Page:The Adventures Of A Revolutionary Soldier.pdf/70

68 of the fourth and eighth Connecticut regiments, with a company or two of Arillery, 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 endeavouring to escape to the Jersey shore. 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 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 honours 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 every thing that would burn, and