would have rendered of peculiar importance to CHAP. VI. him. As this request was not in the peremp. 1777. tory style of an order, but a compliance with it, notwithstanding the hard pressure of superior numbers on the army opposed to sir William Howe, was submitted to the discretion of Gates; he chose to retain the regiment. "Since the action of the 19th ultimo," says his letter to the commander in chief, dated the fifth of October, "the enemy have kept the ground they occupied the morning of that day, and fortified their camp. The advanced sentries of my pickets are posted within shot, and opposite those of the enemy. Neither side has given ground an inch. In this situation your excellency would not wish me to part with the corps, the army of general Burgoyne is most afraid of." Two days afterwards was fought their last battle, in which this corps, as in that of the 19th, rendered conspicuous service.

On the first certain intelligence of the surrender of Burgoyne, colonel Hamilton was dispatched to lay before general Gates the critical situation of the army in Pennsylvania, and the very great importance of re-enforcing it as speedily as possible. His exertions were also relied upon to expedite to the utmost the march of the troops, and to remove every obstacle which might impede their progress. On reaching general Putnam, he found that a considerable part of the northern army had joined that

CHAP. VI. officer, but that Gates had retained four bri1777. gades at Albany, which were to remain there until winter, when he contemplated an expe. dition against Ticonderoga and mount Independence, which had not then been evacuated.

Having made such arrangements with Putnam as he supposed would secure the immediate march of a large body of continental troops from that station, colonel Hamilton proceeded to Albany to remonstrate to general Gates, against retaining so large and valuable a portion of the army, at a time when so much danger threatened the very vitals of the country. He found Gates by no means disposed to part with his troops. That general could not believe it to be certain that a re-enforcement from New York was about to join sir William Howe, and insisted that, if the troops embarked at that place, instead of proceeding to the Delaware, should make a sudden movement up the Hudson, it would be completely in their power, should that post be left defenceless, to destroy › the valuable arsenal at Albany, where the military stores captured with Burgoyne were chiefly deposited.

Having at length obtained orders to move two brigades, colonel Hamilton forbore to press him further for the present; but in a short time he renewed his application; and Gates very reluctantly ordered Glover's brigade, one of those he had proposed retaining, to proceed to the Delaware.

While Hamilton was employed in obtaining CHAP. VI. from general Gates an order for the march of 1777. the troops from Albany, very unexpected delays took place in moving those who had joined Putnam, and had been directed some time before to re-enforce with the utmost possible dispatch the army in Pennsylvania. The detachment from New York seems to have suggested to Putnam the possibility of taking that place, and he does not appear to have made very great exertions to divest himself of the force necessary for an object, the accomplishment of which would have given so much eclat to his military character. In addition to this circumstance, an opinion had prevailed among the soldiers, that their share of service for the campaign had been performed, and that it was time for them to go into winter quarters. Great discontents too prevailed about their pay, which the government had very negligently permitted to be more than half a year arrear; and in Poor's brigade, a mutiny broke out, in which a soldier who was run through the body by his captain, before he expired, shot the officer dead who gave the wound. Colonel Hamilton came up in time to borrow money from the governor of New York to put the troops in motion, and they proceeded by brigades to the Delaware. These several delays suspended the arrival of the re-enforcements longer than was expected. Those sent

in

CHAP. VI. from New York to general Howe were received 1777. rather earlier, and the expedition against Red Bank was on that account accomplished, and the place unavoidably evacuated before general Greene was in sufficient force to relieve it.

Red Bank evacuated.

While lord Cornwallis was in Jersey, and general Greene on the Delaware above him, an attack on Philadelphia was very strongly pressed by several officers high in rank, and was in some measure urged by that torrent of public opinion, which, if not opposed by a very firm mind, overwhelms the judgment; and by controlling measures not well comprehended, may frequently produce, especially in military transactions, the most ruinous disasters.

It was stated to the commander in chief, that his army was now in greater force than he could expect it to be at any future time; that being now joined by the troops who had conquered Burgoyne, his own reputation, the reputation of the army, the opinion of congress,, and the public expectation, required some decisive blow on his part. That the rapid depreciation of the paper currency, by which the resources for carrying on the war were dried up, rendered indispensable some grand effort to bring it to a speedy termination.

The plan of attack proposed was, that general Greene should embark two thousand men at Dunks' ferry, and fall down the river in the night, so as to land in the town just before day,

attack the enemy in the rear, and take posses- CHAP. VI. sion of the bridge over the Schuylkill. That 1777. a strong detachment should march down on the west side of that river, and occupy the heights which enfiladed the works of the enemy, from whence a brisk cannonade should be carried on, while a part of the same force should march down to the bridge, and attack in front at the same instant that the assault on the rear should commence from the party which had moved down the Delaware. That the residue of the Continental army in three columns should attack the whole line of redoubts in front.

Not only the commander in chief, but the best officers of his army, those who would not be impelled by the clamours of the ill informed' to ruin the public interests, were decidedly opposed to this mad enterprise.

The two armies, they said, were now nearly equal in point of numbers, and the detachment into Jersey could not be supposed to have so weakened sir William Howe, as to compensate for the advantage he would derive from his position. That his right was covered by the Delaware, his left by the Schuylkill; his rear by the junction of those two rivers, as well as by the city of Philadelphia, and his front by a line of fourteen redoubts, extending from river to river, and connected by an abattis, and circular works. These redoubts were well defended by musketry and artillery. It would be indis