ground, a grenadier who saw the contest, ran to the assistance of his
officer, made a longe with his bayonet, missed Joiett's body, but drove
it beyond the curve into his coat. In attempting to withdraw the
entangled weapon, he threw both combatants to the ground; when getting
it free, he raised it deliberately, determined not to fail again in his
purpose, but to transfix Joiett. It was at this moment that Manning
approached--not near enough, however, to reach the grenadier with his
arm. In order to gain time, and to arrest the stroke, he exclaimed in an
angry and authoritative tone--'You damn'd brute, will you murder the
gentleman?' The soldier, supposing himself addressed by one of his own
officers, suspended the blow, and looked around to see the person who
had thus spoken to him. Before he could recover from the surprise into
which he had been thrown, Manning, now sufficiently near, struck him
with his sword across the eyes, and felled him to the ground; while
Joiett disengaged himself from his opponent, and snatching up the
musket, as he attempted to rise, laid him dead by a blow from the
butt-end of it. Manning was of inferior size, but strong, and remarkably
well formed. Joiett was almost a giant. This, probably, led Barry, who
could not have wished the particulars of his capture to be commented on,
to reply, when asked by his brother officers, how he came to be taken,
'I was overpowered by a huge Virginian.'"

"Manning was a cool and ready soldier," observed Pitts. "I saw him once
in Philadelphia, before his Legion went south. He had a most determined
look in spite of the good-humoured leer of his eye. He was one of the
last men I should have wished to provoke; he was a complete
Irishman--blunders and all. I heard of his telling a black servant who
was walking barefoot on the snow to put on a pair of stockings the next
time he went barefoot."