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The Life-Guard was borrowed by favorite officers for several important expeditions. In the affair of Barren Hill, in May '78,* the Life-Guard formed a part of the troops under the Marquis de Lafayette, who, recovered of the wound he received in the preceding campaign,† in '78 made his debut in arms as a general officer. The position at Barren hill becoming extremely hazardous, on account of two heavy columns of the enemy that were marching to intercept the communication of the marquis with the main army at Valley Forge, the young general determined, by a gallant dash between the advancing columns, to reach the ford on the Schuylkill, and thus secure his retreat to the main army. Here let our narration pause, while we pay a well-merited tribute to the memory and services of Allen M'Lane, to whose untiring vigilance in watching the stealthy approach of the enemy's columns toward Barren hill, and promptness in attacking them on their route, the marquis was mainly indebted for success in the celebrated retreat that shed such lustre on his first command.

In Allen M'Lane, we have the recollection of a partisan who, with genius to conceive, possessed a courage even to chivalry to execute the most daring enterprises;

held until his death, which occurred in 1838, when he was seventy-eight years of age. He was then buried with military honors.

* When rumors reached Washington, in his camp at Valley Forge, that the British were about to evacuate Philadelphia, he detached Lafayette, with little over a thousand chosen men, and five pieces of cannon, to take position eastward of the Schuylkill, nearer Philadelphia, to watch their movements. He took post upon Barren hill, about half way between Valley Forge and Philadelphia, on the eighteenth of May.

† Lafayette was severely wounded in his leg, by a musket ball, at the battle of Brandywine, on the eleventh of September, 1777. He tarried, during his disability, among the Moravians, at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania.

who ever ranked with the foremost in the esteem of the chief, and was considered by the whole army as one of the most intrepid and distinguished officers of the war of the Revolution.

When the retiring Americans reached the ford of the Schuylkill, they hesitated in attempting the passage. Lafayette sprang from his horse, and rushed into the water waist deep, calling on his comrades to follow. Animated by the example of their youthful general, the soldiers entered the river, the taller men sustaining the shorter, and after a severe struggle gained the southern or friendly shore, having suffered but inconsiderable loss.

Meanwhile, the enemy were in close pursuit, and the commander-in-chief, fearing for the detachment, which consisted of his choicest troops, including the Life-Guard, dragged his artillery to the rocky heights that commanded the ford, and opened upon the enemy's advance, checking them so far as to enable the marquis the better to secure his retreat. There was one feature in the martial spectacle of the passage of the Schuylkill of rare and imposing interest: it was the admired form of Washington, at times obscured, and then beheld amid the smoke of the cannonade, as, attended by his generals and staff, he would waive his hat to encourage the soldiers in their perilous passage of the stream.

On the morning of the battle of Monmouth, June, '78, a detachment from the Life-Guard, and one from Mor

Matson's ford, a few miles below Norristown. Through lack of vigilance on the part of some militia, Lafayette came very near being surrounded at Barren hill by General Grant, with five thousand men. With perfect presence of mind, the marquis threw out small parties so judiciously, that Grant, supposing he was preparing for an attack, halted his column to make similar preparations. This gave Lafayette an opportunity to escape.

gan's riflemen, led by Morgan's favorite, Captain Gabriel Long, made a brilliant dash at a party of the enemy which they surprised while washing at a brook that ran through an extensive meadow. Seventeen grenadiers were made prisoners, and borne off in the very face of the British light-infantry, who fired upon their daring assailants, and immediately commenced a hot pursuit; yet Long displayed such consummate ability as well as courage, that he brought off his party, prisoners and all, with only the loss of one sergeant wounded.

Morgan was in waiting, at the out-post, to receive the detachment on their return, having listened, with much anxiety, to the heavy fire of the pursuing enemy. Charmed with the success of the enterprise, in the return of the troops almost unharmed, and in the prisoners taken, Morgan wrung the favorite captain by the hand, and paid his compliments to the officers and men of his own corps, and of the Life-Guard. Then the famed Leader of the Woodsmen indulged himself in a stentorian laugh that made all ring again, at the bespattered condition of the gentlemen, as he was pleased to term the Life-Guard, and who, in their precipitate retreat, having to pass through certain swamps that abound in the portion of New Jersey then the seat of war, presented a most soiled appearance for troops who might be termed the martinets of sixty years ago.

