Oh, base, ungenerous Britons!
To call us by that name;
We're fighting for our liberty,
Our just and lawful claim.
We trust in Heaven's protection,
Nor fear to win the day;
When time shall come we'll crown our deeds
With many a loud huzza!
Our foes are fled to Brunswick,
Where they are close confined;
Our men they are unanimous,
In Freedom's cause combined.
Success to General Washington,
And Gates and Putnam, too,
Both officers and privates,
Who liberty pursue.
ASSUNPINK AND PRINCETON
[January 3, 1777]
Glorious the day when in arms at Assunpink,
And after at Princeton the Briton we met;
Few in both armies—they'd skirmishes call them,
Now hundreds of thousands in battle are set.
But for the numbers engaged, let me tell you,
Smart brushes they were, and two battles that told;
There 'twas I first drew a bead on a foeman—
I, a mere stripling, not twenty years old.
Tell it? Well, friends, that is just my intention;
There's nothing a veteran hates and abhors
More than a chance lost to tell his adventures,
Or give you his story of battles and wars.
Nor is it wonder old men are loquacious,
And talk, if you listen, from sun unto sun;
Youth has the power to be up and be doing,
While age can but tell of the deeds it has done.
Ranged for a mile on the banks of Assunpink,
There, southward of Trenton, one morning we lay,
When, with his red-coats all marshalled to meet us,
Cornwallis came fiercely at close of the day—
Driving some scouts who had gone out with Longstreet,
From where they were crossing at Shabbaconk Run—
Trumpets loud blaring, drums beating, flags flying—
Three hours, by the clock, before setting of sun.
Two ways were left them by which to assail us,
And neither was perfectly to their desire—
One was the bridge we controlled by our cannon,
The other the ford that was under our fire.
"Death upon one side, and Dismal on t' other,"
Said Sambo, our cook, as he gazed on our foes:
Cheering and dauntless they marched to the battle,
And, doubtful of choice, both the dangers they chose.