Page:The amorous intrigues and adventures of Aaron Burr.pdf/81

 to these opinions. This belief was confirmed by another circumstance which had previously occurred. On the day of his arrival, after our return from visiting the posts, conversing with several of his attendants, and, among others, Lieutenant Drake, whom Burr had brought with him from his own regiment, he said: 'Drake, that post on the North river will be attacked before morning; neither officers nor men know anything of their duty; you must go and take charge of it; keep your eyes open, or you will have your throat cut.' Drake went. The post was attacked that night by a company of horse. They were repulsed with loss. Drake returned in the morning with trophies of war, and told his story. We stared, and asked one another—'How could Burr know that?' He had not then established any means of intelligence.

"The measures immediately adopted by him were such that it was impossible for the enemy to have passed their own lines without his having immediate knowledge; and it was these measures which saved Major Hull, on whom the command devolved for a short time, when the state of Colonel Burr's health compelled him to retire.

"These measures, together with the deportment of Colonel Burr, gained him the love and veneration of all devoted to the common cause, and conciliated even its bitterest foes. His habits were a subject of admiration. His diet was simple, and spare in the extreme. Seldom sleeping more than an hour at a time, and without taking off his clothes or even his boots.

"Between midnight and two o'clock in the morning, accompanied by two or three of his corps of horsemen, he visited the quarters of all his captains, and their picket guards, changing his route from time to time, to prevent notice of his approach. You may judge of the severity of this duty, when I assure you that the distance which he thus made every night must have been from sixteen to twenty-four miles; and that, with the exception of two nights only, in which he was otherwise engaged, he never omitted these excursions, even in the severest and most stormy weather; and except the short time necessarily consumed in hearing and answering complaints and petitions from persons both above and below the lines, Colonel Burr was constantly with the troops.

"He attended to the minutest article of their comfort; to their lodgings; to their diet; for those off duty he invented sports, all tending to some useful end. During two or three weeks after the colonel's arrival, we had many sharp conflicts with the robbers and horse-thieves, who were hunted down with unceasing industry. In many instances, we encountered great superiority of numbers, but always with success. Many of them were killed, and many were taken."