1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



463 



For the Hew England Farmer. 



THE OLD SOLDIER. 



Messrs. Editors : — Since I have been in my 

 declining years, my mind frequently reverts to the 

 occurrences of my early childhood, and among 

 other things, the reminiscence of the returning 

 soldiers from the war of the revolution, in 1783. 

 It so happened that almost all the young men, in 

 our neighborhood were engaged in that struggle for 

 independence, and when returned, a more.jolly set 

 of fellows were not easily found ; all sorts of con- 

 duct, but strict morality, was displayed by them; 

 fighting, fiddling, dancing, and not a very small 

 quantity of startling profanity was the order of 

 the day with them, among other matters. Several 

 of them were "Continentals," who "enlisted during 

 the war ;" the name of one of these was Eliphalet 

 Manning, extensively known in the vicinity as Life 

 Manning, or the "old soldier." 



The old soldier, by the way, owned a small farm, 

 but being so long accustomed to a soldier's life, 

 among lively, brave fellows like himself, he never 

 felt contented to work on his own land alone, and 

 being a near neighbor to my father, who owned a 

 large farm, spent part of his time in his employ. 

 As time progressed, and I grew in stature and am- 

 bition to wield the hoe and other farm implements, 

 the old soldier became my familiar companion in 

 the field of corn, instead of the field of battle, 

 where I wanted no inducement to exert my une- 

 qual strength, when the old soldier was present 

 with his hoe, but to hear him narrate his exploits 

 in battles with the "regulars," fighting the Indians 

 and looking out for something to eat. I must con- 

 fess that his narratives were a greater inducement 

 to my exertion than the consideration of benefit- 

 ing the corn. I unconsciously kept up with the 

 old soldier in hoeing my row, without apparent fa- 

 tigue, to hear him relate his many adventures and 

 escapes ; with me like Jacob waiting for Rachel, 

 the time did not seem long, but passed away swift- 

 ly while hoeing over a ten acre field with the old 

 soldier for a companion. 



A PART OF THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY. 



"Early in the morning, on the 19th of April, 

 1775, an alarm was spread over the town that 

 the British were marching to Concord to de- 

 stroy some njilitary stores. I seized my gun, and 

 with your father, who was captain then, Mr. Ben. 

 Burtt, and some others, made for Concord, where 

 we arrived soon enough to let them smell some of 

 our gunpowder, and feel the tickling of some of 

 our bullets among their ribs. We were not organ- 

 ized into companies, but every man did that which 

 seemed right in his own eyes. I being young, on- 

 ly 18 years old, without much experience in war 

 matters, ran in advance of the regulars on the re- 

 treat, and jumped over the wall and hid behind a 

 bunch of barberry bushes, and when the red coats 

 came along I let them have the benefit of the con- 

 tents of "old fowler," which laid some of them 

 sprawling. Seeing the smoke of my gun, the Brit- 

 ishers fired a whole volley at the bunch of barberry 

 bushes with no other harm than to cut off the 

 loop button which held one side of my hat cocked 

 up ; then they made chase to take me prisoner, 

 and I laid one more of them to sleep and got away. 



After the fight at Concord, I enlisted into Col. 

 Prescott's regiment to besiege Boston, and on the 



night of the 16th of June, all hands of us com- 

 menced throwing up a breastwork to stop the Brit- 

 ish bullets, but before long we were discovered, 

 and the British men-of-war began to let off their 

 round iron at us, but we kept digging till they 

 landed, and our commander told us not to waste 

 any powder upon them till we could see the white 

 of their eyes. At last the word was given and 

 our old rusty guns did a killing business till they 

 retreated, reinforced, and come up again, and 

 we gave them any kind of reception but a cold 

 one; and such a scolding and swearing at the sol- 

 diers for retreating was quite refreshing to us, and 

 gave us courage to renew the combat the third 

 time, when to our sorrow the last charge of pow- 

 der had sent its bullet with good execution at the 

 red coats, and the only alternative left us was to 

 give them the butts of our guns and cobble-stones 

 for a condiment to go with our spent gunpowder. 

 The British were so hard upon us that pebbles and 

 empty guns did not answer the purpose, and we 

 had to retreat." 



From the blockade of Boston, the old soldier 

 joined the northern army, and was present at the 

 battles of Bennington, Saratoga and the surrender 

 of Burgoyne, and from thence was transferred to 

 Gen. Washington's army, and was with him at 

 Valley Forge, during that memorable winter of 

 suffering. To recount his hairbreadth escapes, and 

 how he suffered for the want of food, and how he 

 gained a supply, and how he marched barefooted 

 over frozen ground, with many other interesting 

 incidents, must be omitted for the want of room 

 in one paper, and only some of the most promi- 

 nent ones, with a few anecdotes which occur to my 

 mind after so long a period, will be narrated. 



The old soldier said, "to get something to eat as 

 well as to fight, was quite an object in those days, 

 and we were not very conscientious about the 

 means we took to keep from starving; scruples 

 were out of the question, where there was a chance 

 to get a bite without exposing our backs to the 

 cat-of-nine-tails. One day I spied a Dutch tory 

 woman baking some pies out doors in an oven set 

 on poles, something Hke our hay poles to lug hay 

 out of swamp holes ; I gave Tom Stickney the 

 wink, he took the hint, and just at dark the oven, 

 pies and all, were missing. The captain and other 

 officers had the first share, and when complaint 

 was made nobody knew anything who the rogues 

 were." The old soldier said, "there, I despise steal- 

 ing as much as any man can, but hunger will break 

 through a stone wall. It was my lot to be one of 

 the party commanded by Gen. Sullivan to invade 

 the Indian country, to get revenge for the depre- 

 dations committed by the Indians at Wyoming 

 and other places ; it makes my blood run cold to 

 think how we killed and slaughtered everything in 

 our way; all, men, women and children, as well as 

 fields of corn, were doomed to destruction. Our 

 Lieutenant took a tory prisoner, who plead for 

 quarters ; he was painted up in imitation o. an In- 

 dian ; he told the prisoner he could not spend time 

 to quarter him but would halve him, and let him 

 go, and drew his sword and cut oflf his head at a 

 blow," The old soldier was in 13 pitched battles, 

 beside skirmishes ; one of the last was at York- 

 town, at the capture of Cornwallis ; he said that 

 "the thunder of the cannon was without cessation 

 night or tiay, and that there were two redoubts 

 which annoyed them very much by their bombs, 



