CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DAY OF DOOM _Fifteenth August, 1812_ .-- My hand trembles and my pen halts as I write the words; for the memory of those tragic hours, far distant as they are now, over-masters me, and I see once again the faces of the dead, the mutilated forms, the disfigured features of the hapless victims of savage treachery.

Were I writing romance merely, I might hide much of detail behind the veil of silence; but I am penning history, and, black as the record is, I can only give it with strict adherence to truth.

I dread the effort to recall once more the sad incidents of that scene of carnage, lest I fail to picture it aright; but I can tell, and that poorly, only of what I saw within the narrowed vista of my personal experience, where the fate of the day found me.

Out of the vortex of so fierce and sudden a struggle, the individual, battling madly for his own life, catches but hasty and confused glimpses of what others may do about him or in other portions of the field; and there has been much recorded in what men call the history of that day's battle, about which I know nothing.

Nor shall I attempt to tell much more than the simple story of what befell me and those who faced the danger close at my side.
In spite of the early bustle around me, incident to the preparations for departure, I slept late, stupefied by intense fatigue.