tiptoe to show their abilities
in executing some extraordinary exploit.  Verplanck's Point was
the word.  "Shall the Light Infantry get all the honor, and we do
nothing!" said they.  Accordingly, we sat off, full tilt, to take
Verplanck's Point; we marched directly for the Peekskill and
arrived near there early in the day.  We there received
information that the British at Verplanck's Point were reinforced
and advancing to attack us.  We were quite knocked on the head by
this news.  However, we put ourselves in as good a condition as
our circumstances would admit and waited their approach.  They
were afraid of us, or we of them, or both, for we did not come in
contact that time.  And thus ended the taking of Verplanck's
Point and our honorable expectations.
     We then fell back and encamped, but soon after we broke up
our encampment and fell back to Robinson's farm just below West
Point, on the eastern side of the river. (4) Here we lay the rest
of the season, employed in building two strong bombproof redoubts
on two hills near the river.  Sometime late in the fall, the
British evacuated all their works and retired to New York.  A
large detachment, of which I was one, was sent to Verplanck's
Point to level the British works.  We were occupied in this
business nearly two weeks, working and starving by day, and at
night having to lie in the woods without tents.  Some of our men
got some peas which had been left there by the British, but one
might as well have boiled gravel stones soft.  Some affirmed that
they had seen them growing where the British soldiers had dropped
them after they had passed through them.  After we had finished
leveling these works we returned to camp.
     While lying at, or near, the Peekskill, a man belonging to
the cavalry was executed for desertion to the enemy, and as none
of the corps to which he belonged were there, no troops were
paraded, as was customary on such occasions, except a small
guard. (5) The ground on which the gallows was erected was
literally covered with pebble stones.  A brigade major attended
the execution, his duty on these occasions being the same as the
High Sheriff's in civil matters.  He had, somewhere, procured a
ragamuffin fellow for an executioner, to preserve his own
immaculate reputation from defilement.  After the culprit had
hung the time prescribed by law, or custom, the hangman began
stripping the corpse, the clothes being his perquisite.  He began
by trying to pull off his boots, but for want of a bootjack he
could not readily accomplish his aim.  He kept pulling and
hauling at them, like a dog at a root, until the spectators, who
were very numerous, the guard having gone off, growing disgusted,
began to make use of the stones, by tossing several at his pretty
carcass.  The brigade major interfering in behalf of his
aide-de-camp, shared the same usage; they were both quickly
obliged "to quit the field." As they retreated the stones flew
merrily.  They were obliged to keep at a proper distance until
the soldiers took their own time to disperse, when they returned
and completed their honorable business.
     We remained at and near Peekskill till sometime in the month
of December.  The cold weather having commenced earlier than
usual, we had hard combating with hunger, cold, nakedness and
hard duty, but were obliged to grapple with them all as well as
we could.  As the old woman said by her husband, when she baked
him instead of his clothes, to kill the vermin, "You must grin
and bear it."
     About the middle of this month (December) we crossed the
Hudson, at King's Ferry, and proceeded into New Jersey, for
winter quarters.  The snow had fallen nearly a foot deep.  Now I
request the reader to consider what must have been our situation
at this time, naked, fatigued and starved, forced to march many a
weary mile in winter, through cold and snow, to seek a situation
in some (to us, unknown) wood to build us habitations to starve
and suffer in.  I do not know how the hearers of this recital may
feel, but I know how I felt at the time and I know how I yet feel
at the recollection of it; but there was no remedy, we must go
through it, and we did go through it, and I am yet alive.
     Our destination was at a place in New Jersey called Basking
Ridge.  It was cold and snowy; we had to march all day through
the snow and at night take up our lodgings in some wood, where,
after shoveling away the snow, we used to pitch three or four
tents facing each other, and then join in making a fire in the
center. Sometimes we could procure an armful of buckwheat straw
to lie upon, which was deemed a luxury.  Provisions, as usual,
took up but a small part of our time, though much of our
thoughts.
     We arrived on our wintering ground in the latter part of the
month of December, and once more, like the wild animals, began to
make preparations to build us a "city for habitation." (6) The
soldiers, when immediately going about the building of their
winter huts, would always endeavor to provide themselves with
such tools as were necessary for the business (it is no concern
of the reader's, as I conceive, by what means they procured their
tools), such as crosscut saws, handsaws, frows, augers, &c. to
expedite the erection and completion of their dwelling places. 
Do not blame them too much, gentle reader, if you should chance
to make a shrewd Yankee guess how they did procure them;
remember, they were in distress, and you know when a man is in
that condition he will not be over scrupulous how he obtains
relief, so he does obtain it.
     We encamped near our destined place of operation and
immediately commenced.  It was upon the southerly declivity of a
hill; the snow, as I have already observed, was more than a foot
deep, and the weather none of the warmest.  We had to level the
ground to set our huts upon; the soil was a light loam.  When
digging just below the frost, which was not deep, the snow having
fallen early in the season, we dug out a number of toads, that
would hop off when brought to the light of day as lively as in
summertime.  We found by this where toads take up their winter
quarters, if we can never find where swallows take up theirs.
     As this will be the last time that I shall have occasion to
mention my having to build huts for our winter habitations, I
will, by the reader's leave, just give a short description of the
fashion and manner of erecting one of those log towns.
     After the ground was marked out by the quartermasters, much
after the same manner as for pitching tents in the field, we
built the huts in the following manner: Four huts, two in front
and two in the rear, then a space of six or eight feet, when four
more huts were placed in the same order, and so on to the end of
the regiment, with a parade in front and a street through the
whole, between the front and rear, the whole length, twelve or
fifteen feet wide.  Next in order, in the rear of these huts, the
officers of the companies built theirs with their waiters in the
rear of them.  Next the field officers in the same order.  Every
two huts, that is, one in front and one in the rear, had just
their width in front indefinitely, and no more, to procure the
materials for building; the officers had all in the rear.  No one
was allowed to transgress these bounds on any account whatever,
either for building or firewood.
     The next thing is the erecting of the huts.  They were
generally about twelve by fifteen or sixteen feet square, all
uniformly of the same dimensions.  The building of them was thus:
after procuring the most suitable timber for the business, it was
laid up by notching them in at the four corners.  When arrived at
the proper height, about seven feet, the two end sticks which
held those that served for plates were made to jut out about a
foot from the sides, and a straight pole made to rest on them,
parallel to the plates; the gable ends were then formed by laying
on pieces with straight poles on each, which served for ribs to
hold the covering, drawing in gradually to the ridgepole.  Now
for the covering: this was done by sawing some of the larger
trees into cuts about four feet in length, splitting them into
bolts, and riving them into shingles, or rather staves; the
covering then commenced by laying on those staves, resting the
lower ends on the poles by the plates; they were laid on in two
thicknesses, carefully breaking joints.  These were then bound on
by a straight pole with withes, then another double tier with the
butts resting on this pole and bound on as before, and so on to
the end of the chapter.  A chimney was then built at the center
of the back side, composed of stone as high as the eaves and
finished with sticks and clay, if clay was to be had, if not,
with mud.  The last thing was to hew stuff and build us up cabins
or berths to sleep in, and then the buildings were fitted for the
reception of gentleman soldiers, with all their rich and gay
furniture.
     Such were the habitations we had to construct at this time.
We got into them about the beginning of the year, when the
weather became intensely cold.  Cold weather and snow were
plenty, but beef and bread were extremely scarce in the army. 
Let it be recollected that this was what has been termed the
"hard winter," and hard it war, to the poor soldiers, as will
appear in the sequel." So here I will close the narrative of my
campaign of 1779.  And happy should I then have thought myself if
that had ended the war, but I had to see a little more trouble
before that period arrived.

* Footnotes *
     (1) This minor uprising of the Connecticut troops was one of
several army mutinies which antedated the famous New Year's 1781
revolt of the Pennsylvania Line.  The Connecticut troops intended
to march to Hartford to demand redress of their grievances from
the General Assembly of their state and then, if not satisfied,
to disperse.

     (2) Except for minor demonstrations, Clinton did not disturb
the Americans during the winter.  However, Washington,
apprehensive of a maritime raid on New London, ordered Putnam to
place four hundred men there as a guard.

     (3) Actually the British forces that took Stony Point, May
31, 1779, dragged cannon to its pinnacle and reduced the American
post at Verplanck's by cannon fire from Stony Point and
encirclement on the land side on June 1.

     (4) On the Hudson, Major General William Heath now commanded
east of the river, and Putnam, west.  The estate of Loyalist
Beverly Robinson lay between Peekskill and Garrison at the foot
of Sugar Loaf Mountain.  The Connecticut camp lay nearby about a
half mile south of Forsonville.

     (5) Josiah Edwards of Sheldon's Second Continental Dragoons,
was executed on November 12, 1779.

     (6) The Connecticut Division, which hitherto had wintered
east of the Hudson, was now to encamp with the main army. 
Washington had chosen a position in a somewhat mountainous
section of Morris County, New Jersey, known as Jockey Hollow,
near Morristown and Basking Ridge, an area now embraced by the
Morristown National Historical Park.  The Connecticut Division
was assigned a position about six hundred feet northeast of the
present-day Tempe Wick Road.

     (7) Although the winter at Morristown never rivaled that of
Valley Forge in popular memory, it was far more severe.  The
winter of 1779-1780 proved to be the most bitter and prolonged
not only of the Revolution but also of the entire eighteenth
century.

     CHAPTER VI
     Campaign of 1780

     The soldier defending his country's rights,
     Is griev'd when that country his services slights;
     But when he remonstrates and finds no relief,
     No wonder his anger takes place of his grief.

     THE winter of 1779 and '80 was very severe; it has been
denominated "the hard winter," and hard it was to the army in
particular, in more respects than one.  The period of the
Revolution has repeatedly been styled "the times that tried men's
souls." I often found that those times not only tried men's
souls, but their bodies too; I know they did mine, and that
effectually.
     Sometime in the month of January there happened a spell of
remarkably cold weather.  In the height of the cold, a large
detachment from the army was sent off on an expedition against
some fortifications held by the British on Staten Island.  The
detachment was commanded by Major General John Sullivan.  It was
supposed by our officers that the bay before New York was frozen
sufficiently to prevent any succors being sent to the garrisons
in their works.  It was therefore determined to endeavor to
surprise them and get possession of their fortifications before
they could obtain help.  Accordingly, our troops were all
conveyed in sleighs and other carriages, but the enemy got
intelligence of our approach (doubtless by some Tory) before our
arrival on the island.  When we arrived we found Johnny Bull
prepared for our reception.  He was always complaisant,
especially when his own honor or credit was concerned.  We
accordingly found them all waiting for us, so that we could not
surprise them, and to take their works by storm looked too
hazardous; to besiege them in regular form was out of the
question, as the bay was not frozen so much as we expected. 
There was an armed brig lying in the ice not far from the shore;
she received a few shots from our fieldpieces for a morning's
salutation.  We then fell back a little distance and took up our
abode for the night upon a bare bleak hill, in full rake of the
northwest wind, with no other covering or shelter than the canopy
of the heavens, and no fuel but some old rotten rails which we
dug up through the snow, which was two or three feet deep.  The
weather was cold enough to cut a man in two.
     We lay on this accommodating spot till morning when we began
our retreat from the island.  The British were quickly in
pursuit; they attacked our rear guard and made several of them
prisoners, among whom was one of my particular associates.  Poor
young fellow! I have never seen or heard anything from him since.

We arrived at camp after a tedious and cold march of many hours,
some with frozen toes, some with frozen fingers and ears, and
half-starved into the bargain.  Thus ended our Staten Island
expedition. (1)
     Soon after this there came on several severe snowstorms. At
one time it snowed the greater part of four days successively,
and there fell nearly as many feet deep of snow, and here was the
keystone of the arch of starvation. (2) We were absolutely,
literally starved.  I do solemnly declare that I did not put a
single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days and as many
nights, except a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a
stick of wood, if that can be called victuals. I saw several of
the men roast their old shoes and eat them, and I was afterwards
informed by one of the officers' waiters, that some of the
officers killed and ate a favorite little dog that belonged to
one of them. If this was not "suffering" I request to be informed
what can pass under that name. If "suffering" like this did not
"try men's souls," I confess that I do not know what could. The
fourth day, just at dark, we obtained a half pound of lean fresh
beef and a gill of wheat for each man; whether we had any salt to
season so delicious a morsel I have forgotten, but I am sure we
had no bread, except the wheat, but I will assure the reader that
we had the best of sauce; that is, we had keen appetites. When
the wheat was so swelled by boiling as to be beyond the danger of
swelling in the stomach, it was deposited there without ceremony.
     After this, we sometimes got a little beef, but no bread.
We, however, once in a while got a little rice, but as to flour
or bread, I do not recollect that I saw a morsel of either (I
mean wheaten) during the winter, all the bread kind we had was
Indian meal.
     We continued here, starving and freezing, until, I think,
sometime in the month of February, when the two Connecticut
brigades were ordered to the lines near Staten Island.  The small
parties from the army which had been sent to the lines were often
surprised and taken by the enemy or cut to pieces by them.  These
circumstances, it seems, determined the Commander in Chief to
have a sufficient number of troops there to withstand the enemy
even should they come in considerable force.  And now a long
continuance of our hardships appeared unavoidable.  The First
Brigade took up its quarters in a village called Westfield, and
the Second in another called Springfield.  We were put into the
houses with the inhabitants.  A fine addition we were, doubtless,
to their families, but as we were so plentifully furnished with
necessaries, especially in the article of food, we could not be
burdensome to them, as will soon appear.
     I think it necessary before I proceed further, to prevent
much repetition, to give some information of the nature and kind
of duty we had to perform while here, that the reader may form a
clearer idea of the hardships we had to encounter in the
discharge
of it.  Well, then, I shall speak only of the First Brigade, as I
belonged to that.  As to the Second, I know no more of it than
that those who belonged to it doubtless had as hard duty and hard
times as we had in the First.  I say, as I belonged to the First
Brigade, I shall endeavor to describe some of the hardships and
troubles we had to contend with.
     We were stationed about six miles from Elizabethtown, which
is situated near the waters which separate Staten Island from the
main.  We had to send a detachment to this place which continued
on duty there several days; it consisted of about two hundred
men, and had to form several guards while there.  We had another
guard, which consisted of about one hundred men, at a place
called Woodbridge; this guard stayed there two days before they
were relieved, and was ten miles from our quarters.  Woodbridge
also lay by the same waters.  We likewise kept a quarter guard in
every regiment at home, besides other small guards.
     Our duty all the winter and spring was thus.  Suppose I went
upon the Woodbridge guard.  I must march from the parade at eight
o'clock in the morning, go a distance of ten miles and relieve
the guard already there, which would commonly bring it to about
twelve o'clock; stay there two days and two nights, then be
relieved and take up the afternoon of that day to reach our
quarters at Westfield, where, as soon as I could get into my
quarters, and, generally, before I could lay by my arms, warned
for Elizabethtown the next day.  Thus it was the whole time we
lay here, which was from the middle of February to the latter
part of May following.  It was Woodbridge and Elizabethtown,
Elizabethtown and Woodbridge, alternately, till I was absolutely
sick of hearing the names mentioned.
     And now I will relate some of the incidents and accidents
that occurred during this very pleasant tour, that is, as far as
I was concerned.
     The first thing I shall mention is one that has so very
seldom been heard of by the reader, that, it may be, he has
forgotten it.  I mean, we had next to nothing to eat.  As I have
just before observed, we had no wheat flour, all the breadstuff
we got was Indian corn meal and Indian corn flour. Our
Connecticut Yankees were as ignorant of making this meal or flour
into bread as a wild Indian would be of making pound cake.  All
we had any idea of doing with it was to make it into hasty
pudding, and sometimes, though very rarely, we would chance to
get a little milk, or, perhaps, a little cider, or some such
thing to wash it down with; and when we could get nothing to
qualify it, we ate it as it was.  The Indian flour was much worse
than the meal, being so fine it was as clammy as glue, and as
insipid as starch.  We were glad to get even this, for nothing
else could be had.  Flesh meat was nearly as scarce as wheaten
bread; we had but very little of the former and not any of the
latter.  There was not the least thing to be obtained from the
inhabitants, they being so near the enemy, and many of them
seemed to be as poor as ourselves.
     The guard kept at Woodbridge, being so small, and so far
from the troops, and so near the enemy that they were obliged to
be constantly on the alert.  We had three different houses that
we occupied alternately during the night: the first was an empty
house, the second the parson's house, and the third a farmer's
house.  We had to remove from one to the other of these houses
three times every night, from fear of being surprised by the
enemy.
     There was no trusting the inhabitants, for many of them were
friendly to the British, and we did not know who were or who were
not, and consequently, were distrustful of them all, unless it
were one or two.  The parson was a staunch Whig, as the friends
to the country were called in those times, and the farmer,
mentioned before, was another, and perhaps more that we were not
acquainted with. Be that as it would, we were shy of trusting
them.  Here, especially in the night, we were obliged to keep
about one half of the guard upon sentry, and besides these, small
patrolling parties on all the roads leading towards the enemy;
but with all the vigilance we could exercise, we could hardly
escape being surprised and cut off by the enemy.  They exerted
themselves more than common to take some of our guards, because
we had challenged them to do it, and had bid them defiance.
     I was once upon this guard; it was in the spring, after the
snow had gone off the ground.  Myself and another young man took
for our tour of duty to patrol upon a certain road during the
night.  About midnight or a little after, our guard being then at
the farmer's house, which was the farthest back from the water's
side of any of the houses we occupied; this distance caused some
of our sentinels to be three miles from the guard.  We patrolled
from the guard to the farthest sentries which were two (or in
military phrase, a double sentinel) who were standing upon a
bridge.  After we had visited these sentinels and were returning,
we passed the parson's house.  There was a muddy plash in the
road nearly opposite the house, and as it happened, the man with
me passed on the side next to the house and I passed on the
other. After we had got clear of the water and had come together
again, he told me there were British soldiers lying in the garden
and dooryard.  I asked him if was sure of it; he said he was,
for, said he, "I was near enough to have reached them with my
hand, had there been no fence between."
     We stopped and consulted what was best for us to do.  I was
for going back and giving them a starter, but my comrade
declined; he thought it would be best to return to the guard and
inform the officers what we had discovered, and let them act
their pleasure.  We accordingly did so, when the captain of the
guard sent down two horsemen that attended upon the guard to
serve in such circumstances and to carry and fetch intelligence,
to ascertain whether it was as we had reported.  The horsemen,
finding it true, instead of returning and informing the officers,
as they were ordered to, fired their carbines, one into the
house, the ball lodging in the bedpost where the parson and his
wife were in bed, and the other into the garden or dooryard.  The
British, finding they were discovered, walked off with themselves
without even returning a single shot.  We were sorry then that we
had not given them a loving salute as we passed them, and thus
saved the horsemen the trouble.  This was one among many of the
sly methods the British took to surprise and take our guards.
     At another time I was upon the Elizabethtown station.  Being
one night on my post as sentinel, I observed a stir among the
troops composing the detachment.  I inquired the cause, of a
passing officer, who told me the British were upon Holstead's
Point, which was a point of land about two miles from the main
body of the detachment, where we had a guard consisting of a
sergeant, a corporal, and ten privates.  The circumstances were
as follows.  The guard informed the man of the house where the
guard was kept (a Mr. Holstead, the owner of the land that formed
the point) that they had heard boats pass and repass at some
distance below, during the night. He said they were the British,
and that they had landed some of the Refugees, as that
neighborhood abounded with such sort of cattle, but that it would
be next to impossible to detect them, as they had so many friends
in that quarter, and many of the enemy belonging to those parts
they knew every lurking place in all the neighboring country; the
only way for the guard was to be vigilant and prevent a surprise.
When the guard was relieved in the morning, the new one was
informed of these circumstances and cautioned to be on the
lookout.
     Accordingly at night, they consulted with Mr. Holstead, who
advised them to place a sentinel at a certain spot that had been
neglected, for, said he, "they know your situation better than
you do yourselves, and if they come, they will enter your
precincts by the way I have pointed out to you and," continued
he, "they will come about the time of the setting of the moon."
     Agreeable to his advice, the sergeant stationed a sentinel
at that place, and prepared for them. Just as had been predicted,
about the time the moon was setting, which was about ten o'clock,
they came, and at the same point. The first sentinel that
occupied that post had not stood out his trick before he saw them
coming. He immediately hailed them by the usual question, "Who
comes there?" They answered him, that if he would not discharge
his piece they would not hurt him, but if he did they would kill
him. The sentinel, being true to his trust, paid no regard to
their threats, but fired his piece and ran for the house to alarm
the guard. In his way he had to cross a hedge fence, in passing
which he got entangled in the bushes, as it was supposed, and the
enemy coming up thrust a bayonet through him.  They then
inflicted twelve more wounds upon him with bayonets, and rushed
on for the house to massacre the remainder of the guard, but they
had taken the alarm and left the house.  The Refugees, for such
they were, entered the house, but found none of the men to
murder.  Mr. Holstead had two young daughters in the house, one
of which secreted herself in a closet and remained throughout the
whole transaction undiscovered.  The other they caught and
compelled to light a candle and attend them about the house in
search of the Rebels, but without finding any, or offering any
other abuse to the young lady (which was indeed a wonder).
     When they could find none to wreak their vengeance upon,
they cut open the knapsacks of the guard and strewed the Indian
meal about the floor, laughing at the poverty of the Yankee
soldiery who had nothing but hog's fodder, as they termed it, to
eat.  After they had done all the mischief they could in the
house, they proceeded to the barn and drove off five or six head
of Mr. Holstead's young cattle, took them down upon the point and
killed them, and went off in their boats, that had come across
from the island for that purpose, to their den among the British.
     There was another young man belonging to the guard, on his
post at the extremity of the point.  When the Refugees came down
to embark, they cut off this man's retreat, there being a sunken
march on each side of the point, covered with dry flags and
reeds.  When he challenged them, they answered him the same as
they did the other sentinel.  But he paid as little attention to
their threats as the other had done, although, apparently, in a
much worse situation, but fired his musket and sprang into the
marsh among the reeds, where he sunk to his middle in the mud,
and there remained unperceived, till they went off, and thus
preserved his life.
     Such maneuvers the British continued to exhibit the whole
time we were stationed here, but could never do any other damage
to us than killing poor Twist (the name of the young man). 
Unfortunate young man! I could not restrain my tears, when I saw
him next day, with his breast like a sieve, caused by the wounds.
He lost his own life by endeavoring to save the lives of others;
massacred by his own countrymen, who ought to have been fighting
in the common cause of the country instead of murdering him.
     I have been more particular in relating this circumstance,
that the reader may be informed what people there were in the
times of the Revolution. Mr. Holstead told me that almost the
whole of his neighborhood had joined the enemy and that his
next-door neighbor was in this very party. There was a large
number in this place and its vicinity by the name of Hetfield who
were notorious rascals. A certain captain of militia, resident in
these parts, who, upon some occasion, had business to transact
within the reach of these miscreants, they caught and hanged him
up without ceremony, judge or jury. General Washington demanded
the perpetrators of this infernal deed of the British authorities
in New York, but they declined complying with his demand. He,
therefore, selected a British captain, a prisoner, a son - and I
believe an only son - of an opulent English lady, and put him in
close confinement, threatening to execute him unless the
murderers were given up to justice. But his distressed mother by
her strong maternal intercession with the King and court of
France, prevailed on them; and their remonstrances to General
Washington, joined with his own benevolent feelings, so far
wrought upon him that he set the captain at liberty and thus
these murderous villains escaped the punishment due to their
infernal deeds. (3)
     We remained on this tedious duty, getting nothing to eat but
our old fare, Indian meal, and not over much of that, till the
middle of May, when we were relieved, but we remained at our
quarters eight or ten days after that.  Our duty was not quite so
hard now as it had been, but that faithful companion, hunger,
stuck as close to us as ever.  He was a faithful associate, I
will not say friend, for, indeed, poverty is no friend, nor has
he many admirers, though he has an extensive acquaintance.  The
soldiers were well acquainted with him during the whole period of
the Revolutionary War.
     We were here at the time the "dark day" happened (nineteenth
of May.) It has been said that the darkness was not so great in
New Jersey as in New England.  How great it was there I do not
know, but I know that it was very dark where I then was in New
Jersey; so much so that the fowls went to their roosts, the cocks
crew and the whippoorwills sung their usual serenade.  The people
had to light candles in their houses to enable them to see to
carry on their usual business.  The night was as uncommonly dark
as the day was.
     We left Westfield about the twenty-fifth of May and went to
Basking Ridge to our old winter cantonments.  We did not reoccupy
the huts which we built, but some others that the troops had
left, upon what account I have forgotten.  Here, the monster
Hunger, still attended us.  He was not to be shaken off by any
efforts we could use, for here was the old story of starving, as
rife as ever.  We had entertained some hopes that when we had
left the lines and joined the main army, we should fare a little
better, but we found that there was no betterment in the case. 
For several days after we rejoined the army, we got a little
musty bread and a little beef, about every other day, but this
lasted only a short time and then we got nothing at all.  The men
were now exasperated beyond endurance; they could not stand it
any longer.  They saw no other alternative but to starve to
death, or break up the army, give all up and go home.  This was a
hard matter for the soldiers to think upon.  They were truly
patriotic, they loved their country, and they had already
suffered everything short of death in its cause; and now, after
such extreme hardships to give up all was too much, but to starve
to death was too much also.  What was to be done ? Here was the
army starved and naked, and there their country sitting still and
expecting the army to do notable things while fainting from sheer
starvation.  All things considered, the army was not to be
blamed. Reader, suffer what we did and you will say so, too.
     We had borne as long as human nature could endure, and to
bear longer we considered folly.  Accordingly, one pleasant day,
the men spent the most of their time upon the parade, growling
like soreheaded dogs.  At evening roll call they began to show
their dissatisfaction by snapping at the officers and acting
contrary to their orders.  After their dismissal from the parade,
the officers went, as usual, to their quarters, except the
adjutant, who happened to remain, giving details for next day's
duty to the orderly sergeants, or some other business, when the
men, none of whom had left the parade began to make him sensible
that they had something in train.  He said something that did not
altogether accord with the soldiers' ideas of propriety, one of
the men retorted; the adjutant called him a mutinous rascal, or
some such epithet, and then left the parade.  This man, then
stamping the butt of his musket upon the ground, as much as to
say, I am in a passion, called out, "Who will parade with me?"
The whole regiment immediately fell in and formed.
     We had made no plans for our future operations, but while we
were consulting how to proceed, the Fourth Regiment, which lay on
our left, formed, and came and paraded with us.  We now concluded
to go in a body to the other two regiments [the Third and Sixth]
that belonged to our brigade and induce them to join with us. 
These regiments lay forty or fifty rods in front of us, with a
brook and bushes between.  We did not wish to have anyone in
particular to command, lest he might be singled out for a
courtmartial to exercise its demency upon.  We therefore gave
directions to the drummers to give certain signals on the drums;
at the first signal we shouldered our arms, at the second we
faced, at the third we began our march to join with the other two
regiments, and went off with music playing.
     By this time our officers had obtained knowledge of our
military maneuvering and some of them had run across the brook,
by a nearer way than we had taken, it being now quite dark, and
informed the officers of those regiments of our approach and
supposed intentions.  The officers ordered their men to parade as
quick as possible without arms.  When that was done, they
stationed a camp guard, that happened to be near at hand, between
the men and their huts, which prevented them from entering and
taking their arms, which they were very anxious to do.  Colonel
[Return Jonathan] Meigs, of the Sixth Regiment, exerted himself
to prevent his men from obtaining their arms until he received a
severe wound in his side by a bayonet in the scuffle, which
cooled his courage at the time.  He said he had always considered
himself the soldier's friend and thought the soldiers regarded
him as such, but had reason now to conclude he might be mistaken.

