A Soldier Of Virginia A Tale Of Colonel Washington And Braddock

It was not until he sneered at me openly across the board that I felt my self-control slipping from me. "Lieutenant Allen seems to have a poor opinion of the Virginia troops," I...

My heart was thick with wrath as I walked up and down before Sir Peter Halket's quarters and waited for Colonel Washington to reappear. I asked myself again why I should be comp...

I doubt not that by this time the reader is beginning to wonder who this fellow is that has claimed his attention, and so, since there is no one else to introduce me, I must nee...

Besides my father and my mother, the figure which stands out most clearly in my memory of my childhood is that of the man who christened me. I cannot remember the time when I di...

Late that night I was awakened by the slamming of doors and hurried footsteps in the hall and up and down the stairs. I sat up in bed, and as I listened intently, heard frighten...

The rain was falling dismally as the coach in which I had made the journey rolled up the drive to Riverview, and I caught but a glimpse of the house as I was rushed up the steps...

Now who would have thought that in three short years the red-cheeked girl whom I had left at Riverview, and of whom I had never thought twice, could have grown into this brown-e...

I was received civilly enough at Riverview, and soon determined to remain there until Major Washington returned from the west. My aunt treated me with great consideration, doubt...

Whatever defects Dinwiddie may have had, indecision was certainly not one of them, and the very next day the machinery was set in motion for the advance against the French. Colo...

We marched back to the camp at Great Meadows with our prisoners,--some twenty in all,--much elated at our success, but near dead with fatigue. Lieutenant Spiltdorph was selected...

Alas, I could show not how they were won, but only how they were lost, and how was one to clothe in romance a battle which had been fought in the midst of mud and rain, from beh...

I had been much from home during the winter, and, engrossed in my own thoughts, had taken small account of what was passing, but I soon found enough to occupy me. Dorothy had sp...

The days dragged on at Winchester, as days in camp will, and I accepted no more invitations to mess with the officers of the line. Indeed, I received none, and we provincial off...

As the first weeks of May passed, we slowly got into shape for the advance, and I began to realize the magnitude of the task before us. Our march to Great Meadows the year befor...

The twenty-ninth of May dawned clear and bright in pleasant contrast to the violent storm which had raged the day before. Long ere daybreak, the camp was alive with hurrying men...

The country beyond Great Meadows was exceeding mountainous, and we could proceed only a few miles each day, and that with the greatest difficulty. The horses were by this time w...

"Wake up, man, wake up!" cried a voice in my ear, and I opened my eyes to see Spiltdorph's kindly face bending over me. "I let you sleep as long as I could," he added, as I sat...

But there was worse to follow, for scarce had the first tap of the drums echoed among the trees, when the mob of regulars became a mere frenzied rabble. The officers tried to wi...

Of the horrors of the night which followed, my pen can paint no adequate picture. Fugitives panted past us in the darkness, pursued by phantoms of their own imagining, thinking...

It was the morning of Sunday, July 13, that this shameful flight began. Its arrant cowardice weighed on many of the officers who were left alive, and even on some of the men, es...

The speaker was Colonel Henry Innes, commandant of the fort, but as he looked up and down the row of faces opposite him, he saw few which showed assent. Scarcely had the rear-gu...

But Dorothy was not so near as I had thought, for next morning came a message from my aunt. It was delivered almost as soon as I was out of bed by a negro boy who had ridden ove...

I ate my supper in solitary splendor in the old dining-room, with my grandfather's portrait looking down upon me, and Long found me an hour later sitting in the midst of a wreat...

It was at Winchester that Colonel Washington established his headquarters, maintaining a detachment at Fort Cumberland sufficient to repel any attack the Indians were like to ma...

"Your mistress, then, quick, boy!" and as he turned toward the open door with a gesture of his hand, I hurried after him. There was a buzz of conversation in the room as we appr...

I had barely time to get back to my post at the front door when they were upon us. I fired out into the rabble, and as I turned to get another gun, Dorothy was at my side and th...

It was long before I realized that that white, bandaged thing lying on the bed before me was my hand. I gazed at it curiously for a while and stirred it slightly to make sure,--...

Well, a right hand is a little price to pay for the love of a wife like mine, and if I have made no name in the world, I at least live happy in it, which is perhaps a greater th...