This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ...at noon of the fifteenth. The soldiers numbered twelve hundred light infantry. Their march was over bad roads and rocky hills and through heavy swamps. They halted after nightfall at the house of a man named Springsteel, a mile and a half from the British position, and here the final arrangements for the attack were completed. General Wayne's disposition of the troops before Stony Point was as follows: The column on the right. to be led by Wayne himself, consisted of the regiments of Meigs and Febiger, and a detachment commanded by Major Hull; Butler's regiment constituted the left column; and Major Murfee was ordered forward in the centre to engage the attention of the British garrison by a feint. Two bodies of volunteers, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Fleury and Major Posey on the right, and Major Stewart on the left, served as pioneers to precede the main body of the assailants; and in the van of each company of pioneers was " a forlorn hope" of twenty men, led by Lieutenants Gibbon and Knox. It was their work to remove the obstructions in the way of the troops. It was nearly midnight when the advance commenced. Absolute silence was enjoined, and like spectres the two storming parties faded from each other's sight in the gloom. The marshes were overflowed with two feet of water, and through this the men followed their officers, eager and alert, for the object of the expedition was no longer a secret to any one. Not a musket was loaded, except in Murfee's command, for the attack was to be made entirely with the bayonet. What greater evidence could be offered of the value of three arduous years in transforming into stern, reliant soldiers the raw material of 1776? The almost perpendicular wall that...