Colonel Meigs was truly an excellent man and a brave officer. 
The man, whoever he was, that wounded him, doubtless had no
particular grudge against him; it was dark and the wound was
given, it is probable, altogether unintentionally.  Colonel Meigs
['s son] was afterwards Governor of Ohio and Postmaster General.
     When we found the officers had been too crafty for us we
returned with grumbling instead of music, the officers following
in the rear growling in concert.  One of the men in the rear
calling out, "Halt in front," the officers seized upon him like
wolves on a sheep and dragged him out of the ranks, intending to
make an example of him for being a mutinous rascal," but the
bayonets of the men pointing at their breasts as thick as hatchet
teeth, compelled them quickly to relinquish their hold of him. 
We marched back to our own parade and then formed again.  The
officers now began to coax us to disperse to our quarters, but
that had no more effect upon us than their threats.  One of them
slipped away into the bushes, and after a short time returned,
counterfeiting to have come directly from headquarters.  Said he,
"There is good news for you, boys, there has just arrived a large
drove of cattle for the army." But this piece of finesse would
not avail.  All the answer he received for his labor was, "Go and
butcher them," or some such slight expression.  The lieutenant
colonel of the Fourth Regiment [John Sumner] now came on to the
parade.  He could persuade his men, he said, to go peaceably to
their quarters.  After a good deal of palaver, he ordered them to
shoulder their arms, but the men taking no notice of him or his
order, he fell into a violent passion, threatening them with the
bitterest punishment if they did not immediately obey his orders.

After spending a whole quiver of the arrows of his rhetoric, he
again ordered them to shoulder their arms, but he met with the
same success that he did at the first trial.  He therefore gave
up the contest as hopeless and left us and walked off to his
quarters, chewing the cud of resentment all the way, and how much
longer I neither knew nor cared.  The rest of the officers, after
they found that they were likely to meet with no better success
than the colonel, walked off likewise to their huts. 
     While we were under arms, the Pennsylvania troops, who lay
not far from us, were ordered under arms and marched off their
parades upon, as they were told, a secret expedition.  They had
surrounded us, unknown to either us or themselves (except the
officers).  At length, getting an item of what was going forward,
they inquired of some of the stragglers what was going on among
the Yankees.  Being informed that they had mutinied on account
of the scarcity of provisions, "Let us join them," said they. 
"Let us join the Yankees; they are good fellows, and have no
notion of lying here like fools and starving." Their officers
needed no further hinting.  The troops were quickly ordered back
to their quarters, from fear that they would join in the same
song with the Yankees.  We knew nothing of all this for some time
afterwards.
     After our officers had left us to our own option, we
dispersed to our huts and laid by our arms of our own accord, but
the worm of hunger gnawing so keen kept us from being entirely
quiet. We therefore still kept upon the parade in groups, venting
our spleen at our country and government, then at our officers,
and then at ourselves for our imbecility in staying there and
starving in detail for an ungrateful people who did not care what
became of us, so they could enjoy themselves while we were
keeping a cruel enemy from them.  While we were thus venting our
gall against we knew not who, Colonel [Walter] Stewart of the
Pennsylvania Line, with two or three other officers of that Line,
came to us and questioned us respecting our unsoldierlike conduct
(as he termed it). We told him he needed not to be informed of
the cause of our present conduct, but that we had borne till we
considered further forbearance pusillanimity; that the times,
instead of mending, were growing worse; and finally, that we were
determined not to bear or forbear much longer.  We were unwilling
to desert the cause of our country, when in distress; that we
knew her cause involved our own, but what signified our perishing
in the act of saving her, when that very act would inevitably
destroy us, and she must finally perish with us.
     "Why do you not go to your officers," said he, "and complain
in a regular manner?" We told him we had repeatedly complained to
them, but they would not hear us.  "Your officers," said he, "are
gentlemen, they will attend to you. I know them; they cannot
refuse to hear you.  But," said he, "your officers suffer as much
as you do.  We all suffer.  The officers have no money to
purchase supplies with any more than the private men have, and if
there is nothing in the public store we must fare as hard as you.

