Rodney, the Ranger Part 24

Rodney had secured quite profitable employment that winter. His mother's health had improved, and the lad could hear the clatter of her loom through the open window one warm morning in early March when a pa.s.sing horseman brought the news that "Dan Morgan was having hard work to raise a body of riflemen." He had been appointed a colonel the previous fall, and, as soon as he was released from his parole, began to enlist men to go to the a.s.sistance of Washington at Morristown.

The man talked loudly, and the noise of the loom ceased while Mrs.

Allison listened. After supper that evening she said, "I hear that Colonel Morgan, of whom you have told me so much, is enlisting men."

"Yes, mother, and there is no finer man for a leader than he, unless it is Washington."

"I've thought, since Angus came home, that you were wishing you might enter the service."

Rodney looked up quickly. "Why, if I could get away I'd like to go, but I--my duty is at home."

"I am well, now," she said, "and affairs are in such condition I think we can care for them."

"But--er--no, I ought not to."

"My boy, you have my permission, indeed I'm not sure but it is your duty to give your service, your young life perhaps, to the cause of liberty."

Rodney sprang up, his face aflame with eagerness. "Do you mean it, mother?"

"Some one must fight our battles if we are to win. Your father is not here to go to the front, as he would have done had he lived, and--and I feel sure he would like to have the house of Allison represented in a cause he had so much at heart, and I'm afraid I should make a poor soldier, Rodney."

"Mother, you are braver than any soldier who ever went to war!"

And so it happened that the following Monday, dressed in the homespun of his mother's loom and carrying the rifle he had taken from the lodge of the Wyandotte chieftain, Rodney Allison left for Winchester to join Morgan's command.

CHAPTER XXIII

IN THE THICK OF IT

"Can ye shoot straight an' often, travel light, starve an' yet fight on an empty stomach?"

"I've had some experience at that sort of thing, Colonel Morgan, and think I can be of service in your command."

"Where have I seen you? Yer face looks familiar. I have it, your name is Allison an' you were the little feller as showed me the way to the rear of the redskins the day they ambushed Wood out in the Ohio country. Want ye, I reckon I do! I want five hundred like ye."

And thus it was that Rodney found welcome when he presented himself to Morgan at Winchester, and the welcome was so hearty that it helped put the boy on friendly footing with his fellows at the start.

The march to Morristown was not very pleasant owing to the bad condition of the roads. On the way recruits joined them so that on the first of April, when they reached Washington's headquarters, they numbered about one hundred and eighty men, considerably less than the five hundred wanted.

One of the recruits who joined them on the march was a young man whose reception by Morgan attracted general attention, it was so cordial.

He was a straight, sinewy fellow with shrewd, kindly gray eyes and "sandy" hair. He was clad like a frontiersman and the moment the colonel saw him he exclaimed, "By all that's good an' glorious, Zeb, I've seen ye in my dreams followin' me up the ladder at the barrier, but I never expected to see ye in the flesh again. Where's yer Fidus--what's his name, that Lovell boy?"[1]

"I left him in Boston after the evacuation, an' haven't heard from him since. How are you?"

"Never so well in my life. Prison fare up in old Quebec agreed with me, I reckon. Boys," he said, turning to a knot of his men who had gathered about, "this man Zeb, an' a Boston boy, brought up the rear on that march to Quebec. It was the hardest thing I ever did when I detailed 'em for the duty. How they got through alive I never could understand. And young Allison, here, is a chap as was with me fightin'

Indians out in the Ohio country. I wish all the boys who've marched with me could fall into the ranks to-day; we'd keep right on to New York an' capture Howe, bag an' baggage."

"When we take New York," laughed Zeb, "we'll need more men than Congress ever has got together, I'm thinkin'. I was there when Washington tried to hold it, because Congress an' the country expected him to do the impossible. But, Colonel, I will say as how if you led the way, thar'd not be one of 'em, as ever marched with Morgan, who wouldn't be at yer back."

"Good! I like that kind of talk. Meanwhile we'll get the kinks out of our legs marching to Morristown."

"So you are an Injun fighter," remarked Zeb to Rodney, as they fell into line side by side.

"Scarcely that," replied Rodney, flushing with pleasure as he thought of the introduction by his colonel. "I've been made prisoner by them, lived with them for a time and ran away from 'em, doing a little fighting by the way."

