'Twas a bold act then--the English war-ships had just arrived,
We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,
And the transports swarming with soldiers.
A few days more and they landed, and then the battle.
Twenty thousand were brought against us,
A veteran force furnish'd with good artillery.
I tell not now the whole of the battle,
But one brigade early in the forenoon order'd forward to engage the
red-coats,
Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march'd,
And how long and well it stood confronting death.
Who do you think that was marching steadily sternly confronting
death?
It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,
Raised in Virginia and Maryland, and most of them known personally to
the General.
Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus' waters,
Till of a sudden unlook'd for by defiles through the woods, gain'd at
night,
The British advancing, rounding in from the east, fiercely playing
their guns,
That brigade of the youngest was cut off and at the enemy's mercy.
The General watch'd them from this hill,
They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment,
They drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the
middle,
But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!
It sickens me yet, that slaughter!
I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General.
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