misery was to gain fresh courage. It was at Valley Forge, rather than in great battles, that American patriotism showed most clearly. In the lonely country, too, there was patriotism. The women were doing men's work, because the men were in the army. The letters which traveled between the camp and the country farms are records of patient endurance. The great work of the winter was in the drilling and training of the ragged regiments at Valley Forge. This was especially the work of Steuben, who turned the camp into a great military school; and when the winter was over he had made a solid, well-disciplined army.1 The French alliance A French fleet was on 47. Battle of Monmouth Court House. had made America confident of success. its way, and the British government ordered Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe, to concentrate his forces in New York. Clinton proposed to cross New Jersey to Sandy Hook, where his fleet would transport the troops to New York. Washington immediately set his own army in motion to intercept the British, and fell upon them at Monmouth Court House. The battle that followed was a disastrous one for both sides. It might have been a victorious one for the Americans, June 28, but for the disobedience to Washington's orders. shown by Charles Lee, who had returned to his command and was an active member of the Conway Cabal. Washington saved the day, and his army kept the field. time his supremacy was unquestioned. Lee was court-martialed and was deprived of his command for a year. 1778. From that 48. Actions in 1778. There were no great engagements in the summer of 1778 after Monmouth. Washington took up his old position at White Plains and expected, with the aid of the French fleet, to reduce New York; but some of the vessels were too large to enter the harbor, and the fleet went to Newport, where the English destroyed the vessels they had there to prevent them from falling into the hands of the French. 1 See Guy Humphrey McMaster's poem, "The Old Continentals." A month later General Sullivan, in command of the American forces in Rhode Island, planned to attack the British at Newport, and depended upon the French fleet to aid him. But a British fleet came from New York, and the French went outside the harbor to attack it. A great storm arose which scattered all the vessels. The British fleet retired to New York, and the French fleet returned to Newport, but afterward put into Boston for repairs; and General Sullivan, after a gallant fight, was compelled to retreat. Aug. 29, 1778. Dec. 29, 1778. The First Campaign in the South. The British now changed their plan of operations. Instead of sending an army to attack Washington, they sent an expedition to the South, intending to occupy the Southern States. The expedition went by sea and captured Savannah. With this foothold they recovered possession in Georgia and set up again the royal governor in that State. But they did not at once push operations into the Carolinas. 49. The Foreign Alliance. Meanwhile Congress was relying largely on France and expecting peace at any moment. The people on the seaboard went about their business of farming, and left the army to the care of Congress; but though Congress could borrow some money abroad, it had no power to compel the States to raise money. Its own promises to pay, in the shape of paper money, or Continental currency, as it was called, became so worthless, that the phrase came into use, which still lingers, "not worth a Continental." France was playing her own game. She was not fighting merely to secure the independence of America. She meant that the United States should have its western boundary at the Alleghanies. She intended to recover for herself the great valley of the Mississippi, and to further her ends she drew Spain into the alliance. Operations on the Frontier. But while France and Spain were parceling out the western country between them, the people in that vast region were taking affairs into their own N hands. As early as 1776 the county of Kentucky in the State of Virginia had been formed, and in 1778 the frontiersmen had been pushing their way into the valleys of the Cumberland, the Kentucky, and the Ohio. The British commander at Detroit, Colonel Hamilton, proposed to use the Indians in an attack upon the settlements. But the frontiersmen, under George Rogers Clark, did not stand on the defensive. They carried the war into the country held by the British posts, and before the close of 1779 had brought all the region now included in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois under the control of the United States. Besides, another expedition had captured the English forts on the Mississippi as far south as Natchez. All this was important for another reason. The conquest and occupation of this region helped to block the design of France and Spain to make the Alleghanies the western boundary of the new United States. 50. Wayne's Exploit. At the East, in the same summer of 1779, occurred the brilliant exploit of General Anthony Wayne, "Mad Anthony Wayne," as he was called, for his daring, in the recapture of a half-finished fort at Stony Point on the Hudson, which General Clinton had seized. Wayne led his men in the night time up the steep, and in half an hour after the first shot was fired, captured the fort and all its stores. July 15, 1779. 51. Naval Engagements. At sea there were some remarkable engagements. The Americans had little that could be called a navy; but Congress issued letters of marque to merchant vessels. Under these letters the captains had authority to make war upon the enemy wherever found. There was of course little commerce possible, and many vessels were thus turned into privateers. The most famous of the captains of such vessels was John Paul Jones. He hovered about the English coast, and wrought such mischief among the merchantmen that he diminished the commerce of some ports one half. Benjamin Franklin, in his 1 Jones is really the hero in Cooper's exciting story, The Pilot. |