l make a sortie immediately after giving the signal, and
we can thus go into action with some hope of success," General Herkimer
said, mildly and firmly. "To advance before Gansevoort is ready would be
to imperil the lives of all this command."

"Speaking more particularly for yourself, sir, I suppose," Colonel Paris
said, with a sneer, and it would have given me the greatest pleasure to
have struck him down for that insult.

Then the three officers, still disputing, or, I should have said, the two
colonels still insulting their commander, who continued to bear with them
beyond that point where forbearance ceases to be a virtue, passed out of
earshot for the time being, and the men in the immediate vicinity took up
the subject, until, to my surprise, I found that nearly all of them sided
with the insubordinate colonels.

Five minutes later the three officers had approached so near where
Sergeant Corney and I were sitting that we could hear their words once
more, and then, to my indignation and the old soldier's anger, Colonel Cox
cried, in a fury, as he planted himself directly in front of the
commander:

"You are not only a coward, sir, but a Tory!"

I shall always hold that General Herkimer was a brave man, because, after
a severe effort which was evident to us all, he so far mastered his
righteous anger as to say, quietly:

"I am placed over you as a father and guardian, and shall not lead you
into difficulties from which I may not be able to extricate you."

Unless the soldiers of the command had been literally beside themselves,
such words would have brought them to a proper frame of mind; but as it
was, the temperate reply seemed to inflame their anger, and on the moment
there was a very babel of outcries, amid which it was only possible to
distinguish the demand that the force be led toward Fort Schuyler without
delay, regardless of any message which the sergeant and I might have
brought.

I could see, rather than hear, for the tumult was exceeding great, that
the two colonels continued to demand that the commander follow their plans
rather than adhere to his own, and it was a veritable fishwoman's squabble
during twenty minutes or more, when General Herkimer apparently lost his
temper for the first time, and cried, in a tone so loud that the words
could be distinctly heard all over the encampment:

"I will give the command to march forward, and you shall soon see that
those who have been boasting loude