NOTE 27.—­DEATH OF COLONEL GARDINER

The death of this good Christian and gallant man is thus given by his affectionate biographer Dr. Doddridge, from the evidence of eye-witnesses:—­

’He continued all night under arms, wrapped up in his cloak, and generally sheltered under a rick of barley, which happened to be in the field.  About three in the morning he called-his domestic servants to him, of which there were four in waiting.  He dismissed three of them with most affectionate Christian advice, and such solemn charges relating to the performance of their duty and the care of their souls, as seemed plainly to intimate that he apprehended it was at least very probable he was taking his last farewell of them.  There is great reason to believe that he spent the little remainder of the time, which could not be much above an hour, in those devout exercises of soul which had been so long habitual to him and to which so many circumstances did then concur to call him.  The army was alarmed, by break of day, by the noise of the rebels’ approach, and the attack was made before sunrise, yet when it was light enough to discern what passed.  As soon as the enemy came within gunshot they made a furious fire; and it is said that the dragoons which constituted the left wing immediately fled.  The Colonel, at the beginning of the onset, which in the whole lasted but a few minutes, received a wound by a bullet in his left breast, which made him give a sudden spring in his saddle upon which his servant, who led the horse, would have persuaded him to retreat, but he said it was only a wound in the flesh, and fought on, though he presently after received a shot in his right thigh.  In the meantime, it was discerned that some of the enemy fell by him, and particularly one man, who had made him a treacherous visit but a few days before, with great profession of zeal for the present establishment.

’Events of this kind pass in less time than the description of them can be written, or than it can be read.  The Colonel was for a few moments supported by his men, and particularly by that worthy person Lieutenant-Colonel Whitney, who was shot through the arm here, and a few months after fell nobly at the battle of Falkirk, and by Lieutenant West, a man of distinguished bravery, as also by about fifteen dragoons, who stood by him to the last.  But after a faint fire, the regiment in general was seized with a panic; and though their Colonel and some other gallant officers did what they could to rally them once or twice, they at last took a precipitate flight.  And just in the moment when Colonel Gardiner seemed to be making a pause to deliberate what duty required him to do in such circumstances, an accident happened, which must, I think, in the judgement of every worthy and generous man, be allowed a sufficient apology for exposing his life to so great hazard, when his regiment had left him.  He saw a party of the foot,