At this point the commandant suggested in the most friendly manner that
perhaps we who had lately arrived might be in need of food, and I fancied
he made this suggestion in order to be rid of us while he and his officers
discussed the proposition.

At all events, we left headquarters and were conducted by Lieutenant
Stockwell to a portion of the barracks which was set aside especially for
the Minute Boys, to the end that we might all be together.

"Rations shall be served you at once," the lieutenant said, as he turned
to leave us, and, although he kept his word, it was past noon before we
had an opportunity to break our fast, because it seemed as if nearly every
man in the garrison was eager to hold personal converse with us in order
to learn what he might concerning the besieging army.

No matter however much we as a company might succeed in doing in the
future, certain it is we could not be petted or praised more than we were
during that first day in the fort.

We had not accomplished anything remarkable, so far as I could see; aided
by all the circumstances, and particularly by the fact that St. Leger's
force had concluded to hold a powwow with the Indians on that certain
night, we had come across the plain when, at another time and under other
conditions, we might have made an hundred attempts without succeeding.

It was, as Sergeant Corney would put it, the fortune of war, or the
accident of war, which enabled us to do as we had done, and only the old
soldier himself could take personal credit for our being there.

If the garrison was on short allowance, we never would have suspected it
during the first four and twenty hours of our stay, for every man inside
the walls who had anything in the way of food which he thought might tempt
our appetites, offered it to us, and the wonder of it all is that we were
not so puffed up with pride as to behave very foolishly.

Late in the afternoon, on the day after we arrived, Colonel Willett came
to our quarters, and, sitting down among us regardless of his rank and
high attainments as a military officer, talked in the most neighborly
fashion with us concerning the surrounding country, the different routes
we had pursued when coming to or going from the fort, and, particularly,
concerning what we might have heard regarding the movements of the enemy
between Fort Schuyler and Oswego.

Of course to this last question we could give no satisfactory reply; but
certain it is t