fired upon by about an equal number of the British, from the cornfield; our people took to the hay, and the others to the fence, where they exchanged a number of shots at each other, neither side inclining to give back. A number, say forty or fifty more of our men, went over and drove the British from the fence; they were by this time reinforced in their turn, and drove us back. The two parties kept thus alternately reinforcing until we had the most of our regiment in the action. After the officers came to command, the English were soon routed from the place, but we dare not follow them for fear of falling into some snare, as the whole British army was in the vicinity of us; I do not recollect that we had any one killed outright, but we had several severely wounded, and some, I believe, mortally.
Our regiment was alone, no other troops being near where we were lying; we were upon a rising ground, covered with a young growth of trees; we felled a fence of trees around us to prevent the approach of the enemies' horse. We lay there a day longer, in the latter part of the afternoon there fell a very heavy shower of rain which wet us all to the skin, and much damaged our ammunition; about sunset, when the shower had passed over, we were ordered to parade and discharge our pieces, we attempted to fire by platoons for improvement, but we made blundering work of it; it was more like a running fire, than firing by divisions: however, we got our muskets as empty as our stomachs, and with half the trouble, nor was it half the trouble to have reloaded them, for we had wherewithal to do that, but not so with our stomachs.
Just at dusk, I, with one or two others of our company, went off to a barn, about half a mile distant, with intent to get some straw to lodge upon, the ground and leaves being drenched in water, and we as wet as they; it was quite dark in the barn, and while I was fumbling about the floor some one called to me from the top of the mow, inquiring where I was from; I told him. He asked me if we had not had an engagement there, (having heard us discharging our guns,) I told him we had and a severe one too;—he asked if many were killed;—I told him that I saw none killed, nor any very badly wounded. I then heard several others, as it appeared,
