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I have too attended the Cockpit to-night, where there were a great many long faces. What we are to do after Lord Cornwallis' catastrophe, God knows, or how anybody can think there is the least glimmering of hope for this nation surpasses my comprehension. What a stroke it is! but it still seems determined to pursue the game, though we throw nothing but crabs. . . . Flood.
Greene's division, accompanied by General Washington in person, formed a reserve, and took a central position between the right and left wings. The divisions detached against Lord Cornwallis formed hastily on an advantageous piece of ground, above Birmingham Meeting House, with their left near the Brandywine, and having both flanks covered by a thick wood.
Before its arrival, Cornwallis took post on Gloucester point, a point of land making deep into the Delaware, which was entirely under cover of the guns of the ships, from which place he was embarking his baggage and the provisions he had collected for Philadelphia.
Colonel William A. Washington, it will be recollected, commanded the American cavalry. Tarleton looked on for a while, but soon becoming irritated at the playful but truthful scene, he exclaimed: "See these cursed little rebels!" The pursuit of Morgan by Cornwallis was the most exciting and prolonged military chase of the American Revolution.
Soon after his arrival at Wilmington, Cornwallis received certain information that Greene was proceeding to South Carolina, and it threw him into much perplexity.
Rutherford was on his way to the Forks of Yadkin to engage the Tories gathering under Colonel Bryan. As yet, it seemed, we had no force of any consequence to take the field against Cornwallis, though there were flying rumors of an army marching from Virginia, with a new-appointed general at its head.
Hawkesbury, writing from Downing Street, warned Cornwallis that if a rupture were to take place it must not be owing to "any impatience on our part": and he, in his turn, affably inquired from Joseph Bonaparte whether he had any more practicable plan than that of a Neapolitan garrison, which he had himself proposed.
Colonel White reached the ferry before Buford's arrival, and, thinking himself in no immediate danger, halted to refresh his party. Cornwallis, having received notice of his incursion, dispatched Tarleton in pursuit, who, overtaking him a few minutes after he had halted, instantly charged him, killed or took about thirty of the party, and dispersed the rest.
Here is Vault Hill, one of the points selected by Washington on which to make a display for the benefit of the British while he quietly led his main army south for the operations against Cornwallis. On a clear day the hill is in plain view from Manhattan Island, and the camp fires and general indications of activity on its summit helped materially in the scheme to deceive the enemy.
Helena, Napoleon also averred that after Cornwallis had definitely pledged himself to sign the treaty as it stood on the night of March 24th, he received instructions in a contrary sense from Downing Street; that nevertheless he held himself bound by his promise and signed the treaty on the following day, observing that his Government, if dissatisfied, might refuse to ratify it, but that, having pledged his word, he felt bound to abide by it.
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