Sixty odd hit the object.--General Gage, take
care of your nose!"
From the _Pennsylvania Journal_, July 25th, 1775: "Captain Dowdle
with his company of riflemen from Yorktown, Pa., arrived at Cambridge
about one o'clock today, and since has made proposals to General
Washington to attack the transport stationed at Charles River. He will
engage to take her with thirty men. The General thinks it best to
decline at present, but at the same time commends the spirit of
Captain Dowdle and his brave men, who, though they just came a very
long march, offered to execute the plan immediately."
In the third volume of American Archives, is an extract from a letter
to a gentleman in Philadelphia, dated Frederick Town, Maryland, August
1st, 1775, which speaks of the same company of riflemen whose
wonderful marksmanship we have already noted. The writer says:
"Notwithstanding the urgency of my business I have been detained here
three days by a circumstance truly agreeable. I have had the happiness
of seeing Captain Michael Cresap marching at the head of a formidable
company of upwards of one hundred and thirty men from the mountains
and backwoods; painted like Indians; armed with tomahawks and rifles;
dressed in hunting shirts and moccasins; and, tho' some of them had
travelled hundreds of miles from the banks of the Ohio, they seemed to
walk light and easy, and not with less spirit than at the first hour
of their march.
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