Life of General Lafayette; . f Reinforcements to the Bri-tish—Evacuation of the Forts, and withdrawal of the Troops fromNew Jersey—Gallant Conduct of Lafayette—Friendship betweenhim and Gen. Greene—Appointment of Lafayette to a Command—Sir William Howe declines to bring on an Engagement—Lafayetteappointed by Congress to invade Canada—That Enterprise aban-doned at his Instance—His narrow Escape from Capture—MasterlyRetreat, and high Honour won by it—Amusing Incident. FTER a continued struggle of morethan six weeks, the British army wasat last secured in the possession ofPhiladelphia, by opening
Life of General Lafayette; . f Reinforcements to the Bri-tish—Evacuation of the Forts, and withdrawal of the Troops fromNew Jersey—Gallant Conduct of Lafayette—Friendship betweenhim and Gen. Greene—Appointment of Lafayette to a Command—Sir William Howe declines to bring on an Engagement—Lafayetteappointed by Congress to invade Canada—That Enterprise aban-doned at his Instance—His narrow Escape from Capture—MasterlyRetreat, and high Honour won by it—Amusing Incident. FTER a continued struggle of morethan six weeks, the British army wasat last secured in the possession ofPhiladelphia, by opening a communi-cation with their fleet. Indeed, fromthe time of the battle of Brandy wine, in Sep-tember, to the day that the American armywent into winter-quarters at Valley Forge,nothing that could be effected without toogreat danger to the cause was left pubhc property was all safely removed fromPhiladelphia before the 26th of September, when theBritish army took possession. During the week. 34 LIFE OF LAFAYETTE. previous Congress had separated, and on the 27ththey met again at Lancaster. We have not space, nor is it pertinent to our sub-ject to describe all the operations of this the 4th of October occurred the battle of Ger-mantown, judiciously planned and auspiciously com-menced, but defeated by the confusion which arosefrom the dense fog, and other causes. The sharp-ness of the contest is shown by the number of killedand wounded. Upon the side there w^eretwo hundred killed, near thrice the number wounded,and four hundred prisoners lost. The British losswas about one hundred killed, and four hundredwounded. So pleased was Congress with the man-ner of the attempt, and the gallantry of the conductof the army, that their approbation of the plan ofthe enterprise, and of the courage with which it wasconducted, was formally expressed in very decidedterms; and what was better than all, as the affairwas considered by no means a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, booksubjectlafayet, bookyear1847
