About two o'clock
But when they did arrive , it meant a battle . We all knew that . And knew , too , that a battle lost in the heart of that dark wilderness meant the destruction of every living soul among us . About two o'clock , having eaten nothing except what green and uncooked stuff we had picked up in field and garden , our marching signal sounded and we moved off ; driving our captured stock , every soldier laden with green food and other plunder , and taking with us our dead and wounded . Chemung had been , but was no longer . And if , like Thendara , it was ever again to be I do not know , only that such a horrid and pitiful desolation I had never witnessed in all my life before . For it was not the enemy , but the innocent earth we had mutilated , stamping an armed heel into its smiling and upturned face .