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Extract of a letter from an Officer at Fort Stanwix

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EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM AN OFFICER AT FORT STANWIX, DATED AUGUST 17, 1776.

Part of the Third Battalion of New Jersey troops being stationed here about three weeks ago, it was thought proper to send a Sergeant and four men to reconnoitre towards Oswego; but Ensign Isaiah Younglove being desirous to go, went in the room of the Sergeant; and having travelled about sixty miles, the party was fired on early one morning by a party of ten Indians, but their guns being wet, (it having rained the preceding night,) they could not return the fire. The Ensign and another, after repeatedly priming, at length discharged their pieces. They were then directed by the Ensign to fix their bayonets, who at that instant received a ball in his lungs and fell. Notwithstanding, he ordered his men to advance, and, laying on his back, loaded and shot one of the Indians dead. But two of his men being killed, he desired the others to flee, telling them he could not live more than five minutes, and that it was a pity they should expose their own lives. The surviving two came off and gave us the above account.

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