Page:The Adventures Of A Revolutionary Soldier.pdf/101

Rh think of home, or at least of my regiment of fellow-Yankees.

Our regiment was commanded by a Colonel Butler, a Pennsylvanian,—the same, I believe, who was afterwards Gen. Butler, and was slain by the Indians at the defeat of Gen. 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 honoured 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 guard-keeping, 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 civily 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