approached—­not near enough, however, to reach the grenadier with his arm.  In order to gain time, and to arrest the stroke, he exclaimed in an angry and authoritative tone—­’You damn’d brute, will you murder the gentleman?’ The soldier, supposing himself addressed by one of his own officers, suspended the blow, and looked around to see the person who had thus spoken to him.  Before he could recover from the surprise into which he had been thrown, Manning, now sufficiently near, struck him with his sword across the eyes, and felled him to the ground; while Joiett disengaged himself from his opponent, and snatching up the musket, as he attempted to rise, laid him dead by a blow from the butt-end of it.  Manning was of inferior size, but strong, and remarkably well formed.  Joiett was almost a giant.  This, probably, led Barry, who could not have wished the particulars of his capture to be commented on, to reply, when asked by his brother officers, how he came to be taken, ‘I was overpowered by a huge Virginian.’”

“Manning was a cool and ready soldier,” observed Pitts.  “I saw him once in Philadelphia, before his Legion went south.  He had a most determined look in spite of the good-humoured leer of his eye.  He was one of the last men I should have wished to provoke; he was a complete Irishman—­blunders and all.  I heard of his telling a black servant who was walking barefoot on the snow to put on a pair of stockings the next time he went barefoot.”

“Great things were done by the soldiers, as well as by the officers of that Legion,” said Kinnison.  “At the siege of the Stockade Fort at Ninety-Six, Colonel Lee, who had charge of all the operations of the siege, thought that the Fort might be destroyed by fire.  Accordingly, Sergeant Whaling, a non-commissioned officer whose term of service was about to expire, with twelve privates, was detached to perform the service.  Whaling saw that he was moving to certain death; as the approach to the Fort was to be made in open day, and over clear, level ground, which offered no cover.  But he was a brave man, and had served from the commencement of the war.  It was his greatest pride never to shrink from his duty.  He dressed himself neatly—­took an affectionate but cheerful leave of his comrades, swung his musket over his shoulder, and with a bundle of blazing pine torches in his hand, sprang forward, followed by his little band.  They reached the Stockade before the enemy fired a shot.  But a deliberate aim killed Whaling and all his men except one, who escaped unhurt.  It was the opinion of most of the officers of the Legion that Whaling’s life was sacrificed in attempting to carry out a rash idea.  But we oughtn’t to judge Colonel Lee without being more certain of the facts.”

“But we know enough to say it was a very wild idea to send men up to a fort in open day, and over ground where they could have no cover,” remarked Ransom.  “I know General John Stark would never have sacrificed his men in that way.”