It is believed that the late Colonel John Nicholas, of Virginia, was the last of the Life-Guard.*

*This was first published in the National Intelligencer, on the thirtieth of January, 1838. One of the Life-Guard, and doubtless the very last survivor, lived until early in 1856, eighteen years after the text of this chapter was published. His name was Uzal Knapp, and at the time of his death, was a resident of New Windsor, Orange county, New York. He was a native of Stamford, Connecticut, where he

was born in October, 1758. At the age of eighteen years he enlisted in the continental army, as a common soldier, to serve "for and during the war;" and he was continually on duty from that time until his discharge in June, 1783. His first active service was at White Plains, in the autumn of 1776. He was with Wooster at Ridgefield; and was at Peekskill when Forts Clinton and Montgomery were stormed and taken by the British, in the autumn of 1777. He passed the following winter among the snows of Valley Forge, and in May he joined the light-infantry of Lafayette, at Barren hill. He was with him in the battle of Monmouth, in June; and in the winter of 1780, when the number of the Life-Guard was augmented, he entered that corps at Morristown, and received from the hands of Washington the commission of sergeant. At the time of his discharge, he received from the commander-in-chief the Badge of Military Merit, for six years' faithful service. This honorary badge of distinction was established by Washington, in August, 1781, and was conferred upon non-commissioned officers and soldiers who had served three years with bravery, fidelity, and good conduct, and upon every one who should perform any singularly meritorious action. The badge entitled the recipient "to pass and repass all guards and military posts as fully and amply as any commissioned officer whatever." It was the order of the American "Legion of Honor."

After the war, Sergeant Knapp settled in New Windsor, near Newburgh; and there he lived the quiet life of a farmer until his death, which occurred on the eleventh of January, 1856, when he was little more than ninety-six years of age. His body was taken to Newburgh, and there lay in state for three days, in the centre of the reception-room in Washington's headquarters, so well preserved as the property of the state. On Wednesday, the sixteenth of January, attended by a civic and military pageant, and a vast assemblage of people, it was buried at the foot of the flag-staff, on the slope near that venerated building around which cluster so many memories of Washington and the continental army. It is a most appropriate burial-place for the mortal remains of the veteran guardsman.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HUNTING-SHIRT.

MAJOR ADLUM'S LETTER-ACCOUNT OF SMALLWOOD'S REGIMENT IN PHILADELPHIA - THEIR ATTIRE-CHARacter of the MEMBERS-THE REGIMENT ON LONG ISLAND-ITS WRECKREMARKS BY MR. CUSTIS-MORGAN'S RIFLEMEN AT QUEBEC-THEIR APPEARANCE-ANECDOTE OF A YANKEE CAPTAIN-A BRITISH ADMIRAL OUTWITTED - FEAR OF MORGAN'S RIFLEMEN-THEIR ATTACHMENT TO THEIR LEADER- THE HIGHLAND COSTUME-A PLEA FOR THE HUNTING-SHIRT.

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In the National Intelligencer, on the twelfth of October, 1833, the editor remarked::

"The following interesting reminiscence of the days of trial, with a graphic description of a corps, that was composed of the chivalry of Maryland, and formed the very élite of the army of independence, in the memorable campaign of 1776, will, we are assured, be read with gratification by all the Americans.

"These details are selected from among a series of papers, furnished by our venerable neighbor, and Revolutionary veteran, Major Adlum, to Mr. Custis, of Arlington, for the latter gentleman's work, The Private Memoirs of Washington.'

"Smallwood's regiment arrived in Philadelphia about the middle of July, 1776, the day after the militia of Yorktown* got there. I happened to be in Market street when the regiment was marching down it. They turned up Front street, till they reached the Quaker meeting

* York, Pennsylvania.

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