1779. July 16. ducting twelve hundred chosen men in single file over mountains and through morasses and narrow passes, Wayne halted them at a distance of a mile and a half from the enemy, while with the principal officers he reconnoitred the works. About twenty minutes after twelve on the morning of the sixteenth, the assault began, the troops placing their sole dependence on the bayonet. Two advance parties of twenty men each, in one of which seventeen out of the twenty were killed or wounded, removed the abattis and other obstructions. Wayne, leading on a regiment, was wounded in the head, but, supported by his aids, still went forward. The two columns, heedless of musketry and grape-shot, gained the centre of the works nearly at the same moment. On the right, Fleury struck the enemy's standard with his own hand, and was instantly joined by Stewart, who commanded the van of the left. British authorities declare that the Americans "would have been fully justified in putting the garrison to the sword;" but continental soldiers scorned to take the lives of a vanquished foe begging for mercy, and "not one man was put to death but in fair combat." Of the Americans, but fifteen were killed; of the British, sixty-three; and five hundred and forty-three officers and privates were made prisoners. The war was marked by no more brilliant achievement. The diminishing numbers of the troops with Washington not permitting him to hold Stony Point, the cannon and stores were removed and the works razed. Soon afterwards the post was reoccupied, but only for a short time, by a larger British garrison. The enterprising spirit of Major Henry Lee, of Virginia, had already been applauded in general orders; and his daring proposal to attempt the fort at Paulus Hook, now Jersey City, obtained the approval of Washington. The place was defended by a ditch, which made of it an island, and by lines of abattis, but was carelessly guarded. The party with Lee was undiscovered, until, in the morning of the nineteenth of August, before day, they Aug. 19. plunged into the canal, then deep from the rising tide. Finding an entrance into the main work, and passing through a fire of musketry from block-houses, they gained the fort before the discharge of a single piece of artillery. This they achieved within sight of New York, and almost within the reach of its guns. After daybreak, they withdrew, taking with them one hundred and fifty-nine pris oners. Moved by the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry valley, congress, on the twenty-fifth of February, had directed Washington to protect the inland frontier and chastise the Seneca Indians. Of the two natural routes to their country, both now traversed by railroads, that of the Susquehannah was selected for three thousand men of the best continental troops, who were to rally at Wyoming; while one thousand or more of the men of New York were to move from the Mohawk River. Before they could be ready, a party of five or six hundred men, led by Van Schaick and Willet, made a swift march of three days into the country of the Onondagas, and, without the loss of a man, destroyed their settlement. The great expedition was more tardy. Its command, 1779. May. which Gates declined, devolved on Sullivan, to whom Washington in May gave repeatedly the instruction: "Move as light as possible even from the first onset. Should time be lost in transporting the troops and stores, the provisions will be consumed, and the whole enterprise may be defeated. Reject every article that can be dispensed with; this is an extraordinary case, and requires extraordinary attention." Yet Sullivan made insatiable demands on the government of Pennsylvania. While he was wasting time in finding fault and writing strange theological essays, the British and Indian partisans near Fort Schuyler surprised and captured twenty-nine mowers. Savages under Macdonell laid waste the country on the west bank of the Susquehannah, till "the Indians," by his own report, "were glutted with plunder, prisoners, and scalps." Thirty miles of a closely settled country were burnt. Brant and his crew consumed with fire all the settlement of Minisink, one fort excepted. Over a party of a hundred and fifty men, by whom they were pursued, they gained the advantage, taking more than forty scalps and one prisoner. 1779. July. The best part of the season was gone when Sullivan, on the last of July, moved from Wyoming. His arrival at Tioga sent terror to the Indians. Several of their chiefs said to Colonel Bolton in council: "Why does not the great king, our father, assist us? Our villages will be cut off, and we can no longer fight his battles." On the twenty-second of August, the day after he Aug. 22. was joined by New York troops under General James Clinton, Sullivan began his march up the Tioga into the heart of the Indian country. On the same day, Little David, a Mohawk chief, delivered a message from himself and the Six Nations to Haldimand, then governor of Canada: "Brother! for these three years past the Six Nations have been running a race against fresh enemies, and are almost out of breath. Now we shall see whether you are our loving, strong brother, or whether you deceive us. Brother! we are still strong for the king of England, if you will show us that he is a man