XXXVII. other to Chester, to escort up a train of provisions from CHAPTER the fleet, Washington resolved to take advantage of this opportunity to attack the British camp at Germantown. 1777. The troops marched in four columns; two, composed wholly of militia, were to gain the enemy's rear, one on each flank, while the other two, composed of Continentals, and led by Sullivan, and Greene, were to attack in front. These two columns, after marching all night, entered Germantown about sunrise. They took the en- Oct. 4. emy entirely by surprise, and seemed likely to carry every thing before them. But the morning was dark and foggy; a stone house, into which some companies of British light infantry had thrown themselves, and which several regiments of Greene's column stopped to attack, caused disorder and delay. Germantown was a village of one street, across which the British lay encamped at right angles. The ground in their front abounded with small but strong inclosures, which every where broke the line of the advancing troops. The regiments were separated; some stopped short early, while others advanced with vivacity. The darkness was such as to make it impossible for the officers to know their own position or that of the enemy. The flank attacks seemed to have failed altogether. The superior discipline of the British enabled them to take advantage of this confusion. They soon rallied, and attacked in their turn. Some of the American corps had expended their ammunition; others were seized with a sudden panic. What had promised to be a victory was soon changed into a defeat, and almost a rout. The British loss in this battle was upward of six hundred; the American loss exceeded a thousand, of whom four hundred were prisoners. Several valuable officers were slain. General Nash, while covering the retreat with his brigade, was mortally wounded. XXXVII. CHAPTER To make himself secure, Washington retired some twenty miles into the country. He had previously sent 1777. orders to the Highlands for twelve hundred men of the garrison there to march to his assistance. Information came at this unpropitious moment that the posts, thus weakened, had been attacked, and carried by the British. The apprehensions thus excited were, however, allayed by news of the surrender of Burgoyne. The troops from the Highlands soon joined the camp; some additional militia arrived from Maryland and a few from Virginia, and Washington reoccupied his old station. Besides Preparatory to an attack on the defenses of the DelOct 19. aware, Howe drew his forces close to Philadelphia. The works at Billingsport had been already captured, the obstructions in the river opposite removed, and batteries erected to play on Forts Mercer and Mifflin. several. Continental vessels, there was a flotilla in the river, commanded by Hazelwood, belonging to the State of Pennsylvania. In an attack on the enemy's batteries, the Delaware Continental frigate had been lost; and the crews of the flotilla were so discouraged, that many, both officers and men, deserted to the enemy. But Hazelwood did not despair. With the Pennsylvania galleys and the Continental vessels, now also placed under his command, he prepared for a desperate resistance. Two Rhode Island regiments, under Colonel Greene, garrisoned the fort at Red Bank; Colonel Smith, of the Maryland line, held Fort Mifflin. These forts, with the last remaining obstructions which they guarded, it was determined to hold to the last extremity. Could the communication between the British fleet and army be prevented, Howe might yet be compelled to evacuate the city. To attack the post at Red Bank, Count Donop, with THE AMERICANS DRIVEN FROM THE DELAWARE. 225 XXXVII. twelve hundred picked men, crossed the Delaware at CHAPTER Philadelphia, and marched down the Jersey side, while several British ships of war ascended the river as high 1777. as the obstructions would admit, and opened a furious Oct. 22. cannonade on Fort Mifflin and the flotilla. On Donop's approach, Greene abandoned the outworks of Red Bank, and retired into the principal redoubt. The assaulting column was received with a terrible fire of musketry and grape; Donop fell mortally wounded, and the attack was repulsed with a loss to the enemy of four hundred men. This was the first assault in the course of the war which the Americans had repulsed. Of the ships which assailed Fort Mifflin, the Augusta sixty-four was blown up, the Merlin frigate was burned, and the others retired with heavy damage. Here Every effort was made to strengthen and supply the forts in the Delaware; but the hopes raised by the defense of Red Bank were doomed to disappointment. The British, re-enforced from New York, took possession of Province Island, a low mud bank similar to Mud Island, and separated from it only by a narrow channel. they erected batteries, which kept up a constant fire on Fort Mifflin. The defense was most gallant; the gar rison laboring by night to repair the breaches made during the day. But this could not last long; the ramparts crumbled under the continued fire; the enemy's ships approached within a hundred yards of the fort; and the place was pronounced no longer tenable. The garrison was accordingly withdrawn; Red Bank also was Nov. 16. evacuated; the remaining obstructions in the river were removed by the British, and a communication was at last opened between the enemy's fleet and army. During these operations, Washington had written repeatedly to Putnam and Gates to send on re-enforce XXXVII. CHAPTER ments from the Highlands and the northern army. When these letters seemed not to be attended to, he dis1777. patched Hamilton with ample powers and discretionary authority to hasten forward the troops. Gates had sent to the southward more than five thousand men; but these forces were detained by Putnam, who now had nine thousand men, besides the militia which had recently joined him. He seemed to be revolving some scheme for retaliating his late loss of the Highlands by an attack on New York, and it required a very pointed and au thoritative letter from Hamilton, who does not seem to have formed a very high opinion of Putnam's military capacity, to put on the march the troops which Washington had demanded. Hamilton then proceeded to Albany, and, not without some reluctance on the part of Gates, obtained two additional brigades. They did not arrive, however, any more than the troops from Putnam's camp, till after the British had gained the command of the Delaware. Some of Washington's more ardent officers were earnest for an attack on Philadelphia; but, after mature consideration by a council of war, that scheme was abandoned. Congress meanwhile, in session at York, on the west side of the Susquehanna, determined to establish a new Board of War, to be composed of persons not members of Congress. John Adams, thus released from his arduous duties as head of the Committee of War, was sent to France as one of the commissioners to that court, Deane being recalled to give an account of his conduct, especially in the matter of the extravagant promises he had made to foreign officers. Having acted for two years and more as president of Nov. Congress, Hancock resigned, and was succeeded by Henry XXXVII. Laurens, of South Carolina. The Articles of Confedera- CHAPTER tion, the consideration of which had been resumed in April, having been agreed to at last after repeated and warm 1777. debates, were now sent out with a circular letter, urging Nov. 17. upon the states immediate ratification. But, on the part of some of the states, ratification was long delayed. A more urgent subject of deliberation was that of finance. Since the issue of the ten millions of new bills authorized early in the year, to which two millions more had been added in August, the depreciation had become alarming. Anxious to fill their treasury without further issues, Congress had pressed the subject of loans, and, as a new inducement to lenders, had offered to pay the interest on all money advanced before March, 1778, in bills drawn on their commissioners in France. It became necessary, however, to authorize a million more of Continental bills, and another million soon after, making Dec. the amount issued up to the end of the year thirty-four millions. The depreciation, meanwhile, increased so rapidly, that the bills, nearly at par for the first three months of the year, had sunk, by the end of it, to three or four for one. Credit failing at home, Congress looked earnestly abroad, and their commissioners at the courts of France and Spain were instructed anew to exert their utmost endeavors to obtain loans. Nov. The scheme for regulating prices by law had proved a complete failure; so much so, that a convention of delegates from New England and New York, assembled at Springfield during the past summer to concert measures July 30. for the defense of Rhode Island and for an attack on Newport, had recommended the repeal of all acts for regulating prices, and to substitute for them laws against forestalling and engrossing, by which was meant the accumulation of stocks in the hands of merchants and |