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Nov.

of nationality was forming. The framers of the CHAP. confederacy would not admit into that instrument the name of the people of the United States, and 1777. described the states as so many sovereign and independent communities; yet already in the circular letter of November, 1777, to the states, asking their several subscriptions to the plan of confederacy, they avowed the purpose to secure to the inhabitants of all the states an "existence as a free people." The child that was then born was cradled between opposing powers of evil; if it will live, its infant strength must strangle the twin serpents of separatism and central despotism.

17

XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVII.

WINTER-QUARTERS AT VALLEY FORGE.

NOVEMBER, 1777- APRIL, 1778.

CHAP. WHEN at last Washington was joined by troops from the northern army, a clamor arose for the Nov. capture of Philadelphia. Protected by the Schuyl

1777.

kill and the Delaware, the city could be approached only from the north, and on that side a chain of fourteen redoubts extended from river to river. Moreover, the army by which it was occupied, having been reënforced from New York by more than three thousand men, now exceeded nineteen thousand. Yet four American officers voted in council for an assault upon the lines of this greatly superior force; but the general, sustained by eleven, disregarded the murmurs of congress and rejected "the mad enterprise."

Ashamed of inaction, Sir William Howe announced to his government his intention to make a forward movement. Washington, with a quickness of eye that had been developed by his forest-life as a sur

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Dec.

veyor, selected in the woods of Whitemarsh strong CHAP. ground for an encampment, and there, within fourteen miles of Philadelphia, awaited the enemy, of 1777. whose movements he received exact and timely intelligence. On the severely cold night of the fourth of December, the British, fourteen thousand strong, marched out to attack the American lines. Before daybreak on the fifth, their advance party halted on a ridge beyond Chestnut hill, eleven miles from Philadelphia, and at seven their main body formed in one line, with a few regiments as reserves. The Americans occupied thickly wooded hills, with a morass and a brook in their front. Opposite the British left wing a breastwork defended the only point where the brook could be easily forded. About noon, General Irvine, who led some Pennsylvania militia into a skirmish, was wounded and taken prisoner, and his party were dispersed. At night the British force rested on their arms, and the hills far and wide blazed with the innumerable fires of the two armies. Washington passed the hours in strengthening his position; and though from sickness, fatigue, and want of clothing, he had at most but eleven thousand, according to Kalb, who was present, but seven thousand really effective men, he wished for an engagement. Near the end of another day Howe marched back to Germantown, and on the next, as if intending a surprise, suddenly returned upon the American left, which he made preparations to assail. Washington rode through every brigade, delivering in person his orders on the manner of receiving their enemy, exhorting to a reliance on the bayonet;

CHAP. and his words, and still more his example, inspired XXVII. them with his own fortitude. All day long, and until 1777 eight in the evening, Howe kept up his recon

Dec.

noitring, but found the American position everywhere strong by nature and by art. Nothing occurred during the day but a sharp action on Edge hill, between light troops under Gist and Morgan's riflemen and a British party led by General Grey. The latter lost eighty-nine in killed and wounded; the Americans twenty-seven, among them the brave Major Morris of New Jersey. On the eighth, just after noon, the British suddenly filed off, and marched by the shortest road to Philadelphia. Their loss in the expedition exceeded one hundred. Thus the campaign closed. Howe had gone out with superior numbers and the avowed intention of bringing on a battle, and had so respected his adversary that he would not engage him without some advantage of ground. Henceforward he passed the winter behind his intrenchments, making only excursions for food or forage; and Washington had no choice but to seek winter-quarters for his suffering soldiers.

Military affairs had thus far been superintended by congress, through a committee of its own members. After some prelude in July, 1777, it was settled in the following October to institute an executive board of war of five persons not members of congress.

Conway, a French officer of Irish descent, whom Greene and others describe as "worthless," had long been eager for higher rank. In a timely letter to Richard Henry Lee, a friend to Conway, Washington wrote: "His merits exist more in his own

XXVII.

imagination than in reality; it is a maxim with CHAP. him not to want anything which is to be obtained by importunity;" his promotion would be "a real 1777. act of injustice," likely to "incur a train of irremediable evils. To sum up the whole, I have been a slave to the service; I have undergone more than most men are aware of to harmonize so many discordant parts; but it will be impossible for me to be of any further service, if such insuperable difficulties are thrown in my way." These words might be interpreted as a threat of resignation in the event of Conway's promotion. Conway breathed out his discontent to Gates, writing in substance: "Heaven has been determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad counsellors would have ruined it." The correspondents of Gates did not scruple in their letters to speak of the commander-in-chief with bitterness or contempt. "This army," wrote Reed, "notwithstanding the efforts of our amiable chief, has as yet gathered no laurels. I perfectly agree with that sentiment which leads to request your assistance." On the sixth of November, Wilkinson, the principal aid of Gates, a babbling and unsteady sycophant praised by his chief for military genius, was made a brigadier. brigadier. On the seventh, Mifflin, leaving his office of quartermastergeneral, of which he had neglected the duties, yet retaining the rank of major-general, was elected to the board of war. The injurious words of Conway having through Wilkinson been reported to Washington, on the ninth he communicated his knowledge of them to Conway, and to him alone. Conway, in an interview, justified them, made no apology, and