fly
deposited in that town.

Having, after repeated remonstrances, obtained an order directing
three brigades to the Delaware, Hamilton hastened back to Putnam, and
found the troops which had been ordered to join General Washington,
still at Peekskill. The detachment from New York had suggested to
Putnam the possibility of taking that place; and he does not appear to
have made very great exertions to divest himself of a force he deemed
necessary for an object, the accomplishment of which would give so
much splendour to his military character. In addition to this
circumstance, an opinion had gained ground among the soldiers that
their share of service for the campaign had been performed, and that
it was time for them to go into winter quarters. Great discontents too
prevailed concerning their pay, which the government had permitted to
be more than six months in arrear; and in Poor's brigade, a mutiny
broke out, in the course of which a soldier who was run through the
body by his captain, before he expired, shot the captain dead who gave
the wound. Colonel Hamilton came in time to borrow money from the
governor of New York, to put the troops in motion; and they proceeded
by brigades to the Delaware. But these several delays retarded their
arrival until the contest for the forts on that river was terminated.

{November.}

The preparations of Sir William Howe being completed, a large battery
on Province Island of twenty-four and thirty-two pounders, and two
howitzers of eight inches each, opened, early in the morning of the
10th of November, upon fort Mifflin, at the distance of five hundred
yards, and kept up an incessant fire for several successive days. The
block-houses were reduced to a heap of ruins; the palisades were
beaten down; and most of the guns dismounted and otherwise disabled.
The barracks were battered in every part, so that the troops could not
remain in them. They were under the necessity of working and watching
the whole night to repair the damages of the day, and to guard against
a storm, of which they were in perpetual apprehension. If in the day,
a few moments were allowed for repose, it was taken on the wet earth,
which, in consequence of heavy rains, had become a soft mud. The
garrison was relieved by General Varnum every forty-eight hours; but
his brigade was so weak that half the men were constantly on duty.

Colonel Smith was decidedly of opinion, and General Varnum concurred
with him, that t