Adventure Magazine Cover — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

22 coughing and clawing at his neckerchief. Then blackness foamed from his mouth, and he fell back to be caught and eased to the ground by Colonel Stewart, who peered closely at him, laid a hand on his breast for a moment, and rose. ‘“‘He is dead,” he said; and a soldier, trailing a rifle, ran along the close-packed face of the mob, looking into it seekingly. ‘Halt!’ shouted Wayne; and the crowd, as if in deliberate disobedience, parted to let the man dart in among them. ‘Halt that man!’ And the crowd closed in be- hind his back, hiding him in their anony- mous midst. “You protect him? A mur- derer?”’ Wayne’s voice was hard with scorn. “God help us, but it 7s mutiny then!”’ “Ay, it’s mutiny! It can be naught but mutiny, now!” an exultant voice answered near-by in the crush; and the sergeant- major of the 4th rose to the saddle of Wayne’s own charger. “Boys,” he shouted across the seething, murmurous mass, “boys, we’ve crossed the Rubicon!” He changed to a more familiar figure of speech, ‘“‘We’ve burned our boats behind us now, and must go forward since we can’t get back. He’s dead! Dead! And each and all are as much to blame as the man who fired the shot that killed him! We’ve no choice now save to march on Philadelphia, and there demand, with our arms in our hands, justice and our rights— Sergeants, to your duty!— Line up, there!— Corporals, to your com- panies!— Line up, line up, line up there!— Maine, move the battery off first. Take the Vealtown road!— Line up, line up there!— Sergeants, to your regiments!— Corporals, to your companies!— Line up! Line up! Line up, there!— Line up, line up!— Line up there!”’ Then, above the shouted orders and yelled counter-orders from the colonels, above the trampling of feet, the stamping of hoofs, the smacks of the grounding rifles, the rumble of the trundling guns, and the curses of all and sundry, came a sweet soaring bugle call as Ryan marched the company officers, at the double, on to the grand parade. | IV of the month, a certain grave-eyed, sphinx-faced man was about to go in to a meager supper, when his orderly knocked to announce that Jemmy, the [: NEW WINDSOR, on the second WILKESON O’CONNELL Commodore, with important dispatches from New Jersey, was at the door, and re- questing speech with his Excellency. The orderly was quickly reminded that Jemmy, the Commodore, was to have instant access to the commander-in-chief at all times; whereupon, in Jemmy flopped and went to sleep standing, while the sphinx-faced man very gravely read the dispatch by the light of a candle that trembled and wavered with the storm that raged outside the tightly stuffed casements. When his Excellency had finished the communication, his appe- tite for the meager supper was completely gone. The Pennsylvania Line— ‘‘Mount Kemple, 2nd Jan. 1781. Half after 4 o’clock A.M. Dear General—It is with great pain that I now inform your Excellency of the general mutiny and defection, which suddenly took place in the Pennsylvania Line, between the hours of 9 and 10 o’clock last evening. Every possible exertion was used by the officers to suppress it in its rise; but the torrent was too potent to be stemmed. Captain Bittings has fallen a victim to his zeal and duty. Captain Tolbert and Lieutenant White are reported mortally wounded. A very considerable number of the field and other officers are much injured by strokes from muskets, bayonets and stones; nor have the revolters escaped with impunity. Many of their bodies lay under our horses’ feet, and others will retain with existence the traces of our swords and espontoons. They finally moved from the ground about eleven o’clock at night, scouring the grand parade with round and grape shot from four field pieces; the troops advancing in a solid column, with fixed bayonets, producing a diffusive fire of musketry in front, flank and rear. During this horrid scene, a few officers, with my- self, were carried by the tide to the fork of the roads at Mount Kemple; but placing ourselves on that leading to Elizabethtown,* and producing a con- viction to the soldiery that they could not advance upon that route, but over our dead bodies, they for- tunately turned toward Princeton. Colonels Butler and Stewart, (to whose spirited exertions I am much indebted) will accompany me to Vealtown, where the troops now are. We had our escapes last night. Should we not be equally fortunate today our friends will have this consola- tion, that we did not commit the honor of the United States, or our own, on this unfortunate oc- casion. Adieu, my dear general, and believe me yours, Most sincerely, ANTHONY WAYNE. General Washington. Several hours later, in the blackest moment of a black and bitter dawn, the sergeant-major of the 4th and tem- porary commander of the Pennsylvania Line, posted guard about his camp at *Which was just opposite Staten Island, where the British were stationed. COMICLOO© CO