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summoned to surrender, with the threat of extremities in the event of refusal. The threat was bravely dared. The next morning, Magaw, who was in command, proceeded to dispose of his forces, amounting in all to nearly three thousand men. The greater part of this garrison was stationed outside of the fort, for want of room within.

The south side of the fort was menaced by Lord Percy with sixteen hundred men, and to oppose him, in this direction, Colonel Lambert Cadwallader was dispatched with a Pennsylvania force of only half that number. Colonel Rawlings, of Maryland, with a company of riflemen, was placed by a small battery on a bold hill to the northward, (the spot now called old Fort Tryon,) to oppose the second of the enemy's threatened attack, under Knyphausen, who, with his Hessians, was posted with cannon-shot on the York side of King's Bridge.

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Colonel Baxter, of Pennsylvania, was placed with his militia on a rough wooded height east of the fort, and overlooking the Harlem River. This point was the locality now known as Fort George. Col onel Baxter was to meet the third of the enemy's attack talion of guards and of light infantry under Brigadier-General Mathew, who, according to the enemy's programme, was to cross the Harlem River on flat-boats toward the right of the fort. The fourth proposed attack of the enemy was under Colonel Sterling, who, as a feint to distract the attention of the Americans, was to drop down the Harlem River in boats to the left of the fort.

The enemy's several assaults were made simultaneously, beginning about noon of the 16th. The action was commenced by booming cannon and volleys of musketry. Knyphausen's division, commanded by himself and by Colonel Rahl, conquered all the opposing obstructions of woods and rocks, and despite the bold defence of Rawlings, soon drove him and his force back to the fort. The Americans under

Baxter were no less steady in their resistance than was Colonel Rawlings, but with no better fortune than he. Baxter himself was killed, and his men driven back into the fort.

Cadwallader, in the mean while, was making a brave defence to the southward against the enemy under Lord Percy; but he, too, was at length compelled to retreat under the additional pressure of an attack by General Mathew-who had previously driven in Baxter's divisionand of the threatened approach, on the rear, of Colonel Sterling.

Thus were the assailants victorious at all points, though only after the most obstinate resistance every where, and with a terrible loss in killed and wounded.

Washington and several of his officers were eager spectators of the disastrous struggle, from the opposite shore of the Hudson. When he saw the flag, which heralded the second summons to surrender, carried into the ill-fated fortress, he hastily wrote a note to Magaw, promising to bring off his garrison if he could sustain himself until evening. This message was daringly delivered by Captain Gooch, of Boston, who passed and repassed safely across the river and amidst the balls and bayonets of the British. The embassy was, however, too late. Magaw and his garrison were wholly in the power of their opponents, and nothing remained but to surrender themselves prisoners-of-war, with no other terms than the retention of their swords by the officers and of their baggage by the men. 'It was,' said Lee at the time, 'a cursed affair.'

Washington, in writing of the affair to his brother Augustine, says: 'This is a most unfortunate affair, and has given me great mortification: as we have lost not only two thousand men that were there, but a good deal of artillery and some of the best arms we had. And what adds to my mortification is, that this post, after the last ships went past it, was held contrary

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teries to protect the obstructions, I did not care to give an absolute order for withdrawing the garrison, till I could get round and see the situation of things; and then it became too late, as the place was invest

ed. Upon the

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passing of the last ships I had given it as my opinion to General Greene, under whose care it was, that it would be best to evacuate the place; but as the order was discretionary, and his opinion differed from mine, it was unhappily delayed too long, to my great grief.'

The lowering of the American flag and its replacement by the British standard ended the military history of Fort Washington, though it was afterwards strengthened and long garrisoned by the enemy.

The unhappy prisoners according to Howe's returns, two thousand eight hundred and eighteen in number- were marched off to the city at midnight, and there wretchedly incarcerated.

After the fall of Fort Washington there remained no longer any hope of obstructing the passage of the Hudson at this point, so the works at Fort Lee, opposite, being of no further use, were soon after abandoned. The retreat thence immediately preceded the events which occurred in the neighborhood of the Hackensack, west of the Hudson,

This is the ancient story of that part of the Hudson described in the opening of our chapter as the charming lawn and villa-covered suburbs of our great Metropolis.

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'MEN wear their beards, in mourning for their brains,'
Says C, GOD's own fashion to oppose:

To scrape his face he daily takes the pains,
To show the world that he has none to lose.

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powers of its magic waters with the same intuitive skill with which they were wont to discern the medicinal virtues of the herbs and trees of the forest. To be sure they subjected the brooks to no scientific analysis, and knew nothing of sodium and soda, of lime or magnesia, of hydrogen or oxygen, or of the thousand-and-one unpronounceable diseases to which the waters give relief; but they nevertheless always adapted the cure to the complaint, as effectually as the most learned Esculapius of our own wise age.

The name of Saratoga, which was bestowed by the red men, and its signification, assure us of their knowledge both of the place itself and of its peculiar character. The Sara, or Sarat, to their ears meant salt; and the aga, or oga, implied merely place: thus their ancient Sar-agh-oga, was, like our modern one, the place of salt springs. We may imagine the unctuous 'ugh' of content or disgust, according to taste, with which an antediluvian Hole-in-the-Day bent down in the primeval woods, and pushing aside the weeds and snakes, won an ap petite for breakfast from the bubbling brooklet. The scene must have been more picturesque, though may be less comfortable, than that now presented of the beaux and belles daintily touching the crystal goblet with gloved fingers, or guarding their silken robes, as they drink, from the dampness of the tesselated marble floors.

Be the time long or short-generations or centuries-of the aboriginal knowledge of our springs, it is certain that it very considerably ante-dated the information of the white race, which itself is of respectable antiquity.

The first European name upon the visitors' record at Saratoga is that of Sir William Johnson. This was at the period of the French and Indian war, a hundred years or more ago. He arrived neither

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by rail, as we do to-day, nor in his

carriage, as our great-grandmothers used to do, but through the bush and brake of the wild Indian trail, as best he could; and he found shelter under the broad and hospitable roof of no Union or Congress Halls, but in his simple forest tent alone. He tasted and tested the waters for us, recruited his health and spirits thereby, and left the same high re course as a legacy to us and to our posterity forever. For this invaluable service, and for the charms which in legend and story his military career cast over all this region,

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