VI.—CHEW'S HOUSE AGAIN.
Meanwhile the contest thickened around Chew's house; the division of
Greene, united with the central body of the American army, were engaged
with the left wing of the British army, under Kniphausen, Grant, and Grey,
while Sullivan led forward into the town, a portion of the advance column
of his division.
Tradition has brought down to our times a fearful account of the carnage
and bloodshed of the fight, around Chew's house at this moment, when the
British army to the south, and the Americans to the north, advanced in the
terrible charge, under the cover of the mist and gloom.
It was like fighting in the dark. The Americans advanced column after
column; they drove back the British columns with a line of bristling
bayonets, while the fire of the backwoodsmen rattled a death-hail over the
field; but it was all in vain! That gloomy mist hung over their heads,
concealing their foes from sight, or investing the forms of their friends with
a doubtful gloom, that caused them to be mistaken for British; in the
fierce mellé; all was dim, undefined and indistinct.