of his word, and that he will not abandon his brothers, the Six Nations." The savages ran no risk of a surprise; for, during all the expedition, Sullivan, who delighted in the vanities of command, fired a morning and evening gun. On the twenty-ninth, he opened a distant and useless can- Aug. 29. nonade against breast works which British rangers and men of the Six Nations-in all about eight hundred — had constructed at Newtown; and they took the warning to retire, before a party which was sent against them could strike them in the rear. The march into the country of the Senecas on the left extended to Genesee; on the right, detachments reached Cayuga Lake. After destroying eighteen villages and their fields of corn, Sullivan, whose army had suffered for want of supplies, returned to New Jersey. Meantime, a small party from Fort Pitt, under command of Colonel Brodhead, broke up the towns of the Senecas upon the upper branch of the Alleghany. The manifest inability of Great Britain to protect the Six Nations inclined them at last to desire neutrality. 1779. In June, the British general Maclean, who comJune. manded in Nova Scotia, established a British post of six hundred men at what is now Castine, on Penobscot Bay. To dislodge the intruders, the Massachusetts legislature sent forth nineteen armed ships, sloops, and brigs; two of them continental vessels, the rest privateers or belonging to the state. The flotilla carried more than three hundred guns, and was attended by twenty-four transports, having on board nearly a thousand men. So large an American armament had never put to sea. A noble public spirit roused all the towns on the coast, and they spared no sacrifice to insure a victory. But the troops were commanded by an unskilled militia general; the chief naval officer was self-willed and July 25. incapable. Not till the twenty-fifth of July did the expedition enter Penobscot Bay. The troops, who July 28. on the twenty-eighth gallantly effected their landing, were too weak to carry the works of the British by storm; the commodore knew not how to use his mastery of the water; and, while a re-enforcement was on the Aug. 14. way, on the fourteenth of August Sir George Collier arrived in a sixty-four gun ship, attended by five frigates. Two vessels of war fell into his hands; the rest and all the transports fled up the river, and were burnt by the Americans themselves, who escaped through the woods. The British were left masters of the country east of the Penobscot. Yet, notwithstanding this signal disaster, the main result. of the campaign at the north promised success to America. For want of re-enforcements, Clinton had evacuated Stony Point and Rhode Island. All New England, west of the Penobscot, was free from an enemy. In Western New York, the Senecas had learned that the alliance with the English secured them gifts, but not protection. On the Hudson River, the Americans had recovered the use of King's ferry, and held all the country above it. The condition of the American army was indeed more deplorable than ever. The winter set in early and with unwonted severity. Before the middle of December, and long before log huts could be built, the snow lay two feet deep in New Jersey, where the troops were cantoned; so that they saved themselves with difficulty from freezing by keeping up large fires. Continental money was valued at no more than thirty for one, and even at that rate the country people took it unwillingly. The credit of congress being exhausted, there could be no regularity in supplies. Sometimes, the army was five or six days together without bread; at other times, as many without meat; and, once or twice, two or three days without either. It must have been disbanded, but that such was the honor of the magistrates of New Jersey, such the good disposition of its people, that the requisitions made by the commander in chief on its several counties were punctually complied with, and in many counties exceeded. For many of the soldiers, the term of service expired with the year; and shorter enlistments, by which several states attempted to fill their quotas, were fatal to compactness and stability. Massachusetts offered a bounty of five hundred dollars to each of those who would enlist for three years or the war, and found few to accept the offer. The Americans wanted men and wanted money, and yet could not be subdued. An incalculable strength lay in reserve in the energy of the states and of their citizens individually. Though congress possessed no power of coercion, there could always be an appeal to the militia, who were the people themselves; and their patriotism, however it might seem to slumber, was prepared to show itself in every crisis of danger. The buoyancy of hope, and the readiness to make sacrifices for the public good, were never lost; and neither congress nor people harbored a doubt of their ultimate triumph. All accounts agree that, in the coldest winter of the century, the virtue of the army was put to the severest trial; and that their sufferings for want of food and of clothes and blankets were borne with the most heroic patience. 1779. In this hour of affliction, Thomas Pownall, a member of parliament, who, from observation, research, and long civil service in the central states and as governor of Massachu |