Valley Forge; hungry and cold were the poor fellows who had so long been in the field; provisions were scant, clothing worn out, and so badly off were they for shoes that the footsteps of many were traced in blood.

The troops braved the wintry weather in their tents until they could cut down trees and construct huts. The sick had to seek temporary shelter among the farmers of the neighborhood. Each hut was fourteen feet by sixteen, six feet and a half high; one hut was allotted to twelve non-commissioned officers and soldiers. A general-officer had a hut to himself.

May 6th, 1778, there was a fete at the camp, word being received that treaties with France had made the latter a military ally, and King Louis XVI. was cheered by the American troops. A large French fleet also arrived about that time. The British had twenty thousand men at Philadelphia, while Washington had but eleven thousand at Valley Forge, but Philadelphia was evacuated, nevertheless, the English soldiers going to New York, where Washington could not attack them. There were no general engagements between the American and British forces during this year.

On the way to New York Washington ordered General Lee to prevent the British from joining the other troops there. Lee, with his five thousand men, made no attack, but retreated to Monmouth Courthouse. Washington was angry as he turned to the men. They greeted him with cheers, wheeled about and charged the enemy. The English were driven from the field and retreated in the night, leaving three hundred of their dead behind them. The Americans lost but sixty-nine.

About the beginning of December Washington distributed his troops for the winter in a line of strong cantonments, extending from Long Island Sound to the Delaware. The winter of 1778-9 passed, with Washington much of the time in Philadelphia, devising and discussing plans for the campaign of 1779.

YEAR OF WATCHING AND WAITING.

The year of 1779 was little more than a twelvemonth of weary waiting and watching by the armies on both sides. No general engagement occurred but there was fighting from South Carolina to the Canadian border between small forces. England was threatened with war by France and Spain, and did not strengthen her forces in this country. The main British army remained in New York City, its only place of refuge. The American army was contented with harassing outposts and foraging parties wherever they entered the interior or landed from ships.

Washington's army spent the winter of 1779-80 in log cabins on the Heights of Morristown. The winter was severe, and his men experienced great suffering for the want of clothes and supplies.

For five months the army had been unpaid. Every department was destitute of money or credit; there were rarely provisions for six days in advance; on some occasions the troops had been for several successive days. without meat; there was no forage; the medical department had neither tea, chocolate, wine, nor spirituous liquors of any kind.

"Yet the men," said Washington, "have borne their distress, in general, with a firmness and patience never exceeded, and every commendation is due to the officers for encouraging them to it by exhortation and example." Many officers for some time lived on bread and cheese rather than take any of the scanty allowance of meat from the men.

Not a few patriots deemed it madness for the colonies, impoverished as they were, any longer to contend against the richest and most powerful nation upon the globe. General Benedict Arnold, in command at West Point, believing the ship to be sinking, turned traitor and offered to sell his fortress to the English. The traitor escaped, but Major Andre, Arnold's confederate, was hanged as a spy.

Lord Cornwallis, with a well-provided army and an assisting navy, was engaged in overrunning the two Carolinas. General Greene, with all the men Washington could spare, went to watch and harass the invaders and furnish the inhabitants with all protection in his power.

Lafayette was in the vicinity of New York. Washington was everywhere, cheering the army, animating the inhabitants, rousing Congress and guiding both military and civil legislation. Thus the year of 1780 wore

away.

In the spring of 1781 the war was renewed, the British directing their chief attention to the South, which was far weaker than the North. Richmond was laid in ashes, and a general system of devastation and plunder prevailed. The enemy ascended the Chesapeake and the Potomac with armed vessels, landed at Mount Vernon, and the manager of the estate, to save the mansion, furnished them with supplies.

Washington was much displeased, and he wrote to his agent: "It would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard that, in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burned my house and laid the plantation in ruin. You ought to have considered your

self as my representative, and should have reflected on the bad example of communicating with the enemy and making a voluntary offer of refreshments to them with a view to prevent a conflagration.”

SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS.

Cornwallis, however, not appreciating the shrewdness of Washington, sat down in Yorktown, Va., to rest. Washington, in conjunction with our French allies, determined upon his capture. An army of six thousand men, under Count Rochambeau, had been sent by France to aid Washington.

