I thought the request strange until he reminded me, as indeed I knew, that the chaplain, Mr. Hamilton, who had behaved with good sense and courage in the action, was badly wounded, and that the colonel, who was the proper person for this sad business, was occupied in arranging for the march and in destroying what had been gathered at such great cost. It was just before break of day I went out after Stewart, feeling a kind of satisfaction that the coward in command was not to commit to the grave my poor general, whom, being dead, every one would abuse. XXXIX If I had the pen of a good writer I should incline to describe what I saw. There were great fires burning, and all manner of baggage and stores thrown on them. The regulars were chopping up the artillery-waggons and casting ammunition into a creek. About a hundred yards away from my hut, in the middle of the road, a deep grave was dug. A few officers and men were gathered about it, and on the ground lay the general’s body, wrapt in a cloak, but no coffin. I looked about me, not knowing how to conduct the matter. Then an orderly handed me the chaplain’s prayer-book, with a marker at the funeral service. As I was about to begin, Lieutenant-Colonel Burton came forward with a flag and laid it decently over the dead man. Then he placed on it his sword, and fell back, and all uncovered. After this I read slowly, for the light was yet dim, the service of the church. This being over, the men lowered the body into the grave and filled it up with earth, and cast stones and bushes over it. No guard was ordered, and no volley fired, lest, as was said, it might be heard by the enemy, which appeared to me foolish, for there was noise enough, and at any minute one hundred men in the woods would have routed the whole camp. Thus died a man whose good and bad qualities were intimately blended. He was brave even to a fault and in regular service would have done honour to the army. His attachments were warm, his enmities were strong, and, having no disguise about him, both appeared in full force. He was generous and disinterested, but plain and blunt in his manner, even to rudeness. Dunbar made haste to get away, and I was not less pleased to be out of an ill-contrived business. This affair was a serious blow to the belief in the colonies as to the high value of the King’s soldiers. It became like a proverb in Virginia to say a man “ran like a regular.” Mr. Franklin said to me long afterwards that this disaster gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the powers of British regular troops had not been well founded, and indeed I am assured that when Lord Percy’s and Colonel Pitcairn’s force was put to flight at Lexington the older farmers on our own frontiers, when they knew what had been done, were less amazed than the minute-men of Massachusetts.