Page:The Adventures Of A Revolutionary Soldier.pdf/159

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A REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER.
157


the morning, kept prancing about and blackguarding the sentinels, who often fired at him without effect, until late in the afternoon, when one of the sentinels gave him something that seemed to cool his courage. He reached the redoubt, how he fared afterwards I know not; but I heard no more of his yelping.

There were two British soldiers hanging in chains here; I was standing near them with some others of our men, when two French officers rode up and inquired whether they were Americans or English; we told them they were English; upon which one of the officers laid his cane several times across one of the bodies, making the dry bones rattle, at the same time exclaiming, "Fotre d' Anglaise." A bold action! says the reader.

Our people fired several shots from their fieldpieces at some boats crossing the water to the redoubt, but never fired a single shot at the redoubt, or they at us, although we were lying all day in open sight of each other and within half a mile distant; there seemed to be a tacit agreement between them not to injure one another.

We lay all night upon the ground which we had occupied during the day. I was exceedingly tired, not having had a wink of sleep the preceding night, and had been on my feet during the last twenty-four hours, and this night, to add to my comfort, I had to take charge of the quarter guard. I was allowed to get what rest I could consistently with our safety. I fixed my guard, placed two sentinels, and the remainder of us laid down. We were with our corps, who were all by dark, snug in the arms of Morpheus; the officers slept under a tree near us. My orders were, if there was any stir or alarm during the night, to awake the officers, and if any strangers attempted to pass, to stop them and bring them to the officers to be examined by them. Some time in the night, the sentry by the guard, stopped two or three officers who were going past us; the sentry called me up, and I took the strangers to our officers, where they went through an examination and were then permitted to pass on; I returned to my guard and lay down till called up again to relieve the sentinels; all this time I was as unconscious of what was passing as though nothing of the kind had happened, nor could I remember any thing of the mat-