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Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #78480.
This work is a historical short‑story set amid the Revolutionary War, focusing on the night before the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. The opening places the reader on the Brooklyn Heights camp, where Continental soldiers, particularly Marylanders and New Englanders, grumble about General Washington’s leadership and the looming British advance. Through vivid dialogue and detailed description, the narrative introduces figures such as General Israel Putnam, Sergeant Abner Cotton, and the restless troops, while sketching the British commander Howe’s preparations. The scene builds tension by juxtaposing the soldiers’ impatience with Washington’s careful orders, setting the stage for the imminent clash without revealing its outcome.
Haycox writes in a brisk, colloquial style that captures the rough speech of 18th‑century soldiers while maintaining a clear, modern readability. The prose blends military detail with character‑driven moments, offering a flavor of period dialect and the gritty atmosphere of camp life. Readers who enjoy historically grounded fiction, especially stories that illuminate the human side of early American battles, will find this narrative engaging.
The opening · free to read
Author of “With Grape and Bayonet,” “A Cup of Sugar,” etc.
It was late on the night of August 26, 1776. The sun had set blood red beyond the Jersey palisades, touching, as it dipped, the British ships in New York harbor. The nine thousand Continentals camped on Brooklyn Heights, with their backs to the East River and their gun muzzles pointed toward the rugged hills which masked Flatbush, wondered where Howe kept himself and wished for the actual presence of Washington.
“Old Uncle Putnam!” grumbled the spruce Marylanders. “Galloping around here in his shirt sleeves and a dirty leather jacket. A ---- New England farmer. A very fine appearing gentleman, indeed. Why doesn’t Washington put a military man in command of the Long Island troops?”
In this impatient mood they scanned the line of hill and timber before them. Through that dark mass were scattered their outposts and beyond it somewhere Howe moved his twenty thousand troops--of which number a great many were veterans of the continent--and waited for a chance to fling them against the rebellious Americans in the first open and pitched battle of the revolution.
“Why won’t he come and fight it now?” fretted the Marylanders. “Why won’t Washington force him? Why don’t we fight?”
High-strung men, these sons of planters and Baltimore shopkeepers; proud but green troops who did not yet know what iron discipline or patient waiting meant.
“Howe’s afraid,” said the New Englanders posted in the distant timbered defiles. “He’s remembering Bunker Hill and he wants to take his time. But why don’t they bring up reinforcements? We can’t hold these passes against the whole British army. Where is Washington?”
If they thought the commander-in-chief slept and forgot them they were mistaken. Washington stood in New York town and stared across the black tide of the East River; watching anxiously, knowing that the odds were heavy against the untenable position over there; knowing, too, that his general had not fully comprehended the spirit of his orders.
His last injunction to Putnam had been, “Keep an eye on the Jamaica road. I fear your main trouble will be from that quarter.” He had personally supervised the placing of the troops on Long Island. He himself had seen to the disposition of trenches on the Heights and had even gone so far as to pace off a distance of ten yards in front of these trenches. “Do not waste powder. If attacked, wait until the enemy is within this space before firing.” He, too, had placed the outposts in the two defiles of the broken hills; one on the southwestern end and one in the center. By these two passes only could Howe penetrate the jungle of brush, marsh and sharp inclines. But there was another road to the northeast which skirted the range entirely--the Jamaica highway. And Washington had repeated again, “Keep a sharp lookout along that road.”
Old Israel Putnam, a doughty, courageous veteran of the French and Indian campaigns, gaily agreed and rode away as if he were on a holiday. To fight was his business and if he found the enemy he would engage. Meanwhile, like a jolly old uncle he circulated among his soldiers quite as if he were at a town meeting.
“I went as far as ordered, sir, and saw nothing. Another patrol passed me on the Jamaica road but the sergeant in charge said he’d found nothing suspicious either.”
“All right, sonny. Guess you’ve done your night’s work. Meanwhile your company’s moved out to the hills, so you just fall in with the nearest outfit--that will prob’ly be the Maryland boys.”
Cotton saluted and started to leave; Putnam held him with a gesture and looked at the young man’s face as if he were reading a book. There could be no mistaking the nativity of Abner Cotton. Yankee awkwardness and Yankee conscience were stamped plainly on his features. His nut-brown cheeks were almost cadaverous and a kind of parsimony of flesh was evident from head to foot; he was, in fact, bony and march-worn. When he moved, it needed no second glance to place him as one who had worked hard all his life and in consequence had learned to husband his efforts. The illusion was further sustained by a thin-lipped mouth that appeared to be keeping in attempted speech. All in all, it made the man seem a little grim, a trifle dour, a shade hard-bitten; as if living had been none too easy and as if there were nothing much to laugh about in a toilsome world. But the eyes told another story. They were veritable mirrors of the man’s conscience.
