Summary.-I. In Massachusetts a committee of safety was collecting arms and storing them for future use. General Gage sent British troops from Boston to Lexington and Concord to destroy these stores and arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. At daylight of April 19, 1775, these troops attacked a company of American minutemen at Lexington, and later at Concord, and then retreated toward Boston. This was the opening of the Revolution.

2. Early in May the Colonists captured Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

3. On June 17 the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. The Americans were defeated, but they proved that they could fight against regular troops.

4. During the summer of 1775 Montgomery and Schuyler marched to attack the British in Canada. They captured Montreal, but were repulsed at Quebec, and soon afterwards were driven out of Canada.

5. In May, 1775, the second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia and appointed George Washington commander in chief of the American forces. In March, 1776, he forced the British army to evacuate Boston.

6. After a year of fighting for their rights as British subjects it began to be clear to everybody that the Colonists should declare themselves independent.

7. Read carefully the substance of the Declaration as given in this chapter.

Collateral Reading.-Fiske's "The American Revolution,” I., 120-126; Seelye's The Story of Washington," 127-134.

CHAPTER XXV

THE REVOLUTION IN THE MIDDLE COLONIES AND AT SEA

The Battle of Long Island. In April, 1776, Washington withdrew his army from Boston to New York. There he expected an attack by the British, who desired to get control of the Hudson River, and in that way to cut off New England from the other colonies.

Washington built two forts to defend the river-Fort Washington on the eastern bank, and Fort Lee on the western, nearly opposite. He also fortified Brooklyn Heights. Late in June General Howe, landed on Staten Island, in

New York Bay, with the British forces that had formerly held Boston. A few days later his brother, Admiral Lord Howe, arrived with reënforcements.

In August, General Howe crossed to Long Island with about twenty thousand men to capture Brooklyn Heights. General Putnam, with about forty-five hundred men, was sent to meet him. The Americans were soon driven back to their fortifications with great loss. This was called the battle of Long Island. It occurred on August 27, 1776. Two days later Washington withdrew his little army during the night from Brooklyn Heights to New York city during a dense fog. It was during these operations that the British captured the spy, Captain Nathan Hale, who had gone into their lines pretending to be a Tory schoolmaster. They hanged him on September

22.

HALE.

UPE TO LOSE FOR MY COUNTR

THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

Statue of Nathan Hale in New York

His last words were, "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Washington Driven from New York.Washington was soon forced to abandon New York and retreat up the Hudson to Peekskill. Howe pursued him, capturing Fort Washington and its garrison on his way. This was a severe blow. Washington was forced to divide his army. He left part of it under General Charles Lee at Peekskill to defend the Highlands of the Hudson. With the remainder he retreated step by step across New Jersey into Pennsylvania, pursued by the British under Cornwallis. Again and again Washington sent orders to Lee to join him with his force, but Lee, who was jealous of Washington, did not obey.

The Hessians-Englishmen did not like to fight Americans, and the British government had to hire German soldiers in order to get enough men to carry on the war with the colonies. During the war about thirty thousand

of these hired soldiers came over to fight the Americans. At first, most of those who came were from Hesse-Cassel. So the name Hessians was applied to all the German troops hired by the English.

The Battle of Trenton.-Twelve hundred of these Hessians had been pushed in pursuit of Washington in his retreat across New Jersey. At Trenton they lay on the eastern bank of the Delaware, waiting for the river to freeze over. Washington was watching them from the

other side. He had seized or destroyed all the boats for a distance of seventy miles up and down the stream. Christmas was coming on, and Washington knew it would be a time of drunkenness among the Hessians. The weather was bitterly cold.

Washington marched silently up the Delaware on Christmas Day, put his poor, tattered, and partly barefoot soldiers across the stream in the night, and then marched down on the other side of the river facing a driving sleet storm. He had made up his mind to take Trenton by assault. When one of his generals sent him word that all his guns were too

"Tell

wet to fire, Washington replied to the messenger, your general to use the bayonet, for the town must be taken." He waked the sleepy Hessians, and captured almost every man of them. He then returned to his position. west of the Delaware.

The Battle of Princeton. - On the last day of the year Washington again crossed the Delaware and reoccupied Trenton. Cornwallis marched to attack the Americans. He promptly pushed back Washington's lines, and then waited for the morning to bag his game. But Washington, leaving some men to renew his camp fires during the night in order to deceive the British, marched silently round Cornwallis's flank and gained his rear. The first that Cornwallis knew of the escape of the Americans was in the morning when he heard Washington's cannon thundering at Princeton, far behind him, where he had left three regiments to hold the place. Having won a victory at Princeton, Washington withdrew to Morristown, a strong position among the hills, and there went into winter quarters.

This entire movement from the first crossing of the Delaware to the end of the campaign was one of the most brilliant of the Revolution. The British were forced to draw in their scattered detachments and mass them where they could be supported from New York, thus leaving Washington in control of nearly all New Jersey.

Burgoyne's March.-The British plans for 1777 included a grand stroke. This was nothing less than to cut the country in two. In order to do this General Burgoyne, in July, was sent south from Canada to seize Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, and thus cut off New England from the other colonies. General Schuyler, who was in command of the American troops in the north, did everything in his power to interfere with Burgoyne's progress. He felled trees into the creek which Burgoyne's boats must navigate, and across the road they must march upon. He involved Burgoyne in long and tedious delays