I have no other resources than you have to depend upon.  I had
not a sixpence to purchase a partridge that was offered me the
other day.  Besides," said he, "you know not how much you injure
your own characters by such conduct.  You Connecticut troops have
won immortal honor to yourselves the winter past, by your
perseverance, patience, and bravery, and now are shaking it off
at your heels.  But I will go and see you your officers, and talk
with them myself." He went, but what the result was, I never
knew.  This Colonel Stewart was an excellent officer, much
beloved and respected by the troops of the line he belonged to. 
He possessed great personal beauty; the Philadelphia ladies
styled him _the _Irish _Beauty.
     Our stir did us some good in the end, for we had provisions
directly after, so we had no great cause for complaint for some
time. (4)
     About this time there were about three thousand men ordered
out for a particular field day, for the Prussian General Baron de
Steuben to exercise his maneuvering functions upon. (5) We
marched off our regimental parades at dawn of day, and went three
or four miles to Morristown to a fine plain, where we performed a
variety of military evolutions.  We were furnished with a plenty
of blank cartridges, had eight or ten fieldpieces, and made a
great noise, if nothing more.  About one or two o'clock we
ceased, and were supplied with a gill of rum each.  Having had
nothing to eat since the night before, the liquor took violent
hold, and there were divers queer tricks exhibited both by
officers and men.  I saw a Pennsylvania soldier staggering off
with three _espontons on his shoulder that he had gleaned up
after some of his officers.  This day was nearly equal to the
whiskey scrape at the Schuylkill, in 1777. (6)
     In the month of June, five thousand British and Hessian
troops advanced into New Jersey, burnt several houses in
Elizabethtown and the Presbyterian meetinghouse and most of the
village of Springfield.  They also barbarously murdered, by
shooting, Mrs. Caldwell, the wife of the minister [James
Caldwell] of that place.  What their further intentions were
could not be ascertained by our commanders.  Sometimes it was
conjectured that they were aiming at a quantity of public stores
deposited in Morristown; sometimes that it was for a diversion in
favor of their main army, by endeavoring to amuse us till their
forces could push up the North River and attack West Point.  Our
army was accordingly kept in a situation to relieve either in
case of an attack.  While we remained in this situation our army
was infested by spies from the British.  I saw three of those
vermin, one day, hanging on one gallows.  The enemy soon after
recoiled into their shell again at New York.
     During these operations, we were encamped at a place called
the Short Hills.  While lying here, I came near taking another
final discharge from the army in consequence of my indiscretion
and levity.  I was one day upon a camp guard.  We kept our guard
in the fields, and to defend us from the night dew we laid down
under some trees which stood upon the brink of a very deep gully.
The sides and tops of the banks of this gully were covered with
walnut or hickory saplings, three, four, or five inches diameter,
at their butts, and many of them were fifty or sixty feet in
height.  In the morning before the guard was relieved, some of
the men (and I among the rest, to be sure, I was never far away
when such kind of business was going forward) took it into our
heads to divert ourselves by climbing these trees as high as they
would bear us, and then swinging off our feet; the weight would
bring us by a gentle flight to the ground, when the tree would
resume its former position.
     After exercising ourselves some time at this diversion, I
thought I would have one capital swing.  Accordingly, I climbed
one of the tallest trees that stood directly on the edge of the
gully, and swung off over the gully.  When the tree had bent to
about an horizontal position, it snapped off as short as a
pipestem.  I suppose I was nearly or quite forty feet from the
ground, from which distance I came, feet foremost, to the ground
at quick time.  The ground was soft, being loamy and entirely
free from stones, so that it did me but little hurt, but I held
the part of the tree I had broken off firmly in my grasp, and
when I struck the ground with my feet I brought it with all the
force of my weight and its own directly upon the top of my
unthinking skull, which knocked me as stiff as a ringbolt.  It
was several minutes before I recovered recollection enough to
know or remember what I had been about, but I weathered the
point, although it gave me a severe headache for several days
afterwards, as a memento to keep upon the ground and not attempt
to act the part of a flying squirrel.
     Another affair happened soon after this which did not set
very well on my stomach at the time.  I had been on a detached
party for four or five days and had had nothing to eat for at
least eight and forty hours of the latter part of the time.  When
I came to camp there was nothing there.  I strolled off to where
some butchers were killing cattle, as I supposed, for the general
officers (for they must have victuals, let the poor men fare as
they would) and by some means procured an old ox's liver.  I then
went home and soon had a quantity of it in my kettle.  The more I
seethed it the harder it grew, but I soon filled my empty stomach
with it, and, it being night, I turned in. I had not slept long
before I awoke, feeling much like Jonathan when he had the dry
bellyache for want of some fourth proof Jamaica spirits; that is,
I felt "dreadfully." I worried it out till morning) when, as soon
as I thought I could call upon the doctors without too much
disturbing their honors, I applied to one for relief.  He gave me
a large dose of tartar emetic, the usual remedy in the army for
all disorders, even sore eyes, though he could not have given me
a better one for my then present malady.  He gave me ample
directions how to proceed, a part of which was to take one half
or two thirds of the potion and wait a given time, and if it did
not operate, then to swallow the remainder.  It did not work till
I had the whole in my crop, nor then neither.  I waited some time
for it, but growing  impatient, I wandered off into the fields
and bushes to see what effect exercise would have.  I then sat
down upon a log, or stone, or something else, and discharged the
hard junks of liver like grapeshot from a fieldpiece. I had no
water or any other thing to ease my retchings. O, I thought I
must die in good earnest.  The liver still kept coming, and I
looked at every heave for my own liver to come next, but that
happened to be too well fastened to part from its moorings. 
Perhaps the reader will think this a trifling matter, happening
in the ordinary course of things, but I think it a "suffering,"
and not a small one neither, "of a Revolutionary soldier."
     After the British had retreated to New York, our army
marched for West Point.  We passed through the Highlands, by the
Clove, a remarkable chasm in the mountains, and came out on the
bank of the Hudson River at a place called Buttermilk Falls,
where a small stream falls into the river over a high craggy
bank, forming a pretty cascade. (7)  We halted here.  It was in
the morning and I well remember our colonel's orders on the
occasion.  "Men," said he, "you have one hour allowed you to
refresh yourselves!" Had we been herbaceous animals we might have
refreshed ourselves on browse, for there was no deficiency of
that, but as to victuals fit for human beings, I question if
there was five pounds weight in the whole regiment.  I had none,
nor had I had any for twenty-four hours.  We were, at this time,
ruminating animals, but our ruminating was mentally, not by the
teeth.  Had the falls been real buttermilk, the colonel's order
might have been given with some propriety, but as it was not so,
we were forced to be patient, for we did not expect to be fed by
a miracle.
     We passed on to West Point.  The Connecticut forces crossed
the river to the eastern side and encamped opposite to West
Point, upon what was called Nelson's Point.  It was now very hot
weather, being the latter part of June.  Here, for a considerable
length of time, our rations, when we got any, consisted of bread
and salt shad.  This fish, as salt as fire, and dry bread,
without any kind of vegetables, was hard fare in such extreme hot
weather as it was then.  We were compelled to eat it as it was. 
If we attempted to soak it in a brook that ran close by the camp,
we were quite sure to lose it, there being a great abundance of
otters and minks in and about the water, four-legged and
two-legged (but much the largest number of the latter), so that
they would be quite sure to carry off the fish, let us do what we
would to prevent it.
     Soon after we were encamped here I was sent off with a
working party to work upon some fortifications on Constitution
Island, a mile or two higher up the river.  We had our allowance
of salt shad and bread, and were to remain there a week.  Our
duty was, chiefly, wheeling dirt upon a stone building intended
for a magazine.  We had to wheel to the top of the wall, which
was about twenty feet high, upon a way two planks wide, and in
the passage we had to cross a chasm in the rocks thirty or forty
feet wide and perhaps as many deep.  None of us happened to take
a dive into it, but it often made my head swim when crossing it
at such a rate, and I thought it would not be strange if some of
us should feel the bottom before we left there.  From the planks,
which we wheeled upon, to the bottom of the hole, could not be
less than sixty feet; if anyone had fallen into it he would have
received his discharge from the army without further trouble.
     We continued at this business two or three days, when the
weather became so hot that it was difficult to breathe.  The rays
of the sun reflected from the bare rocks (all that part of the
island where we were, being mostly so) was stifling in the
extreme, and to complete a bad business there was not a drop of
water on the island, except the brackish water of the river, and
that was as warm as milk and almost as nauseous as the waters of
the Nile after it had felt the effects of Moses' rod.  There was
no shade, and we had no tents.  We could get no refreshment but
in a place where were two high points of rocks butting upon the
shore, which caused a small draught of wind (when there was any
air stirring) from the river.  Here we repaired two or three
hours, in the heat of the day, and then went to work again till
dark.
     After we had been two or three days at this invigorating
business, the troops were inspected by General Steuben.  When he
found out our situation, he ordered us off immediately.  "You may
as well knock those men on the head," said he, "as keep them
there; they will die if kept there much longer, and they can do
no more if you knock their brains out." He had more sense than
our officers, but they did not feel the hardships which we had to
undergo, and of course cared but little, if anything at all,
about us.  We were called off and I never was so glad to get
clear of any duty as I was to get clear of that.  A state prison
would be preferable to it, for there one might chance to get
something to eat, or at least to drink.
     And now there was to be a material change in my
circumstances, which, in the long run, was much in my favor. 
There was a small corps to be raised by enlistments, and in case
of the failure of that, by drafts from the line.  These men were
called "Sappers and Miners," to be attached to the engineer's
department. (8) I had known of this for some time before, but
never had a thought of belonging to it, although I had heard our
major (to whose company I belonged) tell some of our officers
(after I had neatly marked his name upon his chest) that if there
was a draft from our regiment, he intended I should go, although,
he added, he did not wish to part with me.  I, however, thought
no more about it, till a captain of that corps applied for a
draft of one man from each regiment throughout the whole army
present.  The captain was personally acquainted with our major
and told him he would like to have him furnish him with a man
from the regiment that he knew was qualified for a
non-commissioned officer.  The major then pitched upon me.  How
far he was to be justified in his choice the reader may, perhaps,
be enabled to judge by the construction of this present work; I
give him my free consent to exercise his judgment upon it.
     I was accordingly transferred to this corps and bid a
farewell forever to my old comrades, as it respected any further
associating with them, or sharing in their sufferings or
pleasures.  I immediately went off with this (now my) captain and
the other men drafted from our brigade, and joined the corps in
an old meetinghouse at the Peekskill.  It was after dark when we
arrived there.  I had now got among a new set, who were, to a
man, entire strangers to me.  I had, of course, to form new
acquaintances, but I was not long in doing that.  I had a pretty
free use of my tongue, and was sometimes apt to use it when there
was no occasion for it.  However, I soon found myself at home
with them.  We were all young men and therefore easy to get
acquainted.
     I found nothing more here for belly timber than I had in the
line, and got nothing to eat till the second day after I had
joined the corps.  I have heard it remarked by the old farmers
that when beasts are first transferred from one place to another,
that if they keep them without food for two or three days, it
will go far towards wonting them to their new situation.  Perhaps
it might be so thought by our commanders.  Be that as it would, I
got nothing, as I have said, till the second day I had been with
them. We then drew, if I remember right, two days rations of our
good old diet, salt shad, and as we had not, as yet, associated
ourselves into regular messes, as is usual in the army, each man
had his fish divided out by himself.  We were on the green before
the meetinghouse and there were several cows feeding about the
place. I went into the house to get something to put my fish
into, or some other business, and stayed longer than I intended,
or rather ought to have done, for when I came out again, one of
the cows was just finishing her meal on my shad; the last I saw
of it was the tail of a fish sticking out of the side of her
mouth.  I was vexed enough to have eaten the weight of it off her
carcass, but she took care of that, and I had another opportunity
(if well improved) of mortifying my body by fasting two days
longer, but I got something among the men, as poorly as they were
off, to sustain nature till I could get more by some means or
other.  Such shifts were nothing strange to us.
     This corps of Miners was reckoned an honorable one; it
consisted of three companies.  All the officers were required to
be acquainted with the sciences, and it was desirable to have as
intelligent young men as could be procured to compose it,
although some of us fell considerably short of perfection.
Agreeable to the arrangement between my former commander and my
new captain, I was appointed a sergeant in this corps, which was
as high an office as I ever obtained in the army, and I had some
doubts in my own mind, at the time, whether I was altogether
qualified for that.  However, I was a sergeant and I think I did
use my best abilities to perform the duties of the office
according to my best knowledge and judgment.  Indeed, I can say
at this late hour of my life, that my conscience never did, and I
trust never will, accuse me of any failure in my duty to my
country, but, on the contrary, I always fulfilled my engagements
to her, however she failed in fulfilling hers with me.  The case
was much like that of a loyal and faithful husband, and a
light-heeled wanton of a wife.  But I forgive her and hope she
will do better in future.
     Soon after I had joined this corps, the army moved down on
the west side of the Hudson to Orangetown, commonly called by the
inhabitants of those parts, Tappan (pronounced Tap-pawn). Just
before arriving at our encamping ground, we halted in the road an
hour or two.  Some four or five of our men, knowing that the
regiments to which they formerly belonged were near, slipped off
for a few minutes to see their old messmates.  When we came to
march again, they not having returned, I was ordered to remain
with their arms and knapsacks till they came and then bring them
on and join the corps again.
     I accordingly waited an hour or two before they all
returned.  As soon as I had got them all together we set off but
the troops arriving and passing in almost every direction, I knew
not where to go to find our corps.  After much trouble and
vexation (being constantly interrogated by the passing officers,
who we were, and how we came to be behind our troops), I
concluded, that as most or all the troops had passed us, to stay
where I then was and wait the coming up of the baggage of our
troops, thinking that the guard or drivers might have directions
where to find them.  Our baggage happening to be quite in the
rear, while we were waiting we had an opportunity to see the
baggage of the army pass.  When that of the middle states passed
us, it was truly amusing to see the number and habiliments of
those attending it; of all specimens of human beings, this group
capped the whole.  A caravan of wild beasts could bear no
comparis on with it.  There was "Tag, Rag and Bobtail"; "some in
rags and some in jags," but none "in velvet gowns." Some with two
eyes, some with one, and some, I believe, with none at all.  They
"beggared all description"; their dialect, too, was as confused
as their bodily appearance was odd and disgusting. There was the
Irish and Scotch brogue, murdered English, flat insipid Dutch and
some lingoes which would puzzle a philosopher to tell whether
they belonged to this world or some "undiscovered country." I was
glad to see the tail end of the train, and waited with impatience
for the arrival of our baggage, which soon after made its
appearance, but the men with the wagons knew no better than
myself where to go.  We, however, proceeded and soon after met
one of the sergeants coming to meet and conduct us to where our
people were, which was at Dobbs Ferry, and about three miles from
any part of the rest of the army.  Most of the artillery
belonging to the army was at the same place.
     Here we lay till the close of the campaign.  We built a
strong blockhouse near the ferry, in which we were assisted by
detachments from the main army, and erected a battery near it. 
But that fiend, Scarcity, followed us here, and when we chanced
to get any meat we had no salt.  For a long time we had to go
three fourths of a mile to the river to get water, which was
somewhat salt, before we could cook our breakfasts.  This was
trifling, however, compared with the trouble of having nothing to
cook, which was too often the case with us.  There was, indeed, a
plenty of fruit to be had, and we being few in number and so far
from the main army, this resource was not soon or easily
exhausted, but there were mosquitoes enough to take a pound of
blood from us, while we could make an ounce.  We had some plague
or other always to torment us.  Says the reader, "Who is
without?"
     Soon after our arrival here, a British brig passed up the
river the same that conveyed the unfortunate Major [John] Andre
to his bane.  Poor man! he had better have stayed where he was
better acquainted.
     I was about this time ordered to return up the river, in
company with one of our lieutenants, after some clothing for our
men.  The lieutenant rode in company with an officer of the
artillery, who was going that way upon business of his own, and I
went on foot and started early in the morning with only my
blanket and provisions (that is, if I had any.) It was very hot
weather, and when I had traveled about ten miles on my way, being
on a good road, in the heat of the day, and passing through a
considerable wood, a young lady made her appearance at a turn of
the road about forty rods ahead of me.  The heat had induced her
to divest herself of some of her outside garments.  But upon
discovering me in her immediate neighborhood, she slipped on her
clothes and came towards me seemingly quite unconcerned.  But, on
thinking better of the matter, as I supposed, she concluded that
it would not be quite safe to encounter a soldier in such a
place; she accordingly turned about and made her escape as fast
as possible through the bushes.  When she first started from the
road I saw her drop something and she partly turned about to take
it up, but thinking that it would not do to stop for trifles when
the enemy was so near, she resumed her race.  I then hallooed to
her which caused her to hasten her departure in double-quick
time.  Upon coming to the place where she turned off from the
road, I had the curiosity to see what she had dropped; it proved
to be a knot of black ribbon, of about a yard and a half.  Not
knowing but the poor thing might take another fright if she came
back after it, I concluded to save her the trouble and
accordingly took it with me.  She seemed to be in a violent
panic.  But every miss that I saw while in the army was not so
easily frightened.
     I crossed King's Ferry and went on to the foot of the
Highlands, where there was a commissary and wagoners, boatmen,
&c.  Here I again joined my lieutenant and obtained a ration or
two of provisions, consisting of corned beef and hard bread,
borrowed a pot, cooked my meat, ate my supper, turned in under an
old wagon and slept soundly till about an hour before day, when
the lieutenant called me up to go on to Newburgh, about twenty
miles further up the river.  He had procured a batteau and five
or six men to convey us up and bring down the clothing which we
were after.  We had a mile or two to go to reach the boat, over
ledges, through brush, and as dark as Egypt.  We then proceeded
to Newburgh, where we got our clothing.  While I was packing it
away in empty hogsheads, the lieutenant gave me a hint to take
care of my own interest.  I accordingly picked from the best of
each article what was allowed to each man and bundled them up by
themselves.  Afterwards, when a distribution was made, some of
the sergeants were a little inclined to cavil with me for my
partiality to myself, but the lieutenant interfered in my favor,
telling them that I deserved the preference, as I had been at so
much pains and trouble while they had remained at home at their
ease.
     We returned down the river on our way to camp until we came
to where we took the boat, when I was set on shore to take the
lieutenant's and the other officer's horses to King's Ferry,
while the lieutenant went down in the boat.  I took the horses
and went on alone to the ferry.  On the way, being hungry, my
provisions, if I had any, being in the boat, I saw some
fine-looking apples in a field and dismounted and filled my
pockets with them and ate a considerable quantity.  They were
sweet and of rather a tough texture, and caused me considerable
trouble, as I shall relate by and by.  I crossed the ferry in a
large scow.  There were ten or twelve head of cattle, besides my
horses, in the boat.  About midway of the river a cow jumped out
and took her departure directly down the river; it being ebb tide
and the water rapid, she was soon out of sight.  There was not
the least exertion made to save her; she was Continental property
and consequently thought of but little consequence.
     I landed and soon found my officer, who had arrived some
time before me; he had got our baggage into a wagon, which had
gone on, and he was waiting for me.  We should have gone down to
Dobbs Ferry with the boat, had it not been for the British brig
Vulture, which was lying just below King's Ferry, waiting upon
Arnold and Andre.  There was a large number of wagons, teamsters
and soldiers at the ferry; everything destined to the army,
coming down the river, was obliged to be landed here on account
of the above-mentioned brig.  When I had found the lieutenant he
took his horse, leaving the other with me, and sent me back to
the river's side on an errand.  I did as ordered and then went on
after him and our baggage.  I had gone but a small distance
before my apples began to operate; I had felt their effects some
time before.  I now began to think the game was up with me; my
head ached as though it was splitting into ten thousand pieces
and my sight entirely failed.  I got, or rather tumbled, off my
horse and lay on the ground, giving myself up for lost.  The
lieutenant, finding I did not make my appearance, came back to
seek me.  He found me in a sad condition.  I asked him to give me
some water.  He got some that was quite warm, and it was well for
me that it was so, for I had no sooner swallowed it than it
caused me to discharge the contents of my stomach, which quickly
gave me ease.  I then got upon his horse, which had a soft deer's
skin for a saddlecloth, and he walked by my side and led my
horse.
     I again asked him for water.  He went into a house a little
distance from the road, in which was no person except an old man.
The lieutenant asked him for a vessel to dip some water from a
spring near by, which was six or eight feet deep, but the old man
refused, saying that he would not let a soldier have a cup to
drink from if it were to save his life.  The officer then took a
glass pint mug and came out to me, the old man following him
raving like a madman.  The lieutenant gave me some water and,
after I had drank, he flung the mug into the spring with a motion
that seemed to indicate that he was not well pleased.  Upon
which, the old man redoubled his abuse, when the lieutenant,
drawing his sword, swore that if he did not immediately shut his
mouth, he would bleed him.  The old man, seeing the sword glitter
thought it best to shut up whilst his skin was whole, and walked
off to the house, and we went on.  This officer was a very mild
man, but the old man had "raised his ideas" by abusing the
soldiers, which he would not hear from anyone.
     We went on and overtook the wagons, but I felt very meager
all day.  I never before thought myself so near death, and it was
all occasioned by eating a few apples; but less things than these
may deprive a man of life.  This was one "suffering" of a
Revolutionary soldier. There were more than fifty wagons in
company with us, bound to the army.  We halted at night at a
cluster of houses.  The lieutenant took up his abode for the
night in a farmer's house.  I stayed out with the wagons.  In the
evening I strolled into a cornfield, upon some occasion or other,
where I discovered a large patch of watermelons.  I took one and
went to the wagon and ate it, although the lieutenant had given
me a strict charge not to meddle with any kind of fruit until I
had fully digested the apples.  He insisted upon my lodging in
the house from fear of taking cold, but I chose to keep out with
the baggage, which I did till suppertime; he then sent out to me
to come in and get supper. I could not well refuse this
invitation, and went in.  The lady of the house provided me a
rarity, hominy and milk.  The lieutenant again urged me to stay
in the house, but I pretended that our clothing might be in
danger unless I attended to it; he said no more to me but left me
to regulate my own conduct.  It was not the clothing I had so
much at heart, though that bore some weight on my mind, but the
thought of the luscious watermelons was what so strongly
attracted my mind in that direction.  Accordingly, when all was
still, I went and took as many as I thought necessary, stowed
them into the wagon and then lay down under it, and slept very
contentedly till morning, without once thinking of the danger of
the baggage.  We started early next morning and arrived at Dobbs
Ferry about noon.
     Soon after this journey, one night, the British brig came
down the river with her precious cargo - Arnold - on board. 
There were several shots discharged at her as she passed the
blockhouse, but she went by without paying us much attention. 
The next day it was reported that General Arnold had deserted.
(9) I should as soon have thought West Point had deserted as he,
but I was soon convinced that it was true.  Had I possessed the
power of foreknowledge, I might twice have put Arnold asleep
without anyone knowing it and saved the life of, perhaps, a
better man, and my country much trouble and disgrace.
     The first time was at the Peekskill in a barn, just before
Andre came to his quarters and while their clandestine
negotiation was in progress.  I was upon a guard.  "There are
men," says Shakespeare, "who, in their sleep, mutter all their
conceits." Such a one was Arnold, and therefore afraid to sleep
near anyone lest he should "babble his conceits" in his sleep. 
He ordered me and my guard out of the barn, that he might have
his bed upon the floor.  I was so put out of my bias at the time,
that had I known what plans he had in his head, I should have
needed but little persuasion to have had a reckoning with him.
     The other time was but three or four days before his
desertion.  I met him upon the road a little distance from Dobbs
Ferry; he was then taking his observations and examining the
roads.  I thought that he was upon some deviltry. We met at a
notch of the roads and I observed he stopped, and sitting upon
his horse, seemed minutely to examine each road. I could not help
taking notice of him, and thought it strange to see him quite
alone in such a lone place.  He looked guilty, and well he might,
for Satan was in as full possession of him at that instant as
ever he was of Judas; it only wanted a musket ball to have driven
him out.  I had been acquainted with Arnold from my childhood and
never had too good an opinion of him.
     The British had a blockhouse below, said to be garrisoned by
a gang of fugitive Negroes, commanded by a black by the name of
Cuff -- Colonel Cuff.  One night a black man, a runaway, came to
one of our sentinels at our blockhouse.  When he came up he
addressed the sentinel with, "Is this Colonel Cuffee's
blockhouse?" the sentinel called the commander of the guard, who
quickly undeceived poor Caesar and sent him back to his master,
where, no doubt, he got a striped jacket as part of his uniform
suit, to remember Colonel Cuff by.
     Our people had a number of spy boats lying a little distance
above the ferry.  One night one of these boats went down the
river and anchored not far from the western shore, which was
there very high, placed a sentinel in the boat, and lay down to
rest.  A British boat, getting intelligence of them, rowed up
with
muffled oars, keeping close under the highland, in the shadow of
the mountains (the moon being in that quarter), till they had got
above them, and then came directly down upon them.  The sentinel
immediately roused up the men in the boat.  One of them, having
his musket charged with buckshot (Yankee peas, as the British
used to call them), challenged them with, "Who comes there?" They
answered, "We will quickly let you know." The man in our boat
answered, "Here's give you Shelar McGira then," and gave them the
contents of his musket, which caused a bitter lamentation in the
British boat.  Our people had now cut their cable and got to
their oars.  They rowed a small distance and lay to for the
enemy's boat to come up, when they all fired into her and again
sprang to their oars.  Our boat could row much faster than the
other, which still followed her.  They kept up a constant fire
upon each other till they got nearly up to the ferry, where there
were a few troops encamped, who, running down upon the bank of
the river, prepared to give the English boat a seasoning, but the
enemy, seeing them, gave over the chase and went back down the
river.  What execution our people did among them was not known,
but one of our men received a musket ball directly in the middle
of his forehead, which passed out behind his head.  This was done
about eleven o'clock at night, and I saw him at nine next
morning, alive, and breathing just like a man in a sound sleep. 
He died in about an hour after.
     About this time Major Andre was brought from the Highlands
to headquarters where he was examined, condemned and executed.  I
saw him before his execution, but was on duty on that day and
could not attend; otherwise I should. (10) He was an interesting
character. There has been a great deal said about him, but he was
but a man, and no better, nor had he better qualifications than
the brave Captain [Nathan] Hale, whom the British commander
caused to be executed as a spy, upon Long Island in 1776 without
the shadow of a trial, denying him the use of a Bible or the
assistance [of] a clergyman in his last moments, and destroying
the letters he had written to his widowed mother and other
relations.  Andre had every indulgence allowed him that could be
granted with propriety.  See the contrast.  Let all who pity
Andre so much look at it and be silent.
     We were frequently alarmed while lying at Dobbs Ferry. 
Being so few and at a distance from the main army, we had
constantly to be on the lookout, but never happened to come in
contact with the enemy, although they very frequently made us
believe we should.
     While lying here I was almost persuaded, once, that I should
have to take a trip to New York, but was quite agreeably
disappointed.  One day my captain sent me across the country to
the western part of Connecticut, to bring him some mathematical
instruments he had left there.  He directed me which way to take,
as it was dangerous traveling there on account of the small
parties of British, or rather Refugees and Cowboys in their
service.  I knew the way very well, but I knew, too, there was a
way lower down that was shorter.  I determined after I had
crossed the river to take that road and hazard the consequences.
     I had got about halfway on my journey, when just at night I
passed a house which before the war had been a tavern.  I passed
by the house, thoughtlessly, and saw nobody, but as I passed the
horse shed I observed several horses standing under it,
caparisoned like dragoon horses.  I hurried on as fast as I could
to get out of sight, but I had not got many rods by the house
when I saw a man come out with a fusee in his hand and otherwise
equipped like a soldier, who calling after me, bid me stop.  I
was so near him and entirely unarmed that I dare not refuse his
demand.  He stepped along slowly a few paces towards me,
inquiring where I was going and where I came from.  I now
inwardly cursed my indiscretion in not obeying my captain's
directions respecting the road I ought to have taken. I asked him
the same questions he had asked me; he said that was nothing to
the purpose; he had first interrogated me and I must answer him.
He kept all the time advancing slowly towards me; I wished we
were further apart. By this time two or three more of his party
had come out of the house and were standing looking at us. I then
told him to tell me who he was and where from and keep me no
longer in suspense. As he advanced I receded as much as I dared
to, till he peremptorily told me not to go any further till I had
satisfied him who I was and where I was going. By this time I
began to gather courage. I thought that if he belonged to the
enemy he would not stand so long without my knowing who he was by
stronger arguments than words. I at last told him frankly who I
was and where bound. "Well," said he, "I thought you were upon
some particular business, or you would not have been seen on this
dangerous road." He then asked me to go back to the house and
take some refreshment, but I declined his invitation, being glad
to find myself safe and in my own hands. I went on and
accomplished my business, but took care to return on a safer
road. 
     We lay at Dobbs Ferry till the latter part of the month of
October, when we marched to West Point for winter quarters. I
left this place with regret, more so than any other during my
continuance in the army. It was upon an account which I need not
mention. Many young men have, doubtless, felt the same upon
similar occasions. If they have, they know my feelings at the
time I speak of. But that time has long since gone by and my
affections with it, both "gone with the years beyond the flood,"
never more to return.
     We marched for West Point.  At the Peekskill we procured
batteaux to convey ourselves and baggage up the river to the
Point, where we arrived in safety and went into the old barracks,
until new ones could be built for us, which we immediately
commenced.  We had to go six miles down the river, and there hew
the timber, then carry it on our shoulders to the river, and then
raft it to West Point.  We, however, soon completed this part of
the business ourselves, when the carpenters took it in hand, and
by New Year's Day they were ready to receive us.  Till then, we
had been living in the old barracks, where there were rats
enough, had they been men, to garrison twenty West Points.
     Our barracks being completed, and we safely stowed away in
them, I shall here conclude the campaign of 1780.

* Footnotes *
     (1) This daring, but poorly managed, raid was mounted during
the night of January 14, 1790, under command of Major General
William Alexander, not, as Martin recalled, under General
Sullivan. 
     (2) One contemporary recorded twenty-eight snowfalls,
including the great storm of January 2-4, 1780.

     (3) The Hetfields or Hatfields, especially the family of
John Smith Hetfield, were notorious Tories of East Jersey, and
Moses Hatfield, who furnished Washington with intelligence, was
suspected by the commander in chief of being a double spy.  The
captain of militia was Joshua Huddy, who had made himself
particularly objectionable to the Tories, or Refugees, by
wounding one of their number when they attacked his house in the
summer of 1780.  On March 24, 1782, Huddy was captured when he
surrendered the blockhouse at Toms River, New Jersey.  He was
falsely accused of killing a Tory and was summarily hanged. 
Washington demanded surrender of Huddy's murderer, whom Clinton
would not give up.  Washington then selected by lot young Captain
Charles Asgill to hang in retaliation for Huddy's death.  He
postponed execution while the British tried the director of
Huddy's hanging, but when the British court acquitted its
prisoner, Washington referred the Asgill problem to Congress. 
Finally, in November, 1782, Asgill was released by Congress,
following French royal intercession.

     (4) Martin's narrative of this mutiny of May 25, 1780, is by
far the most complete and dramatic account of an event which
Washington told Congress "has given me infinitely more concern
than any thing that has ever happened."

     (5) The Chevalier de la Luzerne, Minister of France, who
visited Morristown, was entertained by this formal review, April
24, 1780.

     (6) For the episode on the Schuylkill see pages 78-79.

     (7) The Clove, in Orange County, New York, was described by
a French officer as "extremely wild ... a sort of valley, or
gorge situated to the westward of the high mountains between New
Windsor and King's Ferry." Continental Surgeon James Thacher
located it as "about fourteen miles in rear of ... West Point."
The falls were about two miles below West Point.

     (8) On January 28, 1778, Washington passed on to Congress
the proposal of General Louis le Beque Du Portail, Chief
Engineer, for the organization of a corps to be instructed in the
manual and mechanical aspects of fieldworks, which in turn could
teach and supervise fatigue parties in their construction.  When
the corps failed to materialize, Washington, in July, 1780,
directed that one man be drawn from each regiment to compose such
a corps.  The resulting Sappers and Miners derived their name
from their duties: to work with mines and saps, the approach
trenches to enemy works.  Their training and duties broadened to
include choosing, laying out, and fortifying a camp, opening or
repairing roads before the army, reconnoitering, and other tasks.
A return of the corps lists Martin as a corporal who enlisted
January 1, 1781. "Return of officers and men belonging to the
Corps of Sappers and Miners who we considered as part of the
quota of the State of Connecticut and have been included in the
settlements made with the levies of said State," National
Archives, Revolutionary War Rolls, Publication No. 246, Roll 28.

     (9) Upon learning that his British army "contact," John
Andre, had been taken by the Americans and that his scheme for
betraying West Point would be exposed, Benedict Arnold fled from
his headquarters at Robinson's house to the _Vulture on September
25, 1780.  The brig slipped down river to safety the morning of
the twenty-sixth.  That morning Arnold's treason was announced to
the Continental army.

     (10) Andre, captured near Tarrytown, was conveyed to Tappan
for trial and executed there October 2.

CHAPTER VII
Campaign of 1781

     I saw the plundering British bands, 
     Invade the fair Virginian lands.
     I saw great WASHINGTON advance
     With Americans and troops of France;
     I saw the haughty Britons yield
     And stack their muskets an the field.

     NOTHING material occurred to me till the month of February,
nor anything then very material.  About the twentieth of that
month I took it into my head to apply to my captain for a
recommendation to our colonel [Jean Baptiste Gouvion] for a
furlough, that I might once more visit my friends, for I saw no
likelihood that the war would ever end.  The captain told me that
the colonel was about sending a noncommissioned officer into
Connecticut after two men belonging to our corps who had been
furloughed but had stayed beyond the time allowed them, and that
he would endeavor to have me sent on this business, and that
after I had sent the delinquents to camp, I might tarry a space
at home. Accordingly, I soon after received a passport, signed by
the colonel, in these terms, "Permit the bearer, ---- ---- to
pass into the country after some deserters, and to come back."
The time, "to come back," not being fixed, I set off, thinking I
would regulate that as would best suit my own convenience.
     When I arrived at home I found that my good old grandmother
was gone to her long home, and my grandsire gone forty miles back
into the country, to his son's, and I never saw him afterwards.
My sister was keeping the house, and I was glad to see her, as I
had not seen her for several years.  There was likewise a
neighbor's daughter there, who kept as much as she possibly could
with my sister and generally slept with her, whom I had seen more
than once in the course of my life.  Their company and
conversation made up for the absence of my grandparents, it being
a little more congenial to my age and feelings.
     I stayed at home two or three days, to recruit after my
journey, when a man belonging to our company, going home on
furlough, called and informed me that one of the men I was after
had arrived at camp, and as he should pass through the town where
the other resided, he agreed to do my errand for me.  With this
arrangement I was much pleased, as it would save me about sixty
miles travel in all, going and coming, and I gave him a dollar to
help him along, which was all the money I had.  He then went on
and did as he agreed.  I had nothing now to do but to recreate
myself, for, as the time of my return to the army was
indefinitely set, I did not trouble myself about it.
     I spent my time as agreeable as possible among the young
people of my acquaintance, for I thought I was old enough to
choose my own method of employing my time, being now nearly
twenty-one years of age.  I did, indeed, enjoy myself about ten
days as agreeably as ever I did in the same space of time in my
life; but as I had no set time to return to camp, I was loath to
trespass upon my good colonel's indulgence, and therefore began
to think about my return.  And as there was two men, one an old
associate and the other a private citizen, who were going to
camp, I thought, for company's sake, I would go with them, and
accordingly did, but I confess that I never left my home with so
much regret before.  I need not tell the reason; perhaps the
reader can guess.
     When I arrived within sight and hearing of the army, or
rather the garrison of West Point, it again harrowed up my
melancholy feelings that had, in a manner, subsided on my
journey.  But upon reaching the barracks where I had left my
companions, I could hardly contain myself when I considered my
folly in returning so soon, when I might have remained at home a
month longer as well as not, and I just then began to think it
was my colonel's intention that I should do so.  But what added
to my perturbation mostly was that I found our barracks entirely
unoccupied, our men all gone, and not a soul could tell me where.

