Before the regiment had left Delaware, Colonel Haslet had begun to drill them, and as soon as they were settled in Brooklyn the drill began again. The men were kept at it until their bones ached and they were ready to drop with weariness, but it was this constant drilling that brought the Delaware regiment into shape, and afterward won for it the name of “the picked regiment of the Colonial Army.”
One evening when the men were resting around the fires, one of their comrades came out from a tent carrying two game-cocks by the legs. Somehow he had managed to bring them up from Delaware with him. They were of a bluish grey color, and were of a breed well known in Kent County, and called “Blue Game Chickens.”
When the soldiers saw the two cocks they shouted for joy. “A chicken-fight! A chicken-fight!” they cried. “We’ll have a chicken-fight. Where did you get them Bill?”
Bill threw the cocks into the middle of the ring. For a moment they stood looking about with their bright eyes. Then they lowered their heads and ruffled their feathers. The next moment they flew at each other and fought furiously but before they could injure each other they were separated and shut up in boxes.
“That’s the way we’ve got to fight,” cried Bill. “We’re sons of the old Blue Hen, and we’re game to the end.”
“That’s what we are,” shouted the others. “We’re the Blue Hen’s Chickens, the fighting breed.” And from that night that was the name by which the plucky Delaware regiment went—The Blue Hen’s Chickens.
The Delaware regiment[2] was soon to prove its courage. It was August twenty-seventh, about five days after they had arrived in Brooklyn, that they first went under fire.
On the twenty-sixth, General Stirling had received news that the next morning the British meant to attack his forces. They would begin the attack very early.
It was not yet light when the Delaware regiment, shivering with excitement, was marched out, and stationed near an orchard. In this orchard the Maryland regiment was placed but just where the British troops were they did not know.
It was too dark to see anything at first, but there were sounds that made them know that somewhere there in the darkness, the enemy was moving and marching. Presently, a faint light began to show in the sky. There were shots in the distance. Then they saw through the growing light a great dark moving mass opposite to them. Nearer and nearer it came, and now they could see long lines of the Hessians; the light glittered on the brass fronts of their immense caps.