terly retreats known to history. With forces continually decimated by desertions and by the unceremonious leave-taking of militiamen whose short terms of service were constantly expiring, he yet so maneuvered, marched and handled his disheartened forces as to strike, at just the critical moment, at the very center of Britain's chief dependence - the hireling Hessians at Trenton. And thus he grasped out of almost certain defeat the victory that strengthened the patriotic cause and resulted finally in the one measure that he knew was necessary for success the organization and establishment of a regular

army.

America's merriest Christmas was, really, the one that promised to be its sorriest - that eventful twenty-fifth of December, 1776, when Washington's meagre force pushed through the floating ice of the Delaware and captured the unsuspecting Hessians. "The life of a nation," says Mr. Lodge, was at stake." Washington's brief campaign at Trenton and at Princeton has rightly been characterized as quite as brilliant and as full of skill and daring as is anything in the annals of modern warfare. Mr. Lodge asserts that, if Washington had never fought another battle, this decisive. action on the Delaware would entitle him to the place of a great commander.

That it was decisive no one who reads history carefully can question. It reassured a doubting nation, organized strength out of weakness, brought triumph from disaster and, as one of its immediate results, merged all the shifting forces of the unreliable Continentals into the definite and finally victorious army of the Soldiers of Liberty.

That brief period from the muster beneath the elms of Cambridge Common in the warm July weather of 1775 to the cold

Christmas night on the Delaware in the dying days of 1776 is crowded with incident. It saw the disastrous invasion of Canada that ended in defeat at Montreal and Quebec; the death of the gallant Montgomery, one of America's most promising generals, and the daring of Arnold whose later treason, even, should not be permitted to eclipse his brilliant record amid Canadian It saw the patriot victories in North Carolina; the

THE CAMBRIDGE ELM.

gallant defense of Charleston by the heroic Moultrie; the stubborn but hopeless effort to hold New York, the remarkable battle of Brooklyn, the spirited engagements at Harlem Heights and White Plains. It brought to the front men whose names were to become famous

as intrepid and gal

lant fighters; and, through the inefficiency of British generals and the tireless labors of Washington drew to what was in fact, if we regard the numbers engaged, but a trifling military campaign the attention and the plaudits of a watching world.

A large, a veteran and a disciplined army, led by generals whom England esteemed her best, was out-maneuvered by a demoralized assemblage of untried and unreliable militiamen, "not much superior," says General Cullom, "to an armed mob;"

but the one was held together by a machine-like discipline and backed by an obstinate tyranny, the other, unsatisfactory though it might be, was still inspired by a determined patriotism. When disaster seemed most certain triumph came forth, and out of the most unpromising surroundings there emerged, to carry the war to its close, the dauntless Soldiers of Liberty. Henceforward minute-man, militiaman and continental are to stand through all that struggle for freedom as the veteran American Soldier.

CHAPTER V.

SOLDIERS OF LIBERTY.

IR, the Hessians have surrendered!"

SIR

Thus, in joyful tones, came Baylor's report as, in a lull in that sharp morning's fight at Trenton, he galloped up to the anxious Commanderin-Chief.

"Thank God!" was Washington's devout rejoinder. And that fervent exclamation of gratitude, the simplest and yet the strongest that man can utter, was freighted with a still deeper meaning than even Washington himself could imagine. For that triumphant report of the hard-riding Baylor bore in its one

brief sentence the success of the Revolution.

It is always darkest just before the dawn. When Glover's fishermen-soldiers from Marblehead, on that cold December night of 1776, pushed out into the floating ice the clumsy boats that were to carry Washington's troops across the Delaware the expedition seemed to be but a forlorn hope.

The little force of twenty-five hundred men, whose ill-shod

feet had literally marked their march across the snow with blood, constituted almost the entire fighting force at Washington's disposal. His army had, as yet, no compelling law to hold its numbers intact or keep its volunteers reliable. Here to-day and gone to-morrow seemed to be the rule with the home-raised militia who had ranged themselves under his banner.

Something must be done. The more than thirty thousand men who made up the British Army about New York so far outnumbered the Continental fighting-force that could be counted on for actual service that ruin to the patriot cause seemed almost inevitable. But despair formed no part of Washington's indomitable nature. Success must be won. In the most somber of those dark days he wrote to his brother, "I cannot entertain the idea that our cause will finally sink though it may remain for some time under a cloud."

And it was from under this cloud that he determined to bring the cause that was dearer to him than life. When, erect but anxious, he directed from his open flat-boat the crossing of his little army from one icy bank to the other he literally, as Mr. Lodge asserts, " carried the American Revolution in his hands." This one stroke of Washington's generalship saved the cause of the colonies. For, apart from the moral effect of the victory, it aroused a hesitating Congress to agree to Washington's demand for a standing army.

The enthusiasm that blazes into conflict and breaks into open rebellion against tyranny not unfrequently fails to stand the test of prolonged endeavor when the first frenzy of indignation is past.

To a certain extent this was true of the American revolutionists. The valor that lined the fences and thronged the fields between Concord and Boston, that led the assault on