What to do I knew not; I had a great mind to set off for home
again, but at length concluded that I would try a little longer
to find which way the men had gone.  I therefore went to the
issuing commissary of the garrison, who was my quondam
schoolmate, and he soon informed me that they had gone to
Virginia with General Lafayette. (1) I was thunderstruck at this
intelligence and blamed myself tenfold for leaving home so soon. 
The commissary, observing my chagrin, told me that my captain and
eight or ten of our people were in the country, about twenty
miles off, where they were undergoing the operation of the
smallpox. The next day I went out to them and remained with them
two or three days, but that would not do for me.  I told the
captain that I would go after the men.  He said I might act my
pleasure as it respected that, but that he should advise me to
stay with him till he had got through with the smallpox and the
other men that were with him had recovered, and then they should
all go together.  But that would not content me; I was as uneasy
as a fish out of the water.  The captain then told me that if I
was determined to follow the corps that my arms were with him and
I might take them and go.  I took them and went back to West
Point, to the commissary, where I procured three or four rations
of provisions and an order for five or six more, in case I could
find any commissary on the way.  The commissary filled my canteen
with liquor, and thus equipped I set off on my journey alone, not
expecting to find the men within less than four hundred miles.
     I encountered nothing very material on my journey, except it
were fatigue and some want, until I arrived at Annapolis, in
Maryland.  There I found what I had so long sought after, the
Sappers and Miners; they were returning to West Point.  They were
on board vessels and were blocked in at Annapolis by some British
ships at the mouth of the river.  Shortly after I joined them an
opportunity offered and we escaped with our little fleet, by
sweeping out in a dark night, and went up the bay.
     We went directly on to West Point and took possession of our
new barracks again and remained there till sometime in the month
of May, when we, with the rest of the army in the Highlands,
moved down and encamped at the Peekskill.  We remained here
awhile and then moved down near King's Bridge, fifteen miles from
New York. A part of the army, under the command of General
[Benjamin] Lincoln, fell down the river in batteaux and landed
near old Fort Independence, where they were soon attacked by the
enemy, when a smart skirmish ensued.  Our corps, among others,
immediately marched to reinforce General Lincoln, but the action
ceased and the enemy had retired before we could arrive. (2)
     We lay on the ground we then occupied till after midnight,
when we advanced further down towards Morrisania. (3) At the dawn
of day we were in close neighborhood with a British redoubt and
saw a single horseman of the enemy reconnoitering us.  We sent a
platoon of men around a hill to cut off his retreat, but
mistrusting our scheme, he kept off out of our reach, although he
was seen near us the greater part of the day, "cutting his
capers." As soon as it was fairly light we halted, and remained
there all day and the night following.
     The next morning we were joined by the French army from
Rhode Island.  Between us and the British redoubt there was a
large deep gully.  Our officers gave leave to as many as chose,
of our men, to go over the gully and skirmish with the small
parties of horsemen and footmen that kept patrolling from the
redoubt to the gully, watching that one of us took shelter there
to annoy them.  Accordingly, a number of us kept disturbing their
tranquillity all day.  Sometimes only four or five of us,
sometimes ten or twelve, sometimes we would drive them into the
redoubt, when they would reinforce and sally out and drive us all
over the gully.  We kept up this sport till late in the
afternoon, when myself and two others of our noncommissioned
officers went down near the creek that makes the island upon
which New York situated. (4)  The two other men that were with me
stopped under an apple tree that stood in a small gully.  I saw
four or five British horsemen on their horses a considerable
distance from me, on the island.  When they saw me they hallooed
to me, calling me "a white-livered son of a b---h." (I was
dressed in a white hunting shirt, or was without my a white coat,
the latter, I think, as it was warm, and I wore underdress.) We
then became quite sociable; they advised me to come over to their
side and they would give me roast turkeys.  I told them that they
must wait till we left the coast clear, ere they could get into
the country to steal them, as they used to do. They then said
they would give me pork and 'lasses; and then inquired what
execution some cannon a had done, just before fired from the
island, if they had not killed and wounded some of our men, and
if we did not want help, as our surgeons were a pack of
ignoramuses.  I told them, in reply, that they had done no other
execution with their guns than wounding a dog (which was the
case), and as they and their surgeons were of the same species of
animals, I supposed the poor wounded dog would account it a
particular favor to have some of his own kind to assist him.
     While we were carrying on this very polite conversation, I
observed at a house on the island, in a different direction from
the horsemen, a large number of men, but as they appeared to be a
motley group, I did not pay them much attention. Just as I was
finishing the last sentence of my conversation with the horsemen,
happening to cast my eyes toward the house (and very
providentially, too) I saw the flash of a gun.  I instinctively
dropped, as quick as a loon could dive, when the ball passed
directly over me and lodged in the tree under which my comrades
were standing.  They saw the upper part of my gun drop as I fell,
and said, "They have killed him." But they were mistaken.  The
people at the house set up a shouting, thinking they had done the
job for one poor Yankee, but they were mistaken, too, for I
immediately rose up, and slapping my backsides to them, slowly
moved off.  I do not know that I ever ran a greater risk for my
life while I was in the army, indeed, I could not, for I verily
believe that if I had not "dove at the flash," the ball would
have gone directly through my body, but "a miss is as good as a
mile," says the proverb.  I kept a bright lookout for them as I
walked off.  They sent another shot after me, and I again
dropped, but that did not come so near me as the other, nor did
they huzza again.  These shots must have come from a rifle, as
the distance was more than a quarter of a mile.  It is poor
business to stand thus a single mark.
     This afternoon I had like to have picked up another of their
shots.  I was standing with another of our men in a narrow
gateway talking.  A man from the redoubt had crept down behind an
old battery near us and fired at us.  The ball passed between our
noses which were not more than a foot apart.  The fellow walked
off and we sent him something to quicken his pace, but our shots
did as little execution as his had done. 
     The horseman that I mentioned having seen early in the
morning, kept prancing about and blackguarding the sentinels, who
often fired at him without effect, until late in the afternoon,
when one of the sentinels gave him something that seemed to cool
his courage.  He reached the redoubt; how he fared afterwards I
know not, but I heard no more of his yelping.
     There were two British soldiers hanging in chains here.  I
was standing near them with some others of our men, when two
French officers rode up and inquired whether they ere Americans
or English.  We told them they were English, upon which one of
the officers laid his cane several times across one of the
bodies, making the dry bones rattle, at the same time exclaiming,
"_Fotre _d'Anglaise." A bold action! says the reader.
     Our people fired several shots from their fieldpieces at
some boats crossing the water to the redoubt, but never fired a
single shot at the redoubt, or they at us, although we were lying
all day in open sight of each other and within half a mile
distant.  There seemed to be a tacit agreement between them not
to injure one another.
     We lay all night upon the ground which we had occupied
during the day.  I was exceedingly tired, not having had a wink
of sleep the preceding night, and had been on my feet during the
last twenty-four hours, and this night, to add to my comfort, I
had to take charge of the quarter guard.  I was allowed to get
what rest I could consistently with our safety.  I fixed my
guard, placed two sentinels, and the remainder of us laid down. 
We were with our corps, who were all by dark snug in the arms of
Morpheus.  The officers slept under a tree near us.  My orders
were, if there was any stir or alarm during the night, to awaken
the officers, and if any strangers attempted to pass, to stop
them and bring them to the officers to be examined by them.
     Sometime in the night, the sentry by the guard stopped two
or three officers who were going past us.  The sentry called me
up, and I took the strangers to our officers, where they went
through an examination and were then permitted to pass on.  I
returned to my guard and lay down till called up again to relieve
the sentinels.  All this time I was as unconscious of what was
passing as though nothing of the kind had happened, nor could I
remember anything of the matter when told of it the next day, so
completely was worn down by fatigue.
     We now fell back a few miles and encamped (both Americans
and French), at a place called Philipse Manor.  We then went to
making preparations to lay siege to New York.  We made fascines
and gabions, the former, bundles of brush, and the latter are
made in this manner, viz. - after setting sticks in the ground in
a circle, about two feet or more in diameter, they are interwoven
with small brush in form of a basket; they are then laid by for
use, which is in entrenching.  Three or more rows of them are set
down together (breaking joints), the trench is then dug behind
and the dirt thrown into them, which, when full, together with
the trench, forms a complete breastwork.  The word is pronounced
_gab-beens.  The fascines (pronounced _fa-sheens) are, as I said,
bundles of brush bound snugly together, cut off straight at each
end; they are of different lengths, from five to twelve feet. 
Their use is in building batteries and other temporary works.
     We now expected soon to lay close siege to New York.  Our
Sappers and Miners were constantly employed with the engineers in
front of the army, making preparations for the siege.  One day I
was sent down towards the enemy with a corporal and twelve men,
upon a reconnoitering expedition, the engineers having heard that
there was a party of Refugees, or Cowboys, somewhere not far from
their premises.  My orders were to go to a certain place and if I
did not see or hear anything of the enemy to return; or if I did
find them to return as soon as possible and bring word to the
officers, unless I thought we were able to cope with them
ourselves.
     We set off upon our expedition early in the afternoon and
went as far as directed by our officers, but saw no enemy.  We
stopped here awhile and rested ourselves.  When we had elves, we
thought it a pity to return with our refreshed ours fingers in
our mouths and report that we had seen nothing.  We therefore
agreed unanimously to stretch our orders a trifle and go a little
further.  We were in the fields; about a mile ahead were three or
four houses at which I and some and the others of our party had
been before.  Between us houses there was a narrow wood, mostly
of young growth and quite thick.  We concluded to go as far as
the houses, and if we could not hear anything of the Cowboys
there,to return contented to camp.
     Agreeably to our plan we set out, and had but just entered
the wood when we found ourselves flanked by thirty forty Cowboys,
who gave us a hearty welcome to their assumed territories and we
returned the compliment, but a kind Providence protected every
man of us from injury although we were within ten rods of the
enemy.  They immediately rushed from their covert, before we had
time to reload our pieces; consequently, we had no other
alternative but to get off as well and as fast as we could.  They
did not fire upon us again, but gave us chase, for what reason I
know not.  I was soon in the rear of my party, which had to cross
a fence composed of old posts and rails with trees plashed down
upon it.
     When I arrived at the fence, the foremost of the enemy was
not more than six or eight rods distant, all running after us
helter-skelter, without any order.  My men had all crossed the
fence in safety, I alone was to suffer.  I endeavored to get over
the fence across two or three of the trees that were plashed
down.  Somehow or other, I blundered and fell over, and caught my
right foot in a place where a tree had split partly from the
stump. Here I hung as fast as though my foot had been in the
stocks, my ham lying across the butt of another tree, while my
body hung down perpendicularly.  I could barely reach the ground
with my hands, and, of course, could make but little exertion to
clear myself from the limbs.
     The commander of the enemy came to the fence and the first
compliment I received from him was a stroke with his hanger
across my leg, just under or below the kneepan, which laid the
bone bare. I could see him through the fence and knew him.  He
was, when we were boys, one of my most familiar playmates, was
with me, a messmate, in the campaign of 1776, had enlisted during
the war in 1777, but sometime before this, had deserted to the
enemy, having been coaxed off by an old harridan, to whose
daughter he had taken a fancy. The old hag of a mother, living in
the vicinity of the British, easily inveigled him away.  He was a
smart active fellow and soon got command of a gang of Refugee
Cowboy plunderers. When he had had his hack at my shins, I began
to think it was "neck or nothing," and making one desperate
effort, I cleared my foot by leaving my shoe behind, before he
could have the second stroke at me. He knew me as well as I did
him, for as soon as he saw me clear of the fence and out of the
reach of his sword, he called me by name, and told me to
surrender myself and he would give me good quarters.  Thought I,
you will wait till I ask them of you.  I sprang up and run till I
came to my party, who were about a hundred rods ahead, waiting to
see how I should come off.
     The enemy never fired a shot at me all the time I was
running from them, although nearly the whole of their party was
standing on the other side of the fence when I started from it. 
Whether his conscience smote him and he prevented them from
firing at me, or whether they were unprepared, not having had
time to reload their pieces in their pursuit of us, or from what
other cause, I know not, but they never interfered with me while
I was running across the field, fifty or sixty rods, in open
sight of them.  Thus I escaped, and this was the only time the
enemy drew blood from me during the whole war.  This same Refugee
was the youngster that was with me at the salt hay poling
mentioned in the first chapter of this narrative.
     We remained at Philipse Manor till the last of July.  I had
a lame leg, caused by the wound given me by Mr. Refugee, but I
lost only a short time from duty.  I was favored with easy duty
by my officers on account of my wound.
     The first of August, I think it was the first day of that
month, we all of a sudden marched from this ground and directed
our course towards King's Ferry, near the Highlands, crossed the
Hudson and lay there a few days, till the baggage, artillery, &c.
had crossed, and then proceeded into New Jersey.  We went down to
Chatham, where were ovens built for the accommodation of the
French troops.  We then expected we were to attack New York in
that quarter, but after staying here a day or two, we again moved
off and arrived at Trenton by rapid marches.  It was about sunset
when we arrived here and instead of encamping for the night, as
we expected, we were ordered immediately on board vessels then
lying at the landing place, and a little after sunrise found
ourselves at Philadelphia."
     We, that is, the Sappers and Miners, stayed here some days,
proving and packing off shells, shot, and other military stores. 
While we stayed here we drew a few articles of clothing,
consisting of a few tow shirts, some overalls and a few pairs of
silk-and-oakum stockings.  And here, or soon after, we each of us
received a MONTH'S PAY, in specie, borrowed, as I was informed,
by our French officers from the officers in the French army. 
This was the first that could be called money, which we had
received as wages since the year '76, or that we ever did receive
till the close of the war, or indeed, ever after, as wages.
     When we had finished our business at Philadelphia, we (the
Miners) left the city.  A part of our men, with myself, went down
the Delaware in a schooner which had her hold nearly full of
gunpowder.  We passed Mud Island, where I had experienced such
hardships in Nov.  '77.  It had quite a different appearance to
what it had then, much like a fine, fair, warm and sunny day
succeeding a cold, dark, stormy night. Just after passing Mud
Island, in the afternoon, we had a smart thundershower.  I did
not feel very agreeably, I confess, during its continuance, with
such a quantity of powder under my feet.  I was not quite sure
that a stroke of the electric fluid might not compel me to leave
the vessel sooner than I wished - but no accident happened, and
we proceeded down the river to the mouth of Christiana Creek, up
which we were bound.
     We were compelled to anchor here on account of wind and
tide.  Here we passed an uneasy night from fear of British
cruisers, several of which were in the bay.  In the morning we
got under weigh, the wind serving, and proceeded up the creek
fourteen miles, the creek passing, the most of its course,
through a marsh, as crooked as a snake in motion.  There was one
place in particular near the village of Newport [Delaware] where
you sail four miles to gain about forty rods.  We went on till
the vessel grounded for lack of water.  We then lightened her by
taking out a part of her cargo, and when the tide came in we got
up to the wharves and left her at the disposal of the
artillerists.
     We then crossed over land to the head of the Elk, or the
head, or rather bottom, of Chesapeake Bay.  Here we found a large
fleet of small vessels waiting to convey us and other troops,
stores, &c. down the bay.  We soon embarked, that is, such of us
as went by water, the greater part of the army having gone on by
land.  I was in a small schooner called the _Birmingham.  There
was but a small number of our corps of Sappers and Miners in this
vessel, with a few artillerists, six or eight officers, and a
commissary, who had a small quantity of stores on board, among
which was a hogshead containing twenty or thirty gallons of rum. 
To prevent the men from getting more than their share of the
liquor, the officers, who loved a little of the "good creature"
as well as the men, had the bulkhead between the hold and the
cabin taken down and placed the hogshead in the cabin, carefully
nailing up the partition again, when they thought that they had
the exclusive disposal of the precious treasure.  But the
soldiers were as wily as they, for the very first night after the
officers had snugly secured it, as they thought, the head of the
cask being crowded against the bulkhead, the soldiers contrived
to loosen one of the boards at the lower end, so as to swing it
aside, and broached the hogshead on the other head, so that while
the officers in the cabin thought they were the sole possessors
of its contents, the soldiers in the hold had possession of at
least as good a share as themselves.
     We passed down the bay, making a grand appearance with our
mosquito fleet, to Annapolis, which I had left about five months
before for West Point.  Here we stopped, fearing to proceed any
further at present, not knowing exactly how matters were going on
down the bay.  A French cutter was dispatched to procure
intelligence.  She returned in the course of three or four days,
bringing word that the passage was clear.  We then proceeded and
soon arrived at the mouth of James River, where were a number of
armed French vessels and two or three fifty-gun ships.  We passed
in sight of the French fleet, then lying in Lynnhaven Bay; they
resembled a swamp of dry pine trees.  We had passed several of
their men-of-war higher up the bay.
     We were obliged to stay here a day or two on account of a
severe northeast rainstorm.  The wind was quite high, and in the
height of the storm some officers on board a vessel lying near
ours sent off a soldier in a small punt, hardly capable of
carrying a man in calm weather, to another vessel to procure them
some spirituous liquor.  One of the officers had furnished him
with his hat as a token for something.  The man had done his
errand and was returning, when the sea running so high that it
upset his underpinning, which floated from him and left him to
shift for himself in the water.  The storm was so severe that the
people were below deck in all the vessels near, except ours.  The
captain of our company happened at that instant to be on deck
(peeping into some concern that was none of his own, as he
generally was) and saw him upset.  We had no better boat
belonging to our vessel than the one the man in the water had
just been thrown from.  Our captain seized a musket that happened
to be near by and discharged it several times before he could
rouse any of the people in the nearest vessels.  At length he was
heard and observed by some on board a French armed vessel, who
sent a boat and took the man up and put him on board the vessel
he went from. I saw him in the water and he exhibited rather a
ludicrous figure, with an officer's large cocked hat upon his
head, paddling away with one hand and holding his canteen in the
other.  He was nearly exhausted before the boat reached him.  Our
officers pretended to blame the others greatly for sending the
poor fellow upon such an errand in a storm.  But it is to be
remembered that they had a plenty of liquor on board their vessel
and therefore had no occasion to send anyone on such business.
     After the storm had ceased, we proceeded up the [James]
river to a place called Burwell's Ferry [near Williamsburg],
where the fleet all anchored.  It was sunset when we anchored and
I was sent across the river with two men in a borrowed boat to
fill a cask with water.  It was quite dark before I got ready to
return and I had to cross almost the whole river (which is pretty
wide here) and through the whole fleet before I reached our
vessel.  I could not find her in the dark among so many and when
I hailed her the soldiers in almost every vessel in the river
would answer me. What could I do? Why, just what I did do.  Keep
rowing one way and another till nine or ten o'clock at night,
weary, and wishing every man in the fleet, except ourselves, had
a toad in his throat.  At length by mere good luck I found our
vessel, which soon put an end to my trouble and fatigue, together
with their mischievous fun.
     We landed the next day in the afternoon, when our
quartermaster sergeant sat off to procure something for us to
eat; we had to go nearly two miles for it.  Myself and another
sergeant, a messmate of mine, concluded to go after the
provisions, to stretch our legs after so long confinement on
board the vessel.  We took our cook with us, for he, as usual,
had nothing to do at home.  When we arrived at the place, we
found it would be quite late before we could be served.  We
therefore bought a beef's haslet of the butchers and packed off
our cook with it, that we might have it in readiness against our
return to camp.  The cook, who had been a bank fisherman and of
course loved to wet his whistle once in a while, set off for home
and we contented ourselves till after dark before we could get
away, in expectation of having something to eat on our return. 
When we came home we went directly to our tent to get our
suppers, when, lo, we found Mr. Cook fast asleep in the tent and
not the least sign of cookery going on.  With much ado we waked
him and inquired where our victuals were.  He had got none, he
mumbled out as well as he could.
     "Where is the pluck you brought home?"
     "I sold it," said he.
     "Sold it I What did you sell it for?"
     "I don't know," was the reply.
     "If you have sold it, what did you get for it?"
     "If you will have patience," said he, "I will tell you."
     "Patience," said the sergeant, "it is enough to vex a saint.
Here we sent you home to get something in readiness against our
return, and you have sold what we ordered you to provide for us
and got drunk, and now we must go all night without anything to
eat, or else set up to wait a division of the meat and cook it
ourselves.  What, I say, did you get for it? If anything we can
eat at present, say so."
     "I will tell you," said he.  "First, I got a little rum, and
next I got a little pepper and - and - then I got a little more
rum."
     "Well, and where is the rum and pepper you got?"
     "I drank the rum," said he; "there is the pepper."
     "Pox on you," said the sergeant.  "I'll pepper you," and was
about to belabor the poor fellow when I interfered and saved him
from a basting.  But, truly, this was one among the "sufferings"
I had to undergo, for I was hungry and impatient enough to have
eaten the fellow had he been well cooked and peppered.
     Soon after landing we marched to Williamsburg, where we
joined General Lafayette, and very soon after, our whole army
arriving, we prepared to move down and pay our old acquaintance, 
the British, at Yorktown, a visit.  I doubt not but their wish
was not to have so many of us come at once as their
accommodations were rather scanty.  They thought, "The fewer the
better cheer." We thought, "The more the merrier." We had come a
long way to see them and were unwilling to be put off with
excuses.  We thought the present time quite as convenient, at
least for us, as any future time could be, and we accordingly
persisted, hoping that, as they pretended to be a very courtly
people, they would have the politeness to come out and meet us,
which would greatly shorten the time to be spent in the visit,
and save themselves and us much labor and trouble, but they were
too impolite at this time to do so.
     We marched from Williamsburg the last of September.  It was
a warm day [the twenty-eighth].  When we had proceeded about
halfway to Yorktown we halted and rested two or three hours. 
Being about to cook some victuals, I saw a fire which some of the
Pennsylvania troops had kindled a short distance off.  I went to
get some fire while some of my messmates made other preparations,
we having turned our rum and pepper cook adrift.  I had taken off
my coat and unbuttoned my waistcoat, it being (as I said before)
very warm.  My pocketbook, containing about five dollars in money
and some other articles, in all about seven dollars, was in my
waistcoat pocket.  When I came among the strangers they appeared
to be uncommonly complaisant, asking many questions, helping me
to fire, and chatting very familiarly.  I took my fire and
returned, but it was not long before I perceived that those
kindhearted helpers had helped themselves to my pocketbook and
its whole contents.  I felt mortally chagrined, but there was no
plaster for my sore but patience, and my plaster of that, at this
time, I am sure, was very small and very thinly spread, for it
never covered the wound.
     Here, or about this time, we had orders from the Commander
in Chief that, in case the enemy should come out to meet us, we
should exchange but one round with them and then decide the
conflict with the bayonet, as they valued themselves at that
instrument.  The French forces could play their part at it, and
the Americans were never backward at trying its virtue.  The
British, however, did not think fit at that time to give us an
opportunity to soil our bayonets in their carcasses, but why they
did not we could never conjecture; we as much expected it as we
expected to find them there.
     We went on and soon arrived and encamped in their
neighborhood, without let or molestation.  Our Miners lay about a
mile and a half from their works, in open view of them.  Here
again we encountered our old associate, Hunger.  Affairs, as they
respected provisions, &c., were not yet regulated.  No eatable
stores had arrived, nor could we expect they should until we knew
what reception the enemy would give us.  We were, therefore,
compelled to try our hands at foraging again.  We, that is, our
corps of Miners, were encamped near a large wood.  There was a
plenty of shoats all about this wood, fat and plump, weighing,
generally, from fifty to a hundred pounds apiece.  We soon found
some of them and as no owner appeared to be at hand and the hogs
not understanding our inquiries (if we made any) sufficiently to
inform us to whom they belonged, we made free with some of them
to satisfy the calls of nature till we could be better supplied,
if better we could be.  Our officers countenanced us and that was
all the permission we wanted, and many of us did not want even
that.
     We now began to make preparations for laying close siege to
the enemy.  We had holed him and nothing remained but to dig him
out.  Accordingly, after taking every precaution to prevent his
escape, [we] settled our guards, provided fascines and gabions,
made platforms for the batteries, to be laid down when needed,
brought on our battering pieces, ammunition, &c. On the fifth of
October we began to put our plans into execution. (6)
     One-third part of all the troops were put in requisition to
be employed in opening the trenches.  A third part of our Sappers
and Miners were ordered out this night to assist the engineers in
laying out the works.  It was a very dark and rainy night. 
However, we repaired to the place and began by following the
engineers and laying laths of pine wood end-to-end upon the line
marked out by the officers for the trenches. We had not proceeded
far in the business before the engineers ordered us to desist and
remain where we were and be sure not to straggle a foot from the
spot while they were absent from us.  In a few minutes after
their departure, there came a man alone to us, having on a
surtout, as we conjectured, it being exceeding dark, and inquired
for the engineers.  We now began to be a little jealous for our
safety, being alone and without arms, and within forty rods of
the British trenches.  The stranger inquired what troops we were,
talked familiarly with us a few minutes, when, being informed
which way the officers had gone, he went off in the same
direction, after strictly charging us, in case we should be taken
prisoners, not to discover to the enemy what troops we were.  We
were obliged to him for his kind advice, but we considered
ourselves as standing in no great need of it, for we knew as well
as he did that Sappers and Miners were allowed no quarters, at
least, are entitled to none, by the laws of warfare, and of
course should take care, if taken, and the enemy did not find us
out, not to betray our own secret.
     In a short time the engineers returned and the
afore-mentioned stranger with them.  They discoursed together
some time when, by the officers often calling him "Your
Excellency," we discovered that it was General Washington. Had we
dared, we might have cautioned him for exposing himself too
carelessly to danger at such a time, and doubtless he would have
taken it in good part if we had.  But nothing ill happened to
either him or ourselves.
     It coming on to rain hard, we were ordered back to our
tents, and nothing more was done that night.  The next night,
which was the sixth of October, the same men were ordered to the
lines that had been there the night before.  We this night
completed laying out the works.  The troops of the line were
there ready with entrenching tools and began to entrench, after
General Washington had struck a few blows with a pickax, a mere
ceremony, that it might be said "General Washington with his own
hands first broke ground at the siege of Yorktown." The ground
was sandy and soft, and the men employed that night eat no "idle
bread" (and I question if they eat any other), so that by
daylight they had covered themselves from danger from the enemy's
shot, who, it appeared, never mistrusted that we were so near
them the whole night, their attention being directed to another
quarter.  There was upon the right of their works a marsh.  Our
people had sent to the western side of this marsh a detachment to
make a number of fires, by which, and our men often passing
before the fires, the British were led to imagine that we were
about some secret mischief there, and consequently directed their
whole fire to that quarter, while we were entrenching literally
under their noses.
     As soon as it was day they perceived their mistake and began
to fire where they ought to have done sooner.  They brought out a
fieldpiece or two without their trenches, and discharged several
shots at the men who were at work erecting a bomb battery, but
their shot had no effect and they soon gave it over. They had a
large bulldog and every time they fired he would follow their
shots across our trenches.  Our officers wished to catch him and
oblige him to carry a message from them into the town to his
masters, but he looked too formidable for any of us to encounter.
     I do not remember, exactly, the number of days we were
employed before we got our batteries in readiness to open upon
the enemy, but think it was not more than two or three.  The
French, who were upon our left, had completed their batteries a
few hours before us, but were not allowed to discharge their
pieces till the American batteries were ready.  Our commanding
battery was on the near bank of the [York] river and contained
ten heavy guns; the next was a bomb battery of three large
mortars; and so on through the whole line.  The whole number,
American and French, was ninety-two cannon, mortars and
howitzers.  Our flagstaff was in the ten-gun battery, upon the
right of the whole.  I was in the trenches the day that the
batteries were to be opened. All were upon the tiptoe of
expectation and impatience to see the signal given to open the
whole line of batteries, which was to be the hoisting of the
American flag in the ten-gun battery.  About noon the
much-wished-for signal went up.  I confess I felt a secret pride
swell my heart when I saw the "star-spangled banner" waving
majestically in the very faces of our implacable adversaries.  It
appeared like an omen of success to our enterprise, and so it
proved in reality.  A simultaneous discharge of all the guns in
the line followed, the French troops accompanying it with "Huzza
for the Americans!" It was said that the first shell sent from
our batteries entered an elegant house formerly owned or occupied
by the Secretary of State under the British government, and
burned directly over a table surrounded by a large party of
British officers at dinner, killing and wounding a number of
them. (7) This was a warm day to the British.
     The siege was carried on warmly for several days, when most
of the guns in the enemy's works were silenced.  We now began our
second parallel, about halfway between our works and theirs. 
There were two strong redoubts held by the British, on their
left. (8) It was necessary for us to possess those redoubts
before we could complete our trenches.  One afternoon, I, with
the rest of our corps that had been on duty in the trenches the
night but one before, were ordered to the lines.  I mistrusted
something extraordinary, serious or comical, was going forward,
but what I could not easily conjecture.
     We arrived at the trenches a little before sunset.  I saw
several officers fixing bayonets on long staves.  I then
concluded we were about to make a general assault upon the
enemy's works, but before dark I was informed of the whole plan,
which was to storm the redoubts, the one by the Americans and the
other by the French. (9) The Sappers and Miners were furnished
with axes and were to proceed in front and cut a passage for the
troops through the abatis, which are composed of the tops of
trees, the small branches cut off with a slanting stroke which
renders them as sharp as spikes.  These trees are then laid at a
small distance from the trench or ditch, pointing outwards, and
the butts fastened to the ground in such a manner that they
cannot be removed by those on the outside of them.  It is almost
impossible to get through them.  Through these we were to cut a
passage before we or the other assailants could enter.
     At dark the detachment was formed and advanced beyond the
trenches and lay down on the ground to await the signal for
advancing to the attack, which was to be three shells from a
certain battery near where we were lying.  All the batteries in
our line were silent, and we lay anxiously waiting for the
signal.  The two brilliant planets, Jupiter and Venus, were in
close contact in the western hemisphere, the same direction that
the signal was to be made in. When I happened to cast my eyes to
that quarter, which was often, and I caught a glance of them, I
was ready to spring on my feet, thinking they were the signal for
starting.  Our watchword was "Rochambeau," the commander of the
French forces' name, a good watchword, for being pronounced
_Ro-sham-bow, it sounded, when pronounced quick, like
_rush-on-boys.
     We had not lain here long before the expected signal was
given, for us and the French, who were to storm the other
redoubt, by the three shells with their fiery trains mounting the
air in quick succession.  The word _up, _up, was then reiterated
through the detachment.  We immediately moved silently on toward
the redoubt we were to attack, with unloaded muskets.  Just as we
arrived at the abatis, the enemy discovered us and directly
opened a sharp fire upon us.  We were now at a place where many
of our large shells had burst in the ground, making holes
sufficient to bury an ox in.  The men, having their eyes fixed
upon what was transacting before them, were every now and then
falling into these holes.  I thought the British were killing us
off at a great rate.  At length, one of the holes happening to
pick me up, I found out the mystery of the huge slaughter.
     As soon as the firing began, our people began to cry, "The
fort's our own!" and it was "Rush on boys." The Sappers and
Miners soon cleared a passage for the infantry, who entered it
rapidly.  Our Miners were ordered not to enter the fort, but
there was no stopping them.  "We will go," said they.  "Then go
to the d---l," said the Commanding officer of our corps, "if you
will." I could not pass at the entrance we had made, it was so
crowded.  I therefore forced a passage at a place where I saw our
shot had cut away some of the abatis; several others entered at
the same place. While passing, a man at my side received a ball
in his head and fell under my feet, crying out bitterly.  While
crossing the trench, the enemy threw hand grenades (small shells)
into it.  They were so thick that I at first thought them
cartridge papers on fire, but was soon undeceived by their
cracking.  As I mounted the breastwork, I met an old associate
hitching himself down into the trench.  I knew him by the light
of the enemy's musketry, it was so vivid.  The fort was taken and
all quiet in a very short time.  Immediately after the firing
ceased, I went out to see what had become of my wounded friend
and the other that fell in the passage.  They were both dead.  In
the heat of the action I saw a British soldier jump over the
walls of the fort next the river and go down the bank, which was
almost perpendicular and twenty or thirty feet high.  When he
came to the beach he made off for the town, and if he did not
make good use of his legs I never saw a man that did.
     All that were in the action of storming the redoubt were
exempted from further duty that night.  We laid down upon the
ground and rested the remainder of the night as well as a
constant discharge of grape and canister shot would permit us to
do, while those who were on duty for the day completed the second
parallel by including the captured redoubts within it.  We
returned to camp early in the morning, all safe and sound, except
one of our lieutenants, who had received a slight wound on the
top of the shoulder by a musket shot.  Seven or eight men
belonging to the infantry were killed, and a number wounded.
     Being off duty one day, several of us went into the woods
and fields in search of nuts.  Returning across the fields, which
lay all common, we came across a number of horses at pasture. 
Thinking to make a little fun for myself, I caught one of the
horses and mounting him, as the Dutchman did his bear, without
saddle or bridle, set off full speed for camp, guiding my nag
with a stick.  After I had proceeded thus for nearly a mile, my
charger appeared to possess a strong inclination to return to his
associates.  I could not persuade him from his determination, but
rather affronted him in all my endeavors to stop him.  He at
length set off back with himself and me, too, at full spring.  I
clung to him till I found he was directing his course straight
under the limbs of a large spreading oak tree.  Fearing I might
meet with something like Absalom's fate, I thought it best to
quit my situation in season, and accordingly jumped off.  I
happened to get but little personal injury, but I bounded like a
football. This cooled my courage for such sort of exercises ever
after.
     Our duty was hazardous but not very hard.  As to eatables,
what we could not get from the public stores we could make up in
the woods.  We had a large dog that we had brought from West
Point. We had no more to do than to go into the woods, which were
quite handy, and when we came across the trail of a shoal of
hogs, to set off old Bose, when we soon heard a crying out, and
it was generally made by a black one, he having a particular
regard or antipathy (he never told us which) for that color.
After the knife had passed the throat of the victim, we carried
it to a frog pond in the rear of our camp and near our bakehouse,
where, after evening roll call, we could fit it for eating,
convey it to the baker where it was baked in prime order.  We
were on duty in the trenches twenty-four hours, and forty-eight
hours in camp. The invalids did the camp duty, and we had nothing
else to do but to attend morning and evening roll calls and
recreate ourselves as we pleased the rest of the time, till we
were called upon to take our turns on duty in the trenches again.
The greatest inconvenience we felt was the want of good water,
there being none near our camp but nasty frog ponds where all the
horses in the neighborhood were watered, and we were forced to
wade through the water in the skirts of the ponds, thick with mud
and filth, to get at water in any wise fit for use, and that full
of frogs. All the springs about the country, although they looked
well, tasted like copperas water or like water that had been
standing in iron or copper vessels.
     I was one day rambling alone in the woods when I came across
a small brook of very good water, about a mile from our tents. We
used this water daily to drink or we should almost have suffered.
But it was "the fortune of war." I was one night in the trenches,
erecting a bomb battery; the enemy, it being very dark, were
directed in their firing by a large tree. I was ordered by our
officers to take two or three men and fell the tree with some old
axes as dull as hoes.  The tree was very large and we were two
hours in cutting it, although we took Solomon's advice in
handling dull tools by putting to the more strength," the British
all the time urging us to exert ourselves with round and grape
shot.  They struck the tree a number of times while we were at
it, but chanced to do us no harm at all.
     In the morning, while the relieves were coming into the
trenches, I was sitting on the side of the trench, when some of
the New York troops coming in, one of the sergeants stepped up to
the breastwork to look about him.  The enemy threw a small shell
which fell upon the outside of the works; the man turned his face
to look at it.  At that instant a shot from the enemy, which
doubtless was aimed for him in particular as none others were in
sight of them, passed just by his face without touching him at
all.  He fell dead the trench.  I put my hand on his forehead and
found into his skull was shattered all in pieces and the blood
flowing from his nose and mouth, but not a particle of skin was
broken.  I never saw an instance like this among all the men I
saw killed during the whole war.
     After we had finished our second line of trenches there was
but little firing on either side.  After Lord Cornwallis had
failed to get off, upon the seventeenth day of October (a rather
unlucky day for the British) he requested a cessation of
hostilities for, I think, twenty-four hours, when commissioners
from both armies met at a house between the lines to agree upon
articles of capitulation. (10) We waited with anxiety the
termination of the armistice and as the time drew nearer our
anxiety increased. The time at length arrived - it passed, and
all remained quiet. And now we concluded that we had obtained
what we had taken so much pains for, for which we had encountered
so many dangers, and had so anxiously wished. Before night we
were informed that the British had surrendered and that the siege
was ended.
     The next day we were ordered to put ourselves in as good
order as our circumstances would admit, to see (what was the
completion of our present wishes) the British army march out and
stack their arms. The trenches, where they crossed the road
leading to the town, were leveled and all things put in order for
this grand exhibition. After breakfast, on the nineteenth, we
were marched onto the ground and paraded on the right-hand side
of the road, and the French forces on the left. We waited two or
three hours before the British made their appearance. They were
not always so dilatory, but they were compelled at last, by
necessity, to appear, all armed, with bayonets fixed, drums
beating, and faces lengthening. They were led by General
[Charles] O'Hara, with the American General Lincoln on his right,
the Americans and French beating a march as they passed out
between them. It was a noble sight to us, and the more so, as it
seemed to promise a speedy conclusion to the contest. The British
did not make so good an appearance as the German forces, but
there was certainly some allowance to be made in their favor. The
English felt their honor wounded, the Germans did not greatly
care whose hands they were in. The British paid the Americans,
seemingly, but little attention as they passed them, but they
eyed the French with considerable malice depicted in their
countenances.  They marched to the place appointed and stacked
their arms; they then returned to the town in the same manner
they had marched out, except being divested of their arms.  After
the prisoners were marched off into the country, our army
separated, the French remaining where they then were and the
Americans marching for the Hudson.
     During the siege, we saw in the woods herds of Negroes which
Lord Cornwallis (after he had inveigled them from their
proprietors), in love and pity to them, had turned adrift, with
no other recompense for their confidence in his humanity than the
smallpox for their bounty and starvation and death for their
wages.  They might be seen scattered about in every direction,
dead and dying, with pieces of ears of burnt Indian corn in the
hands and mouths, even of those that were dead.  After the siege
was ended, many of the owners of these deluded creatures came to
our camp and engaged some of our men to take them up, generally
offering a guinea a head for them.  Some of our Sappers and
Miners took up several of them that belonged to a Colonel
Banister; when he applied for them they refused to deliver them
to him unless he would promise not to punish them. (11) He said
he had no intention of punishing them, that he did not blame them
at all, the blame lay on Lord Cornwallis.  I saw several of those
miserable wretches delivered to their master; they came before
him under a very powerful fit of the ague.  He told them that he
gave them the free choice either to go with him or remain where
they were, that he would not injure a hair of their heads if they
returned with him to their duty.  Had the poor souls received a
reprieve at the gallows they could not have been more overjoyed
than they appeared to be at what he promised them; their ague fit
soon left them.  I had a share in one of them by assisting in
taking him up; the fortune I acquired was small, only one dollar.

