A School History of the United States Part 15

[Footnote: 1 Among the wounded in this battle was a brilliant young Frenchman, the Marquis de Lafayette, who, early in 1777, came to America and offered his services to Congress as a volunteer without pay.]

Congress, which had returned to Philadelphia from Baltimore, now fled to Lancaster and later to York, Pa., and (September 26, 1777) Howe entered Philadelphia in triumph. October 4, Washington attacked him at Germantown, but was repulsed, and went into winter quarters at Valley Forge.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

%143. New York invaded.%--Though Washington had been defeated in the battles around Philadelphia, and had been forced to give that city to the British, his campaign made it possible for the Americans to win another glorious victory in the north. At the beginning of 1777 the British had planned to conquer New York and so cut the Eastern States off from the Middle States. To accomplish this, a great army under John Burgoyne was to come up to Albany by way of Lake Champlain. Another, under Colonel St. Leger, was to go up the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to Oswego and come down to Mohawk valley to Albany; while the third army, under Howe, was to go up the Hudson from New York and meet Burgoyne at Albany. True to this plan, Burgoyne came up Lake Champlain, took Ticonderoga (July 5), and, driving General Schuyler before him, reached Fort Edward late in July. There he heard that the Americans had collected some supplies at Bennington, a little village in the southwestern corner of Vermont, whither he sent 1000 men. But Colonel John Stark met and utterly destroyed them on August 16. Meanwhile St.

Leger, as planned, had landed at Oswego, and on August 3 laid siege to Fort Stanwix, which then stood on the site of the present city of Rome, N.Y. On the 6th the garrison sallied forth, attacked a part of St.

Leger's camp, and carried off five British flags. These they hoisted upside down on their ramparts, and high above them raised a new flag which Congress had adopted in June, and which was then for the first time flung to the breeze.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flag of the East India Company]

%144. Our National Flag.%--It was our national flag, the stars and stripes, and was made of a piece of a blue jacket, some strips of a white shirt, and some sc.r.a.ps of old red flannel.[1]

[Footnote 1: The flags used by the continental troops between 1775 and 1777 were of at least a dozen different patterns. A colored plate showing most of them is given in Treble's _Our Flag_, p. 142. In 1776, in January, Washington used one at Cambridge which seems to have been suggested by the ensign of the East India Company. That of this company was a combination of thirteen horizontal red and white stripes (seven red and six white) and the red cross of St. George. That of Washington was the same, with the British Union Jack subst.i.tuted for the cross of St. George. After the Declaration of Independence, the British Jack was out of place on our flag; and in June, 1777, Congress adopted a union of thirteen white stars in a circle, on a blue ground, in place of the British Union. After Vermont and Kentucky were admitted, in 1791 and 1792, the stars and stripes were each increased to fifteen. In 1818, the original number of stripes was restored, and since that time each new state, when admitted, is represented by a star and not by a stripe.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flag of the United Colonies]

[Ill.u.s.tration: British Union Jack]

%145. Capture of Burgoyne.%--When Schuyler heard of the siege of Fort Stanwix, he sent Benedict Arnold to relieve it, and St. Leger fled to Oswego. Then was the time for the expedition from New York to have hurried to Burgoyne's aid. But Howe and his army were then at sea. No help was given to Burgoyne, who, after suffering defeats at Bemis Heights (September 19) and at Stillwater (October 7), retreated to Saratoga, where (October 17, 1777) he surrendered his army of 6000 men to General Horatio Gates, whom Congress, to its shame, had just put in the place of Schuyler. Gates deserves no credit for the capture. Arnold and Daniel Morgan deserve it, and deserve much; for, judged by its results, Saratoga was one of the great battles of the world. The results of the surrender were four fold:

1. It saved New York state.

2. It destroyed the plan for the war.

3. It induced the King to offer us peace with representation in Parliament, or anything else we wanted except independence.

4. It secured for us the aid of France.

[Ill.u.s.tration: %Flag of the United States, 1777%]

%146. Valley Forge.%--The winter at Valley Forge marks the darkest period of the war. It was a season of discouragement, when mean spirits grew bold. Some officers of the army formed a plot, called from one of them the "Conway cabal," to displace Washington and put Gates in command. The country people, tempted by British gold, sent their provisions into Philadelphia and not to Valley Forge. There the suffering of the half-clad, half-fed, ill-housed patriots surpa.s.ses description.

