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were soon pouring through Philadelphia, the American commander pushing on ahead to Chester, and sending back word that de Grasse had arrived in Chesapeake Bay and that not a moment must be lost.

Clinton then made a frantic effort to save the day by s sending Arnold to attack some of the New England towns, thinking that the American commander might hurry back to their rescue. But Washington was first and foremost a man of good, hard common sense, and he knew that all Arnold could accomplish would be the destruction of a few 10 defenseless towns, and to let Cornwallis escape in order to protect them did not appeal to his practical mind at all. He therefore paid no attention to the traitor's movements, but bent all his efforts on speeding his army southward.

At Chesapeake Bay an exasperating delay occurred, for 15 there were not sufficient vessels to transport the army over the water, and for a time the success of the whole expedition was threatened. But Washington was in no mood to be blocked by obstacles of this sort. If his troops could not be ferried down the bay, they must march around it, and 20 march many of them did, their general obtaining the first glimpse he had had in six years of his beloved Mount Vernon as he swept by, and on September 28, 1781, his whole force was in front of Yorktown, with success fairly within its grasp.

Meanwhile de Grasse's fleet had fiercely assailed a British squadron which had been sent to the rescue, and after a sharp engagement the French had been able to return to the bay while the British vessels were obliged to retire to New York, leaving Cornwallis with the York River on one 3 side of him, the James River on the other, and the Chesapeake Bay at his back, but no ships to carry him to safety.

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Only one chance of escape now remained, and that was to hurl his whole army through the narrow neck of land immediately in front of him and beat a hasty retreat to the south. But Washington had anticipated this desperate move by s positive instructions to Lafayette, and acting upon them the young marquis rushed a body of French troops from the fleet into the gap, and the arrival of the American army completely blocked it.

But, though the enemy was now in his clutch, Wash10 ington lost no time in tightening his hold, for de Grasse declared that his orders would not allow him to tarry much longer in the Chesapeake, and the failure of the other attempts to work with the French warned him to take no risks on this occasion.

15 He therefore instantly set the troops at work with pickaxes and shovels throwing up intrenchments, behind which they crept nearer and nearer the imprisoned garrison, and he kept them at their tasks night and day, supervising every detail of the siege and organizing the labor with such 20 method that not a second of time nor an ounce of strength was wasted.

Finally, on October 14th

just sixteen days after the combined armies had arrived on the scene the commander in chief determined to hurry matters still further 25 by carrying two of the enemy's outer works by assault, and Hamilton was assigned to lead the Americans and Colonel de Deuxponts the French. A brilliant charge followed, and Washington and Rochambeau, closely watching the movement, saw the Americans scale one of the redoubts 30 and capture it within ten minutes, while the French soon followed with equal success. From these two commanding positions a perfect storm of shot and shell was then loosed

against the British fortifications, but still Cornwallis would not yield.

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Indeed, he made an heroic attempt to break through the lines on the following night, and actually succeeded in spiking some of the French cannon before he was driven s back; and again on the next night he made a desperate effort to escape by water, only to be foiled by a terrific storm. By this time, however, his defenses were practically battered to the ground and the town behind them was tumbling to pieces beneath the fire of more than fifty guns. 10 In the face of this terrific bombardment further resistance was useless, and at ten o'clock on the morning of October 17, 1781, exactly four years after the surrender of Burgoyne, a red-coated drummer boy mounted on the crumbling ramparts and beside him appeared an officer with a white flag. Instantly the firing ceased, and an American officer approaching, the flag bearer was blindfolded and conducted to Washington. The message he bore was a proposition for surrender and a request that hostilities be suspended for twenty-four hours. But to this Washington 20 would not consent. Two hours was all he would grant for arranging the terms of surrender. To this Cornwallis yielded, but his first propositions were promptly rejected by Washington, and it was not until eleven at night that all the details were finally agreed upon, and Cornwallis, 25 with over eight thousand officers and men, became prisoners of war.

Two days later the British marched from their intrenchments, their bands playing a quaint old English tune, called The World Turned Upside Down, and, passing between 30 the French and American troops drawn up in line to receive them, laid down their arms. At the head of the

victorious columns rode Washington, Hamilton, Knox, Steuben, Lafayette, Rochambeau, Lincoln, and many other officers, but the British commander, being ill, was not present in person, and when his representative, General 5 O'Hara, tendered his superior's sword to Washington, the commander in chief allowed General Lincoln, who had once been Cornwallis's prisoner, to receive it, and that officer, merely taking it in his hand for a moment, instantly returned it.

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Meanwhile horsemen were flying in all directions with the joyful tidings, and within a week the whole country was blazing with enthusiasm, while Washington was calmly planning to finish the work to which he had set his hand.

(From Frederick Trevor Hill's On the Trail of Washington. Used by permission of the publishers, D. Appleton & Company.)

1. Make a sketch showing the position of the various armies and navies at the time Washington conceived the bold stroke of trapping Cornwallis, and explain from your map how this stroke was achieved. 2. Tell who the following are: De Grasse, Greene, Clinton, Rochambeau, Lafayette, Lincoln, Steuben, Cornwallis, Burgoyne. 3. What might have disjointed all Washington's plans? Discuss.

HERE may the wearied eye repose,
When gazing on the great,

Where neither guilty glory glows

Nor despicable state?

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The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate

Bequeathed the name of Washington,
To make men blush there was but one!

-George Gordon Byron.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

By W. F. MARKWICK AND W. A. SMITH

Our birds and our trees are often honored together on a Bird and Arbor Day. The names of many naturalists might be selected, whose biographies could fittingly be read on such an occasion; but none could be more appropriately chosen than that of John James Audubon, the American pioneer among the scientist lovers of both birds and

trees.

IN

'N 1828 a wonderful book, The Birds of America, by John James Audubon, was issued. It is a good illustration of what has been accomplished by beginning in one's youth to use the powers of observation. Audubon loved and studied birds. Even in his infancy, lying under the orange s trees on his father's plantation in Louisiana, he listened to the mocking-bird's song, watching and observing every motion as it flitted from bough to bough. When he was older he began to sketch every bird that he saw, and soon showed so much talent that he was taken to France to be 10 educated.

He entered cheerfully and earnestly upon his studies, and more than a year was devoted to mathematics; but whenever it was possible he rambled about the country, using his eyes and fingers, collecting more specimens, and 15 sketching with such assiduity that when he left France, only seventeen years old, he had finished two hundred drawings of French birds. At this period he tells us that "it was not the desire of fame which prompted to this devotion; it was simply the enjoyment of nature."

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