“Sonny,” said Putnam, worrying a quill pen in his chubby fist, “your face does look f’miliar. What’s name?”
“Cotton, sir.”
The general’s face lighted with a rare, beaming smile.
“Thought so. Know your Paw. Carried a fowling piece with him in Canada years ago. Good heart, good mind--Cotton’s, I mean.”
He nodded.
Sergeant Cotton retreated to his detail, dismissed them and made his way slowly to the foremost fires which danced fitfully and brilliantly behind the rough earthworks. One particular blaze seemed less crowded than the others and he advanced to it. Within ten yards a remark floated out to him:
“There’s a ---- Yankee now, in a regular Yankee suit of clothes. Good ----, don’t they know how to dress?”
His head was bent a little in reflection and so none could see the slight change of features. He passed the remark by as if he had been oblivious to it and advanced to the heat. The Marylanders regarded him in a speculative, disapproving silence. One gave way a little to admit him; he sat down and looked into the flames, offering nothing by way of greeting. He was more or less familiar with these proud, high-spirited Southerners, their fine manners and their well-kept buff-and-blue uniforms; he knew them to be prejudiced against anything savoring of New England. He knew they looked upon him as almost an alien. Perhaps if he could speak well he might mingle with these men, make them see that although he came from another province he was as they were. Clothes made no difference. They had ruffles on their shirts and their buttons were bright and their gaiters clean. He had no ruffles at all and no gaiters covered his homespun socks and cowhide shoes.
But they were all fighting for the same end. Moreover that fight had begun--and he felt a mild touch of pride in the fact--on Yankee soil. It was New England who first had shown her stiff backbone and given the other colonies the tempo of American humor. But, though he thought it, he could not say it. The words were landlocked; he had spent too many years at sober communion to change style now. So he kept his eyes lowered, listening to the idle talk around him.
“Sure’s my name is Alex Carroll, if we don’t fight soon I’ll walk home. I came to tote a gun, not a shovel. Let the ---- Yankees dig ditches. They do it so well.”
A silence pervaded the circle. Sergeant Cotton would not take notice of them and presently the talk flowed again. Then he spent a brief glance around him. Handsome, flushed faces. All full of plain courage, all sighing for glory. But of other and more sober virtues, he told himself, perhaps he knew more. The same drawling voice broke in:
“Putnam! A fine general to command a Southern brigade. Man likes to feel at home under his commanding officer. For me, I need a Southern gentleman to give me orders. Sure’s my name’s Alex Carroll, I’ll not abide the word of a New Englander.”
Sergeant Cotton’s fine eyes were lighted with trouble. He seemed struggling with his conscience, as perhaps he had been doing all his life. At last his mild voice, waiting for a lull in the talk, broke in, hesitant but free from embarrassment.
“Guess you’ll find some New Englanders that know about war.”
The circle turned upon him, voicing their hereditary antagonism. Carroll swooped down with a single, malicious--
“Who?”
Sergeant Cotton ventured to put up his own general’s name.
“Putnam knows enough to win battles.”
A howl of scorn overwhelmed him. The Marylanders rent “Uncle Putnam” in a dozen shreds.
“He looks like a village blacksmith, not a soldier,” added Carroll.
“Clothes, now,” ventured the sergeant, “do they make a fighting man?”
“There are certain elements of military discipline and appearance that go with general officers,” stiffly admonished Carroll. “If they have not dignity and command, how can they inspire their subordinates?”
Cotton was imperturbable. He seemed to be searching himself to find the proper words, to gain these men over by the use of a mild reasonableness.
“He was good enough at Bunker Hill,” he reminded them. “Right smart amount of New Englanders there. Guess they did a little fighting. Seemed so to me.”
That silenced most, but not Alex Carroll the impatient, the scornful.
“Good ----! Must we be forever hearing about Bunker Hill? They talk as if it was the only battle under heaven. Why did you break and run when you had the British twice beaten and disorganized?”
Sergeant Cotton’s eyes were half closed; he seemed to be reviewing the memorable struggle in which he had played a part at the immortal redoubt.
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