arrived from England with a powerful army, was invading the northern states by way of Canada, General Howe turned his attention toward Philadelphia. He resolved to proceed to that city by way of the Chesapeake bay, and accordingly embarked at Staten island, with about eighteen thousand troops, on board of the British fleet under Lord Howe. He left General Sir Henry Clinton, with a large force to defend New York, and in the latter part of July appeared off the capes of Delaware; but the fleet suddenly again put to sea, and its destination was for some time a matter of uncertainty to the Americans. In the meanwhile, Washington marched the main body of his army to Germantown, to await certain information respecting the movements of General Howe. During his suspense, he took an opportunity of conferring with committees of Congress, at Philadelphia, and it was at this time that he had his first interview with the Marquis de Lafayette, on his arrival from France, to offer his services to the Americans. Congress appointed the marquis a major-general in the army, and he was invited by General Washington to become a member of his military family, which position he maintained during the war.

The British fleet having sailed up the Chesapeake, reached Elk river on the twenty-fifth of August, where the troops, under Gen. Howe were landed, and commenced their march toward Philadelphia. The day before the landing of the British, the American army marched through Philadelphia, toward Wilmington, in Delaware. Advance parties from each army soon met, and several skirmishes took place.

As the British army approached, Washington took post on the river Brandywine, and awaited the attack of the enemy. A general action took place early on the eleventh of September, which continued all day, and terminated in favor of the British, who remained in possession of the field of battle, while the Americans retreated to Chester, and the following day to Philadelphia.

The British force in this engagement, was stated at about eighteen thousand; that of the Americans a little over eleven thousand. The American loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was over a thousand; that of the British was less than six hundred.

Washington made every exertion to repair the loss which had been sustained. The battle of Brandywine was represented as not being decisive. Congress and the people wished to hazard a second engagement, for the security of Philadelphia; General Howe sought for it, and Washington did not decline it. He therefore advanced on the Lancaster road, with an intention of meeting the British army. Both armies were on the point of engaging, but were prevented by a violent storm. When the rain ceased, the Americans finding that their ammunition was ruined, withdrew to a place of safety. The British instead of urging an action, afterward began to march toward Reading. To save the stores at that place, Washington took a new position, and left the British in undisturbed possession

of the roads which led to Philadelphia. His troops were worn down with a succession of severe duties. There were in his army above a thousand men who were barefooted, and who had performed all their late movements in that condition.

Though Washington had failed in his object of saving Philadelphia, yet he retained the confidence of Congress and the states. With an army inferior in numbers, discipline, and equipments, he had delayed the British army thirty days in advancing sixty miles through an open country, without fortifications.

The British army entered Philadelphia, on the twenty-sixth of September, and pushed forward to Germantown. Congress had previously adjourned to Lancaster. While the British camp at Germantown was weakened by detachments sent against the American forts on the Delaware, Gen. Washington, having received considerable reinforcements to his army, resolved to attack the enemy in their encampment. Accordingly, in the evening of the third of October, the Americans advanced in four divisions, and after a march of fourteen miles to Germantown, at daybreak the next morning took the British by surprise. A battle commenced, and for a time victory seemed to incline to the Americans; but finally, after a severe action, they were repulsed with great slaughter, losing about eleven hundred men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The British loss was not more than half that number. General Howe shortly after evacuated Germantown, and concentrated his forces at Philadelphia, where the British army under his command took up their winter-quarters. Howe at first directed his attention to the opening of the navigation of the Delaware river, which had been obstructed by many ingenious contrivances placed there by the Americans. This task employed the British for more than six weeks; and after a great display of gallantry on both sides, it was finally accomplished.

When the Delaware was cleared, and there was a free inland communication for the British between Philadelphia and New York, Gen. Howe determined to close the campaign by an attack upon Washington, then stationed at Whitemarsh, about eleven miles from Philadelphia. On the night of the fourth of December, Howe marched out of the city and took post upon Chestnut Hill, in front of the American army, which had been reinforced by detachments from the northern army. Finding Washington's position too strong to risk a general attack, after a few days' skirmishing, Howe fell back upon Philadelphia.

While the British arms were successful on the banks of the Delaware, intelligence arrived that General Burgoyne and the British army of the north, had surrendered prisoners-of-war, to the American northern army under General Gates. This event took place at Saratoga, in the state of New York, on the seventeenth of October. On the receipt of this important information, General Washington took measures to obtain large

reinforcements to the forces under his immediate command, from the victorious troops of the north. He therefore deputed one of his aids, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, to wait on General Gates, and communicate his wishes to that officer. In his letter of instructions to Hamilton, General Washington writes as follows, under date of October 30, 1777 :

"It has been judged expedient by the members of a council of war held yesterday, that one of the gentlemen of my family should be sent to General Gates, in order to lay before him the state of this army, and the situation of the enemy, and to point out to him the many happy consequences that will accrue from an immediate reinforcement being sent from the northern army. I have thought proper to appoint you to that duty, and desire that you will immediately set out for Albany.

"What you are chiefly to attend to is, to point out to General Gates the absolute necessity that there is for his detaching a very considerable part of the army, at present under his command, to the reinforcement of this ; a measure that will, in all probability, reduce General Howe to the same situation in which General Burgoyne now is, should he attempt to remain in Philadelphia.

"I have understood that General Gates has already detached Nixon's and Glover's brigades to join General Putnam. If this be a fact, you are to desire General Putnam, to send the two brigades forward with the greatest expedition, as there can be no occasion for them there."

