Corporal 'Lige's Recruit

A Story of Crown Point and Ticonderoga

CHAPTER I - RECRUITING.

There was great excitement among the citizens of the town of Pittsfield in the province of Massachusetts on the first day of May in the year 1775.

Master Edward Mott and Noah Phelps, forming a committee appointed by the Provincial Assembly of Connecticut, had arrived on the previous evening charged with an important commission, the making known of which had so aroused the inhabitants of the peaceful settlement that it was as if the reports of the muskets fired at Lexington and Concord were actually ringing in their ears.

These two gentlemen had with them a following of sixteen men, equipped as if for battle, and the arrival of so large an armed body had aroused the curiosity of the good people until all were painfully eager to learn the reason for what seemed little less than an invasion.

He was looked upon as an old man when he served under Abercrombie at Ticonderoga in ’58, and believed of a surety he was as well informed in military affairs as Isaac Rice, his ardent disciple, fancied him to be.

Ever ready to give advice on important matters; not backward about criticising the alleged mistakes of his superiors, and holding himself as with the idea that during the late troubles with the French he had learned all the art of warfare; but yet with such possibly disagreeable qualities, Corporal ’Lige had shown himself to be a brave soldier, willing at any time to do more even than was his duty.

The old man was sitting outside the door of a tiny log building which he called home, smoking peacefully, much as he might have done had the committee from Connecticut never passed that way, and this apparent indifference surprised the boy.

“First and foremost, Isaac lad, are you so ignorant as to think the king is here in this ’ere province to be run out? An’ then agin, can’t you realize that talkin’s one thing an’ doin’s another?”

“Yes; but, corporal, haven’t you heard the news?”

“Did Master Phelps come to see you first?”

The old man ceased speaking to puff dense volumes of smoke from his pipe, and Isaac Rice gazed at him in wonder and amaze.

That the committee from Connecticut had visited the town for the sole and only reason of inducing the corporal to join the force, there was no question in his mind, and now, more implicitly than ever before, did he believe that throughout all the provinces there could be found no abler soldier than Corporal ’Lige.

“But there is, corporal. The committee are talkin’ to Colonel Easton and Master Brown now, and don’t count on leaving here before to-morrow.”

“What do they want of the colonel?”

“I don’t know; but they are stopping at his house.”

“I ain’t sayin’ but that the colonel is as good a soldier as you’ll find around here; but bless your soul, lad, though it ain’t for me to say it, he could learn considerable from Corporal ’Lige if he was to spend a few hours every now and then listenin’.”

“But tell me all you can about Ticonderoga, corporal.”

The old man looked around furtively as if half-expecting the committee from Connecticut, or Colonel Easton, might be coming to ask his advice on some disputed point, and then, shaking his forefinger now and again at the lad much as though to prevent contradiction, he began:

The real name is ‘Cheonderoga,’ which is Iroquois lingo for ‘Sounding Water,’ being called so, I allow, because the falls at Lake George make a deal of noise. The French built breastworks there in ’55, which they christened Fort Carillon. Now you see it’s a mighty strong place owin’ to the situation, and its bein’ located on a point which, so I’ve heard said, rises more’n a hundred feet above the level of the water. The solid part of it—that is to say, the land—is only about five hundred acres. Three sides are surrounded by water, an’ in the rear is a swamp. That much for the advantages of the spot, so to speak. Now I was there in July of ’58 when Montcalm held the fort with four thousand men.