Beamed the sunlight fierce and torrid o’er the battle raging horrid, Till, in faint exhaustion sinking, death was looked on as a boon; Heat, and not a drop of water—heat, that won the race of slaughter, Fewer far with bullets dying than beneath the sun of June; Only ceased the terrible firing, with the Briton slow retiring, As the sunbeams in the west sank to rest. [Illustration: MOLLY PITCHER.] On our arms so heavily sleeping, careless watch our sentries keeping, Ready to renew the contest when the dawning day should show; Worn with toil and heat, in slumber soon were wrapt our greatest number, Seeking strength to rise again and fall upon the wearied foe; For we felt his power was broken: but what rage was ours outspoken When, on waking at the dawn, he had gone. In the midnight still and sombre, while our force was wrapt in slumber, Clinton set his train in motion, sweeping fast to Sandy Hook; Safely from our blows he bore his mingled Britons, Hessians, Tories— Bore away his wounded soldiers, but his useless dead forsook; Fleeing from a worse undoing, and too far for our pursuing: So we found the field our own, and alone. How that stirring day comes o’er me! How those scenes arise before me! How I feel a youthful vigor for a moment fill my frame! Those who fought beside me seeing, from the dim past brought to being, By their hands I fain would clasp them—ah! each lives but in his name; But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for, Is their monument to-day, and for aye. _JOHN BERRY, THE LOYALIST._ There is scarcely a native of Bergen County, in New Jersey, who has not heard of Jack, the Regular, and by the older residents there are still told a number of stories of his cruelty and rapacity. That there was such a person, that he was an active loyalist during the Revolutionary war, and that he was finally killed by the Van Valens, and his lifeless body brought into Hackensack in a wagon, there seems to be no doubt. But with all my industrious endeavor I have never been able to get particulars as to his family, the date of his birth, or when he was killed. I find that his real name was John Berry, and that he managed to gain rank as a captain—probably of loyalists. His nickname arose from a boast he made that he was no marauder, but held a regular commission from his Gracious Majesty. Hence those who sided with the Americans called him Jack, the Regular, and he was scarcely ever known by another name.