I received what was then called its equivalent in paper money, if
money it might be called; it amounted to twelve hundred (nominal)
dollars, all of which I afterwards paid for one single quart of
rum.  To such a miserable state had all paper stuff called money
depreciated.
     Our corps of Sappers and Miners were now put on board
vessels to be transported up the bay.  I was on board a small
schooner; the captain of our company and twenty others of our men
were in the same vessel.  There was more than twenty tons of beef
on board, salted in bulk in the hold.  We were obliged to remain
behind to deal out this beef in small quantities to the troops
that remained here.  I remained part of the time on board and
part on shore for eighteen days after all the American troops
were gone to the northward, and none remaining but the French. 
It now began to grow cold, and there were two or three cold
rainstorms.  We suffered exceedingly while we were compelled to
stay on shore, having no tents nor any kind of fuel, the houses
in the town being all occupied by the French troops.
     Our captain at length became tired of this business and
determined to go on after the other troops at all events. We
accordingly left Yorktown and set our faces towards the Highlands
of New York.  It was now the month of November and winter
approaching.  We all wished to be nearer home, or at least to be
with the rest of our corps, who were we knew not where, nor did
they know where we were.  They had heard before this that our
schooner was cast away and we were drowned.  After we left
Yorktown we had head winds for several days and made but little
progress, getting no farther than Patuxent River in Maryland in
that time.  We came to anchor at the mouth of that river about
sunset, and as we had been some time on board the vessel, we
obtained permission from our captain to go on shore and sleep, as
we saw a shelter on shore, put up by some of the troops who had
gone on before us.  And here again I had like to have taken a
short discharge from the army.
     It was noised around that there was a small pirate boat in
the bay. Just after we had anchored with several other small
vessels in the river, there came sweeping in a boat that answered
the description given of the vessel in question.  Our captain
charged a musket that was on deck belonging to one of our men and
hailed the boat, but as the people proved to be friendly, and
acquaintance too, the musket was laid by and no further notice
taken of it for the present.  When we had landed and kindled a
fire and were most of us sitting down by it, one of our men took
up the loaded musket, not knowing it to be so, and placing the
butt of the piece on the ground between his legs, asked the owner
if his musket was in good order, and cocked and snapped it.  I
was standing by his side with the muzzle of the piece close by my
ear, when it proved to be in good order enough to go off, and
nearly sent me off with its contents.  The fire from it burnt all
the hair off the side of my head, and I thought at the instant
that my head had gone with it.
     In the morning there were signs of a southerly wind.  We
hastened on board, and the wind breezing up, we got under weigh
and steered for the head of the bay.  It was about sunrise when
we started, and when we anchored at the head of the bay the sun
had just set, having run in that time upwards of a hundred and
thirty miles.  The flats about our anchoring place were almost
covered with wild waterfowl.  I do not remember ever seeing so
many at one time, before or since, although I have often seen
large numbers of them.  One of our men discharged his piece at a
flock on the wing, when they appeared like a cloud and were
spread over a space of a quarter of a mile every way.  The ball
passed almost through the flock before it chanced to hit one, and
it hit but one.
     The next morning we landed at what is called the Head of
Elk, where we found the rest of our corps and some of the
infantry, also a few French.  Our people seemed very glad to see
us again, as they had been informed that we were certainly all
drowned.  We remained here a few days and then marched for
Philadelphia.
     We encamped one night, while on our march, at Wilmington, a
very handsome borough town on the Christiana Creek, in the state
of Delaware.  I was quartered for the night at a gentleman's
house, who had, before the war, been a sea captain.  He related
to me an anecdote that gave me rather a disagreeable feeling, as
it may, perhaps, my readers.  It was thus: "At the battle of
Germantown, in the year 1777, a Dutchman, an inhabitant of that
town, and his wife fired upon some of the British during the
action; whether they killed anyone or not he did not say.  But
after the battle someone informed against them and they were both
taken and confined in the provost guardhouse, in the city, and
there kept with scarcely anything to sustain nature and not a
spark of fire to warm them.  On the morning that the on Mud
Island, the _Augusta was blown up at Fort Mifflin, the poor old
man had got to the prison yard to enjoy the warm sunbeams, with a
number of other prisoners, (my informant among them, he being a
prisoner at the time).  When they heard the report of the ship's
magazine, the poor creature exclaimed, 'Huzza for General
Washington! Tomorrow he comes.' The villain Provost Marshal, upon
hearing this, put him into the cellar of the prison and kept him
there, without allowing him the least article of sustenance, till
he died.  The prisoners cut a small crevice in the floor, with a
knife, through which they poured water and sometimes a little
spirits, while he held up his mouth to the place to receive it."
Such inhuman treatment was often shown to our people when
prisoners by the British during the Revolutionary War. But it
needs no comment.
     In the morning before we marched, some of us concluded to
have a stimulator.  I went to a house near by where I was
informed they sold liquors.  When I entered the house, I saw a
young woman in decent morning dishabille.  I asked her if I could
have any liquor there.  She told me that her husband had just
stepped out and would be in directly, and very politely desired
me to be seated.  I had sat but a minute, or two when there came
in from the back yard a great potbellied Negro man, rigged off in
his superfine broadcloth, ruffled shirt, bowshin, and flat foot
and as black and shining as a junk bottle.  "My dear," said the
lady, "this soldier wishes for a quart of rum." I was
thunderstruck.  Had not the man taken my canteen from me and
measured me the liquor, I should certainly have forgotten my
errand.  I took my canteen and hastened off as fast as possible,
being fearful that I might hear or see more of their "dearing,"
for had I, I am sure it would have given me the ague.  However
agreeable such "twain's becoming one flesh" was in that part of
the Union, I was not acquainted with it in that in which I
resided.
     We went on to Philadelphia, crossed the river Schuylkill on
a pontoon bridge, entered the city, and took up our abode in the
barracks.  The infantry passed on for the Hudson, but the
regiment of artillerists (Colonel [John] Lamb's), who were at the
siege of Yorktown, stopped with us. We stayed here several days. 
The barracks in this city are, or were then, very commodious. 
They were two stories high, with a gallery their whole length,
and an ample parade in front; they were capable of sheltering two
or three thousand men.
     One night, while we were lying here, one of my comrades
having occasion to go out, it being very dark, he soon came back
in a shocking fright, hardly able to speak.  He was asked what
was the matter, when, having recovered himself so far as to be
able to speak, he said there was a ghost in the gallery.  The
greater part of the men in the room turned out to see the ghost,
a thing often talked of but very rarely seen.  We could hardly
persuade the man to go out with us to direct us to the object of
his terror. However, we went out, when lo! what should the spirit
be but an old white horse which had walked up the stairs to the
gallery, probably in search of something to eat, as, judging by
his appearance, he very much needed it, for he had rather a
ghostly aspect, but did not seem a very formidable foe.
     After staying in Philadelphia about a fortnight, we left the
city and proceeded to the city of Burlington, in New Jersey,
twenty miles above Philadelphia, on the Delaware, which place we
understood was to be our winter quarters.  We marched about noon,
went about ten miles, and halted for the night.  We took up our
lodgings in the houses of the inhabitants.  The house where I was
quartered seemed to belong to a man well off for this world's
goods.  We were allowed the kitchen and a comfortable fire, and
we happened to have, just then, what a soldier of the Revolution
valued next to the welfare of his country and his own honor, that
is, something to eat and being all in good health and having the
prospect of a quiet night's rest; all which comforts happening to
us at this time put us in high spirits.
     We had received some fresh beef and bread that morning and,
after being settled in our quarters, we set about cooking our
suppers.  There were three or four small boys belonging to the
house who were so taken up with their new guests that they kept
with us the whole evening.  We traded with these boys for some
potatoes to cook with our meat; we gave them two or three
cartridges and they gave us as many potatoes as we needed. Just
as we had got our supper upon the table, the man of the house
passed through the room and, seeing that we had potatoes, asked
us where we procured them.  Some of the men replied, "in
Philadelphia." He took up one from the dish and broke it. 
"Miserable things," said he.  "My potatoes are worth double the
value of these." We laughed in our sleeves at his simplicity. 
His own boys skinned their teeth to think how their father was
deceived, but said nothing.  When we turned out in the morning to
resume cur march, upon examination we found these roguish urchins
had undertaken to serve us with the same sauce they had their
father, for they had, during the night, nearly emptied all our
cartridge boxes.  We saw where they deposited those we gave them.

