The Little Red Foot

On the 24th of June, 1777, Major General Lord Stirling had disobeyed the orders of His Excellency; and, in consequence, his flank was turned, he lost two guns and 150 men.[44]

Nothing stirred on the Drowned Lands as we drove our canoe at top speed between tall bronzed stalks of rushes and dead water-weeds. Vlaie Water was intensely blue and patched wi...

The problem which I must now solve staggered me. How was it possible, with my little scout of five, to discover McDonald's approach and also find Sir John's line of communicatio...

I had been welcomed like a brother by Polly Johnson. Claudia, too, made a little fête of my return, unscathed from my first war-trail. And after I had completed my report to the...

All the universe had turned to blue and silver; and the Vlaie Water ran fathomless purple between its unstained snows. But that night the clouds returned and winds grew warmer,...

In June I was out o' bed and managed to set foot on ground for the first time since early spring. By the end of the month I had my strength in a measure and was able to hobble a...

Now, whether it was the wetting I got on Mayfield Creek and the chill I took on the long night's journey to Johnstown, or if my thigh-wound became inflamed from that day's exert...

So passed that unreal summer of '76; and so came autumn upon us with its crimsons, purples, and russet-gold; its cherry-red suns a-swimming in the flat marsh fogs; its spectral...

Now, as I came again to the forest's edge and hastened along the wide logging road, to make up for moments wasted, I caught sight of two neighbors, John Putman and Herman Salisb...

We were ragged and bruised and weary, and starving; but the fierce rage burning in our breasts gave to each a strength and purpose that nerved our briar-torn and battered bodies...

On the evening of the 15th of August, the Commandant of Johnstown Fort stood aghast to see a forest-running ragamuffin and three scare-crow Indians stagger into headquarters at...

It lacked still an hour to midnight, which time I had set for our advance upon John Howell's house, and my Oneidas had not yet done painting, when Johnny Silver, who was on guar...

We breakfasted on soupaan, new milk, johnnycake, and troutlings caught by Colas, who had gone by canoe to the outlet of Hans' Creek by daylight, after I had awakened him. Which...

Now, what seemed strange to me at the Hall was the cheerfulness of all under circumstances which must have mortified any Royalist, and, in particular, the principal family in No...

For two weeks my small patrol of six remained in the vicinity of the Sacandaga, scouting even as far as Stony Creek, Silver Lake, and West River, covering Maxon, too, and the Dr...

He wore no paint, had been armed with a trade-rifle, the hammer of which was badly loosened and mended with copper wire, and otherwise he carried arrows in a quiver and a greasy...

Consternation reigned in the Hall,--a vast tumult of whispering and guarded gabble among servants, checked by sobs,--and I saw officers come and go, and the tall forms of Mohawk...

I think that summer was the strangest ever I have lived,--the most unreal days of life,--so still, so golden, so strangely calm the solitude that ringed me where I was slowly he...

On the day after he was buried in Saint John's Church in Johnstown, which he had built, I left the Hall for Fonda's Bush, which was a wilderness and which lay some nine miles di...

That was a wild brant chase indeed! And although there were good trackers among us, the fleeing Canienga took to the mountain streams and travelled so, wading northward mile aft...

Also were flying those frail little grass-green moths, earliest harbingers of vernal weather, so that observing folk, versed in the pretty signals which nature displays to acqua...

I wore a night-shift which was not mine, being finer and oddly ruffled; and under it my naked body was as stiff as a pike pole, and bound up like a mummy. My right thigh, too, w...

The village of Johnstown was more brightly lighted than I had ever before seen it. Indeed, as we came out of the Hall the glow of it showed rosy in the sky and the distant bustl...

There were few lanterns and fewer candle lights in Johnstown; sober folk seemed to be already abed; only a constable, Hugh McMonts, stood in the main street, leaning upon his pi...

Beyond the orchard on the Johnstown road, mounted officers in blue and buff were riding amid undulating ranks of moving muskets; and I knew that the Continental Line had arrived...

That night I lay on my blanket in the forest, but slept only three hours, and was awake in the gates of morning before the sun rose, ready to move on to the Wood of Brakabeen, o...

It was late in April, and I had boiled my sap and had done with my sugar bush for another year. The snow was gone; the Kennyetto roared amber brilliant through banks of melting...

Now, no sooner did I reach my camp with my prisoner than my people came crowding around us from their watch-fire, which burned dull because they had made a smudge of it, black f...

By dusk we were ten rifles; for an hour after we left Fish House Johnny Silver and Luysnes joined us on the Sacandaga trail; and, just as the sun set behind the Mayfield mountai...

Johnson Hall was a blaze of light with candles in every window, and great lanterns flaring from both stone forts which flanked the Hall, and along the new palisades which Sir Jo...

The day Sir William died there died the greatest American of his day. Because, on that mid-summer evening, His Excellency was still only a Virginia gentleman not yet famous, and...