Trial By Fire
By Haycox, Ernest
On the morning of June 17, 1775, Dr. Isaac Brent—a staunch Tory physician in colonial New England—rides toward the widow Potter's home, unaware that history is unfolding on Breed's Hill. When he discovers that his patriot neighbors have fortified the heights above Charlestown, he dismisses their rebellion as the folly of agitators. But as British redcoats storm the redoubt and the doctor tends the wounded amid smoke and carnage, he confronts a truth that shatters his loyalties: men do not fight and die with such conviction for anything less than a just cause. By sunset, the battle has baptized him anew—no longer a king's man, but a servant of the revolution.
Publisher: The Ridgway Company (in Adventure Magazine)
First published: 1926