On Christmas Day Col. Plunket renewed the attack on the breastwork. He divided his forces into two divisions. One division assailed the fortification in front, while the other attempted a flanking movement on Col. Butler's right. This was promptly met and repelled. The battle lasted nearly all day, but the enemy, baffled at all points, finally withdrew. The invasion known by Col. Plunket's name was at an end. Eight or ten men on each side were killed and many wounded.[15]
The battle with Plunket had made the officers and men of the regiment painfully conscious of their lack of equipment. Powder! How could they get powder? Offer a reward for it? That was what they did at a town meeting, March 10, 1776--two and a half months after the battle. "Voted that the first man that shall make fifty weight of good salt peter, in this town, shall be entitled to ten pounds lawful money, to be paid out of the town treasury."[16]
Patriotism and this bounty no doubt produced an effect, as witness the following: "Mrs. Bethiah Jenkins says. The women took up their floors, dug out the earth, put it in casks, and ran water through it. Then took ashes in another cask and made lye--mixed the water from the earth with weak lye, boiled it, set it out to cool, and the salt peter rose to the top. Charcoal and sulphur were then used, and powder produced."[17]
In May, 1776, John Jenkins, representative to the legislature, obtained leave for the selectmen to erect a powder mill in Westmoreland, but I can not learn that any mill was ever built.[18]
In July of the same year the Council of Safety at Hartford "Voted that the Selectmen of Westmoreland may receive at Messrs. Elderkin & Wales mill, not exceeding 200 pounds of gun powder: they to account to the Colony therefor at the price of 5s, 4d per lb."[19]
Col. Butler, in a letter to Roger Sherman, dated August 6, 1776, speaks of being in want of arms, "as those 80 guns taken from our people at Warrior Run have not been returned."[20]
The Continental Congress the next year undertook to aid in supplying these wants, as witness the following action April 11: "Resolved, that 175 fire arms, either musquets or rifles, 200 wt. powder, 800 wt. lead, and 500 flints be sent to the town of Westmoreland, on the east branch of the Susquehanna river, to the care of Colonel Nathan Denison, to be used by the malitia there, for the defense of the said town, if necessary: the arms to be returned when the service there will admit of it."[21]
