University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER THE FIRST.
THE BATTLE MORN.

The morning of Saturday, the 4th of October,
1777, dawned slowly and heavily; and the sky was
obscured by dimly defined masses of clouds and
mist, that overhung the pathway of the sun, and
extended, like one vast shroud, along the dome of
heaven, enveloping hill, and plain, and stream, in
the density of its folds.

Objects were not discernible at more than fifty
paces, and, not unfrequently, the weary eye of the
soldier in vain essayed to define the outline of
marching troops, opposing enclosures, brushwood
or trees, not more than twenty paces in front of
his path.

As the first glimmering of dawn began to steal
over the landscape, the American army resumed
their march, unmarked by the roll of drum or the
peal of trumpet. The only sounds that disturbed
the silence of the atmosphere were the monotonous
tread of men and horses, shaking the earth, like
the low moaning of far off thunder, and ever and

anon the words of command, uttered in a suppressed
tone of voice, passed along the line; and these
sounds, mingled with the jar of clanking swords,
the shrill neigh of the mettled war-horse, and the
thousand half subdued noises that accompany the
movements of a large body of armed men, were all
the tokens that served to warn the surrounding farmers
and peasantry to flee from the scene of the
approaching conflict.

At the head of the central body, with Wayne on
one side and Sullivan on the other, rode the Man of
the Army, his tall form seeming yet more lofty, as
it loomed through the mist, and his face impressed
with an expression of solemn determination, as he
gave to his various aids-de-camp the orders of the
day, the directions regulating the march, or as he
imparted farther instructions in relation to the attack
and surprise.

The deep and prolonged murmur and half-suppressed
bustle, that was heard to the right and left
of the central body, served to show that the divisions
of Greene and Stephen on the left wing, and
the militia of Maryland and Jersey on the extreme
left, as well as the brigade of Pennsylvania on the
extreme right, were defiling east and west, to take
their respective positions in the approaching
struggle.

As the central division advanced in regular order
over the fields, and through the woods, that lay between

the Haunted House and Chestnut Hill, the
fog seemed to deepen, and the light of day served
only to render the gloom more apparent, and objects
around, more vague and shadowy.

The Black Rangers were some two hundred yards
in advance, and a quarter of a mile to the right of
the main body, on the look out for scouts and foraging
parties of the enemy. They had arrived within
a mile of Chestnut Hill, and were ascending a circular
elevation of earth, crowned with a thick
copse, when the quick ear of Harry Heft first discerned
the sounds of laughter, the clank of swords,
and the pattering of horses' hoofs, on the opposite
side of the hill, beyond the woods.

“With your permission, Captain, I'll jist ride up
to the top 'o th' hill and see what them suspicious
sounds might mean.”

“Do so, Lieutenant,” replied Herbert. “It
strikes me that your eye will discover some stray
foraging party who have lost their way in the fog.
Just approach near enough to ascertain their force
and position—don't thrust yourself heedlessly into
danger.”

“And sure, Capt'in,” exclaimed Dennis,
“might n't it be jest as well for meself to ride to
the opposite side of the hill, in a different direction
from that taken by the Leftenant, and take a
dacent peep at the Britishers—if Britishers they
be?”

The Captain nodded assent, and while the party
halted, at some fifty paces from the copse at the
summit of the elevation, Harry Heft puts purs to
his horse, and galloped around the eastern side of
the ascent, while Dennis pursued his way toward
the western side.

Harry passed through the copse, and gained the
opposite brow of the hill, where, reining in his
steed, he tried to discover the nature of the ground.
Below him, for some twenty paces, the hill sloped
down in a gentle descent, and was then lost in the
obscurity of the fog, from the bosom of which, far
down in the valley, came drunken shouts, mingling
with snatches of songs, and the sound of horses'
hoofs.

“Let's see,” soliloquized Harry, “where am I,
and what 's this place like? Ah! now I have it—
this hill slopes down into a small valley, which it
encircles in the shape of a new moon—and now
that I think of it, there is a level outlet from it
toward the south, opening into a flat bottomed
piece of swampy ground. On all other sides it is
circumvented by a semi-cerclar woods, and it strikes
me, them strangers, whoever they be, must be takin'
a frolic right in the lap of the hollow. By the Continental
Congress, what's that?”

The sound that attracted Harry's attention, was
the quick and sudden noise of horses' hoofs, mingled
with vindictive shouts, as though their riders

were in close pursuit of an enemy. Nearer and
nearer the sounds of pursuit drew, and Harry was
about to obey the impulse of the moment and rush
down into the valley, when the jarring report of a
pistol broke upon the air, and the concussion lifted
the fog for some fifty paces below the spot where
stood the gallant Ranger. As the mist slowly rose,
like the upraising of a vast curtain, Harry beheld a
sight that sent the blood, in one wild, warm current,
to his heart.

