ed to the use of small arms than
big guns, and the tide surged this way and that, with the fate of the fort
trembling more than once in the balance, until I had before my eyes only
great billows of feathered forms, which rose and fell, advanced and were
forced back, until I was well-nigh bewildered.

Before this portion of the fighting had come to an end, fully half the
garrison was engaged in repelling the attack of Thayendanega's forces, and
during such time the white portion of the enemy's army might have made a
successful assault upon the walls, I verily believe, but for the cowardice
displayed by the Tories.

How long we struggled there hand to hand, stumbling now over the lifeless
forms of our comrades, and again finding our way checked by the dead
bodies of the savages, I cannot say; but certain it is that we finally
drove the last of the hated foe over the stockade, and gave Thayendanega's
boasting braves such a lesson as they would not need to have repeated for
many days.

I was not less wearied with the carnage than those around me. Even
Sergeant Corney, to whom such scenes were not strange, leaned against a
portion of the earthworks as if for support while he dashed the
perspiration from his eyes, and then we knew by the sounds that the battle
was being waged severely over against the sally-port.

Then it was I called for the Minute Boys to follow me, as I ran at the
best pace possible in that direction, for there was our post of duty.

Now Colonel Gansevoort no longer husbanded his store of ammunition
intended for the cannon, and every piece in the northern and eastern
bastions was being worked with the utmost rapidity, sending among the
Tories such a shower of iron as their cowardly hearts could not hold out
against, and, when they turned with cries of fear to flee, the British
regulars, understanding that they were too few in number to effect
anything against us, joined in the retreat.

The assault had come to an end, and we of the garrison were triumphant,
but at such an expense of life that we could not well afford many more
such victories.

During that night we buried our dead,--four and twenty men,--committing
them to the dust under cover of darkness lest the enemy see how much
injury he had inflicted, and, thank God, never a member of my company who
could not answer to the roll-call.

There were forty-one so seriously wounded that it was necessary a certain
force be told off from among the ga