True to the Old Flag (Historical Novels - American Cycle). G. A. Henty

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СКАЧАТЬ woods in their rear. Here they made a stand and were only dislodged after a desperate resistance. The greater portion of them fled in all directions. Washington himself, with his guns and a small force, retreated eight miles from Chester and then marched by Derby to Philadelphia. Here he waited three days rallying his troops, and then, having recruited his stores from the magazines, marched away.

      All this time the British remained inactive on the ground they had won. In the battle the Americans lost 300 killed, 600 wounded, and 400 prisoners. Several guns were also taken. The British lost 100 killed and 400 wounded.

      On September 20 they advanced toward Philadelphia. The American General Wayne had concealed himself in the woods with 1500 men, with the intention of harassing the rear of the British army. News of this having been obtained, Major General Grey was dispatched at once to surprise him; he ordered his men not to load, but to rely wholly on the bayonet. The success of the expedition was complete. General Wayne's outpost was surprised and the British troops rushed into his encampment. Three hundred of the Americans were killed or wounded and 100 taken prisoners. The rest escaped through the woods. On the English side 1 officer was killed and 7 privates killed and wounded.

      The capture of Philadelphia was an important advantage to the British, but it could not be thoroughly utilized until the fleet could come up the river to the town. The American Congress, which had sat at Philadelphia until General Howe approached the town, had taken extensive measures for rendering the passage impracticable. Three rows of chevaux-de-frise, composed of immense beams of timber bolted and fastened together and stuck with iron spikes, were sunk across the channel, and these lines were protected by batteries. At these forts were fourteen large rowboats, each carrying a heavy cannon, two floating batteries carrying nine guns each, and a number of fireships and rafts.

      The forts commanding the chevaux-de-frise were abandoned on the approach of the British, and Captain Hammond of the Roebuck succeeded, in spite of the opposition of the enemy's boats and batteries, in making an opening through the chevaux-de-frise sufficiently wide for the fleet to pass.

      Large numbers of troops having been sent away from Germantown, a place seven miles from Philadelphia, where the main body of the British army were posted, General Washington determined to attempt the surprise of that position. For this purpose he re-enforced his army by drawing 1500 troops from Peekskill and 1000 from Virginia, and at daybreak on October 4, under cover of a thick fog, he made an attack on the troops posted at the head of the village.

      Half of the British force lay on one side of the village, and half on the other, and had the attack upon the place succeeded the British army would have been cut in two. The village was held by the Fortieth Regiment, who, fighting obstinately, were driven back among the houses. The Americans were pushing forward in five heavy columns, when Lieutenant Colonel Musgrave, who commanded the Fortieth, threw himself into a large stone house. Here he offered a desperate resistance, and so impeded the advance of the enemy that time was given for the rest of the British troops to get under arms.

      General Washington ordered a whole brigade of infantry to attack the house and turned four guns against it. Colonel Musgrave and his men resisted desperately and held the post until Major General Grey, with the Third Brigade, and Brigadier General Agnew, with the Fourth Brigade, came up and attacked the enemy with great spirit. The engagement was for some time very hot. At length a part of the right wing fell upon the enemy's flank, and the Americans retired with great precipitation. The fog was so dense that no pursuit could be attempted.

      On the part of the English 600 were killed and wounded. The loss of the Americans amounted to between 200 and 300 killed, 600 wounded, and 400 taken prisoners. General Howe had on the previous night been acquainted with the intention of General Washington to attack the place, and had he taken the proper measures to have received them the American army would have been destroyed. He took no measures whatever, gave no warning to the army, and suffered the camp to be taken by surprise.

      After this battle the fleet and army united, cleared away the chevaux-de-frise across the Delaware, and took the forts commanding them after some hard fighting.

      The passage of the Delaware being thus opened and the water communication secured, the army went to their winter quarters at Philadelphia.

      Captain Wilson, and his son had taken no part in any of these operations, as a short time after the capture of Harold and Harvey by the American cavalry the company had been disbanded. The men, when they entered the service, had volunteered for a year. This time already had been greatly exceeded—twenty months had passed since the battle of Bunker's Hill—and although the men were willing to continue to give their services so long as it appeared to them that there was a prospect of a favorable termination of the war, no such hope any longer remained in their minds. The great army which England had sent over had done nothing toward restoring the king's authority in the colonies, and if, after a year's fighting, its outposts were still within a few miles of New York, how could it be expected or even hoped that it could ever subdue a country containing hundreds of thousands of square miles? The retreat from the Delaware and the virtual handing over of New Jersey again to Washington was the finishing stroke which decided the volunteers to demand their discharge, according to the terms of their engagement. Except during the Canadian campaign they had had but little fighting, nor in such a warfare as that which General Howe was carrying on was there much scope for their services. Many of the gentlemen who formed the majority of the company, and who for the most part had friends and connections in England, sailed for that country; some had left wives and families on their estates when they took up arms; and most of them, despairing of the final success of the war, had instructed their agents to sell these estates for any sum that they would fetch; others—among them Captain Wilson—now followed their example. It was but a mere tithe of the value of the property that was obtained, for money was scarce in the colonies, and so many had sold out and gone to England, rather than take part on one side or the other of the fratricidal strife, that land and houses fetched but nominal prices.

      Mrs. Wilson had long since gone to England, and her husband, having made arrangements for the disposal of his property, now determined to join her. Fortunately he possessed means, irrespective of his estate in America. This had come to him through his wife, and his own fortune and the money obtained by the sale of his commission had remained invested in English securities. While determined on this course for himself, he left it to his son to choose his own career. Harold was now nearly eighteen, and his life of adventure and responsibility had made a man of him. His father would have preferred that he should have returned with him to England, but Harold finally decided upon remaining. In war men's passions become heated, the original cause of quarrel sinks into comparative insignificance, and the desire for victory, the determination to resist, and a feeling of something like individual hatred for the enemy become predominant motives of the strife.

      This was especially the case in the American war. On both sides there were many circumstances which heightened the passions of the combatants. The loyalists in the English ranks had been ruined by the action of their opponents—many had been reduced from wealth to poverty, and each man felt a deep passion of resentment at what he regarded his personal grievance. Then, too, the persistent misrepresentations both of facts and motives on the part of the American writers and speakers added to the irritation. The loyalists felt that there were vast numbers throughout the colonies who agreed with them and regarded Congress as a tyrannical faction rather than the expression of the general will. In this, no doubt, they were to some extent mistaken, for by this time the vast majority of the people had joined heart and soul in the conflict. Men's passions had become so stirred up that it was difficult for any to remain neutral; and although there were still large numbers of loyalists throughout the States, the vast bulk of the people had resolved that the only issue of the contest was complete and entire separation from the mother country.

      Harold had now entered passionately into the struggle. He was in constant contact with men who had been ruined by the war. He heard only one side of the question, and he was determined, so long as England СКАЧАТЬ