United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Juvenile fiction
There are several forms of mutiny, and some of them are called by other
names, but all as dangerous as they are wicked. Because many of those who
badgered the brave old soldier to his death paid the full penalty of their
crime in the ravine under the hatchet or knife of the savages, it may not
be well to say harsh words concerning them; but so long as I live there
will always be anger in my heart whenever I hear their names mentioned.
During that evening, after everything had been made ready for the march at
an early hour next morning, we lads gave to Peter Sitz messages for the
loved ones at Cherry Valley, promising that we would never bring disgrace
upon the settlement, and so burdening his mind with this matter and the
other that, if the poor man remembered but the half of all the words we
entrusted him with, he must have had a most prodigious memory.
Right proud was I when I marched out of the fort next morning at the head
of my company, followed by the two baggage-wagons; but yet there was a
sorrow in my heart because it seemed, in a certain degree, at least, as if
by becoming regularly enlisted men we gave up our claim to the name of
Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley.
Those under whom we served did not view the matter in the same light I
did, however, for we kept the title we liked best during all the time we
served in the army.
It would please me to set down here an account of the adventures which
were ours after becoming enlisted men, but it must not be done, else I
might never bring the tale to a close, for we saw very much during the
time our people were convincing the king, and surely did our duty at Bemis
Heights, otherwise our company would never have been mentioned in the
flattering terms it then was.
It causes me most profound sorrow to say that our company was far away,
fighting for the Cause to the best of our ability, when our homes at
Cherry Valley were destroyed and many of our loved ones massacred by the
fiendish savages, and there is always in my heart a cruel joy that we lads
who had been trained by Sergeant Corney avenged that dastardly act of
Thayendanega's in such manly fashion that he must have remembered the
reprisals to his dying day.
Then it was we showed ourselves to be Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley in
good truth, however we may have been spoken of elsewhere, and if it so be
the good God spares my life sufficiently long I propose to set down the
story of that vengeance, when more than one of us, sorely wounded,
continued the chase, upheld even when exhausted nigh unto death by the
thoughts of what our loved ones had been made to suffer by that wolf in
human shape--Joseph Brant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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