For this Patterson wisely decided not to wait. And so at noon
of one of the first days of February, about three hundred of the
government troops, with half a dozen rounds of cartridges per man, set
out to attack Hubbard's camp.
There had been tearful farewells in the gentlemen's households that
morning. Most had sent forth father and sons together to the fray and
some families there were which had three generations in the ranks. For
this was the gentlemen's war. The mass of the people held sullenly
aloof and left them to fight it out. It was all that could be expected
of themselves if they did not actively join the other side. There were
more friends of theirs with Hubbard than with Patterson, and the
temper in which they viewed the preparations to march against the
rebels was so unmistakably ugly that as a protection to the families
and property in the village one company had to be left behind in
Stockbridge. It was a muggy overcast day, a poor day to give men
stomach for fighting; drum and fife were silent that the enemy might
have no unnecessary warning of their coming; and so with an ill-wishing
community behind their backs and the foe in front, the troops set out
under circumstances as depressing as could well occur.
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