Washington Confronting Howe in Delaware and Pennsylvania

Early the next morning, the chain and boom were broken by the British, and a flying squadron of light vessels under Sir James Wallace, bearing the whole of Sir Henry's land force, went up the Hudson to devastate its shores, and draw from Gates some of the troops that stood in the pathway of Burgoyne, for the protection of the country below. Sir Henry wrote a despatch to Burgoyne, on a piece of tissue paper, saying: "Here we are, and nothing between us and Gates." He inclosed it in a hollow silver bullet, gave it to a careful messenger, and returned to New York. That messenger was arrested in the American camp, in Orange county, as a spy. He swallowed the bullet. It was brought from his stomach by an emetic, and its contents being discovered, the bearer was hanged.

The marauders spread terror over the middle region of the Hudson, by their doings. They landed near Kingston, where the New York legislature were in session, and burned the village. Their advent was very sudden, for they moved with great celerity. Near their landing-place, some Dutchmen were at work. They fled in terror (not stopping to look back) across a meadow, in which the hay-makers had left a rake lying the previous summer. On this one of the flying Dutchmen trod, when the handle flew up and struck him on the back of the head. Not doubting it was a blow from a pursuing Briton, the fugitive threw up his arms and exclaimed, "Mein Got! I gives up! Hurrah for King Shorge!"

Leaving Kingston in ashes, the marauders went over to Rhinebeck, and destroyed much property there, and then went up to Livingston's Manor and applied the torch. There they were arrested by the alarming news of Burgoyne's defeat, and made a hasty retreat to New York. So ended the efforts to carry out the plan of the British ministry for taking possession of the valleys of the Hudson and Lake Champlain.

While the stirring events just delineated were occurring in the north, the republican army under Washington were struggling with royal troops and German hirelings under Sir William Howe in the vicinity of the Delaware River. We have observed that Washington, when he was certain that Howe would not ascend the Hudson, moved with his army to Philadelphia, expecting to meet his antagonist south of that city. His expectations were justified by events. Late in August he learned that Lord Howe's fleet, with his brother's army, was ascending Chesapeake Bay; and on the 24th of the month, Washington marched his army from Philadelphia, and arrived at Wilmington, in Delaware, the next day, at about the time when the British troops landed at near the head of the Elk River, fifty-four miles from the American capital. Howe immediately prepared to march across the gently rolling country inhabited chiefly by Tories, with the expectation of making an easy conquest of Philadelphia. His army numbered more than eighteen thousand men well supplied with munitions of war; Washington's effective force did not number over eleven thousand, including eighteen hundred Pennsylvania militia. The Congress had lavished all their favors upon Gates, the favorite of the New England delegation, who had just been sent to supersede Schuyler; and they treated Washington with positive neglect. "They did not scruple to slight his advice and to neglect his wants." With unbecoming and unpatriotic querulousness, some of the friends of Gates in Congress wrote and spoke disparagingly of Washington as a commander. Some of them were encouraging in the mind of Gates a hope that he would be the Virginian's successor in chief command. John Adams, with judgment warped by his partiality for Gates, wrote at this time: "We shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe's business; the Continental Army under Washington is more numerous by several thousands than Howe's whole force; the enemy give out that they are eighteen thousand strong, but we know better, and that they have not ten thousand. Washington is very prudent; I should put more to risk, were I in his shoes; but perhaps he is right. Gansevoort has proved that it is possible to hold a post, and Stark that it is practicable even to attack lines and posts with militia. I wish the Continental Army would prove that anything can be done. I am weary with so much insipidity. I am sick of Fabian systems. My toast is, a short and violent war." Adams was soon afterward satisfied that he was blinded by a sad delusion.