When, upon examining the place, we found our lost goods which we
did not fail to secure, and likewise those which we had given
them, as a punishment for their roguery.
     We marched again and crossed a narrow ferry called Penny
Ferry, arrived at Bristol and crossed the Delaware, to
Burlington, where the artillerists went into barracks, and our
corps of Miners were quartered in a large elegant house which had
formerly been the residence of the Governor when the state was a
British province.  The noncommissioned officers, with a few
others, had a neat room in one of the wings, and the men occupied
the rest of the house, except the rooms in the third story, which
were taken up by the officers and their attendants.  Now we
thought ourselves well situated for the winter (as indeed we
were, as it respected shelter) after a tedious campaign, but it
turned out quite the reverse with several, and myself among the
rest, as in the next chapter will appear.  Being once more snugly
stowed away in winter quarters, it of course ends my sixth
campaign.

* Footnotes *
     (1) In 1780, the British had opened a campaign in the South,
had largely conquered the lower colonies, and were pressing a
campaign against Virginia.  In February, 1781, Washington
dispatched a light corps under Lafayette to cooperate with French
warships in succoring Virginia.

     (2) In May, 1781, Washington, with the French allies who had
come in force to Rhode Island, planned a joint attack on New York
City, hoping thus to force Clinton to recall troops from the
South. The attack was planned for July 2. Washington's forces
were to descend both banks of the Hudson and meet the French at
the point of attack as they closed in from Westchester.  The
"smart skirmish" gave an alarm to the enemy and wrecked the
scheme.  Fort Independence lay between the Boston Post Road and
the Albany Post Road, northeast of King's Bridge.

     (3) Morrisania, where the Harlem and East rivers join, was
the estate of General Lewis Morris.

     (4) The Bronx River.

     (5) The great march of combined American and French forces
for Yorktown began August 19, 1781.  To deceive the enemy,
Washington made as if to assail New York through Staten Island. 
The troops intended for Virginia were moved into New Jersey, and
parties were sent about inquiring freely for boats.  To create
the impression that the French were settling in for a siege, word
was spread that the ovens they built at Chatham were but the
first of many to be constructed.  The ruse worked long enough to
get the armies safely on their way.  The Americans marched
through Philadelphia on September 2, and the French, during the
succeeding two days.

     (6) Siege warfare in the eighteenth century ritualistically
adhered to a century-old set of rules, laid down by French
Marshal Sebastien de Vauban, for investiture, circumvallation and
countervallation (lines to protect the besieger from relieving
troops in his rear and sallies from the besieged in his front),
bombardment, and the opening of a series of parallel encircling
trenches "with drums beating and flags flying." The first
parallel usually was dug six hundred yards from the besieged
fortress, out of range of small-arms fire and grape and canister.

The earth excavated from the parallels was thrown over fascines
in front of the parallels to form parapets.  Earthern artillery
batteries were constructed, connected to the parallels by
communication trenches.  While these were under work, saps, or
smaller trenches, were dug, zigzagging toward the fortress. 
Gabions were filled and covered on the side facing the enemy.  At
three hundred yards from the fortress a second parallel was dug. 
If necessary, a third was finally dug close enough for breaching
the fortress walls for an infantry attack.  Yorktown was the
first and only siege conducted by the Continental army - and the
last in history of its kind.

     (7) The house of Thomas Nelson, onetime Secretary of the
Virginia Council, which had been occupied by Lord Charles
Cornwallis as headquarters. 

     (8) Redoubt Number Nine and Redoubt Number Ten.

     (9) On the night of October 14, the Americans prepared to
assault Number Ten, and the French, Number Nine.
     (10) On the dark, windy night of October 16, Cornwallis made
a desperate effort to save his army by evacuating Yorktown on the
sea side, through Gloucester Point across the York River, but was
turned back by the weather.  The house was that of Augustine
Moore.

     (11) Probably Colonel John Banister, of Battersea
plantation, near Petersburg, Virginia, who wrote his
brother-in-law in July, 1781, that he had been "plundered" of "82
of my best Negroes." The hapless Negroes, taken up by the
British, also were the instruments of germ warfare.  British
General Alexander Leslie wrote to his superior, Cornwallis,
"About 700, Negroes are come down the River in the Small Pox.  I
shall distribute them about the Rebell Plantations."

CHAPTER VIII
Campaign of 1782

     A man with morbid pains oppress'd
     Who feels the nightmare in his breast;
     Rejoices when the pressure's o'er,
     And the distress is felt no more;
     So wars and tumults, when they cease,
     Bring comforts in the thoughts of peace.

     THE arm of British power in America being dislocated by the
capture of Lord Cornwallis and his myrmidons, we had not much to
disturb us on account of the enemy.  I fared rather better than I
did when I was here on my journey to Mud Island in 1777.  Our
duty was not very hard, but I was a soldier yet, and had to
submit to soldier's rules and discipline, and soldier's fare.
     Either here, or just before, our officers had enlisted a
recruit.  He had lately been discharged from the New Jersey Line.
After enlisting with us, he obtained a furlough to visit his
friends, but receiving no money when he engaged with us (which
was, I believe, the sole motive of his entering the service at
this time) and obtaining his ends in getting home, he took
especial care to keep himself there, at least till he could get
another opportunity to try his luck again, which he accordingly
did by enlisting in a corps of new levies in his own state - New
Jersey.  My captain, hearing where he was and how engaged, sent
me with two men to find him out and bring him back to his duty.
     And now, my dear reader, excuse me for being so minute in
detailing this little excursion, for it yet seems to my fancy,
among the privations of that war, like one of those little
verdant plats of ground amid the burning sands of Arabia so often
described by travelers.
     One of our captains and another of our men being about going
that way on furlough, I and my two men sat off with them.  We
received, that day, two or three rations of fresh pork and hard
bread.  We had no cause to call this pork "carrion," or "hog
meat," for, on the contrary, it was so fat and being entirely
fresh, we could not eat it at all.  The first night of our
expedition, we boiled our meat, and I asked the landlady for a
little sauce.  She told me to go to the garden and take as much
cabbage as I pleased, and that, boiled with the meat, was all we
could eat.  The next morning we proceeded.  It was cool weather
and about six inches deep of snow on the ground.  After two or
three days journeying, we arrived in the neighborhood of the game
that we were in pursuit of.  It was now sundown, and our
furloughed captain and man concluded to stop for the night.  Here
we fell in with some soldiers of the corps that our man belonged
to.  Our captain inquired if they knew such a man, naming him. 
They equivocated and asked many questions concerning our
business.  Our officious captain answered them so much to their
satisfaction that Mr. Deserter took so good care of himself that
I could not find him, and I cared but little about it. I knew he
would get nothing with us, if we caught him, but a striped
jacket, and as we concluded the war was nearly ended, we thought
it would be but of little service to him, nor his company any to
us.
     The captain put me and my two men into the open cold kitchen
of a house that they said had sometime or other been a tavern. 
But as it was in the vicinity of the place where I passed the
winter of 1779-80, I was acquainted with several of the
inhabitants in the neighborhood, and accordingly sent one of my
men to a house hard by, the master of which I knew to be a fine
man, and obtained his leave to lodge there.  We had a good warm
room to sit and lodge in, and as the next day was Thanksgiving,
we had an excellent supper.  In the morning, when we were about
to proceed on our journey, the man of the house came into the
room and put some bread to the fire to toast.  He next produced
some cider, as good and rich as wine; then giving each of us a
large slice of his toasted bread, he told us to eat it and drink
the cider, observing that he had done so for a number of years
and found it the best stimulator imaginable.  We again prepared
to go on, having given up the idea of finding the deserter.
     Our landlord then told us that we must not leave his house
till we had taken breakfast with him.  We thought we were very
well dealt by already, but concluded not to refuse a good offer.
We therefore stayed and had a genuine New Jersey breakfast,
consisting of buckwheat slapjacks, flowing with butter and honey,
and a capital dish of chocolate.  We then went on, determined not
to hurry ourselves so long as the Thanksgiving lasted.  We found
a good dinner at a farmer's house, but I thought that both the
good man and his lady looked at us as if they would have been as
well pleased with our room as our company.  However, we got our
dinners and that was quite sufficient for us.
     At night we applied for lodging at a house near the road.
There appeared to be none but females in the house, two matronly
ladies and two misses.  One of the women said she should have no
objection to our staying there through the night, were it not
that a woman in the house was then lying at the point of death. 
I had often heard this excuse made before.  We readily perceived
her drift, and, when turning to go away, one of the men told her
that he did not wish to stay.  "For," said he, "if old Corpus
should chance to come in the dark for the sick woman, he might in
his haste mistake and take me." The woman smiled and we went on.
     The next house which looked as if hospitality was an inmate,
I applied to and obtained admittance.  Here again, we found a
plenty of Thanksgiving fare.  The people of this house were
acquainted with numbers of the Connecticut soldiers who had been
here during the winter of '79, and made many inquiries respecting
them.  They seemed to have a particular regard for the
Connecticut forces, as that section of the state was originally
settled by Connecticut people and it still retains the name of
"the Connecticut Farms." The good man of the house would not let
us depart in the morning until we had breakfasted.  We then bid
our kind host farewell and proceeded on.
     About noon we called at a house, and while we were warming
ourselves in the kitchen and chatting with the young people, the
good old housewife came into the room and entered into
conversation with us upon the hardships of a soldier's life.  She
lamented much that we had no mothers nor sisters to take care of
us; she said she knew what it was, in a measure, to endure the
fatigues and hardships of a camp, by the sufferings her sons had
undergone in the drafted militia.  They had told her how they had
suffered hunger and cold, and, to cap all, said she, they came
home ragged, dirty, and lousy as beggars.  The young men, who
were present, did not seem to relish the latter part of her
narrative, for they leered like cross colts.  The good woman, all
the while, did not say a word to us about eating, but went off to
her room and shut the door.  We stayed a few minutes longer and
were just going away, when the old lady opened her door and said,
"Come to your dinners, soldiers," with as much ease and
familiarity as though we had belonged to the family.  Agreeably
to invitation, we went in and found the master of the house
sitting in his elbow chair by the fire, who gave us a hearty
welcome to the remains of his Thanksgiving cheer.  We ate a
hearty dinner, and an excellent one it was.  When, after
returning them our sincere thanks for their hospitality, we
pursued our journey.
     This afternoon we passed a place where, on our march to
Virginia the past summer, a funny incident occurred, which, at
the time it happened and at this time, excited considerable
merriment.  Our captain, who we always took pains to discommode,
had placed himself on the top of an old rail fence, during a
momentary halt of the troops.  The rail upon which he sat was
very slender.  Behind him was a meadow and from the fence, for
about a rod, was a bank almost perpendicular.  I was sitting on
the other end of the rail, when our sergeant major, observing the
weakness of the fence, came and seated himself by my side, and
giving me a hint, we kept wriggling about till we broke the rail
and let the captain take his chance down the bank, among the
bushes, quite to the bottom, taking good care ourselves not to go
with him.  When he came back he did not look very well pleased
with his Irish hoist.  Whether he mistrusted that we had been the
cause of his overturn I do not know; he said but little, whatever
he might think.
     At night we stopped at a large elegant brick house, to which
the owner bid us welcome.  He told me that his house was Lord
Cornwallis' quarters during part of the time he was in the
Jerseys, in '76 and '77.  He said that Cornwallis was a morose,
cross man, always quarreling with and beating his servants, that
he was glad his pride was humbled, but had much rather have heard
that he was killed than taken.  Here we again regaled ourselves
on Thanksgiving viands, which was nearly, or quite, the last;
however, we had fared something better than I did at the rice and
vinegar Thanksgiving, in Pennsylvania, in the year 1777.  We took
breakfast here and went on.
     We this forenoon passed through a pretty village called
Maidenhead (don't stare, dear reader, I did not name it). (1) An
hour or two before we came to this place, I saw a pretty young
lady standing in the door of a house, just by the roadside.  I
very innocently inquired of her how far it was to Maidenhead. 
She answered, "Five miles." One of my men who, though young, did
not stand in very imminent danger of being hanged for his beauty,
observed to the young lady, "that he thought the commodity scarce
in the market, since he had to go so far to seek it." "Don't
trouble yourself," said she, "about that, there is no danger of
its being more scarce on your account." The fellow leered and, I
believe, wished he had held his tongue.
     The next day we arrived at Trenton, where was a commissary
and some public stores.  I concluded, although we were in a
thanksgiving country, yet, as we should soon be where we should
not find so much to be thankful for, that I would endeavor to
supply the deficiency in some degree.  Accordingly I made out a
return for three men for three days rations.  We went to the
commissary's, who told us that he had no kind of meat on hand nor
any other provisions but flour, that if we chose to take that, he
would allow us a pound and a quarter of flour for a pound of
beef. We took it and exchanged it at the baker's, pound for
pound, and went on.  We arrived at our quarters in Burlington,
sometime in the evening.
     Soon after this came on my trouble, and that of several
others of the men belonging to our corps.  Sometime in the month
of January two of our men were taken down with a species of
yellow fever; one recovered and the other died.  Directly after,
one belonging to our room was seized with it and removed to the
hospital, where he recovered.  Next I was attacked with it.  This
was in February; it took hold of me in good earnest.  I bled
violently at the nose, and was so reduced in flesh and strength
in a few days that I was as helpless as an infant. O! how much I
suffered, although I had as good attendance as circumstances
would admit.  The disorder continued to take hold of our people
till there were more than twenty sick with it.  Our officers made
a hospital in an upper room in one of the wings of the house, and
as soon as the men fell sick they were lodged there.
     About the first of March I began to mend, and recovered what
little reason I ever possessed, of which I had been entirely
deprived from nearly the first attack of the fever.  As soon as I
could bear it, I was removed from my room to the hospital among
those that were recently taken.  For what reason I was put with
the sick and dying, I did not know, nor did I ask.  I did not
care much what they did with me, but nothing ill resulted from it
that I know of.  The doctor belonging to the artillery regiment
(who attended upon us, we having no doctor in our corps) went
home on furlough, and it was a happy circumstance for us, for he
was not the best of physicians.  Besides, he was badly provided
to do with.  The apothecary's stores in the Revolutionary army
were as ill furnished as any others.  The doctor, however, left
us under the care of a physician belonging to the city, who was a
fine man, and to his efforts, under Providence, I verily believe
I owed my life.  He was a skillful, tenderhearted and diligent
man.
     There was, likewise, in the city a widow woman that rendered
us the most essential service during our sickness.  As we were
unable to eat anything and had only our rations of beef and bread
to subsist upon, this widow, this pitying angel, used almost
every evening to send us a little brass kettle containing about a
pailful of posset, consisting of wine, water, sugar, and
crackers.  O, it was delicious, even to our sick palates.  I
never knew who our kind benefactress was; all I ever knew
concerning her was that she was a widow.  The neighbors would not
tell us who she was nor where she lived.  All that I, or any
others who had been sick, could learn from them was that she was
a very fine, pious and charitable lady.  Perhaps she did not wish
to have a trumpet sounded before her alms and therefore kept
conotealed.  I hope Heaven will bless her pious soul.  Yes, she
will be rewarded, where it will be said to her, "I was hungry and
you gave me meat; I was sick and you visited me." Although she
did not visit us personally, she ministered more to our comfort
than thousands of idle visits, which are oftener of more
detriment to sick' people than they are benefit.
     Four men died in the room into which I was removed after I
was carried there.  One occurrence (though nothing strange in
such circumstances as I was then in) I took notice of, although I
could take notice of little else.  We lay on sacks filled with
straw, and our beds mostly upon the floor, in a rank on each side
of the room, with an alley between.  The first man that died,
after my being conveyed there, was the first in order from the
entering door of the room, on the side I lay.  Next, the fourth
man from him died; there was then four men between this last that
died and me.  In my weakness I felt prepossessed with a notion
that every fourth man would die and that, consequently, I should
escape, as I was the fifth from the one that died last, and just
so it happened, the man next me on the side of those that had
died, died next.  I believe this circumstance contributed a great
deal in retarding my recovery until the death of this last man,
and that after his death, when I thought myself exempted, it
helped as much toward my recovery.  Such strange whims will often
work great effects both in hindering and forwarding in such
cases.  When the body is feeble and the head weak, small causes
often have great effect upon the sick.  I know it by too frequent
experience.
     Eight men died at this time, the rest recovered, though the
most of them very slowly.  Some were as crazy as coots for weeks
after they had gained strength to walk about.  My hair came off
my head and I was as bald as an eagle, but after I began to gain
strength I soon got about.  But it was a grievous sickness to me,
the sorest I had ever undergone. Although death is much nearer to
me now than it was then, yet I never had thought myself so near
death as I did then.
     The spring had now began to open and warm weather soon came
on. We remained here till the month of May, when one of our
sergeants and myself obtained permission to go down to
Philadelphia for a couple of days to visit some of our
acquaintance in that city, but particularly to carry some little
clothing to one of our men in the hospital there, who was wounded
at the siege of Yorktown and had had his leg amputated above the
knee. I carried him, among other things, a pair of stockings and
shoes. His nurse told him that he was more lucky than most other
people for where they got one pair of shoes and stockings, he got
two. Poor fellow! I never saw nor heard of him afterwards. Thus
poor soldiers pass out of notice.
     My comrade and I stayed over two days at Philadelphia,
intending to return the next day in the packet. That evening, one
of our noncommissioned officers came down, who informed us that
our corps had marched for Hudson's River, and that our arms and
clothing were gone on in the baggage wagons and that we must
immediately follow. We all, however, stayed there that night, and
early next morning we sat off by land. We had nothing to burden
us, not even provisions or money, consequently, had nothing to
hinder us from proving our adroitness at travelling. We walked
that day about forty miles and stopped at night at a small snug
house in the state of New Jersey.
     We were obliged to take the soft side of the floor for our
lodging, having no blankets or any other kind of bedding.  I was
tired and could have slept almost anywhere, had I been
undisturbed; but there was, belonging to the house, a likely
young huzzy.  She, with her parents, composed the whole family;
at least, they are all I saw.  They all went to rest in a back
room and we were left to sleep in the outer room. I had hardly
fallen asleep, when someone came bawling at the door.  The girl,
I suppose, knowing who it was, got up and came blundering over
the chairs, through the room where I was lying, making as much
noise as a thunderstorm. She at length got to the door and talked
some time with the man, when she came rattling back and went
muttering to her bed.  I had but just dropped asleep again when
the same jockey, I supposed, as it appeared to be the same voice,
came back and began his yelping again.  The poor girl had to
scratch open her eyes once more and come through our territories,
making as much confusion as at the first time.  They talked
pretty loud for nearly an hour, which kept us awake all the time
they were there.  I wished he had taken an opportunity to visit
his miss when I was farther off.  She came in again and went to
her room, growling like an old bear.  "What did he want?" said
the mother to her.
     "He wanted me to go with him to ----" she mentioned some
place.  "Why did you not go?" said the good woman.  "I should
look well going with him at this time of night, - I should - so I
should," said she.  Before I could get to sleep again it was
daybreak.  I wished the girl had been asleep and her wooer gagged
before I had seen or heard either of them.  As soon as the day
dawned, the man of the house came into the room where we were,
and took a large jug, that had stood all night just at my head,
and poured out a morning stimulator for himself and then put the
jug into a closet.  I was sorry I did not know it was so near me,
that I might have taken a comforter for the trouble they had
caused me.
     We started before sunrise this morning and walked forty-nine
miles, when, just before sunset, we overtook our corps.  I had
eaten nothing all day, but drank several draughts of buttermilk
which I begged of the farmers' ladies on the road.  The next day
we arrived at a large house near King's Ferry, usually
denominated by the army "the white house," belonging to [Joshua
Hett] Smith, the man who conducted Major Andre on his way towards
New York when he was taken.  Our troops stayed here that night
and the next day and night, the officers in the house and the men
in the barns.
     In the evening of the last day we were here, just at dark,
one of our officers came and told me that two of the men had
deserted and had compelled another man to go with them.  As they
were all what we called "Old Countrymen," it was conjectured that
they had gone to the enemy, and I was accordingly ordered to take
nine men, who were then in readiness, and endeavor to overtake
them before they could reach New York.  I immediately set off,
having received my orders, which were to go to what was called
the "English Neighborhood," (2) and if I could not find them or
hear of them, to return.  The English Neighborhood was from
forty-five to fifty miles distant from the place we were then at.
We traveled so hard that at daylight I had but three men of the
nine left with me, the other six having given out by the way.  We
were now near our journey's end, when the men with me beginning
to grow slack, and hearing no tidings of the deserters, we
concluded to return.
     When we had got eight or ten miles on our retrograde
movement, we met one of our lieutenants on his way to visit his
friends who lived in that quarter.  He had with him three men for
an escort and had picked up those of my party who had given out
by the way.  We met him just as he arrived at his father's house,
a lucky circumstance for us, as we stopped and got something to
eat.  He then sent me off alone to a place on the river, where
some spy boats, as they were called, were stationed, with
directions to request the officers commanding them to take up the
three deserters, should they see them.  I executed this
commission and returned to the lieutenant, who then told me to
take all the men and return to our corps.  The country all about
here was infested by Tories, especially a certain district
through which I had to pass on my return.  The lieutenant charged
me not to stop at this place through the night, but to rest short
of it or proceed beyond it.
     I again set out with my twelve men, little heeding the
Tories.  It being some time to night when we arrived at the
above-mentioned Tory-land, we pushed on and did not stop till we
got quite back to Smith's house.  We, particularly myself and the
three men who held out all night, were tired enough, having
traveled about ninety miles in twenty-four hours, and I had
traveled five or six miles further than any of them, in going to
and returning from the spy boats.  We were hungry and tired but
had nothing to eat.  I had six or seven dollars in specie, which
one of our corps (an Irishman) had desired me to keep awhile for
him to avoid the importunity of his _friends, but he was not with
us.  I, however, ventured to make use of one dollar that evening
and the next morning, in purchasing some bread and cheese and a
little something to wet our whistles with.  I afterwards paid the
man, and he informed me that that dollar did him more good than
all the others.  I had, the day before this expedition, put on a
pair of new shoes which, not having got fitted to my feet, caused
blisters upon them as large as cents.
     The deserters were, all the time we were in pursuit of them,
within three miles of the place where they left us.  The man whom
they forced off with them made his escape from them soon after
and returned.  He told me that they saw us on our return, that
they were then in Haverstraw Mountain, not more than a quarter of
a mile from us.  Thus I had another useless and fatiguing
expedition for nothing.
     The next morning we set out after our troops, who had gone
on for West Point, about eighteen or twenty miles.  We found them
on the eastern side of the river.  Here we got some provisions
and a day or two after crossed over to West Point, where we
encamped and worked some time in repairing the fortifications.
     Towards the latter part of the summer we went on to
Connecticut Island, (3) opposite to West Point, and were employed
awhile in blasting rocks for the repair of the works on that side
of the river.  It was not so dreary at this time as it was when
we were there wheeling dirt upon the magazine in 1780. Our duty
was not over hard, but the engineers kept us busy.
     In the month of September, while we lay here and our tents
were pitched about promiscuously, by reason of the ruggedness of
the ground, our captain had pitched his marquee in an old gravel
pit, at some distance from the tents of the men. One day, two or
three of our young hotheads told me that they and some others of
the men, whom they mentioned, were about to have some fun with
"the old man," as they generally called the captain. I inquired
what their plans were, and they informed me that they had put
some powder into a canteen and were going to give him a bit of a
hoist.  I asked them to let me see their apparatus before they
put their project in execution.  Accordingly, they soon after
showed me a wooden canteen with more, as I judged, than three
pounds of gunpowder in it, with a stopper of touchwood for a fuse
affixed to it, all, they said, in prime order.  I told them they
were crazy, that the powder they had in the canteen would "hoist"
him out of time, but they insisted upon proceeding.  It would
only frighten him, they said, and that was all they wished to do
- it would make him a little more complaisant.  I then told them
that if they persisted in their determination and would not
promise me on the spot to give up their scheme, I would that
instant go to the captain and lay the whole affair before him. 
At length, after endeavoring without effect to obtain my consent
to try a little under his berth, they concluded to give up the
affair altogether, and thus, I verily believe, I saved the old
man's life, although I do not think that they meant anything more
than to frighten him.  But the men hated him and did not much
care what happened to him.
     There was the foundation of some barracks which the British
had burnt in their excursion up the North River in the year 1777;
it was composed of stone and lime, perfectly level and, perhaps,
a hundred feet long.  The bushes had grown up around it,
excepting the side next the river; the place formed a very pretty
spot for a contemplative evening's walk.  The captain used
frequently, in fine weather, to be seen pacing backward and
forward upon this wall, between sunset and dark.  The men
observed him and itched to discommode him, but, since they had
made me privy to their roguery, they dare not play any of their
tricks upon him without consulting me, for fear of being
discovered.  They therefore applied to me for my consent to "cut
some caper" with him, as they called it.  Their plan now was to
set an old musket, which they had somewhere obtained, in the
manner that hunters set them to kill wild animals, charged only
with powder.  I consented to let them try this experiment, but,
after all, it never took effect.  Either the captain discovered
it or it failed by accident or from some other cause, for I never
heard anything more about it.  I did not wish him to receive any
personal injury from their roguery, but I cared very little how
much they frightened him.  I did not consider myself as being
under very heavy obligations to him for his civilities to me, and
many of the men considered themselves under still less.
     One young man, who was the ringleader of this "gunpowder
plot," had a particular grudge against the old man, which urged
him on to devise mischief against him.  I imagine that he
considered himself justified by his conscience in doing so, in
consequence of several affronts, as he termed them, which he had
received from him.  I will mention one or two to which I was
knowing, that the reader may be able to form some judgment as to
the cause he had to be revenged on the poor old captain.
     He once purloined a flour barrel, I think, from the baker,
for the purpose of making a washing tub.  The pretended owner
complained to the captain, who, apparently, took no notice of it
at the time.  However, as it appeared not long afterwards, he did
not forget it, for this man, one morning soon after, went off
without leave with some others, who had permission, across the
mountain to New Windsor, eight or ten miles distant, and did not
return till after evening roll call, at which time he was
reported as absent without leave.  The sergeant major (who
belonged to our company) chanced that evening to call the roll. 
He was a sheer sycophant and would, at any time, have a man
punished if he could by so doing ingratiate himself with the
officers.  He therefore, as might be expected, informed the
captain of the whole affair.  The captain ordered the Sergeant
major to send the delinquent to him as soon as he returned, which
he accordingly did.  The captain used but very little reasoning
with him, before he began to use harder arguments than words
could convey, urged by the weight of his rattan.  After he had
satiated his vengeance upon the poor culprit for playing the
truant, he told him that the flour barrel was still to settle
for, and then paid him for that, principal and interest.
     Another affair, in which the captain and he differed in
opinion, happened while we were lying at West Point.  It was as
follows.  This man used sometimes to attend on the sergeants'
mess, as they were allowed a waiter or cook.  He acted as such at
the time I mention.  One morning after roll call, we (the
sergeants) allowed him, a t his own request, to go and work for a
farmer in the neighborhood of the camp.  He had done so before,
and it was quite agreeable to us all, for he received his wages
for his work in milk, butter, &c., which he always brought into
the mess.  On the day mentioned, he was at work at the farmer's
pulling flax.  The farmer had an orchard close by where our man
was at work.  The soldiers, as they passed, used often to pillage
some of the good man's apples.  To prevent these depredations
upon his property, in some measure, he requested our soldier to
take an old musket belonging to the house, loaded with powder
only, and when any of the plunderers passed by, to pretend that
he was a sentinel and drive them off.  Not content with going
thus far, he must put a small plighted apple into his musket for
a ball.  It was not long before he had an opportunity to exercise
his sentryship, for several soldiers coming by and taking the
liberty, as usual, to take some fruit, they were ordered off by
our hero, and not obeying as soon as he desired, or expected, he
fired his apple amongst them, which did not seem to be very
agreeable to their feelings.  They knew to what corps he belonged
by his uniform, and ours was the first they came to on entering
the garrison.  As the poor fellow's ill luck would have it, the
sergeant major was the first they encountered upon entering. 
They made bitter complaint against the pretended sentry, and he
carried it directly to the captain, without losing a morsel by
the way.  The captain ordered him to send the man to him as soon
as he came home.  The captain's marquee had a shade over and
round the entrance.  I was upon quarters guard at a tent in the
rear of the captain's when, just after roll call, I saw poor
Pilgarlick repairing to the captain's tent.  I pretty well knew
what would be the consequence of his visit.  I listened, heard
some discourse between them, but the distance was so great that I
could hear but little distinctly, but I soon heard the rattan in
motion again, very plainly.  As soon as the action was over, the
man came to me at the guard.  I asked him what the captain and he
had been at, as they had, to appearance, been very lively.  "I
will tell you," said he, "the sergeant major had told the captain
that I had deserted, but when he found I had not, he sent for me
to come and see him, and you cannot conceive how glad he was to
see me, and nothing would do but I must dance a jig with him.  I
told him I had much rather not, as, possibly, it might injure his
character to be seen dancing with a private soldier.  But it
would not signify, a jig we must have at all events, and he got
hold of my hand and began to whistle and I began to dance, and a
fine jig I suppose he thought we had.  The plague seize his old
carcass, I wish he was twisted up fifteen miles above the seven
stars, there to remain till every hair of his head was a meteor
and every limb a comet." I could not help laughing at his
buffoonery, though I thought if I had been in his place I should
not have turned it off so lightly.
     After we had ended our stone blasting, we went to building a
new range of barracks, and elegant ones, too.  They were two
stories high with wings at each end, brick chimneys, and a
gallery in front the whole length of the building, with large
flights of steps to ascend to the gallery and the upper room -
large enough to accommodate two or three regiments.
     Levity and Folly are twin sisters, and are restive jades. 
When they are yoked together in the same vehicle and have
Indiscretion for a driver they will very often draw a man into
wild and ridiculous scrapes, as I know by experience.  They run
me into one about this time, which I will relate, as I think it
an "adventure," and a "suffering," though foolish one, such an
one as I shall not easily forget, if it should not seem of much
consequence to anyone but myself.
     Several of our men, and myself among the rest, by permission
of our officers, took a boat one day and went to the western side
of the river for the purpose of gathering chestnuts.  Two or
three miles above West Point is a remarkable mountain, jutting
quite into the river, called Butter Hill, from the color of the
rocks that compose it, which are of a yellowish hue. The end of
the mountain next the river is almost perpendicular and in many
places quite so.  It runs off gradually to the westward, where it
is on all sides easy of ascent.  Not finding the nuts so plenty
as I wished or expected and being drawn on by the two nags I have
mentioned above, I took it into my head to leave my associates
and climb this mountain, where I expected to have a prospect of
the country around me that would compensate me for all my trouble
in climbing the hill, and then by going along on the top I could
descend it with ease.
     My mates tried to dissuade me from the undertaking, but no,
I was determined to go, and go I did - a part of the way. I
clambered up, sometimes upon my hands and knees and sometimes
pulling myself up by the small bushes that grew in the cliffs of
the rocks, passing many places in imminent danger of falling,
passing round crags of rocks on the very edges of frightful
precipices, not daring to look back.  When, after I had ascended
perhaps five or six hundred feet and thought I had nearly
obtained my object, I arrived at a spot where I was completely
graveled and could go no farther one way or the other.  I then
had to stop, of course, and ventured to look back, being forced
to do so.  I saw the tall trees below me in the valley, reduced
in size to whortleberry bushes.  I sat down on a crag of the
rock, which was hardly broad enough for me to rest upon, and then
began to reflect on my folly.  To go farther was impossible, to
get down again alive seemed equally so, especially when I
recollected the many dangerous places I had passed in climbing
up, and to call for help was vain, for no one could do aught for
me, if they were ever so willing.  I thought of my more than
madness in attempting such a hazardous, foolish exploit, without
any cause for it but my idle curiosity.  I recollected the advice
of my comrades, and when all these considerations rushing on my
mind at once, it almost made me desperate.  I had a mind to sit
still where I was and starve to death or throw myself down the
rocks and put an end to my life and anxiety together.  Had the
mountain been all solid gold and I the sole possessor of it, I
would at that instant have given every ounce of it to have been
in the situation I was but two hours before.  But, as the poet
says, 