Quick as the lightning flash he beheld two soldiers
in the crimson uniform of British troopers,
mounted on stout, fleet horses, galloping up the
hill at the top of their speed, their swords suspended
in the air, and their arms nerved to strike
a wounded man, who drooping to one side of his
steed, essayed to escape up the ascent, while his
noble horse made almost supernatural efforts to increase
his speed.

At the same instant that Harry saw the wounded
man and his pursuers, he beheld a body of some
dozen dragoons galloping in the rear; while down
the hill, in the centre of the valley, the main force
of the company (some twenty troopers in all) were
gathered around a fire, in the act of springing upon
their horses, as if disturbed by some unexpected
alarm.

Scarce had Lieutenant Heft time to gather these
particulars at a hurried glance, and ere he could

draw a bridle rein, or give his horse the spur, he
discovered that the wounded man was none other
than his companion Dennis, and at the same moment
his cry for quarter broke upon the air; but
the uplifted swords of the dragoons descended,
winged with all the force of their muscular arms,
and the body of the American Ranger was hurled
to the earth, while the riderless horse dashed by
Harry Heft with his neck arched, his eyes distended,
his mane flying, and the saddle on his back
smoking with his master's blood.

Raising his rifle to his eye, with his blood boiling
with rage at the scene of merciless carnage which
had but now taken place under his very vision,
Harry Heft brought the glittering barrel to bear
upon the foremost of the troopers, and, in a flash,
a lifeless body fell from the war horse, and the
green sod bore upon its bosom the murderer and
the murdered—the dragoon in his scarlet attire and
gay trappings, and the free hearted Irishman in his
uniform of black, changed to a ghastly purple by
the red current that poured a gushing torrent from
his heart.

The sharp cracking sound of Harry's rifle had
not ceased to ring upon the air, when the war
shout of the Black Rangers swelled through the
woods, and in an instant, dashing through the copse,
as one man, the brave “twenty-four,” with Herbert
at their head, followed Harry down the hill at

the top of their horses' speed, each man with his
short, straight sword raised in the air, adding vigor
and volume to the yell of vengeance which arose
from the band, as each eye beheld the bleeding
form of Dennis the Irishman.

Down the hill they came, their gallant steeds
moving with one impulse, as though they were
but limbs of the same vast animal. At the sight,
the twelve British Dragoons halted half way up
the hill, in the full sweep of their career, and with
horses recoiling on their haunches, seemed scarce
to know whether to face the advancing avalanche,
or to fly before its approach.

Not an instant had they for reflection, for the
Black Rangers came on toward them with the
speed of a thunderbolt, and the voice of Harry Heft
was heard above all other sounds—

“Rangers—Dennis cried for quarter, and they
murdered him! Shall we give them quarter?”

“No quarter,” shouted Herbert Tracy, raising
himself in his stirrups and measuring the distance
between his men and the twelve dragoons, with a
glance of his eye, “no quarter! no quarter! The
bullet and the sword for the caitiffs. Over them,
Rangers, over them!”

“No quarter!” echoed the Rangers, “no quarter!”

“Dennis McDermott!” shouted Harry.

“The trumpeter boy!” replied Sergeant Brown.

“Over them! Down with the caitiffs!” reechoed
the Rangers, with one voice, “no quarter!”

And in one compact body, of four abreast, with
their steeds presenting a firm and unwavering
front, the Black Rangers passed like a whirlwind
over the shrinking forms and recoiling horses of
the twelve dragoons. And as the Nighthawks
swept on, with their front unbroken and their ranks
undisturbed, the British soldiers rolled on the
earth, some crushed beneath the weight of their
horses, others with their arms and legs broken,
and others pouring forth their lives on the sod,
from the mortal gash inflicted by the short swords
of the Rangers, in the very crisis of their charge;
and all of them, man and steed, were scattered
upon the earth, an indiscriminate mass of crushed
bodies, of mangled horses and dying men.

As the Rangers passed on in their career of death,
down the hill and toward the centre of the valley,
the main body of the British dragoons formed in
solid phalanx in the level of the vale, presenting a
front of four abreast, with a wood on either side
of their position, and the passage of the glen visible
in their rear. The fog had been raised from the
bed of the valley, by the action of the large fire
which the dragoons had kindled, and the light
wreaths of mist curled gracefully among the treetops
and around the hills, leaving the small level
plain perfectly clear from all obscurity, and free
from all exhalations.