Israel Potter | Page 7

the wilderness, he had aimed between the
branching antlers. With dogged disdain of their foes, the English grenadiers marched up
the hill with sullen slowness; thus furnishing still surer aims to the muskets which
bristled on the redoubt. Modest Israel was used to aver, that considering his practice in
the woods, he could hardly be regarded as an inexperienced marksman; hinting, that
every shot which the epauletted grenadiers received from his rifle, would, upon a
different occasion, have procured him a deerskin. And like stricken deers the English,
rashly brave as they were, fled from the opening fire. But the marksman's ammunition
was expended; a hand-to-hand encounter ensued. Not one American musket in twenty
had a bayonet to it. So, wielding the stock right and left, the terrible farmers, with hats
and coats off, fought their way among the furred grenadiers, knocking them right and left,
as seal-hunters on the beach knock down with their clubs the Shetland seal. In the dense
crowd and confusion, while Israel's musket got interlocked, he saw a blade horizontally
menacing his feet from the ground. Thinking some fallen enemy sought to strike him at
the last gasp, dropping his hold on his musket, he wrenched at the steel, but found that
though a brave hand held it, that hand was powerless for ever. It was some British
officer's laced sword-arm, cut from the trunk in the act of fighting, refusing to yield up its
blade to the last. At that moment another sword was aimed at Israel's head by a living
officer. In an instant the blow was parried by kindred steel, and the assailant fell by a
brother's weapon, wielded by alien hands. But Israel did not come off unscathed. A cut
on the right arm near the elbow, received in parrying the officer's blow, a long slit across
the chest, a musket ball buried in his hip, and another mangling him near the ankle of the
same leg, were the tokens of intrepidity which our Sicinius Dentatus carried from this
memorable field. Nevertheless, with his comrades he succeeded in reaching Prospect Hill,
and from thence was conveyed to the hospital at Cambridge. The bullet was extracted, his
lesser wounds were dressed, and after much suffering from the fracture of the bone near
the ankle, several pieces of which were extracted by the surgeon, ere long, thanks to the
high health and pure blood of the farmer, Israel rejoined his regiment when they were
throwing up intrenchments on Prospect Hill. Bunker Hill was now in possession of the
foe, who in turn had fortified it.
On the third of July, Washington arrived from the South to take the command. Israel
witnessed his joyful reception by the huzzaing companies.
The British now quartered in Boston suffered greatly from the scarcity of provisions.
Washington took every precaution to prevent their receiving a supply. Inland, all aid
could easily be cut off. To guard against their receiving any by water, from tories and
other disaffected persons, the General equipped three armed vessels to intercept all
traitorous cruisers. Among them was the brigantine Washington, of ten guns, commanded
by Captain Martiedale. Seamen were hard to be had. The soldiers were called upon to

volunteer for these vessels. Israel was one who so did; thinking that as an experienced
sailor he should not be backward in a juncture like this, little as he fancied the new
service assigned.
Three days out of Boston harbor, the brigantine was captured by the enemy's ship Foy, of
twenty guns. Taken prisoner with the rest of the crew, Israel was afterwards put on board
the frigate Tartar, with immediate sailing orders for England. Seventy-two were captives
in this vessel. Headed by Israel, these men--half way across the sea--formed a scheme to
take the ship, but were betrayed by a renegade Englishman. As ringleader, Israel was put
in irons, and so remained till the frigate anchored at Portsmouth. There he was brought on
deck; and would have met perhaps some terrible fate, had it not come out, during the
examination, that the Englishman had been a deserter from the army of his native country
ere proving a traitor to his adopted one. Relieved of his irons, Israel was placed in the
marine hospital on shore, where half of the prisoners took the small-pox, which swept off
a third of their number. Why talk of Jaffa?
From the hospital the survivors were conveyed to Spithead, and thrust on board a hulk.
And here in the black bowels of the ship, sunk low in the sunless sea, our poor Israel lay
for a month, like Jonah in the belly of the whale.
But one bright morning, Israel is hailed from the deck. A bargeman of the commander's
boat is sick. Known for a sailor, Israel for