     "He had slighted good counsel, had reckon'd it cheap;
     And now the sad fruit of his folly must reap."

     However, after taking breath a little (for truly I was
almost breathless from fatigue, setting aside the danger), I came
to the resolution to make a trial to free myself from the
preposterous hobble I had so foolishly poked my unthinking skull
into for nothing.  I could but die if I fell, and I should die if
I stayed there.  Accordingly, I sat out on my downward passage. 
Everyone knows, that has had the trial, that it is much easier
and safer in ascending than descending such places.  I was
sensible of this and therefore took good care that, as much as I
wished to be at the bottom of the hill, I did not go down faster
than was necessary.  By much care, more labor, and abundance of
danger, for about an hour, undergoing fear and horror in the
extreme, I arrived where I set out from about two hours and a
half before.  I could hardly stand upon my feet when I reached
the foot of the mountain.  I looked up the hill with horror and
pleasure: horror at the sight and thought of the risk I had run
for my life, and pleasure to find myself safe once more on level
land.  I made myself a promise, that nothing but absolute
necessity should ever carry me off on such another foolish
expedition, so long as I was allowed sense and reason enough to
keep myself from running headlong into the fire.
     Another scrape of a similar complexion I got into about this
time, when I ran as great or greater risk of losing my life than
I did in the one just related.  I have before, in this narrative,
informed the reader of my propensity to gunning whenever I could
get an opportunity to indulge myself in it.  The mountains on the
Hudson, called the Highlands, had an abundance of partridges,
heath hens, and gray squirrels upon them, especially on the
western side of the river.  I had one day got over the river and
among those hills for an afternoon's hunting.  I had not been
long there when, going along by the side of a steep mountain, I
saw and shot a squirrel, but only badly wounding it.  It fell
from the tree just before me, upon a flat part of the rock, which
projected from the side of the mountain and was about twenty feet
wide and perhaps two or three rods long, as deep as the ordinary
roof of a house.  The lower edge, or what might be denominated
the eaves, hung over a frightful precipice, eighty or a hundred
feet perpendicular.  My game, as I said before, fell upon this
rock and was scrambling off across it.  I laid down my gun and
gave it chase.
     When I had got about halfway across this rock and nearly up
with the squirrel, being so intent upon overtaking it that I did
not observe the danger I was in, I slipped and fell upon my side
and slid directly down the rock, towards the precipice, until my
feet were within a foot or two of the brink.  There happened,
providentially, to be a small savin, or red cedar bush, about the
size of a man's wrist at the root, which had grown out of a
crevice in the rock, but had fallen down, yet hung by a single
root, not larger than a pipestem.  This tree, as it lay, reached
almost to the lower edge of the rock.  When I had got to the top
end of it and was in full motion directly for the edge of the
rock, I instinctively caught hold of the tree, which immediately
stopped my way.  But when I looked up and saw by what a slender
hold I depended, I own that I felt affrighted.  However, by using
great caution and bearing with as little weight on the tree as
possible, I got up to the upper part of the rock, where it was
more level.  When I had got upon my feet again, I made off,
thankful for whole bones, though not with an entire whole skin. 
I cannot think of the risk I then ran for my hide, without my
feet involuntarily moving, even at this late hour of my life.
     In the first part of the month of November I was sent down
the river, about five miles, with fifteen men to cut wood for our
winter's use.  Our duty was to cut the wood of proper lengths for
the fire and then carry it on our backs to the shore, from whence
it was carried to the garrison in batteaux by those who had
remained at home.  We continued at this business till Christmas,
when we were ordered to the garrison.  I sent off our tents, &c.,
by the boats and, on Christmas Day, we set off ourselves by land.

It was a violently cold, windy, snowstormy day, and we had to
travel eight or ten miles, roundabout, to get home, with the wind
directly in our faces.  It began to snow before daylight and we
started about eight o'clock in the morning.  Before we reached
home the snow had fallen eighteen inches deep and not a single
track but those we made ourselves.  I froze my right ear
considerably, but otherwise we al arrived safely at camp,
although I was very unwell for several days after.  Afflictions
always attended the poor soldiers.
     As soon as the storm had ceased, we removed into our new
barracks, one half of a regiment of artillerists and a regiment
of invalids (4) having removed into them before us.  And now,
having provided our wood for the winter, built our barracks,
stowed ourselves away snugly in them, and winter having
handsomely set in, it will, of course, bring my seventh campaign
to a close.

* Footnotes *
     (1) Present-day Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

     (2) A seven- or eight-mile length of forest that lay in East
Jersey, between the Hackensack and Hudson rivers opposite
Manhattan.

     (3) Obviously, this should read "Constitution Island."

     (4) The Corps of Invalids, raised by resolve of Congress,
April 25, 1777, and commanded by Colonel Lewis Nicola, consisted
of officers and men unfit for field duty because of physical
injuries or disabilities but fit for garrison, guard, and similar
duties. 

     CHAPTER IX
     Campaign of 1783

     When we see th' end of strife and war -
     And gain what we contended for:- 
     Remember that our thanks are due
     To HIM whose mercy brings us through.

     THE winter set in rather early for that part of the country,
and not over gentle.  We had a quarters guard and a magazine
guard to keep.  The magazine was situated on one of the highest
hills, or rather ledges, on the island.  In a cold northeast
snowstorm it would make a sentry shake his ears to stand two
hours before the magazine.  We likewise kept a small guard to
protect the slaughterhouse, about half the winter; the invalids
kept it the other half.  All this made the duty of our little
corps, of less than seventy men, rather hard.
     I was once upon this slaughterhouse guard, when I went to
relieve the sentinel there, who was a roommate of mine and a
smart, active young man of about twenty-one years of age. As it
was an obscure place, we dispensed with the usual ceremonies in
relieving sentries.  But this young man standing in the door of
the house, when I came with the relief, and in his levity
endeavoring to cut some odd figure with his musket, by throwing
it over and catching it again, not considering where or how he
stood, he struck the butt of his piece against the upper part of
the door, which knocked it out of his hands and, coming down
behind him, the bayonet entered the upper part of the calf of his
leg and came out a little above the ankle.  I had him conveyed to
the barracks, where the wound was dressed by an ignoramus boy of
a surgeon belonging to the regiment of invalids.  A few days
after he complained of a pain in his neck and back.  I
immediately informed the captain, who had him wrapped up and sent
off to the hospital at Newburgh.  The men who conveyed him to the
hospital returned in the evening and informed us that he was
dead, having been seized with the lockjaw, convulsions, or
something else, caused by the wound.  Thus a poor fellow, who had
braved the hardships and perils of the war till the very close of
it, "died as a fool dieth," causing his own death by his folly. 
But, perhaps, if another man had been in his stead, he would have
acted just as he did.  "If I were you, I would do so and so," is
a very common expression, but a very improper one.  If I were in
your place, or were you, I should do just as you do.
     Here we suffered again for eatables.  We, generally
speaking, had fared better for a year or two back than we did in
the first three or four years of the war.  Then all the care of
procuring sustenance for the army was entrusted to the
commissaries themselves.  After our government had obtained loans
of money front France and Holland, the money was put into the
hands of contractors who were accountable for the use they made
of it, and of course the contractors made the commissaries
responsible for what they received of them.  But somehow this
winter, between the two stools, the poor soldiers often came to
the ground.  I lived, half the winter, upon tripe and cowheels,
and the other half upon what I could get.  We always had very
short carnivals, but lengthy fasts.  One evening, in the first
part of this winter, there happened the most brilliant and
remarkable exhibition of the aurora borealis, or northern lights,
that I ever witnessed; the wind was in the same quarter and quite
fresh.
     We passed this winter as contentedly as we could, under the
hope that the war was nearly over, and that hope buoyed us up
under many difficulties which we should hardly have surmounted
without its aid.  But we were afraid to be too sanguine, for fear
of being disappointed.
     Sometime in the latter part of the month of February, our
officers were about to send off some men to Newburgh, ten or
twelve miles up the river, to bring down some clothing.  As the
ice in the river had not broken up, although it began to be thin
and rotten, several of the non-commissioned officers solicited
the job for the sake of a frolic.  We readily obtained
permission, and seven or eight of us set off in the morning on
the ice, with a large hand sled to bring the clothing upon. 
About a mile and a half above West Point there was a large rent
in the ice, quite across the river, in some places not more than
a foot or two wide, in others, eight or ten.  We crossed this
place very easily and went on, when we met an officer coming down
the river, picking his way among the holes in the ice.  He asked
us what troops we belonged to.  We told him.  He bid us be
careful, for, said he, "you are too good-looking men to be
drowned." We thanked him for his compliment and passed on -
arrived safe at Newburgh, got our clothes, and set off on our
return.
     When we came to New Windsor, about three or four miles below
Newburgh, we conceited we were growing thirsty.  We concluded,
thereupon, to go on shore and get something to make us breathe
freer.  We could not get anything but cider, but that was almost
as good and as strong as wine.  We drank pretty freely of that,
and set off again.
     It was now nearly sundown, and we had about seven miles to
travel.  Just before we had arrived at the before-mentioned rent
in the ice, we overtook a sleigh drawn by two horses and owned by
a countryman that I was acquainted with.  He had in his sleigh a
hogshead of rum belonging to a sutler on West Point.  There were
two or three other citizens with him, one of whom was, to
appearance, sixty or seventy years of age.  When we arrived at
the chasm in the ice, the teamster untackled his horses in order
to jump them over, and we stopped to see the operation performed.