"Anyhow, the colonel appears to like ye, an' that's a recommendation not to be sneezed at."

"I hope I can keep his good will. I never saw a man whose men were more loyal."

"He's a lion in a fight, asks no man to go whar he won't go himself.

And he knows what the boys are thinkin' about, an' just how to manage 'em."

"I was told that on the march to the Scioto one of his men disobeyed orders, in fact had been disgruntled for some time, and that Morgan walked up to him and said, 'Come with me a minute.' They went into the woods together and, when they came back, the man had a black eye and looked as though he'd stolen a sheep; but ever after he didn't have to be told twice to do a thing."

Zeb laughed, saying, "That sort of treatment was what that kind of man could understand. But Morgan never allowed one of his men to be flogged."

"He was terribly flogged once himself."

"Yes, but he was too much of a man for that to break him, though the ordinary man who's been whipped seems to lose his self respect and his courage, an' Morgan won't allow it in his command."

By the time Morgan's men arrived at Morristown, Zeb and Rodney were the best of friends, and the latter had heard the story of the expedition to Quebec,[2] of Donald Lovell and what a fine lad he was, until he hoped that Zeb's wish, that they meet him, might be granted.

It was a very small army which Morgan found at Morristown. Of the sixteen regiments Congress had requested the colonies to furnish (Congress could do little but request), not over six hundred men had arrived. The next two months were pa.s.sed in recruiting the army and getting it into condition, a very trying time to the many impatient spirits in Morgan's command, and doubtless very trying also to their commander, who always chafed under any sort of inaction. What with target practice and drilling, all were kept out of mischief, however, and Rodney found that as a marksman he could "hold his own" with the best.

Zeb, who had become his daily companion, received in May a letter from his old friend, Donald Lovell, who wrote that he had fully recovered from a wound he had received in the battle on Long Island the year before, and hoped soon to get back into the service.

A corps, called Morgan's Rangers, was made up of men picked from the various regiments, five hundred in all. There were, among them, Virginians, Pennsylvania "Dutchmen," men from the Carolinas, men from the frontier and Yankees. Skill in the use of the rifle was a necessary qualification for membership. They were a fine lot of men for the perilous duties to which they were to be a.s.signed.

The corps was divided into eight companies, the captains of which were: Cobel, Posey, Knox, Long, Swearingen, Parr, Boone, and Henderson, all men selected by Morgan.

The organization of this corps was completed on June 13th, on which day it was ordered by Washington to watch for the approach of British scouting parties, for it was learned that Howe was to begin active operations. The American headquarters had now been changed to Middlebrook. That very day two divisions of the British forces, one under Cornwallis and the other under DeHeister, set out from New Brunswick for the purpose of engaging Washington, confident that, with a little more fighting, they would crush the revolution.

The Rangers had their first glimpse of the British under Cornwallis when the latter reached Somerset Court House, and, for several days, there was sharp skirmishing with scouting parties.

Rodney and Zeb were stationed one afternoon on one of the roads as pickets, when a company of the British were discovered approaching.

The pickets' orders were to fire and fall back on the main body, unless it should be thought possible, in case of a small number of the enemy, to report their presence and secure force enough to cut them off. This was the view taken both by Zeb and his companion, so they ran back to report.

A squad of the Rangers was hurried forward to meet the enemy, with instructions to get between them and their main army, and make them prisoners. Before this could be accomplished the British came upon them. The enemy outnumbered the Rangers two to one, yet the latter would have charged them but for orders to halt and fire. So quickly was the order obeyed that the crack of their rifles rang out together with the British officer's command to fire. The British fired blindly into the smoke, whereas the riflemen had taken quick, accurate aim.

But one among the Rangers was. .h.i.t, and that was Rodney, he receiving a slight flesh wound in the left arm.

"I thought a bee had stung me," he said, later, when Zeb discovered the blood on his friend's sleeve.

The enemy, being uncertain as to the number of the Rangers, fell back in good order, carrying their dead with them. They were pursued by the Rangers until a larger body met them, when the Americans retreated.

Skirmishes like this were of daily occurrence, and Cornwallis, finding that Washington was not disposed to accommodate him by rashly engaging in battle under disadvantageous conditions, retreated to New Brunswick, with the Rangers d.o.g.g.i.ng his flanks.