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Falconnet must have half a hundred men, red and white, in the powder train; and by this time he has learned from the Indian who reconnoitered us on the mountain that we are within striking distance. With the enemy forewarned, as he is, we might as well try to cut the women out of my Lord Cornwallis's headquarters."
This he did at Fredericksburg in June. The enemy seemed intent upon destroying all military stores they could reach, and for this purpose continually sent raiding parties through the State. The efforts of Wayne were ever put forth to suppress these raids. Believing, on July 6, 1781, that Cornwallis's forces were divided by the James River, Wayne was sent forward to attack them at Green Springs.
Now little as I love, or have cause to love, Sir Banastre Tarleton, they tell me he has been knighted and now wears a major-general's sword-knot, 'tis but the part of outspoken honest enmity to say that we owed the victory at the Cowpens to no remissness on the part of the young legion commander who, if he were indeed the most brutal, was also the most active and enterprising of Lord Cornwallis's field officers.
In accordance with Washington's suggestion as to the augmenting of the number of his men, Putnam availed himself of the request of a wounded British officer, who was his prisoner, that a friend in Cornwallis's army might be sent for to make his will, to practise a ruse. It was in Princeton, whither he had been ordered from Crosswicks.
It also deserves observation, that some few days after the colonel was thus unexpectedly promoted to the command of these dragoons, Lord Cornwallis's regiment of foot, then in Flanders, became vacant. Now, had this happened before his promotion to General Bland's, Colonel Gardiner, in all probability, would only have had that regiment of foot, and so would have continued in Flanders.
The final decision on this point he postponed to the last moment of the homeward voyage, keeping a frigate in company in which to go to New York, if able; but ultimately he felt compelled to give up. This conclusion settled Cornwallis's fate, antecedently but finally. That year Great Britain fell between two stools.
The other extract we shall select is from the story of Lord Cornwallis's surrender in Virginia, and the consequent termination of the American war. The publication before us is written with that laudable industry, which ought ever to distinguish a great historian.
Stirling's sword was in the air, the drums were beating the charge, when there broke from the throats of our Marylanders the wild, thrilling yell of the southern provinces, and we leaped to the charge up the long hill, straight into the face of Cornwallis's army, a handful against thousands. Up, up the hill we dashed.
He had been planning to cross the high hills to him, the Highlander, no barrier but a challenge to fight these men. Now that they had taken the initiative he would not show them his back. He craved the battle. So he sent out runners to the main army and rode on along the eastern base of the mountains, seeking a favorable site to go into camp and wait for Cornwallis's aid.
There was no hurry for Knyphausen, but Cornwallis's men had a long, hard march before them. At five o'clock they set off, leaving behind them all encumbering baggage, even their knapsacks. Turning northward, they took the road which, pursuing a direction generally parallel with the Brandywine, reaches the west branch of the creek at Trimble's Ford. Howe himself rode with them.
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