He forced them both over at once, and when they struck the ice on
the other side they both went through, breaking the ice for a rod
round.  The poor man was in a pitiful taking; he cried like a
child.  Some of our party told him to choke them out.  He had but
little faith in the plan.  We, however, soon got his leading
reins, which happened to be strong new cords, and fixed one round
each of the horse's necks, with a slip noose.  They did not
require much pulling before they both sprang out upon the ice
together.  The owner's tune now turned; he was as joyful as he
had been sad before.  The next thing was to get the sleigh and
rum over.  We got it to a narrow spot in the chasm and, all hands
taking hold, we ran it over.  But when the hinder ends of the
sleigh runners came near the edge of the ice, they, with their
own weight, broke the ice as had as the horses had done before. 
The sleigh arrived safe on the other side, but we were, mostly,
upon the broken floating ice, but by the aid of Providence we all
survived the accident.  The old man that I mentioned happened to
be on the same fragment of ice with me.  When I had stepped off,
I saw him on the edge of the piece, settling down gradually in
the water, without making the least exertion to help himself.  I
siezed him by the shoulder and, at one flirt, flung him upon the
solid ice.  He appeared as light as a bag of feathers.  He was
very thankful and said I had saved his life, and I am not quite
sure that I did not.
     After we had got matters regulated again, we must take a sip
of their rum with them.  They soon got the bung from the
hogshead, the only way they had in their power to get at the good
creature. We each took a hearty pull at it, for soldiers are
seldom backward in such cases.  The rum soon began to associate
with the cider, and between them they contrived to cut some queer
capers amongst us, for we had not gone far before one of our
corporals hauled up, or rather upset.  We laid him upon the sled
and hauled him to the wharf at West Point, where we landed. 
There was a sentry on the wharf and as we had to go some distance
to deliver the clothing to our commanding officer, we left our
disabled corporal in the care of the sentry, with a strict charge
not to let him stir from the place, for fear that he might
blunder off the wharf and break his neck on the ice.  We were
gone an hour or more.  When we returned we found the poor
prisoner in a terrible chafe with the sentinel for detaining him,
for the guard had been true to his trust.  We then released him
from his confinement, and he walked with us as well as he could,
across the river to our barracks, where, during the night, he
settled his head.  If the reader says there was no "suffering of
a Revolutionary soldier" in this affair, I say perhaps there was
not, but there was an "adventure."
     The great chain that barred the river at West Point had been
regularly taken up every autumn and put down every spring ever
since it had been in use (that chain which the soldiers used to
denominate General Washington's watch chain; every four links of
which weighed a ton), (1) but we heard nothing of its being put
down this spring, although some idle fellow would report that it
was going to be put down immediately. These simple stories would
keep the men in agitation, often for days together (for the
putting down or the keeping up of the chain was the criterion by
which we were to judge of war or peace), when they would get some
other piece of information by the ears, which would entirely put
the boot on the other leg.  The political atmosphere was, at this
time, as full of reports as ever the natural was of smoke, and of
about as much consequence.
     Time thus passed on to the nineteenth of April [1783], when
we had general orders read which satisfied the most skeptical,
that the war was over and the prize won for which we had been
contending through eight tedious years. (2) But the soldiers said
but very little about it; their chief thoughts were more closely
fixed upon their situation as it respected the figure they were
to exhibit upon their leaving the army and becoming citizens.
Starved, ragged and meager, not a cent to help themselves with,
and no means or method in view to remedy or alleviate their
condition.  This was appalling in the extreme.  All that they
could do was to make a virtue of necessity and face the
threatening evils with the same resolution and fortitude that
they had for so long a time faced the enemy in the field.
     At length the eleventh day of June, 1783, arrived.  "The old
man," our captain, came into our room, with his hands full of
papers, and first ordered us to empty all our cartridge boxes
upon the floor (this was the last order he ever gave us) and then
told us that if we needed them we might take some of them again. 
They were all immediately gathered up and returned to our boxes.
Government had given us our arms and we considered the ammunition
as belonging to them, and he had neither right nor orders to take
them from us.  He then handed us our discharges, or rather
furloughs, for they were in appearance no other than furloughs,
permission to return home, but to return to the army again if
required.  This was policy in government; to discharge us
absolutely in our present pitiful, forlorn condition, it was
feared, might cause some difficulties which might be too hard for
government to get easily over. (3)
     The powder in our cartridges was soon burnt.  Some saluted
the officers with large charges; others only squibbed them, just
as each one's mind was affected toward them.  Our "old man" had a
number of these last-mentioned symbols of honor and affection
presented him.  Some of the men were not half so liberal in the
use of powder as they were when they would have given him a
canteenful at once.
     I confess, after all, that my anticipation of the happiness
I should experience upon such a day as this was not realized; I
can assure the reader that there was as much sorrow as joy
transfused on the occasion.  We had lived together as a family of
brothers for several years, setting aside some little family
squabbles, like most other families, had shared with each other
the hardships, dangers, and sufferings incident to a soldier's
life; had sympathized with each other in trouble and sickness;
had assisted in bearing each other's burdens or strove to make
them lighter by council and advice; had endeavored to conceal
each other's faults or make them appear in as good a light as
they would bear.  In short, the soldiers, each in his particular
circle of acquaintance, were as strict a band of brotherhood as
Masons and, I believe, as faithful to each other.  And now we
were to be, the greater part of us, parted forever; as
unconditionally separated as though the grave lay between us. 
This, I say, was the case with the most, I will not say all;
there were as many genuine misanthropists among the soldiers,
according to numbers, as of any other class of people whatever,
and some in our corps of Miners, but we were young men and had
warm hearts.  I question if there was a corps in the army that
parted with more regret than ours did, the New Englanders in
particular. Ah! it was a serious time.
     Some of the soldiers went off for home the same day that
their fetters were knocked off; others stayed and got their final
settlement certificates, which they sold to procure decent
clothing and money sufficient to enable them to pass with decency
through the country and to appear something like themselves when
they arrived among their friends.  I was among those; I went up
the river to the Wallkill and stayed some time.  When I returned
to West Point the certificates were not ready and it was
uncertain when they would be. I had waited so long I was loath to
leave there without them.  I had a friend and acquaintance in one
of the Massachusetts regiments, who had five or six months to
serve in the three years service; there was also in the same
regiment a man who had about the same space of time to serve and
who wished to hire a man to take his place.  My friend persuaded
me, although against my inclinations, to take this man's place,
telling me that at the expiration of our service we would go
together into the western parts of the state of New York, where
there was a plenty of good land to be had as cheap as the
Irishman's potatoes (for nothing at all, fath, and a little
farther on, cheaper nor all that) and there we would get us farms
and live like heroes.  The other man offering me sixteen dollars
in specie, with several other small articles, I consented, and
now I had got hobbled again, though but for a short time.  After
I had been in this regiment about a month or six weeks, this
"friend of mine" told me that he had taken an affront at
something, I have forgotten what, and was determined not to stay
there any longer, and endeavored to persuade me to go with him. 
I told him I had so short a time to serve and as there was a
prospect that I should not have to stay so long as I had engaged
to do, I would not go off like a scoundrel, get a bad name, and
subject myself to suspicion and danger.  I labored to persuade
him to relinquish his foolish resolution and I thought I had, but
he a few days after set off with himself and I have never heard
of him since.  I hope he did well, for he was a worthy young man.
     Soon after this, an order was issued that all who had but
four months to serve should, after they had cut two cords of wood
near the garrison for firewood, be discharged.  Accordingly, I
cut my two cords of wood and obtained an honorable discharge,
which the other man might have done if he had not been so hasty
in his determination.
     I now bid a final farewell to the service.  I had obtained
my settlement certificates and sold some of them and purchased
some decent clothing, and then set off from West Point.  I went
into the Highlands, where I accidentally came across an old
messmate who had been at work there ever since he had left the
army in June last, and, as it appeared, was on a courting
expedition.  I stopped a few days with him and worked at the
farming business.  I got acquainted with the people here, who
were chiefly Dutch, and as winter was approaching and my friend
recommended me to them, I agreed to teach a school amongst them. 
A fit person! I knew but little and they less, if possible. "Like
people, like priest." However, I stayed and had a school of from
twenty to thirty pupils, and probably I gave them satisfaction. 
If I did not, it was all one; I never heard anything to the
contrary.  Anyhow, they wished me to stay and settle with them.
     When the spring opened I bid my Dutch friends adieu and set
my face to the eastward, and made no material halt till I arrived
in the, now, state of Maine, in the year 1784, where I have
remained ever since, and where I expect to remain so long as I
remain in existence, and here at last to rest my warworn weary
limbs.  And here I would make an end of my tedious narrative, but
that I deem it necessary to make a few short observations
relative to what I have said, or a sort of recapitulation of some
of the things which I have mentioned.
     When those who engaged to serve during the war enlisted,
they were promised a hundred acres of land, each, which was to be
in their own or the adjoining states.  When the country had
drained the last drop of service it could screw out of the poor
soldiers, they were turned adrift like old worn-out horses, and
nothing said about land to pasture them upon.  Congress did,
indeed, appropriate lands under the denomination of "Soldier's
lands," in Ohio state, or some state, or a future state, but no
care was taken that the soldiers should get them.  No agents were
appointed to see that the poor fellows ever got possession of
their lands; no one ever took the least care about it, except a
pack of speculators, who were driving about the country like so
many evil spirits, endeavoring to pluck the last feather from the
soldiers. The soldiers were ignorant of the ways and means to
obtain their bounty lands, and there was no one appointed to
inform them.  The truth was, none cared for them; the country was
served, and faithfully served, and that was all that was deemed
necessary. It was, soldiers, look to yourselves; we want no more
of you.  I hope I shall one day find land enough to lay my bones
in.  If I chance to die in a civilized country, none will deny me
that.  A dead body never begs a grave; - thanks for that.
     They were likewise promised the following articles of
clothing per year.  One uniform coat, a woolen and a linen
waistcoat, four shirts, four pair of shoes, four pair of
stockings, a pair of woolen, and a pair of linen overalls, a hat
or a leather cap, a stock for the neck, a hunting shirt, a pair
of shoe buckles, and a blanket.  Ample clothing, says the reader;
and ample clothing, say I. But what did we ever realize of all
this ample store - why, perhaps a coat (we generally did get
that) and one or two shirts, the same of shoes and stockings,
and, indeed, the same may be said of every other article of
clothing - a few dribbled out in a regiment, two or three times
in a year, never getting a whole suit at a time, and all of the
poorest quality, and blankets of thin baize, thin enough to have
straws shot through without discommoding the threads.  How often
have I had to lie whole stormy, cold nights in a wood, on a
field, or a bleak hill, with such blankets and other clothing
like them, with nothing but the canopy of the heavens to cover
me.  All this too in the heart of winter, when a New England
farmer, if his cattle had been in my situation, would not have
slept a wink from sheer anxiety for them.  And if I stepped into
a house to warm me, when passing, wet to the skin and almost dead
with cold, hunger, and fatigue, what scornful looks and hard
words have I experienced.
     Almost every one has heard of the soldiers of the Revolution
being tracked by the blood of their feet on the frozen ground. 
This is literally true, and the thousandth part of their
sufferings has not, nor ever will be told.  That the country was
young and poor, at that time, I am willing to allow, but young
people are generally modest, especially females.  Now, I think
the country (although of the feminine gender, for we say "she"
and "her" of it) showed but little modesty at the time alluded
to, for she appeared to think her soldiers had no private parts. 
For on our march from the Valley Forge, through the Jerseys, and
at the boasted Battle of Monmouth, a fourth part of the troops
had not a scrip of anything but their ragged shirt flaps to cover
their nakedness, and were obliged to remain so long after.  I had
picked up a few articles of light clothing during the past
winter, while among the Pennsylvania farmers, or I should have
been in the same predicament.  "Rub and go" was always the
Revolutionary soldier's motto.
     As to provision of victuals, I have said a great deal
already, but ten times as much might be said and not get to the
end of the chapter.  When we engaged in the service we were
promised the following articles for a ration: one pound of good
and wholesome fresh or salt beef, or three fourths of a pound of
good salt pork, a pound of good flour, soft or hard bread, a
quart of salt to every hundred pounds of fresh beef, a quart of
vinegar to a hundred rations, a gill of rum, brandy, or whiskey
per day, some little soap and candles, I have forgot how much,
for I had so little of these two articles that I never knew the
quantity.  And as to the article of vinegar, I do not recollect
of ever having any except a spoonful at the famous rice and
vinegar Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania, in the year 1777.  But we
never received what was allowed us.  Oftentimes have I gone one,
two, three, and even four days without a morsel, unless the
fields or forests might chance to afford enough to prevent
absolute starvation.  Often, when I have picked the last grain
from the bones of my scanty morsel, have I eat the very bones, as
much of them as possibly could be eaten, and then have had to
perform some hard and fatiguing duty, when my stomach has been as
craving as it was before I had eaten anything at all.
     If we had got our full allowance regularly, what was it? A
bare pound of fresh beef and a bare pound of bread or flour.  The
beef, when it had gone through all its divisions and
subdivisions, would not be much over three quarters of a pound,
and that nearly or quite half bones.  The beef that we got in the
army was, generally, not many degrees above carrion; it was much
like the old Negro's rabbit, it had not much fat upon it and but
a very little lean.  When we drew flour, which was much of the
time we were in the field or on marches, it was of small value,
being eaten half-cooked, besides a deal of it being unavoidably
wasted in the cookery.
     When in the field, and often while in winter quarters, our
usual mode of drawing our provisions, when we did draw any, was
as follows: - a return being made out for all the officers and
men, for seven days, we drew four days of meat and the whole
seven days of flour.  At the expiration of the four days, the
other three days allowance of beef.  Now, dear reader, pray
consider a moment, how were five men in a mess, five hearty,
hungry young men, to subsist four days on twenty pounds of fresh
beef (and I might say twelve or fifteen pounds) without any
vegetables or any other kind of sauce to eke it out.  In the
hottest season of the year it was the same.  Though there was not
much danger of our provisions putrefying, we had none on hand
long enough for that, if it did, we were obliged to eat it, or go
without anything.  When General Washington told Congress, "The
soldiers eat every kind of horse fodder but hay," he might have
gone a little farther and told them that they eat considerable
hog's fodder and not a trifle of dog's - when they could get it
to eat.
     We were, also, promised six dollars and two thirds a month,
to be paid us monthly, and how did we fare in this particular?
Why, as we did in every other.  I received the six dollars and
two thirds, till (if I remember rightly) the month of August,
1777, when paying ceased.  And what was six dollars and
sixty-seven cents of this "Continental currency," as it was
called, worth? It was scarcely enough to procure a man a dinner. 
Government was ashamed to tantalize the soldiers any longer with
such trash, and wisely gave it up for its own credit. I received
one month's pay in specie while on the march to Virginia, in the
year 1781, and except that, I never received any pay worth the
name while I belonged to the army.  Had I been paid as I was
promised to be at my engaging in the service, I needed not to
have suffered as I did, nor would I have done it; there was
enough in the country and money would have procured it if I had
had it.  It is provoking to think of it.  The country was
rigorous in exacting my compliance to my engagements to a
punctilio, but equally careless in performing her contracts with
me, and why so? One reason was because she had all the power in
her own hands and I had none.  Such things ought not to be.
     The poor soldiers had hardships enough to endure without
having to starve; the least that could be done was to give them
something to eat.  "The laborer is worthy of his meat" at least,
and he ought to have it for his employer's interest, if nothing
more.  But, as I said, there were other hardships to grapple
with.  How many times have I had to lie down like a dumb animal
in the field, and bear "the pelting of the pitiless storm," cruel
enough in warm weather, but how much more so in the heart of
winter.  Could I have had the benefit of a little fire, it would
have been deemed a luxury.  But when snow or rain would fall so
heavy that it was impossible to keep a spark of fire alive, to
have to weather out a long, wet, cold, tedious night in the depth
of winter, with scarcely clothes enough to keep one from freezing
instantly, how discouraging it must be, I leave to my reader to
judge.
     It is fatiguing, almost beyond belief, to those that never
experienced it, to be obliged to march twenty-four or forty-eight
hours (as very many times I have had to) and often more, night
and day without rest or sleep, wishing and hoping that some wood
or village I could see ahead might prove a short resting place,
when, alas, I came to it, almost tired off my legs, it proved no
resting place for me.  How often have I envied the very swine
their happiness, when I have heard them quarreling in their warm
dry sties, when I was wet to the skin and wished in vain for that
indulgence.  And even in dry warm weather, I have often been so
beat out with long and tedious marching that I have fallen asleep
while walking the road and not been sensible of it till I have
jostled against someone in the same situation; and when permitted
to stop and have the superlative happiness to roll myself in my
blanket and drop down on the ground in the bushes, briars,
thorns, or thistles, and get an hour or two's sleep, O! how
exhilarating.
     Fighting the enemy is the great scarecrow to people
unacquainted with the duties of an army.  To see the fire and
smoke, to hear the din of cannon and musketry and the whistling
of shot, they cannot bear the sight or hearing of this.  They
would like the service in an army tolerably well but for the
fighting part of it.  I never was killed in the army; I never was
wounded but once; I never was a prisoner with the enemy; but I
have seen many that have undergone all these and I have many
times run the risk of all of them myself.  But, reader, believe
me, for I tell a solemn truth, that I have felt more anxiety,
undergone more fatigue and hardships, suffered more every way, in
performing one of those tedious marches than ever I did in
fighting the hottest battle I was ever engaged in, with the
anticipation of all the other calamities I have mentioned added
to it.
     It has been said by some that ought to have been better
employed that the Revolutionary army was needless, that the
militia were competent for all that the crisis required.  That
there was then and now is in the militia as brave and as good men
as were ever in any army since the creation, I am ready and
willing to allow, but there are many among them, too, I hope the
citizen soldiers will be as ready to allow, who are not so good
as regulars, and I affirm that the militia would not have
answered so well as standing troops, for the following reason,
among many others.  They would not have endured the sufferings
the army did; they would have considered themselves (as in
reality they were and are) free citizens, not bound by any cords
that were not of their own manufacturing, and when the hardships
of fatigue, starvation, cold and nakedness, which I have just
mentioned, begun to seize upon them in such awful array as they
did on us, they would have instantly quitted the service in
disgust, and who would blame them? I am sure I could hardly find
it in my heart to do it.
     That the militia did good and great service in that war, as
well as in the last, on particular occasions, I well know, for I
have fought by their side, but still I insist that they would not
have answered the end so well as regular soldiers, unless they
were very different people from what I believe and know them to
be, as well as I wish to know.  Upon every exigency they would
have been to be collected, and what would the enemy have been
doing in the meantime? The regulars were there and there obliged
to be; we could not go away when we pleased without exposing
ourselves to military punishment, and we had trouble enough to
undergo without that.
     It was likewise said at that time that the army was idle,
did nothing but lounge about from one station to another, eating
the country's bread and wearing her clothing without rendering
her any essential service (and I wonder they did not add,
spending the country's money, too, it would have been quite as
consistent as the other charges).  You ought to drive on, said
they, you are competent for the business; rid the country at once
of her invaders.  Poor simple souls! It was very easy for them to
build castles in the air, but they had not felt the difficulty of
making them stand there.  It was easier, with them, taking whole
armies in a warm room and by a good fire, than enduring the
hardships of one cold winter's night upon a bleak hill without
clothing or victuals.
     If the Revolutionary army was really such an useless
appendage to the cause, such a nuisance as it was then and has
since been said to be, why was it not broken up at once; why were
we not sent off home and obliged to maintain ourselves? Surely it
would have been as well for us soldiers and, according to the
reckoning of those wiseacres, it would have been much better for
the country to have done it than for us to have been eating so
much provisions and wearing out so much clothing when our
services were worse than useless.  We could have made as good
militia men as though we had never seen an army at all.  We
should, in case we had been discharged from the army, have saved
the country a world of expense, as they said; and I say we should
have saved ourselves a world of trouble in having our
constitutions broken down and our joints dislocated by trotting
after Bellona's car.
     But the poor old decrepit soldiers, after all that has been
said to discourage them, have found friends in the community, and
I trust there are many, very many, that are sensible of the
usefulness of that suffering army, although perhaps, all their
voices have not been so loud in its praise as the voice of
slander has been against it.  President Monroe was the first of
all our Presidents, except President Washington, who ever uttered
a syllable in the "old soldiers'" favor.  President Washington
urged the country to do something for them and not to forget
their hard services, but President Monroe told them how to act. 
He had been a soldier himself in the darkest period of the war,
that point of it that emphatically "tried men's souls," was
wounded, and knew what soldiers suffered.  His good intentions
being seconded by some Revolutionary officers then in Congress,
brought about a system by which, aided by our present worthy
Vice-President [John C. Calhoun], then Secretary at War, Heaven
bless him, many of the poor men who had spent their youthful, and
consequently their best, days in the hard service of their
country, have been enabled to eke out the fag end of their lives
a little too high for the groveling hand of envy or the long arm
of poverty to reach.
     Many murmur now at the apparent good fortune of the poor
soldiers.  Many I have myself seen, vile enough to say that they
never deserved such favor from the country.  The only wish I
would bestow upon such hardhearted wretches is that they might be
compelled to go through just such sufferings and privations as
that army did, and then if they did not sing a different tune, I
should miss my guess.
     But I really hope these people will not go beside
themselves.  Those men whom they wish to die on a dunghill, men,
who, if they had not ventured their lives in battle and faced
poverty, disease, and death for their country to gain and
maintain that Independence and Liberty, in the sunny beams of
which, they, like reptiles, are basking, they would, many or the
most of them, be this moment in as much need of help and succor
as ever the most indigent soldier was before he experienced his
country's beneficence.
     The soldiers consider it cruel to be thus vilified, and it
is cruel as the grave to any man, when he knows his own rectitude
of conduct, to have his hard services not only debased and
underrated, but scandalized and vilified.  But the Revolutionary
soldiers are not the only people that endure obloquy; others, as
meritorious and perhaps more deserving than they, are forced to
submit to ungenerous treatment.
     But if the old Revolutionary pensioners are really an
eyesore, a grief of mind, to any man or set of men (and I know
they are), let me tell them that if they will exercise a very
little patience, a few years longer will put all of them beyond
the power of troubling them, for they will soon be "where the
wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."
     And now I think it is time to draw to a close (and so say I,
says the reader).  In truth, when I began this narrative, I
thought a very few pages would contain it, but as occurrences
returned to my memory and one thing brought another to mind, I
could not stop, for as soon as I had let one thought through my
mind, another would step up and ask for admittance.  And now,
dear reader, if any such should be found, I will come to a close
and trespass upon your time no longer, time that may, doubtless,
be spent to more advantage than reading the "Adventures and
Sufferings" of a private soldier. But if you have been really
desirous to hear a part, and a part only, of the hardships of
some of that army that achieved our Independence, I can say I am
sorry you have not had an abler pen than mine to give you the
requisite information. To conclude.  Whoever has the patience to
follow me to the end of this rhapsody, I will confess that I
think he must have almost as great a share of perseverance in
reading it as I had to go through the hardships and dangers it
records. And now, kind reader, I bid you a cordial and long
farewell. 

     Through much fatigue and many dangers past,
     The warworn soldier's braved his way at last

                 THE END

* Footnotes *
     (1) The chain was one of four obstructions laid at various
times across the Hudson between Manhattan and New Windsor. 
Although not so massive as Martin believed, each of its two-foot
links, made of and one fourth-inch-square iron bars, weighed 180 
pounds, and the whole chain, with some twelve tons of anchors,
136 tons.  It was five hundred yards long.  It was made at the
Sterling Iron Works near present-day Warwick, New York, carted in
sections to New Windsor, there joined together, and floated to
West Point.  It was in position, supported by a boom, at the end
of April, 1778.  In winter, when military operations were
suspended, it was hauled up by windlass for repairs.  Some of the
original links are preserved at the United States Military
Academy.

     (2) Congress signed a provisional treaty of peace on April
15, 1783, and it was formally announced to the army on April 19. 

     (3) Washington endeavored to get at least three months' back
pay for the troops, but Congress could not grant even that much. 
To reduce the cost of maintaining the men, it directed Washington
to grant furloughs and offered the troops certificates for their
overdue pay.  The furlough paper would automatically become a
discharge upon the ratification of a final peace treaty. Congress
voted the men their arms as a farewell gift, but many were
obliged to sell them on their way home for travel money.

     (4) In a manuscript volume containing debit and credit
accounts with members of Captain Samuel Peck's Company, Douglas's
Regiment, in the War Department Collection of Revolutionary War
Records, National Archives, Record Group 93, Martin is shown as
having received for his enlistment a bounty of 3 pounds, a bounty
for "gun, bayonet, cartouche box, and blanket," and pay for a
total of five months, nine days, his service in 1776.  The
account was settled on August 3, 1777, and his grandfather,
Joseph Plumb, rendered a receipt for cash received in full.  One
surmises the accounts were settled by Captain Peck in
Connecticut, after Martin had reenlisted in the Continental army.