midnight
But it was a hard and dreadful lesson ; and I saw men crying , faces hidden in their powder-blackened hands , as the dying General was borne through the ranks , lying gray and motionless on his hemlock litter . And this is all that I myself witnessed of that shameful ambuscade and murderous combat , fought some two miles north of the dirty camp , and now known as the Battle of Oriskany . That night we buried our dead ; one hundred on the field where they had fallen , two hundred and fifty in the burial trenches at Oriskany -- thirty-five wagon-loads in all . Scarcely an officer of rank remained to lead the funeral march when the muffled drums of the Palatines rolled at midnight , and the smoky torches moved , and the dead-wagons rumbled on through the suffocating darkness of a starless night . We had few wounded ; we took no prisoners ; Oriskany meant death . We counted only thirty men disabled and some score missing . `` God grant the missing be safely dead , '' prayed our camp chaplain at the burial trench .