and without food. Seldom has war spread distress and ruin over a more delightful region.

New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard, Egg harbour, and Cherry valley, were also visited and ravaged by the enemy. All the property within reach was destroyed, and multitudes of peaceful and unoffending inhabitants were reduced to poverty and wretchedness.

But in no instance did the enemy evince more ferocious, unrelenting cruelty than in their attack upon Colonel Baylor's troop of light dragoons. While asleep in a barn at Tappan, they were surprised by a party under General Grey, who commanded his soldiers to use the bayonet only, and to give the rebels no quarter. Incapable of defence, they sued for mercy. But the most pathetic supplications were heard without awakening compassion in the commander. Nearly one half of the troop were killed. To many, repeated thrusts were barbarously given as long as signs of life remained. Several who had nine, ten, and eleven stabs through the body, and were left for dead, afterwards recovered. A few escaped, and forty were saved by the humanity of a British captain, who dared to disobey the orders of his general.

Late in the fall, the army under Washington erected huts near Middlebrook, in New Jersey, in which they passed the winter. In this campaign, but little on either side was accomplished. The alliance with France gave birth to expectations which events did not fulfil; yet the presence of her fleets on the coast deranged the plans of the enemy, and induced them to relinquish a part of

their conquests. At the close of the year, it was apparent that Great Britain had made no progress in the accomplishment of her purposes.

CHAPTER XXI.

CAMPAIGN OF 1779.

THE campaign of 1779 was distinguished by a change of the theatre of war, from the northern to the southern section of the confederacy. Thither the enemy were invited by the prospect of easier victory. The country was rendered weak by its scattered population, by the multitude of slaves, and by the number of tories intermingled with the whigs.

Near the close of the preceding year, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, with 2500 men, sailed from New York to the coast of Georgia, and landed his troops. Marching towards Savannah, the capital, he met on his route a small body of Americans, whom he defeated, and immediately took possession of the city. A detachment from Florida under General Prevost invested Sunbury, which, after the fall of the capital, surrendered at discretion. These were the only military posts in Georgia. All the troops that could escape retreated into South Carolina.

Soon after the conquest of Georgia, General Lincoln took command of the American troops in the southern department. In April, leaving South

Carolina, he marched into the interior of Georgia; upon which the British army, entering the state he had left, invested Charleston, the capital. Lincoln hastened back to its defence. On hearing of his approach, the enemy retired to Stono ferry, Thither Lincoln pursued them. An indecisive action was fought; and a few days afterwards they continued their retreat to Savannah.

The heat of the season suspended farther operations until September. Count de Estainge, with a fleet carrying 6000 troops, then arrived on the coast. The two armies, in concert, laid siege to Savannah. At the expiration of a month, the Count, impatient of delay, insisted that the siege should be abandoned, or that a combined assault upon the enemy's works should immediately be made. General Lincoln determined upon an assault. Great gallantry was displayed by the French and American, but greater by the British troops. They repulsed the assailants, killing and wounding nearly a thousand men, and sustaining on their part but little loss. The Count Pulaski, a celebrated polish nobleman, in the service of the states, was mortally wounded; the next day the siege was raised, the French returning home, and the Americans to South Carolina.

In the midst of these events, General Matthews, sailing from New York, conducted an expedition against Virginia. On the 10th of May, he took possession of Portsmouth, without opposition, and ravaged, for two weeks, that city and the adjacent country. The booty obtained, and the property destroyed, were of immense value. Before the

expiration of May, the party returned to New York.

Early in the season, Colonel Clark, of Virginia, who was stationed at Kaskaskia, on the Missisippi, achieved an enterprise conspicuous for boldness of design, and evincing uncommon hardihoood in its execution. With only one hundred and thirty men, he penetrated through the wilderness, to St. Vincents, a British post on the Wabash, in the heart of the Indian country. His route lay across deep swamps and morasses. For four or five miles the party waded through water, often as high as the breast. After a march of sixteen days, they reached the town, which, having no intimation of their approach, surrendered without resistance. A short time after, the fort capitulated. This fortunate achievement arrested an expedition which the enemy had projected against the frontiers of Virginia, and detached several tribes of Indians from the British interest.

The atrocities committed at Wyoming, and at several settlements in New York, cried aloud for vengeance. Congress assembling an army of 4000 men, gave the command of it to General Sullivan, and directed him to conduct it into the country inhabited by the savages, and retort upon them their own system of warfare. Of this army, one division marched from the Mohawk, the other from Wyoming, and both forming a junction on the Susquehannah, proceeded, on the 22d of August, towards the Seneca lake.

On an advantageous position, the Indians, in conjunction with 200 tories, had erected fortifica

tions to oppose their progress. These were assaulted; the enemy after a slight resistance gave way and disappeared in the woods. As the army advanced into the western part of the state of New York, that region now so fertile and populous, the Indians deserted their towns, the appearance of which denoted a higher state of civilization than had ever before been witnessed in the North American wilderness. The houses were commodious; the apple and peach-trees numerous, and the crops of corn then growing abundant. All were destroyed; not a vestige of human industry was permitted to exist.

Having acomplished this work of vengeance, severe but deserved, and essential to the future safety of the whites, Generl Sullivan returned to Easton, in Pennsylvania, where he arrived about the middle of October. His whole loss, by sickness and the enemy, amounted to but forty men.

On the first of July, General Tryon sailed from New York with a large body of troops, and landing on the coast of Connecticut, plundered New Haven, and laid Fairfield and Norfolk in ashes. Before his return, General Wayne, with a detachment from the American army, made a daring assault upon Stony Point, a strongly fortified post on the Hudson. About twelve at night, the troops, with unloaded muskets, arrived before the lines. They were received with a tremendous discharge of grape-shot and musketry. Rushing forward, they mounted the walls, and using the bayonet only, were soon in complete possession of the fort.