But the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Then it was that an able Prussian soldier, Baron Steuben, joined the army, turned the camp into a school, drilled the soldiers, and made the army better than ever. Then it was that France acknowledged our independence, and joined us in the war.

%147. France acknowledges our Independence.%--In October, 1776, Congress sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris to try to persuade the French King to help us in the war. Till Burgoyne surrendered and Great Britain offered peace, Franklin found all his efforts vain.[1] But now, when it seemed likely that the states might again be brought under the British crown, the French King promptly acknowledged us to be an independent nation, made a treaty of alliance and a treaty of commerce (February 6, 1778), and soon had a fleet on its way to help us.

[Footnote 1: For an account of Franklin in France, see McMaster's _With the Fathers_, pp. 253-270.]

%148. The British leave Philadelphia.%--Hearing of the approach of the French fleet, Sir Henry Clinton, who in May had succeeded Howe in command, left Philadelphia and hurried to the defense of New York.

Washington followed, and, coming up with the rear guard of the enemy at Monmouth in New Jersey, fought a battle (June 28, 1778), and would have gained a great victory had not the traitor, Charles Lee, been in command.[2] Without any reason he suddenly ordered a retreat, which was fortunately prevented from becoming a rout by Washington, who came on the field in time to stop it.

[Footnote 2: After remaining a prisoner in the hands of the British from December, 1776, to April, 1778, Lee had been exchanged for a British officer.]

After the battle the British hurried on to New York, where Washington partially surrounded them by stretching out his army from Morristown in New Jersey to West Point on the Hudson.

%149. Stony Point.%--In hope of drawing Washington away from New York, Clinton in 1779 sent a marauding party to plunder and ravage the farms and towns of Connecticut. But Washington soon brought it back by dispatching Anthony Wayne to capture Stony Point, which he did (July, 1779) by one of the most brilliant a.s.saults in military history.

%150. Indian Raids.%--That nothing might be wanting to make the suffering of the patriots as severe as possible, the Indians were let loose. Led by a Tory[1] named Butler, a band of whites and Indians of the Seneca tribe of the Six Nations[2] marched from Fort Niagara to Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, and there perpetrated one of the most awful ma.s.sacres in history. Another party, led by a son of Butler, repeated the horrors of Wyoming in Cherry Valley, N.Y.

[Footnote 1: Not all the colonists desired independence. Those who remained loyal to the King were called Tories.]

[Footnote 2: By this time the Five Nations had admitted the Tuscaroras to their confederacy and had thus become the Six Nations.]

%151. George Rogers Clark%.--Meantime the British commander at Detroit tried hard to stir up the Indians of the West to attack the whole frontier at the same moment. Hearing of this, George Rogers Clark of Virginia marched into the enemy's country, and in two fine campaigns in 1778-1779 beat the British, and conquered the country from the Ohio to the Great Lakes and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi.

%152. Sullivan's Expedition%.--In 1779 it seemed so important to punish the Indians for the Wyoming and Cherry Valley ma.s.sacres that General Sullivan with an army invaded the territory of the Six Nations, in central New York, burned some forty Indian villages, and utterly destroyed the Indian power in that state.

%153. The South invaded%.--For a year and more there had been a lull in military operations on the part of the British. But they now began an attack in a new quarter. Having failed to conquer New England in 1775-1776, having failed to conquer the Middle States in 1776-1777, they sent an expedition against the South in December, 1778. Success attended it. Savannah was captured, Georgia was conquered, and the royal governor reinstated. Later, in 1779, General Lincoln, with a French fleet to help him, attempted to recapture Savannah, but was driven off with dreadful loss of life.

These successes in Georgia so greatly encouraged the British that in the spring of 1780 Clinton led an expedition against South Carolina, and (May 12) easily captured Charleston, with Lincoln and his army. By dint of great exertions another army was quickly raised in North Carolina, and the command given to Gates by Congress. He was utterly unfit for it, and (August 16, 1780) was defeated and his army almost destroyed at Camden by Lord Cornwallis. Never in the whole course of the war had the American army suffered such a crushing defeat. All military resistance in South Carolina was at an end, save such as was offered by gallant bands of patriots led by Marion, Sumter, and Pickens.

