The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Extract of a letter from a Continental Officer at Providence, to his friend in this town, dated March 12.

"Some time since I left the regiment. Colonel Willett, who commands on the Mohawk River, received orders from his Excellency Gen. Washington, to take a party of men from his & the Rhode-Island regiments, to consist of about five hundred, and endeavour to surprise Oswego Fort, which lies about 30 miles from Niagara."

Col. Willett took two hundred and fifty miles northward and westward from Saratoga. Accordingly he takes three hundred of his own men, and two hundred of ours, with sleighs sufficient to carry their whole, and proceeded on for two hundred miles, when the snow being then three feet deep, and the woods very thick, they left their sleighs, and carried their provision and scaling ladders on their backs; but, unfortunately, the night they were to storm the fort, they got lost in a swamp until day-light, and upwards of seventy of the men of our regiment were froze, four perished, others lost their feet, hands, fingers and toes. Col. Willett, finding that they were discovered, and thinking it not prudent to attempt to storm in the day time, and his men in such a wretched situation, ordered a retreat: but before they got back to where the sleighs were left, many of them (viz. the sleighs) had gone off, and carried away their provision, so that the dogs, which were killed on their march up, to prevent a discovery, were found on the return; and eat by the soldiers, for want of other provision.