Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker: Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General WashingtonMitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
History
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker: Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General Washington
Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
Quakers -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
The hundred feet beyond were passed at a run, and the men with fascines
cast them into the ditch. It was already half full of the wreck the
cannon had made in the earthwork. We jumped in, and out; it was all mud
and water. Ladders were set against the parapet, but the slope was now
not abrupt, having been crumbled away by our guns, so that most of us
scrambled up without delay. I saw Captain Hunt fall, the enemy firing
wildly. If Sergeant Brown of the Fourth Connecticut, or Mansfield of the
Forlorn Hope, were first on the parapet, I do not know. Hamilton got by
me, and I saw him set a foot on the shoulder of a man, and jump on to
the top of the redoubt. Why more or all were not killed seems to me a
wonder. I think if the enemy had been cooler we had been easily disposed
of. I saw the girl-boy leap down among the bayonets, and we were at once
in a hurly-burly of redcoats, our men with and after us.
For a little there was fierce resistance and a furious struggle, of
which I recall only a remembrance of smoke, red flashes, yells, and a
confusion of men striking and thrusting. A big Hessian caught me a smart
thrust in the left leg--no great hurt. Another with his butt pretty
nearly broke my left arm, as I put it up to save my head. I ran him
through, and felt that they were giving way.
To left and right was still a mad struggle, and what with the Bengal
fires still blazing, and a heap of brush in flames at one side of the
redoubt, there was light enough to see. Near about me was a clear space,
and a pause such as occurs now and then in such a scrimmage. There were
still men who held back, and to whom, as I pushed on, I called, “Come
on! We have them!” A great wind from the sea blew the smoke away, so
that it was easy to see. As I called out to the men who hesitated on
the outer slope, as some will, I heard before me a voice cry, “This way,
men!” and, turning, caught sight of the face of Arthur Wynne. He too saw
and knew me. He uttered an oath, I remember, crying out, “At last!” as I
dashed at him.
I heard ahead of me cries for “Quarter! quarter!” The mass of striving
men had fallen back, and in fact the business was at an end. I saw Jack
run from my left toward me, but he stood still when he saw what was
happening, and instantly, as he came, Arthur and I crossed swords. What
else chanced or who else came near I knew not. I saw for the time only
that one face I so hated, for the heap of brush in the work was still
blazing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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