To the president of Congress, Washington also wrote on the first of November as follows: "I can not conceive that there is any object, now remaining, that demands our attention and most vigorous efforts so much as the destruction of the [British] army in this quarter. Should we be able to effect this, we shall have little to fear in future." And on the seventeenth of November, he wrote to the same functionary thus: "I am anxiously waiting the arrival of the troops from the northward, who ought to have been here before this. The want of these troops has embarrassed all my measures exceedingly."

Instead of promptly seconding the desires of Washington, when communicated to them by Hamilton, Generals Gates and Putnam were unwilling to part with a sufficient number of the troops under their respective commands to effect the object designed. The former general was then contemplating an expedition to Ticonderoga, and the latter an attack on the British forces in New York. After considerable delay, those generals, at the urgent request of Colonel Hamilton, finally sent on about five thousand men to the aid of General Washington; but in the meantime, Sir Henry Clinton, who commanded the British forces stationed at the city of New York, detached about six thousand men to the aid of General Howe in Philadelphia.

Thus, will it be seen, that the well-formed plans of General WashingGeneral Putnam then commanded the troops on the Hudson river, below the Highlands.

ton, to follow up the capture of the British army under Burgoyne, by that of the forces under Howe, were frustrated by the want of cordial cooperation on the part of Gates and Putnam. Had Washington succeeded by their prompt aid in effecting his purposes at Philadelphia, he would doubtless have moved upon New York, and by an attack upon that city, with the whole American forces, have either compelled the surrender of the forces under Sir Henry Clinton, or the evacuation by them of that point; and thus the campaign of 1777 would have been closed by a succession of American victories and British reverses, from which the latter could not have recovered. Is it too much to say, that in that event, Great Britain would have sought for peace in 1778, as she did afterward in 1782, and that the American alliance with France, would have thus been rendered unnecessary? This view is confirmed by the correspondence of Washington, who evidently was of opinion that a protracted war for years was unnecessary. In a letter to John Parke Custis, dated, February 28, 1781, more than three years after the fall of Philadelphia, he says, “We have brought a cause, which might have been happily terminated years ago by the adoption of proper measures, to the very verge of ruin," &c.

The following extract of a letter from Washington to Patrick Henry, dated November 13, 1777, soon after the British had entered Philadelphia, throws farther light upon the state of affairs at this period; and shows particularly that Washington's army had been weakened by reinforcements sent to the aid of General Gates.

I was left to fight two battles, in order if possible to save Philadelphia, with less numbers than composed the army of my antagonist, while the world has given us double.

"How different is the case in the northern department. There the states of New York and New England, resolving to crush Burgoyne, continued pouring in their troops till the surrender of that army. Had the same spirit pervaded the people of this and the neighboring states, we might before this time have had General Howe nearly in the situation of General Burgoyne.

'My own difficulties in the course of the campaign have been not a little increased by the extra aid of continental troops which the gloomy prospect of our affairs, immediately after the reduction of Ticonderoga, induced me to spare from this army."

The campaign of 1777 having closed, Washington communicated in general orders his intention of retiring with his army into winter-quarters. He expressed to his officers and soldiers his high approbation of their past conduct; gave an encouraging statement of the prospects of the country, and exhorted the men to bear the hardships inseparable from their condition. Valley Forge, about twenty miles northwest from Philadelphia, was selected by Washington for the winter-quarters of the * Ticonderoga was taken by Burgoyne, on the 5th of July, 1777.

army. This position was preferred to distant and more comfortable villages, as being calculated to give security to the country from the enemy. In the latter end of December, the troops were compelled to build huts for their own accommodation, and during the winter, which was unusually severe, their sufferings were great, from want of both clothing and food, Washington was compelled to make seizures from the inhabitants, as he was authorized by Congress to do, for the sustenance of his army. The commander-in-chief and his principal officers sent for their wives, from the different states to which they belonged, to pass the winter with their husbands at headquarters.

To the other vexations and troubles which crowded on General Washington at this time, was added one of a peculiar nature. This was the formation of a cabal among members of Congress, and a few officers in the northern division of the army, the object of which was to supersede him in the command of the army, or to induce his resignation. This intrigue is known in American history under the name of Conway's cabal. Generals Gates, Mifflin, and Conway, are the only officers of note who were known to have been engaged in it. The former of these generals was proposed to supersede Washington. About the same time a board of war was created by Congress, of which General Gates was appointed president.

These machinations did not abate the ardor of Washington in the common cause. His patriotism was too solid to be shaken, either by envy or ingratitude. Nor was the smallest effect produced in diminishing his wellearned reputation. Zeal the most active, and services the most beneficial, and at the same time disinterested, had riveted him in the affections of his country and the army. Even the victorious troops under Gen. Gates, though comparisons highly flattering to their vanity, had been made between them and the army in Pennsylvania, clung to Washington as their political savior. The resentment of the people was generally excited against those who were supposed to be engaged in, or friendly to, the scheme of appointing a new commander-in-chief over the American army.*

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The sufferings of the army while encamped at Valley Forge, are memmorable in the history of the war. They were not only greatly in want of the necessary supplies of food, but of blankets and clothing. Naked and starving as they are," says Washington in one of his letters, "we can not enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery, that they have not been ere this excited by their sufferings, to a general mutiny and desertion." Although the officers were better provided than the soldiers, yet none were exempt from privations and hardships. When the encampment was begun at Valley Forge, the whole number of men in the field was 11,098, of whom 2,898, were unfit for duty, "being barefoot and otherwise naked." Much of the suffering of the army was

* Ramsay.