Arnold's force
visited the house, and claimed that the injured limb should be cut off
without delay, as the only means of saving the sufferer's life.

The family doctor objected very strongly; but the general's family had
faith in the Frenchman, although it is claimed he had evidently been
drinking heavily, and the leg was cut off. The operation was performed so
unskilfully that it was impossible to entirely check the flow of blood,
and the Frenchman, indulging in more wine, became so badly intoxicated
that, even had he known how, it would have been beyond his power to take
the proper measures.

There was no other surgeon to be had, and toward the close of the day,
when the brave old general came to understand that his end was very near,
he asked for the Bible, from which he read aloud the thirty-eighth psalm,
immediately afterward sinking back upon the pillow dead.

"Murdered if ever a man was!" Sergeant Corney cried, when the sad story
had been brought to an end, and I was of the same opinion.

There are several forms of mutiny, and some of them are called by other
names, but all as dangerous as they are wicked. Because many of those who
badgered the brave old soldier to his death paid the full penalty of their
crime in the ravine under the hatchet or knife of the savages, it may not
be well to say harsh words concerning them; but so long as I live there
will always be anger in my heart whenever I hear their names mentioned.

During that evening, after everything had been made ready for the march at
an early hour next morning, we lads gave to Peter Sitz messages for the
loved ones at Cherry Valley, promising that we would never bring disgrace
upon the settlement, and so burdening his mind with this matter and the
other that, if the poor man remembered but the half of all the words we
entrusted him with, he must have had a most prodigious memory.

Right proud was I when I marched out of the fort next morning at the head
of my company, followed by the two baggage-wagons; but yet there was a
sorrow in my heart because it seemed, in a certain degree, at least, as if
by becoming regularly enlisted men we gave up our claim to the name of
Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley.

Those under whom we served did not view the matter in the same light I
did, however, for we kept the title we liked best during all the time we
served in the army.

It would please me to set down here an account of the adventures which
were ours af