He succeeded in deceiving the English into the belief that he was making preparations for the siege of New York. Washington hastened. to Virginia, and early in September Cornwallis was amazed to find himself surrounded by the Americans. At the same time the French fleet appeared in the harbor. Cornwallis was caught; there was no escape, no chance for retreat. Neither by land nor by sea could he obtain supplies; famine stared him in the face, and on the 19th of October, 1781, was compelled to surrender. Seven thousand British laid down their arms, and one hundred and sixty pieces of cannon were a part of the spoils.

In May, 1782, the British Cabinet opened negotiations for peace. Negotiations continued during the summer and ensuing winter, and early in the following spring a treaty was signed at Paris. The intelligence was communicated to the American army on the 19th of April, 1783-eight years from the day when the conflict was commenced on the Common at Lexington.

Late in November the British evacuated New York, entered their ships and sailed for home. Washington, marching from West Point, entered the city as the vanquished foes departed. America was free and independent.

After an affecting farewell to the army Washington set out for Virginia. At every town and village he was received with love and gratitude. At Annapolis he met the Continental Congress and resigned his commissionthe 23d of December, 1783. Christmas Eve he arrived at Mount Vernon.

The adoption of the Federal constitution was another epoch in the life of Washington. Before the official forms of an election could be carried into operation a unanimous sentiment throughout the Union pronounced him. the nation's choice to fill the Presidential chair. He looked forward to the possibility of his election with characteristic modesty and unfeigned reluctance.

WASHINGTON CHOSEN PRESIDENT.

The United States was at last a reality. The election took place at the appointed time, and Washington was chosen President for the term of four years from the 4th of March.

Washington was inaugurated President of the United States on the 30th of April, 1789. He remained in the Presidential chair two terms of four years each.

December 12th, 1799, was chill and damp, but Washington took his usual round on horseback to his farms, and, returning late in the afternoon, wet with sleet and shivering with cold. When he came in, he sat down to dinner without changing his dress. The next day three inches of snow fell. On the morning of December 14th he had a chill, and grew rapidly worse, having difficulty in breathing and swallowing.

About six o'clock his physician asked him if he would sit up in his bed. He held out his hands, and was raised up on his pillow, when he said: "I feel that I am going. I thank you for your attentions. You had better not take any more trouble about me, but let me go off quietly. I cannot last long."

About ten o'clock he faintly said: "I am just going. Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault until three days after I am dead. Do you understand me?"

To the reply, "Yes, sir," he remarked, "It is well." These were his last words. Soon after he died.

Washington was nearly sixty-eight years old.

Washington was a slaveholder, holding at the time of his death one. hundred and twenty-four. The system met his strong disapproval.

In 1786 he wrote to Robert Morris, saying: "There is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."

Long before this he had said: "I never meant, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law."

Mrs. Washington learned, after her husband's death, that the only obstacle to the immediate emancipation of the slaves was her right of dower. She relinquished that right and the slaves were freed.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

CHAPTER V.

LINCOLN'S AMUSEMENT-HIS JOINT DEBATES WITH DOUGLAS-PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

MARTYRED PRESIDENT.

66

T USED to amuse me some to find that the slaveholders wanted more territory, because they had not room enough for their slaves; and yet they complained of not having the slave trade, because they wanted more slaves for their room."

This was what Abraham Lincoln said of the Missouri compromise. When, as President, he was considering Secretary of the Treasury Chase in connection with the office of Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a deputation from Ohio came to Washington to protest against Chase's appointment, presenting some letters written by Chase, criticising Lincoln.

He read them, and, with his usual good nature, remarked:

"If Chase has said some hard things about me, I have also said some hard things about him, which, I guess, squares the account."

Chase was appointed as Chief Justice.

During the famous joint debates between himself and Stephen A. Douglas, the latter a Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1860, Lincoln demonstrated conclusively that he was a lover of mankind in the fullest and completest sense of that word.

FIRST DEBATE BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.

In the first of these debates, which took place at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21st, 1858, Douglas again rung the changes upon the introductory passage of Lincoln's Springfield speech, "A house divided against itself," etc.

Lincoln reiterated his assertion, and defended it in effect, as he did in his speech at Springfield.