%154. The Treason of Arnold.%--The outlook was now dark enough; but it was made darker still by the treachery of Benedict Arnold. No officer in the Revolutionary army was more trusted. His splendid march through the wilderness to Quebec, his bravery in the attack on that city, the skill and courage he displayed at Saratoga, had marked him out as a man full of promise. But he lacked that moral courage without which great abilities count for nothing. In 1778 he was put in command of Philadelphia, and while there so abused his office that he was sentenced to be reprimanded by Washington. This aroused a thirst for revenge, and led him to form a scheme to give up the Hudson River to the enemy. With this end in view, he asked Washington in July, 1780, for the command of West Point, the great stronghold on the Hudson, obtained it, and at once made arrangements to surrender it to Clinton. The British agent in the negotiation was Major John Andre, who one day in September met Arnold near Stony Point. But most happily, as he was going back to New York, three Americans[1] stopped him near Tarrytown, searched him, and in his stockings found some papers in the handwriting of Arnold.

News of the arrest of Andre reached Arnold in time to enable him to escape to the British; he served with them till the end of the war, and then sought a refuge in England. Andre was tried as a spy, found guilty, and hanged.

[Footnote 1: The names of these men were Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart.]

%155. Victory at Kings Mountain.%--After the defeat of Gates at Camden, the British overran South Carolina, and in the course of their marauding a band of 1100 Tories marched to Kings Mountain, on the border line between the two Carolinas. There the hardy mountaineers attacked them (Oct. 7, 1780) and killed, wounded, or captured the entire band.

[Map: %CAMPAIGNS IN THE SOUTH 1778-1781%]

%156. Victory at the Cowpens%.--Meantime a third army was raised for use in the South and placed under the command of Nathanael Greene, than whom there was no abler general in the American army. With Greene was Daniel Morgan, who had distinguished himself at Saratoga, and by him a British force under Tarleton was attacked January 17, 1781, at a place called the Cowpens, and not only defeated, but almost destroyed.

Enraged at these reverses, Cornwallis took the field and hurried to attack Greene, who, too weak to fight him, began a masterly retreat of 200 miles across Carolina to Guilford Courthouse, where he turned about and fought. He was defeated, but Cornwallis was unable to go further, and retreated to Wilmington, N.C., with Greene in hot pursuit. Leaving the enemy at Wilmington, Greene went back to South Carolina, and by September, 1781, had driven the British into Charleston and Savannah.

Cornwallis, as soon as Greene left him, hurried to Petersburg, Va. A British force during the winter and spring had been plundering and ravaging in Virginia, under the traitor Arnold. Cornwallis took command of this, sent Arnold to New York, and had begun a campaign against Lafayette, when orders reached him to seize and fortify some Virginian seaport.

%157. Surrender of Cornwallis.%--Thus instructed, Cornwallis selected Yorktown, and began to fortify it strongly. This was early in August, 1781. On the 14th Washington heard with delight that a French fleet was on its way to the Chesapeake, and at once decided to hurry to Virginia, and surround Cornwallis by land while the French cut him off by sea.

Preparations were made with such secrecy and haste that Washington had reached Philadelphia while Clinton supposed he was about to attack New York. Clinton then sent Arnold on a raid into Connecticut to burn New London, in the hope of forcing Washington to return. But Washington kept straight on, hemmed Cornwallis in by land and sea, and October 19, 1781, forced the British general to surrender.

%158. The War on the Sea.%--The first step towards the foundation of an American navy was taken on October 13, 1775. Congress, hearing that two British ships laden with powder and guns were on their way from England to Quebec, ordered two swift sailing vessels to be fitted out for the purpose of capturing them. Two months later Congress ordered thirteen cruisers to be built, and named the officers to command them.

