Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
"That's General Herkimer old Honikol Herkimer with his hard, weather-tanned jaws and the devil lurking under his eyebrows; and that young fellow in his smart uniform is Colonel Cox, old George Klock's son-in-law; and yonder rides Colonel Harper! Oh, I know 'em, sir; I was not in these parts for nothing in '74 and '75!"
All night long the volunteer soldiery had been in-subordinate and riotous in the hamlet of Oriska, thronging the roads, shouting, singing, disputing, clamoring to be led against the enemy. Popular officers were cheered, unpopular officers jeered at, angry voices raised outside headquarters, demanding to know why old Honikol Herkimer delayed the advance. Even officers shouted, "Forward! forward!
How much he had known before I cannot guess, but the confidence with which he told them that the French and Indian marauders had come no farther than the Palatine Village above Fort Kouarie, that they were but a small force, and that Honikol Herkimer had already started out to drive them back, seemed to his simple auditors born of knowledge.
The French and Indians, after killing fifty Palatines and taking thrice that number prisoners, turned tail and marched back to the Lake again, with some of Honikol Herkimer's lead in their miserable bodies. The Valley was rarely to be cursed with their presence again. It was as if a long fever had come to its climax in a tremendous convulsion, and then gone off altogether.
Wake up Honikol!" And spoke of the old General derisively, even injuriously, to their own lasting disgrace. Towards dawn, when I lay down on the floor of a barn to sleep, the uproar had died out in a measure; but lights still flickered in the camp where soldiers were smoking their pipes and playing cards by the flare of splinter-wood torches.
Most of those whom we passed recognized my companion, and greeted him more often, I am bound to say, with "Guten Abend, Honikol!" than with the salute due to his rank. There was, indeed, very little notion of discipline in this rough, simple militia gathering.
There was a general pushing in of the line now, and some men at the back, misinterpreting this, began waving their hats and cheering. "Give us the word, Honikol!" they yelled. Still Herkimer stood his ground, though with rising color. "What for a soldier are you," he called out, sharply, "to make mutiny like this? Know you not your duty better?"
This could never have been done had not Honikol Herkimer kept perfectly his self-control and balance, like an eagle in a tempest. Visscher's regiment, in the rear, had not got fairly into the gulf, owing to the delay in dragging the wagon along, when the ambushed Indians fired their first volley; and he and his men, finding themselves outside the fiery circle, promptly ran away.
To be frank, although he doubtless greatly exaggerated the feeling existing against him, it to a degree did exist. The reasons for it are not difficult of comprehension. There were not a few officers in our force who were better educated than bluff, unlettered old Honikol Herkimer, and who had seen something of the world outside our Valley.
He stole a swift glance at me, as if to say, "This is what I warned you was to be looked for," and smoked his pipe for a minute in silence. His brother-in-law, Colonel Peter Bellinger, took the insult less tamely. "The man who says Honikol Herkimer is a Tory lies," he said, bluntly, with his hand on his sword-hilt, and honest wrath in his gray eyes. "Peace, Peter," said the Brigadier.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking