We saw little of Nason, Cap and Tom Bickford. They spent their time somewhere in the rear, coming in to report that all of Burgoyne’s troops had arrived at Fort Edward and were waiting there for their artillery: that the Indians were close behind us, striking at everyone within their cunning reach, falling on stragglers from the army, scalping, looting, burning, destroying.

… As my shoulder mended, my lethargy passed, and with its passing came a mounting rage at the troops that deserted us. Our numbers were little more than half those of Burgoyne’s army. If this continued, nothing—neither Schuyler’s optimism nor Arnold’s daring—could save us from overwhelming defeat.

I tried to think clearly about Nathaniel. Never, if the British won, could I face my neighbors in Arundel if I owed my home, perhaps my very life, to a brother’s attachment to the mistress of a British general. Nor could Nathaniel live again among the people from whom he had sprung. He might think he could, but he couldn’t.

Such thoughts as these were troubling me on an August morning at Stillwater when Doc took me to a brook above the Hudson to sop cold water on my still stiff and swollen shoulder. As he sopped, a company of militiamen came slouching out of camp, homeward bound—homeward bound, although the British and the Indians were converging on us from two directions: Burgoyne’s army from the north: St. Leger’s army from the west.

In the frame of mind I was in, the sight of them was more than I could bear. I got up from beside the brook to watch this straggling company. Doc, protesting at my movements, continued to dab at my shoulder with a cold wet cloth.

If there were officers among the men, there was nothing to distinguish them. They were a slovenly lot, their hair unclubbed and hanging lankly around their ears: their hats tilted on the backs of their heads; their breeches torn and unbuckled; their weskits open over ragged dirty shirts; their coats off and tied over their rumps or around their muskets. The sight of my wound caught their attention, and they looked at me, which was unusual for militia, who, as a rule, loutishly ignore everything near them, barring stealable objects or girls of an age to invite bucolic pleasantries.

“God bless my soul,” I said to them, “you’re leaving, aren’t you?”

One of the men leaped in the air, kicked his heels together and crowed like a rooster. A few laughed. The others stared doltishly.

“Where you boys from?” I asked.

“We’re Quoick’s milishy from Vanderheiden.”

“What do you want to leave now for?”

“Come on! Come on!” they shouted. “To hell with him! Git along!”

“Our time’s up,” one of the nearer men explained. “Our time was up at six o’clock this morning. We could ’a’ left two hours ago.”