rved to render
Corporal 'Lige's life more pleasant, for those who had used him as the
butt of their mirth began to understand that he was superior to
themselves, in a soldierly way, and more than one sought his advice on
various occasions.

At sunset on the seventh day of May the raw recruits had arrived at
Castleton, fourteen miles east of Skenesborough, and Isaac himself has
given the details of that straggling march through the country, in the
first letter written to his mother after setting out as a soldier:

"May the Eighth, 1775.

"My Dear Mother, Father, and Children:

"We have been camping here in this thicket since last night, and if
there is anybody in all the company more tired of soldiering than I
am, I would like to meet him. I wore a hole in the heel of my stocking
on the second day, and got such a blister because of it that I've been
obliged to go barefoot ever since.

"We have had plenty to eat, for the folks along the road were most
kind; but it's sleeping that has been the worst on me, though the
corporal says I never can hope to be a soldier till I'm able to lay
down in three or four inches of water and get as much rest as I would
at home in bed. I tell him I don't hope to be one any more, for I've
had about enough of it, though of course I shall stick by the company
till we've taken the fort, and it's pretty certain we shall do that,
because now there are two hundred and seventy men in the ranks.

"Colonel Easton enlisted thirty-nine of his militia before we got to
Bennington, and there we were joined by the Green Mountain Boys under
the command of Colonel Ethan Allen.

"It surprised me to find that a good many of the people don't believe
we are doing right in trying to take away the fort from the king's
troops, and the corporal says that unless this thing is a success we
are all like to be hanged for traitors, because his majesty will make
an example of them who are foremost in the work--which means us.

"Two hours after we halted last night Colonel Benedict Arnold, who is
said to have gone from New Haven as captain of a company, to
Cambridge, arrived here with a few men and a large amount--so it seems
to me--of military supplies.

"Although knowing that Colonel Allen is in charge of this force, he
claimed the right to take command, and, so the corporal says, made
display of a comm