Monthly scrap book, for August/Singular Adventure in the American War

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SINGULAR ADVENTURE.

In the year 1779, when the war with America was conducted with great spirit upon the continent, a division of the British army was encamped on the banks of a river, in a position so favoured by nature, that it was difficult for any military art to surprize it. War in America was rather a species of hunting than a regular campaign. "If you fight with art," said Washington to his soldiers, "you are sure to be defeated. Acquire discipline enough for retreat, and the uniformity of combined attack, and your country will prove the best of engineers."—So true was the maxim of the American General, that the English soldiers had to contend with little else. The Americans had incorporated the Indians into their ranks, and had made them useful in a species of war to which their habits of life had peculiarly fitted them. They sallied out of their impenetrable forests and jungles, and, with their arrows and tomahawks, committed daily waste upon the British army,—surprising their centinels, cutting off their stragglers, and even when the alarm was given and pursuits commenced, they fled with a swiftness that the speed of cavalry could not overtake, into rocks and fastnesses whither it was dangerous to follow them.

In order to limit as far as possible this species of war, in which there was so much loss and so little honour, it was the custom with every regiment to extend its outposts to a great distance beyond the encampments; to station centinels some miles in the woods, and keep a constant guard round the main body.

A regiment of foot was at this time stationed upon the confines of a boundless savannah. Its particular office was to guard every avenue of approach to the main body; the centinels, whose posts penetrated into the woods, were supplied from the ranks, and the service of this regiment was thus more hazardous than that of any other. Its loss was likewise great. The centinels were perpetually surprised upon their posts by the Indians, and were borne off their stations without communicating any alarm, or being heard of after.

Not a trace was left of the manner in which they had been conveyed away, except that, upon one or two occasions, a few drops of blood had appeared upon the leaves which covered the ground. Many imputed this unaccountable disappearance to treachery, and suggested as an unanswerable argument, that the men thus surprised might at least have fired their muskets, and communicated the alarm to the contiguous posts. Others, who could not be brought to consider it as treachery, were content to receive it as a mystery which time would unravel.

One morning, the centinels having been stationed as usual over night, the guard went at sun-rise to relieve a post which extended a considerable distance into the wood. The centinel was gone! The surprise was great; but the circumstance had occurred before. They left another man and departed, wishing him better luck. "You need not be afraid," said the man with warmth, "I shall not desert!" The relief company returned to the guard-house. The centinels were replaced every twenty-four hours, and, at the appointed time the guard again marched to relieve the post.—To their inexpressible astonishment the man was gone! They searched round the spot, but no traces could be found of his disappearance. It was necessary that the station, for a stronger motive than ever, should not remain unoccupied; they were compelled to leave another man and return to the guard-house. The superstition of the soldiers was awakened, and the terror ran through the regiment. The Colonel being apprised of the occurrence, signified his intention to accompany the guard when they relieved the centinel they had left. At the appointed time they all marched together; and again, to their unutterable wonder, they found the place vacant and the man gone! Under these circumstances, the Colonel hesitated whether he should station a whole company on the spot, or whether he should again submit the post to a single centinel. The cause of these repeated disappearances of men, whose courage and honesty were suspected, must be discovered; and it seemed not likely that this discovery could be obtained by persisting in the old method. Three brave men were now lost to the regiment, and to assign the post to a fourth seemed nothing less than giving him up to destruction. The poor fellow whose turn it was to take the station, though in other respects of incomparable resolution, trembled from head to foot. "I must do my duty," said he to the officer, "I know that; but I should like to lose my life with more credit." "I will leave no man," said the Colonel, "against his will." A man immediately stept from the ranks and desired to take the post. Every one commended his resolution. "I will not be taken alive," said he, "and you will hear of me on the least alarm. At all events I will fire my piece, if I hear the least noise. If a crow chatters, or a leaf falls, you shall hear my musket.—You may be alarmed when nothing is the matter; but you must take the chance as the condition of the discovery."

The Colonel applauded his courage, and told him he would be right to fire upon the least noise which was ambiguous. His comrades shook hands with him, with a melancholy foreboding. The company marched back, and waited the event in the guard-house.

An hour had elapsed, and every ear was upon the rack, for the discharge of the musket, when upon a sudden, the report was heard. The guard immediately marched, accompanied, as before, by the Colonel, and some of the most experienced officers of the regiment. As they approached the post, they saw the man advancing towards them, dragging another man on the ground by the hair of the head. When they came up to him, it appeared to be an Indian whom he had shot. An explanation was immediately required.

"I told your Honour," said the man, "that I should fire if I heard the least noise. The resolution I had taken has saved my life. I had not been long on my post when I heard a rustling at some distance; I looked, and saw an American hog, such as are common in the woods, crawling along the ground, and seemingly looking for nuts under the trees and amongst the leaves. As these animals are so very common, I ceased to consider it for some minutes; but being on the constant alarm and expectation of attack, and scarcely knowing what was to be considered a real cause of apprehension, I kept my eye vigilantly upon it, and marked its progress among the trees; still there was no need to give the alarm, and my thoughts were directed to danger from another quarter. It struck me, however, as somewhat singular to see this animal making by a circuitous passage, for a thick coppice immediately behind my post. I therefore kept my eye more constantly fixed upon it, and as it was now within a few yards of the coppice, hesitated whether I should not fire. My comrades, thought I, will laugh at me for alarming them by shooting a pig! I had almost resolved to let it alone, when just as it approached the thicket, I thought I observed it give an unusual spring. I no longer hesitated; I took my aim, discharged my piece, and the animal was instantly stretched before me with a groan which I conceived to be that of a human creature. I went up to it, and judge my astonishment when I found that I had killed an Indian! He enveloped himself with the skin of one of these wild hogs so artfully and completely; his hands and feet were so entirely concealed in it, and his gait and appearance were so exactly correspondent to that of the animal's, that, imperfectly as they were always seen through the trees and jungles, the disguise could not be penetrated at a distance, and scarcely discovered upon the nearest aspect. He was armed with a dagger and a tomahawk."

Such was the substance of this man's relation. The cause of the disappearance of the other centinels was apparent. The Indians, sheltered in this disguise, secreted themselves in the coppice; watched the moment when they could throw it off; burst upon the centinels without previous alarm, and too quick to give them an opportunity to discharge their pieces, either stabbed or scalped them and bore their bodies away, which they concealed at some distance in the leaves. The Americans gave them rewards for every scalp they brought.