The larger part of the old company having gone over to the insurgents,
the depleted ranks had been filled out by the enlistment as privates
of the gentlemen of the village. The two Dwights, Drs. Sergeant and
Partridge, Deacons Nash and Edwards, and many other silk stockinged
magnates carried muskets, and a dozen gentlemen besides had organized
themselves into a party of cavalry, with Sedgwick himself as captain.
Even then the difficulty in finding men enough to fill out the company
was so great that lads of sixteen and seventeen, gentlemen's sons,
were placed in line with the gray fathers of the settlement. There was
need indeed of every musket that could be mustered, for up at West
Stockbridge, only an hour's march away, Paul Hubbard had a hundred and
fifty men about him, from whom a raid might at any moment be expected.
But Stockbridge was now to become the center of military operations,
not only for its own protection, but for that of the surrounding
country. Hampshire County, as well as the eastern counties, had been
called on for quotas to swell General Lincoln's army, but upon
Berkshire no requisition had been made. The peculiar reputation of
that county for an independent and insubordinate temper, afforded
little reason to hope such a requisition would be regarded if made.
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