composed; a gentleman of middle height, of good figure and straight, and of manners so simple that the charm of them struck one afterward as a pleasant memory.

“Gentlemen,” he said, looking up at us from his momentary abstraction, “for the first part of General Clinton’s letter I must be brief with you and very frank. There are no recruits to be had in this vicinity for Colonel Morgan’s Rifles. Riflemen are of the elite; and our best characters and best shots are all enlisted — or dead or in prison — — ” He made a significant gesture toward the south. And we thought of the Prison Ships and the Provost, and sat silent.

“There is,” he added, “but one way, and that is to pick riflemen from our regiments here; and I am