"'O, I thought,' replied I, 'you would need nurses as well as soldiers. See! I have already dressed many of these good fellows; and here is one'—and going up to Frank and lifting him up with my arm under his head so that he could drink some more water—'would have died before any of you men could have helped him.'
"Just then I looked up, and my husband, as bloody as a butcher, and as muddy as a ditcher, stood before me.
"'Why, Mary!' he exclaimed, 'what are you doing there? Hugging Frank
Cogdell, the greatest reprobate in the army?'
"'I don't care,' I said. 'Frank is a brave fellow, a good soldier, and a true friend of Congress.'
"'True, true! every word of it!' said Caswell. 'You are right, madam,' with the lowest possible bow.
"I would not tell my husband what brought me there I was so happy; and so were all! It was a glorious victory; I came just at the height of the enjoyment. I knew my husband was surprised, but I could see he was not displeased with me. It was night again before our excitement had at all subsided.
"Many prisoners were brought in, and among them some very obnoxious; but the worst of the Tories were not taken prisoners. They were, for the most part, left in the woods and swamps wherever they were overtaken. I begged for some of the poor prisoners, and Caswell told me none should be hurt but such as had been guilty of murder and house-burning.
"In the middle of the night I again mounted my horse and started for home. Caswell and my husband wanted me to stay till next morning, and they would send a party with me; but no! I wanted to see my child, and I told them they could send no party who could keep up with me. What a happy ride I had back! and with what joy did I embrace my child as he ran to meet me!"
The winter at Valley Forge was the darkest season in the Revolutionary struggle. The American army were sheltered by miserable huts, through which the rain and sleet found their way upon the wretched cots where the patriots slept. By day the half-famished soldiers in tattered regimentals wandered through their camp, and the snow showed the bloody tracks of their shoeless feet. Mutinous mutterings disturbed the sleep of Washington, and one dark, cold day, the soldiers at dusk were on the point of open revolt. Nature could endure no more, and not from want of patriotism, but from want of food and clothes, the patriotic cause seemed likely to fail. Pinched with cold and wasted with hunger, the soldiers pined beside their dying camp-fires. Suddenly a shout was heard from the sentinels who paced the outer lines, and at the same time a cavalcade came slowly through the snow up the valley. Ten women in carts, each cart drawn by ten pairs of oxen, and bearing tons of meal and other supplies, passed through the lines amid cheers that rent the air. Those devoted women had preserved the army, and Independence from that day was assured.
[Illustration: FOOD AND CLOTHING SUPPLIED TO THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY BY
PATRIOTIC WOMEN]