s
the weather particularly: "Wednesday 28th," he writes, ... "in the
afternoon we had extraordinary heavy rains and thunder." The flashes
of the cannons were intermixed with flashes of lightning. On the 29th,
"in the afternoon, such heavy rain fell again as can hardly be
remembered." To all this deluge our soldiers were exposed with but
little shelter. Necessity required that they should be at the lines,
and constantly on the watch, ready to repel any attempt to storm them.
When they lay down in the trenches at brief intervals for rest, they
kept their arms from the wet as they could. Cooking was out of the
question, and the men were compelled to take up with the unaccustomed
fare of hard biscuits and raw pork. Their wretched plight is referred
to in more than one of the letters of the day. Writes General Scott:
"You may judge of our situation, subject to almost incessant rains,
without baggage or tents, and almost without victuals or drink, and in
some part of the lines the men were standing up to their middles in
water." Captain Olney puts it on record that "the rain fell in such
torrents that the water was soon ankle deep in the fort. Yet with all
these inconveniences, and a powerful enemy just without musket-shot,
our men could not be kept awake." Captain Graydon, of Shee's
Pennsylvanians, says in his well-known "Memoirs:" "We had no tents to
screen us from the pitiless pelting, nor, if we had them, would it
have comported with the incessant vigilance required to have availed
ourselves of them, as, in fact, it might be said that we lay upon our
arms during the whole of our stay upon the island. In the article of
food we were little better off." Under the circumstances could
Washington's force have withstood the shock of a determined assault by
the enemy?

In spite, however, of weather, hunger, and fatigue, there was many a
brave man in the American camp who kept up heart and obeyed all orders
with spirit. One thing is certain, the British were not permitted to
suspect the distressed condition of our army. Our pickets and
riflemen, thrown out in front of the works, put on a bold face. On the
28th there was skirmishing the greater part of the day, and in the
evening, as Washington reports, "it was pretty smart." Writing from
the trenches on the 29th, Colonel Silliman says: "Our enemy have
encamped in plain sight of our camp at the distance of about a mile
and a half. We have had no general engagement yet, but no day