At twelve o'clock the inspection was over, but the men, instead of being sent to their quarters, were wheeled into the road, with the head of the column facing southward. The march to Stony Point had begun.
"If any soldier loads his musket, or fires from the ranks, or tries to skulk in the face of danger, he is at once to be put to death by the officer nearest him." One soldier did begin to load his gun, saying that he did not know how to fight without firing. His captain warned him once. The soldier would not stop. The officer then ran his sword through him in an instant. The next day, however, the captain came to Colonel Hull and said he was sorry that he had killed the poor fellow. "You performed a painful service," said Hull, "by which, perhaps, victory has been secured, and the life of many a brave man saved. Be satisfied."
All that hot July afternoon, the men picked their way along rough and narrow roads, up steep hillsides, and through swamps and dense ravines, often in single file. No soldier was allowed to leave the ranks, on any excuse whatever, except at a general halt, and then only in company with an officer.
At eight o'clock the little army came to a final halt at a farmhouse, thirteen miles from their camp, and a little more than a mile back of Stony Point. Nobody was permitted to speak. The tired men dropped upon the ground, and ate in silence their supper of bread and cold meat.
A little later, Wayne's order of battle was read. For the first time the men knew what was before them. No doubt many a brave fellow's knees shook and his cheek grew pale, when he thought of what might happen before another sunrise.
Until half past eleven o'clock they rested.
Each man now pinned a piece of white paper "to the most conspicuous part of his hat or his cap," so that, in the thick of the midnight fight, he might not run his bayonet through some comrade. No man was to speak until the parapet of the main fort was reached. Then all were to shout the watchword of the night, "The fort's our own!"
One of the last things that Wayne did was to write a letter to a friend at his home in Philadelphia, dated "Eleven o'clock and near the hour and scene of carnage." He wrote that he hoped his friend would look after the education of his children.
"I am called to sup," he wrote, "but where to breakfast? Either within the enemy's lines in triumph, or in another world."
| Pompey guiding General Wayne |