That day, as I say, I walked about the camp and adjacent river-country, seeking out my friends in the various regiments to gossip with them.  And was invited to a Rum Punch given by all the officers at the Artillery Lines to celebrate the victory of General Wayne at Stony Point.

Colonel Proctor’s artillery band discoursed most noble music for us; and there was much hilarity and cheering, and many very boisterous.

These social parties in our army, where rum-punch was the favourite beverage, were gay and lively; but there was a headache in every cup of it, they say.  I, being an interpreter, held aloof because I must ever set an example to my red comrades.  And this day had all I could do to confine them to proper rations.  For all spirit is a very poison to any Indian.  And of all the crimes of which men of my colour stand attainted, the offering of this death-cup to our red brothers is, I think, the wickedest and the most contemptible.

For when we white men become merely exhilarated in the performance of such social usages as politeness requires of us, the Indian becomes murderous.  And I remember at this Artillery Punch many officers danced a Shawanese dance, and General Hand, of the Light Troops, did lead this war-dance, which caused me discomfiture, I not at all pleased to see officers who ranked me cut school-boy capers ’round a midday fire.

And it was like very school-lads that many of us behaved, making of this serious and hazardous expedition a silly pleasure jaunt.  I have since thought that perhaps the sombre and majestic menace of a sunless and unknown forest reacted a little on us all, and that many found a nervous relief in brief relaxations and harmless folly, and in antics performed on its grim and dusky edges.

For no one, I think, doubted there was trouble waiting for us within these silent shades.  And the tension had never lessened for this army, what with waiting for the Right Wing, which had not yet apparently stirred from Otsego; and the inadequacy of provisions, not known to the men but whispered among the officers; and the shots already exchanged this very morning along the river between our outposts and prowling scouts of the enemy; and the daily loss of pack-animals and cattle, strayed or stolen; and of men, too, scalped since they left Wyoming, sometimes within gunshot of headquarters.

But work on the four block-forts, just begun, progressed rapidly; and, alas, the corps of invalids destined to garrison them had, since the army left Easton, increased too fast to please anybody, what with wounds, accidents in camp from careless handling of firearms, kicks from animals, and the various diseases certain to appear where many people congregate.

There were a number of regiments under tents or awaiting the unfinished log barracks at Tioga Point; in the First Brigade there were four from New Jersey; in the Second Brigade three from New Hampshire; in the Third two from Pennsylvania, and an artillery regiment; and what with other corps and the train, boatmen, guides, workmen, servants, etc., it made a great and curious spectacle even before our Right Wing joined.