Bang! The little cohorn added its miniature bellow to the bigger guns, which now began to thunder regularly, one after another, shaking the ground we trod.
The ridge was ruddy with the red lightning of exploding shells.

Very far away in the forest we could hear entire regiments, as they climbed the slopes, cheering above the continuous racket of musketry; the yelling of the Senecas and Mohawks grew wavering, becoming ragged and thinner.
It was hard for us all, I think, to turn our backs on the first real battle we had seen in months--hard for Boyd, for me, and for our twenty riflemen; harder, perhaps, for our Indians, who could hear the yells of their most deadly enemies, and who knew that they were within striking distance at last.
As we marched in single file, I leading with my Indians, I said aloud, in the Iroquois tongue: "If in this Battle of the Chemung the Mountain Snake be left writhing, yet unless we crush his head at Catharines-town, the serpent will live to strike again.

For though a hundred arrows stick in the Western Serpent's body, his poison lies in his fangs; his fangs are rooted in his head; and the head still hisses at God and man from the shaggy depths of Catharines-town.

It is for us of the elect to slay him there--for us few and chosen ones honoured by this mandate from our commander.

Why, then, should the thunder of Proctor's guns arouse in us envy for those who join in battle?
Let the iron guns do their part; let the men of New York, of Jersey, of Virginia, of New Hampshire, of Pennsylvania, do the great part allotted them.