was followed by a discharge of artillery and small-arms, and a suitable piece of music by the Hessian band. 4. The glorious Fourth of July was reiterated three times, accompanied with triple discharges of cannon and small-arms, and loud huzzas that resounded from street to street through the city. Toward evening, several troops of horse, a corps of artillery, and a brigade of North Carolina forces, which was in town on its way to join the grand army, were drawn up in Second Street, and reviewed by Congress and the general officers. 5. The evening was closed with the ringing of bells, and at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the commons; and the city was beautifully illuminated. Everything was conducted with the greatest order and decorum, and the face of joy and gladness was universal. Thus may the Fourth of July, that glorious and ever memorable day, be celebrated through America by the sons of freedom from age to age, till time shall be no more. Amen and Amen! Battle of Brandywine, etc.—-Washington's army was encamped at Morristown during the early part of 1777; but in the spring he took up a position at Middlebrook. General Howe, failing to draw Washington into an engagement in New Jersey, conveyed his troops, by means of the fleet of his brother, Lord Howe, to Chesapeake Bay, at the head of which they disembarked, and marched toward Philadelphia. At Chad's Ford, on Brandywine Creek, their passage was disputed by Washington; but the latter was defeated with considerable loss (Sept. 11). Two weeks afterward, Philadelphia fell into the hands of the British. Battle of Germantown, etc.-Learning that strong detachments of the British army had been dispatched for the reduction of Forts Mifflin and Mercer, on the Delaware, a few miles below Philadelphia, Washington made a vigorous attack upon the main body of the British, stationed at Germantown; but, although at first successful, he was finally repulsed (Oct. 4). Forts Mifflin and Mercer were soon afterwards captured by the British, though not without a contest in which they met with severe loss (Nov.). Burgoyne's Expedition.-In the meantime, General Burgoyne, with an army of ten thousand men, British and German troops, Canadians and Indians, invaded the State of New York from Canada, with the design of effecting a junction with another army from the city of New York, so as to cut off Washington's communication with the eastern States. At first, Burgoyne met with some success, capturing Ticonderoga, and compelling the American forces to retreat to the Mohawk; but a detachment of his army having been defeated at Bennington (August 16), the Americans, under General Gates,* advanced to Bem'is Heights, where a severe battle was fought, by which Burgoyne found his march to Albany effectually checked (Sept. 19). A few weeks afterwards, a second battle occurred near the scene of the previous one, and the British were driven back (Oct. 7). In this battle, called the Battle of Saratoga, Benedict Arnold, who afterwards turned traitor, greatly distinguished himself. It was soon followed by the surrender of Burgoynet to General Gates, at Saratoga (Oct. 17). Clinton, in the meantime, had ascended the Hudson as far as Forts Clinton and Montgomery, and captured both forts; but instead of hastening to the co-operation of Burgoyne, he sent an expedition to devastate the country. The British, on the northern frontiers, upon hearing of their disaster at Saratoga, abandoned Ticonderoga and other places; and Clinton's expedition, after burning Kingston, returned to New York. Surrender of Burgoyne.-De Chastellux. 1. LET us now compare the situation of General Burgoyne collecting his trophies and publishing his insolent manifesto at Ticonderoga, with that in which he now stood, when, vanquished and surrounded, as he was, by a troop of peasants, not a place was left him even to discuss the terms of capitulation. 2. I confess, when I was conducted to the spot where the English laid down their arms, and to that where they filed off before Gates's army, I could not but partake of the triumph of the Americans, and at the same time admire their magnanimity; for the soldiers and officers beheld their presumptuous and sanguinary enemies pass, without offering the smallest insult, without suffering an insulting smile or gesture to escape them. 3. This majestic silence conveyed a very striking refutation of the vain declarations of the English general, and seemed to attest all the rights of our allies to the victory. Chance alone * Horatio Gates was born in England, in 1728. He was an officer in Braddock's expedition, in 1755, and was severely wounded in the battle of the Monongahela. After the Revolutionary War, he resided on an estate which he owned in Virginia, until 1790. He then removed to New York, where he died in 1806. + John Burgoyne was born in England, about 1730. After his surrender to Gates he returned to England, being then a prisoner on parole, where he was coldly received in Parliament, of which body ne was a member. He died in London, in 1792. gave rise to an allusion with which General Burgoyne was very sensibly affected. It is the custom, in England and in America, on approaching any person for the first time, to say, I am very happy to see you; General Gates chanced to make use of this expression in accosting General Burgoyne. "I believe you are,” replied the General; "the fortune of the day is entirely yours." 4. General Gates pretended to give no attention to this answer, and conducted Burgoyne to his quarters, where he gave him a good dinner, as well as to the principal of the English officers. Everybody ate and drank heartily, and seemed mutually to forget their misfortunes, or their successes.