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like Scott, he taught his troops, until they were able in the shock of hand-to-hand conflict to overthrow the renowned British infantry, who have always justly prided themselves on their prowess with cold steel. At the battle of Germantown it was Wayne's troops who, falling on with the bayonet, drove the Hessians and the British light infantry, and only retreated under orders when the attack had failed elsewhere. At Monmouth it was Wayne and his Continentals who first checked the British advance by repulsing the bayonet charge of the guards and grenadiers.

Washington, a true leader of men, was prompt to recognize in Wayne a soldier to whom could be intrusted any especially difficult enterprise which called for the exercise alike of intelligence and of cool daring. In the summer of 1780 he was very anxious to capture the British fort at Stony Point, which commanded the Hudson. It was impracticable to attack it by regular siege while the British frigates lay in the river, and the defenses were so strong that open assault by daylight was equally out of the question. Accordingly Washington suggested to Wayne that he try a night attack. Wayne eagerly caught at the idea. It was exactly the kind of enterprise in which he delighted. The fort was on a rocky promontory, surrounded on three sides by water,

and on the fourth by a neck of land, which was for the most part mere morass. It was across this neck of land that any attacking column had to move. The garrison was six hundred strong. To deliver the assault Wayne took nine hundred

men.

The American army was camped about fourteen miles from Stony Point. One July afternoon Wayne started, and led his troops in single file along the narrow rocky roads, reaching the hills on the mainland near the fort after nightfall. He divided his force into two columns, to advance one along each side of the neck, detaching two companies of North Carolina troops to move in between the two columns and make a false attack. The rest of the force consisted of New Englanders, Pennsylvanians, and Virginians. Each attacking column was divided into three parts, a forlorn hope of twenty men leading, which was followed by an advance guard of one hundred and twenty, and then by the main body. At the time commanding officers still carried spontoons, and other old-time weapons, and Wayne, who himself led the right column, directed its movements spear in hand.

It was nearly midnight when the Americans began to press along the causeways toward the fort. Before they were near the walls they were discovered, and the British opened a heavy fire of

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great guns and musketry, to which the Carolinians, who were advancing between the two columns, responded in their turn, according to orders; but the men in the columns were forbidden to fire. Wayne had warned them that their work must be done with the bayonet, and their muskets were not even loaded. Moreover, so strict was the discipline that no one was allowed to leave the ranks, and when one of the men did so an officer promptly ran him through the body.

No sooner had the British opened fire than the charging columns broke into a run, and in a moment the forlorn hopes plunged into the abattis of fallen timber which the British had constructed just without the walls. On the left, the forlorn hope was very roughly handled, no less than seventeen of the twenty men being either killed or wounded, but as the columns came up both burst through the down timber and swarmed up the long, sloping embankments of the fort. The British fought well, cheering loudly as their volleys rang, but the Americans would not be denied, and pushed silently on to end the contest with the bayonet. A bullet struck Wayne in the head. He fell, but struggled to his feet and forward, two of his officers supporting him. A rumor went among the men that he was dead, but it only impelled them to charge home more fiercely than ever.

With a rush the troops swept to the top of the

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