After the usual manner of their warfare, the work of destruction upon peaceable inhabitants immediately commenced. Farm-houses were in flames; women and children, who ran from them, found refuge only in the tortures of the savages waiting without; barns, filled with the plenty of autumn, blazed up a few moments with the wild brightness of ruin, and then sunk back, a smoldering heap, to tell of poverty and famine. While this cruel work was progressing, a column of the enemy, with two small mortars and a field-piece called a "grasshopper,"—from being mounted upon legs instead of wheels—was sent to occupy a height which commanded the middle fort. This, with its little garrison of about two hundred men, was surrounded, and lay completely under the enemy's fire.
Under these circumstances the men turned to their commander for instructions. Unfortunately, Major Woolsey was a fallen star amid that glorious galaxy to which we look back with such pride—he was that pitiable object at which women blush—a coward in epaulettes! Where was he in the emergency which ought to have called forth all his powers? "Among the women and children in a house of the fort!" says the historian, but the narrator does not inform us whether or not the Major absolutely begged the shelter of their skirts! And, "when driven out by the ridicule of his associates, he crawled around the intrenchments upon his hands and knees." There was one way in which this incident was of service to the troops who awaited the orders of their commander. The Major's cowardice was so utterly ridiculous that the jeers and laughter it called forth restored courage to the men, who had been so suddenly surprised as to be at first disheartened.
Among those who shook with mingled wrath and laughter at sight of the impotence of their leader was Murphy. At the first note of danger he had sprung to the ramparts, his unerring rifle in hand, his bright eye flashing fire. He should have been in the Major's place. It is men like him who electrify their comrades with the thrilling enthusiasm and reliance of their own courage—men who know not fear, who think nothing of themselves and all of their cause—cool, prompt, ready for any emergency. He should have been the leader: but he was only a militiaman, whose term of service had expired at that, and who was "fighting on his own account." But he could not brook the disgrace of such leadership; when the commander of the fort went creeping about on his hands, the militiaman felt that it was time to take the reins in his own grasp, and he did it. Implicit obedience from the soldier to the officer is a necessity; but there are exceptions to all rules, and this was one of them; to be mutinous then was to be true to duty and to honor. Deeming the fort their own, the enemy sent out an officer with a flag of truce. As soon as he came in sight, the relieved Major got off his knees, commanding his men to cease all firing. Now it was that this justifiable mutiny ensued. Murphy, from his position on the ramparts, answered to the flag, warning it away, threatening in event of its closer approach to fire upon it. This remarkable assumption of authority confounded all within the fort. He was ordered by the officers of the regular troops to forbear, but the militiamen, whose hero he was, cheered him, and swore he should have his way. Thus supported, as soon as the flag of truce came within range, he fired purposely missing the messenger who bore it, when the flag quickly retired. This "outrage" at once closed all avenues to a peaceful surrender. The enemy's artillery opened upon the fort. A continual fusillade was kept up by the mortars, the grasshopper, and the rifles of the Indians, fortunately with little effect. Many an Indian, who considered himself at a prudent distance, bit the dust, as the smoke cleared away from the busy rifle of Timothy Murphy. Hour after hour the attack continued. A number of shells were thrown, but only two of them fell inside the walls; one of these pierced the house within the palisades, and descending to the first story, smothered itself in a feather-bed, without doing any fatal injury. The gallant Major commanding should have been ensconced for safety in those feathers! The other shell set fire to the roof, which was saved from destruction by a pail of water carried by the intrepid Philip Graft, the sentinel who had first discovered the approach of the British troops.
Many exciting events occurred during that long forenoon. A large barn, filled with grain, and surrounded by several stacks of wheat, stood a few hundred feet from the fort. It was several times set on fire. As it was important to save its contents, Lieutenant Spencer, with his band of forty men, sallied out on each occasion, and extinguished the flames. This heroic party also made sorties, whenever the enemy approached too near the fort, which could not be properly protected, owing to a short supply of ammunition.
Now it was, also, that the courage of women—which the annals of the Revolution set forth in such noble luster—shone resplendent above the craven fear of the commander. Some of the women armed themselves, avowing their determination to aid in the defense, should the attack reach the walls. The supply of water threatening to give out, a soldier was ordered to bring some from a well outside the works. He turned pale and stood trembling in his shoes, between the double danger of disobedience and exposure to the enemy's fire.
"Give the bucket to me!" cried a girl, not over nineteen years of age, her red lip curling slightly with scorn, as she took the bucket from his yielding hand, and went forth after the much-needed necessary of life.
A shout of enthusiasm broke from the spectators. With a smile on her face and a clear luster in her eyes, inspiriting to see, she went out on her dangerous journey. Without the least appearance of trepidation, she filled her bucket and returned, passing within range of the enemy's fire. This errand she performed several times in safety.
All this time the rifle of Murphy was doing its appointed work. In the course of the forenoon he saw a second flag approaching to demand the surrender of the fort. Seeing him preparing to salute it as he had the former, Major Woolsey ordered the independent rifleman from the ramparts.
"I shan't come down," said the sturdy patriot. "I'm going to fire on that white rag."
"Then I shall be obliged to kill you on the spot," said the Major, drawing his sword, and making a flourish.
Murphy only took one eye from the advancing flag; his weapon was sighted; he was not sufficiently alarmed by this threat to lose its position.
"Kill away, Major, if you think best. It won't better your situation much. I know you, and what you will do. You will surrender this fort. Yes, sir; in the hopes of saving your miserable skin, you'll surrender! But you won't even save your own carcass. You can believe what I tell you. I know them troops out thar, and their way of fightin'. You won't make nothing by surrendering to them, and Tim Murphy, for one, ain't going to surrender. No, sir!"
Again the gallant militiamen applauded his sentiments, which were no sooner uttered than the rifleman discharged his piece at the approaching officer, missing him, as before, purposely. Of course, at this, hostilities were renewed; but, as the rifleman said, he knew which of two dangers was most to be dreaded; and, if he must perish, he preferred to die in defense of what had been intrusted to them rather than to be smote down after the humiliation of a surrender by murderers who respected none of the laws of war. It is true, that, to fire upon a flag of truce, was a breach of military usage, and, in almost any circumstances, inexcusable; but not so now, when the garrison would only meet with the most fatal treachery as the result of any interview. The officers of the regulars, however, did not so regard the affair. Brought up under the stern discipline of military rule, they took sides with the Major, and expostulated with Murphy upon his unwarrantable violation of the laws of war.
"Don't talk," he cried, impatiently. "Jest come up here and take a look at the smoke arising from the homes of defenseless citizens. Take a look at the red-skins dancing around 'em, like devils around the fires of hell. Hear the screams of them women and children they are murderin' in cold blood. By the God above, if I could get at them fiends, I'd stop that music!" His teeth were firmly set; his face hardened; his eyes shone like two coals of fire; and, disdaining to argue his point at a moment like that, he settled his weapon for the next victim who should venture within range.
The garrison could indeed hear, in the intervals of the cannon's silence, the shrieks of helpless families smote down by the tomahawk.
"Do you hear it?" he cried again, as the shrill cry of a female voice pierced the air. "That's the kind of enemy you've got to deal with, and there you stand, balancing yourselves on a p'int of law! If you open your gates and lay down your arms, you, nor your wives and children, won't meet any better fate. If you want to be tortured by red-skins, and your