(24th) the little vanguard came down the eastern wooded hills that surround Great Meadows, and looked across the waving grasses and low bushes which covered the field they were soon to make classic ground. Immediately upon arriving at the future battle-field, information was secured from a trader confirming Half King's alarming letter. Below the roadway, which passed the meadow on the hillside, the lieutenant-colonel found two natural intrenchments near a branch of Great Meadows Run, perhaps old courses of the brook through the swampy land. Here the troops and wagons were placed.
Great Meadows may be described as two large basins, the smaller lying directly westward of the larger and connected with it by a narrow neck of swampy ground. Each is a quarter of a mile wide, and the two a mile and a half in length.
The old roadway descends from the southern hills, coming out upon the meadows at the eastern extremity of the western basin. It traverses the hillside south of the western meadow. The natural intrenchments or depressions behind which
