dusk, they started for the swamp, which was two miles distant. Having
separated to reconnoitre, two of them, named Green and Guiles, got lost;
but the other three kept together, and, about dawn, discovered Lovelace
and his party, in a hut covered over with boughs, just drawing on their
stockings. The three men crawled cautiously forward till near the hut,
when they sprang up with a shout, levelled their muskets, and Captain
Dunham sang out, 'Surrender, or you are all dead men!' There was no time
for parley; and the tory rascals, believing that our men were down on
them in force, came out one by one, without arms, and Dunham and his men
marched them off to General Stark's quarters. The rascals were all tried
by court-martial, as spies, traitors, and robbers; and Lovelace was
sentenced to be hung, as he was considered too dangerous to be allowed
to get loose again. He made complaint of injustice, and said he ought to
be treated as a prisoner of war; but our general could not consent to
look upon such a villain as an honorable soldier, and his sentence was
ordered to be carried into effect three days afterwards. I was then with
a company of New York volunteers, sent to reinforce General Stark, and
I was enabled to gratify my desire to witness the execution of a man I
detested. The gallows was put up on the high bluff a few miles south of
Fish Creek, near our barracks. When the day arrived, I found that our
company was on the guard to be posted near the gallows. It was a gloomy
morning, and about the time the tory colonel was marched out to the
gallows, and we were placed in position at the foot of the bluff, a
tremendous storm of wind and rain came on. It was an awful scene.
The sky seemed as black as midnight, except when the vivid sheets of
lightning glared and shot across it; and the peals of thunder were loud
and long. Lovelace knelt upon the scaffold, and the chaplain prayed with
him. I think if there was anything could change a man's heart, it must
have been the thought of dying at such a time, when God himself seemed
wrathful at the deeds of men.