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by Harry Pratt
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(“The Retaking of Vincennes, Part VI” mobile version)
VI
Eight were the days that we had marched when, with day left, the Colonel
Stopped and directed a camp on a less-wet rise at the bank of a river,
Formerly separate channels but now one, vasty and aqueous,
More than a league and a half in its breadth and in depth up to four feet.
This was an obstacle greater than any now passed and behind us.
Axes and hatchets had readily fashioned a pirogue by morn, a
Craft we dispatched like a dove o’er the Flood to discover dry land and
There to leave men to construct from available trees a sufficient
Scaffold for keeping the baggage above ground, then to return and
Blaze trees, marking a trail for the men who would follow on foot. Pack
Horses were led by the men who then entered the water. The pirogue
Ferried their gear and the ailing. So thus did we cross to the far bank.
Thus on the following day was a narrower stream put behind with
Great mirth due to the drummer boy floating across on his round drum.
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Harry Pratt is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who spent twenty-five years as an intelligence officer. After retirement he taught history and a variety of other subjects at the high school and middle school level in private and public schools.
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