And now, with all the desperate energy of men who risked everything that
mortal can have in jeopardy, we prepared to meet the invasion.

The tidings of the next few days but amplified what Enoch had told us.
Thomas Spencer, the half-breed, forwarded full intelligence of the
approaching force; Oneida runners brought in stories of its magnitude,
with which the forest glades began to be vocal; Colonel Gansevoort,
working night and day to put into a proper state of defence the
dilapidated fort at the Mohawk's headwaters, sent down urgent demands for
supplies, for more men, and for militia support.

At the most, General Schuyler could spare him but two hundred men, for
Albany was in sore panic at the fall of Ticonderoga and the menace of
Burgoyne's descent in force through the Champlain country. We watched this
little troop march up the river road in a cloud of dust, and realized that
this was the final thing Congress and the State could do for us. What more
was to be done we men of the Valley must do for ourselves.

It was almost welcome, this grim, blood-red reality of peril which now
stared us in the face, so good and wholesome a change did it work in the
spirit of the Valley. Despondency vanished; the cavillers who had
disparaged Washington and Schuyler, sneered at stout Governor Clinton, and
doubted all things save that matters would end badly, ceased their
grumbling and took heart; men who had wavered and been lukewarm or
suspicious came forward now and threw in their lot with their neighbors.
And if here and there on the hillsides were silent houses whence no help
was to come, and where, if the enemy once broke through, he would be