"August 1, Sunday—Mr. Gano delivered a sermon."
Lieut. Beatty also remembers the sermon, but frankly subordinates it to other incidents of the day to which Lieut. McKendry was indifferent, or thought best not to allude. Beatty has this comment:
"August 1, Sunday—To-day at 11 o'clock the officers of the brigade met agreeable to general orders to learn the Salute with the Sword. The General's curiosity led him out to see how they saluted.
"After they were dismissed the officers formed a circle round the General and requested of him to give them a keg of rum to drink. We little expected to have the favour granted us, but we happened to take the General in one of his generous thoughts, which he is but seldom possessed of, and instead of one he gave us six. We gratefully acknowledged the favour with thanks, and immediately repaired to the cool spring[45] where we drank two of our kegs with a great deal of mirth and harmony, toasting the General frequently—and then returned to our dinners. In the afternoon Parson Gano gave us a sermon."
On the next morning at 11 o'clock the officers again assembled at the spring "to finish the remainder of our kegs," says Beatty, "which we did with the sociability we had done the day before," and, he might have added, with twice as much rum.
To the troops in general rum was measured out with a more sparing hand. Their pleasures were of a simpler kind, and they seem to have contented themselves with fishing in the lake, hunting and roaming through the woods, inviting an occasional attack from stray Indians, which added the zest of adventure to the routine of camp life. One Sunday afternoon some soldiers found, concealed in a thicket of bushes and covered with bark, near one of the pickets, "a very fine chest of carpenter's tools, and some books, map, and number of papers. It is supposed," says Beatty, "that it was the property of Croghan who formerly lived here, but is now gone to the enemy. Therefore the chest is a lawful prize to the men that found it."
The five weeks at the foot of Otsego Lake were not, however, passed in idleness. The troops were drilled every day. Target practice for the musketry is recorded by the journals of officers, and a brass cannon-ball marked "J. C.," found more than a century later in the Glen road, west of the village, suggests that the artillery was also engaged in the perfecting of its marksmanship, which must have awakened strange echoes amid the hills of Otsego.
There were two incidents of camp life that were long remembered among Clinton's troops, the one a bit of comedy, the other a grim commonplace of martial law. The latter related to the discipline of deserters, to whom various degrees of punishment were meted out by court-martial. On July 20 two deserters were brought into camp, and on the next day three others. The more fortunate were sentenced to be whipped. Sergeant Spears, of the Sixth Massachusetts, was tied to a tree, and the woods resounded to the blows of the lash, until one hundred strokes had fallen upon his naked back. Another soldier received five hundred lashes. Three were sentenced to be shot—Jonathan Pierce, soldier in the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment; Frederick Snyder, of the Fourth Pennsylvania; Anthony Dunnavan, of the Third New York.
On July 28, at nine o'clock in the morning, the whole brigade was ordered out on grand parade to witness the execution of the three men. The condemned deserters were required to stand, with their backs to the river, on the rise of land at the west side of the lake's outlet. The troops were drawn up facing them. A firing squad made ready.