noon
All the loathsome and filthy side of war seemed concentrated around the barn-yard , where sleepy , unshaven , half-dressed soldiers were burning the under-clothes of a man who had died of the black measles ; while a great , brawny fellow , naked to the waist and smeared from hair to ankles with blood , butchered sheep , so that the army might eat that day . The thick stench of the burning clothing , the odor of blood , the piteous bleating of the doomed creatures sickened me ; and I made my way out of the barn and down to the river , where I stripped and waded out to wash me and my clothes . A Caughnawaga soldier gave me a bit of soap ; and I spent the morning there . By noon the fierce heat of the sun had dried my clothes ; by two o'clock our small scout of four left the Stanwix and Johnstown road and struck out through the unbroken wilderness for German Flatts . For eleven days we lay at German Flatts , Colonel Visscher begging us to aid in the defence of that threatened village until the women and children could be conveyed to Johnstown . But Sir John Johnson remained before Stanwix , and McCraw 's riders gave the village wide berth , and on the 18th of August we set out for Varicks ' . Warned by our extreme outposts , we bore to the south , forced miles out of our course to avoid the Oneida country , where a terrific little war was raging .