—Journal of Travels in North America. Washington at Valley Forge.—Th. Parker. 1. DURING the winter of 1777-8, Washington went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. What a terrible time it was for the hopes of America! In 1776, he had an army of fortyseven thousand men, and the nation was exhausted by the great effort. In 1777, it was less than twenty thousand men. Women who had once melted their pewter plates into bullets, could not do it a second time. 2. At Valley Forge, within a day's march of the enemy's headquarters, there were not twelve thousand soldiers. That winter they lay on the ground. So scarce were blankets, that many were forced to sit up all night by their fires. At one time, more than a thousand soldiers had not a shoe to their feet. You could trace their march by the blood which their naked feet left in the ice. At one time, more than onefourth of all the troops there are reported as "unfit for duty, because barefoot or otherwise naked." Washington offered a prize for the best substitute for shoes made of untanned hides! 3. Even provisions failed. Once there was a famine in the camp, and Washington must seize provisions by violence, or the army would die. He ordered the Pennsylvania farmers to thresh out the wheat and sell it to him, or he would take it and pay them only for the straw. Congress was disheartened. The men of ability staid at home, and weaklings took their place. For some time there were only twenty-one members, and it was difficult to assemble a quorum of States for busi ness. 4. Tories abounded. There were cabals against Washington in the army. Mifflin, Conway, Gates, Pickering, Schuyler, were hostile; and they found abundant support in Congress. Samuel Adams* distrusted Washington. So, too, did John Adams. James Lovell, of Massachusetts, and Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, were not more friendly, and far less honorable. It is not wholly to be wondered at. 5. Within a year, Washington had lost New York and its neighborhood-lost Philadelphia and all the strongholds around it. He had gained but one victory worth naming that at Trenton. In the meantime, Burgoyne, an able soldier, with an admirable army, had walked into a trap on the North River, and had been taken by Gates and the northern army, who were most of them militia of New England. It is not wonderful that men doubted, and thought that the selfish, meanspirited, and loud-talking General Conway would do better than the modest Washington to command the army. 6. Samuel Adams wanted democratic rotation in office, that the general should be hired by the year! If he had not been possessed of great wealth, and cared for nothing, I think Washington's command had come to an end before 1778. But Dr. Franklin was on the other side of the sea; and, with consummate art, he had induced the French court to favor America with contributions of money and of arms, and, after the surrender of Burgoyne, to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and to make an open treaty of alliance, furnishing America with money and men, artillery and stores. Then, first, America began to uplift her drooping head.-Historic Americans. * Samuel Adams was born in Boston, in 1722. He and John Adams were related, having the same great-grandfather, making them second cousins. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His death occurred in Boston, in 1803. Life at Valley Forge.-Geo. W. Greene. 1. BUT even Valley Forge had its recreations. "Several general officers are sending for their wives," writes Lafayette to his own, “and I envy them, not their wives, but the happiness of being where they can see them." Mrs. Greene (wife of General Greene) had joined her husband early in January, bringing with her her summer's acquisition, a stock of French, that quickly made her little parlor the favorite resort of foreign officers. 2. There was often to be seen Lafayette, not yet turned of twenty-one, though a husband, a father, and a major-general; graver somewhat in his manners than strictly belonged either to his years or his country; and loved and trusted by all -by Washington and Greene especially. Steuben, too, was often there, wearing his republican uniform, as, fifteen years before, he had worn the uniform of the despotic Frederick; as deeply skilled in the ceremonials' of a court as in the manœuvring of an army; with a glittering star on his left breast, that bore witness to the faithful service he had rendered in his native Germany; and revolving in his accurate mind designs which were to transform this mass of physical strength, which Americans had dignified with the name of army, into a real army, which Frederick himself might have accepted. 3. He had but little English at his command, as yet; but at his side there was a mercurial' young Frenchman, Peter Duponceau (du-pong'so), who knew how to interpret both his graver thoughts and the lighter gallantries with which the genial old soldier loved to season his intercourse with the wives and daughters of his new fellow-citizens. As the years passed. away, Duponceau himself became a celebrated man, and loved to tell the story of these checkered days. 4. Another German, too, De Kalb, was sometimes seen there; taller, statelier, graver than Steuben, with the cold, observant eye of the diplomatist, rather than the quick glance of the soldier; though a soldier, too, and a brave and skillful one; caring very little about the cause he had forsaken his noble |