Meantime some merchant ships were purchased and collected at Philadelphia, from which city, one morning in January, 1776, a fleet of eight vessels set sail. As they were about to weigh anchor, John Paul Jones, a lieutenant on the flagship, flung to the breeze a yellow silk flag on which were a pine tree and a coiled rattlesnake, with this motto: "Don't tread on me." This was the first flag ever hoisted on an American man-of-war.

Ice in the Delaware kept the fleet in the river till the middle of February, when it went to sea, sailed southward to New Providence in the Bahamas, captured the town, brought off the governor, some powder and cannon, and after taking several prizes got safely back to New London.

Soon after the squadron had left the Delaware, the _Lexington_, Captain John Barry in command, while cruising off the Virginia coast, fell in with the _Edward_, a British vessel, and after a spirited action captured her. This was the first prize brought in by a commissioned officer of the American navy.[1]

[Footnote 1: John Barry was a native of Ireland; he came to America at thirteen, entered the merchant marine, and at twenty-five was captain of a ship. At the opening of the war Barry offered his services to Congress, and in February, 1776, was put in command of the _Lexington_.

After his victory he was transferred to the twenty-eight-gun frigate _Effingham_, and in 1777 (while blockaded in the Delaware) with twenty-seven men in four boats captured and destroyed a ten-gun schooner and four transports. When the British captured Philadelphia, Barry took the _Effingham_ up the river; but she was burned by the enemy. In 1778, in command of the thirty-two-gun frigate _Raleigh_, he sailed from Boston, fell in with two British frigates, and after a fight was forced to run ash.o.r.e in Pen.o.bscot Bay. Barry and his crew escaped, and in 1781 carried Laurens to France in the frigate _Alliance_. On the way out he took a privateer, and while cruising on the way home captured the _Atalanta_ and the _Trepa.s.sey_ after a hard fight. As Barry brought in the first capture by a commissioned officer of the United States navy, so he fought the last action of the war in 1782; but the enemy escaped.

When the navy was reorganized in 1794, Barry was made senior captain, with the t.i.tle of Commodore. In 1798 he commanded the frigate _United States_ in the war with France. He died in 1803.]

In March, 1776, Congress began to issue letters of marque, or licenses to citizens to engage in war against the enemy; and then the sea fairly swarmed with privateers.

In 1777 the American flag was seen for the first time in European waters, when a little squadron of three ships set sail from Nantes in France, and after cruising on the Bay of Biscay went twice around Ireland and came back to France with fifteen prizes. As France had not then acknowledged our independence, they were ordered to depart. Two did so; but one of them, the _Lexington_, was captured by the British, and the other, the _Reprisal_, was wrecked at sea.

%159. Paul Jones.%--Meanwhile our commissioners in France, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, fitted out a cruiser called the _Surprise_.

She sailed from Dunkirk on May 1, 1777, and the next week was back with a British packet as a prize. For this violation of French neutrality she was seized. But another ship, the _Revenge_, was quickly secured, which scoured the British waters, and actually entered two British ports before she sailed for America. The exploits of these and a score of other ships are cast into the shade, however, by the fights of John Paul Jones, the great naval hero of the Revolution. He sailed from Portsmouth, N.H., November 1, 1777, refitted his ship in the harbor of Brest, and in 1778 began one of the most memorable cruises in our naval history. In the short s.p.a.ce of twenty-eight days he sailed into the Irish Channel, destroyed four vessels, set fire to the shipping in the port of Whitehaven, fought and captured the British armed schooner _Drake_, sailed around Ireland with his prize, and reached France in safety.

For a year he was forced to be idle. But at last, in 1779, he was given command of a squadron of five vessels, and in August sailed from France.

Pa.s.sing along the west coast of Ireland, the fleet went around the north end of Scotland and down the east coast, capturing and destroying vessel after vessel on the way. On the night of September 23, 1779, Jones (in his ship, named _Bonhomme Richard_ in honor of Franklin's famous _Poor Richard's Almanac_) fell in with the _Serapis_, a British frigate. The two ships grappled, and, lashed side by side in the moonlight, fought one of the most desperate battles in naval annals. At the end of three hours the _Serapis_ surrendered, but the _Bonhomme Richard_ was a wreck, and next morning, giving a sudden roll, she filled and plunged bow first to the bottom of the North Sea. Jones sailed away in the _Serapis_.