[140. The war at the South; Jasper; Cowpens; Greene and Cornwallis.]—While these things were happening at the north, the British sent a fleet of vessels to take Charleston, South Carolina. They hammered away with their big guns at a little log fort under command of Colonel Moultrie. In the battle a cannon-ball struck the flag-pole on the fort, and cut it in two. The South Carolina flag fell to the ground outside the fort. Sergeant[28] William Jasper leaped down, and, while the British shot were striking all around him, seized the flag, climbed back, fastened it to a short staff, and raised it to its place, to show that the Americans would never give up the fort. The British, after fighting all day, saw that they could do nothing against palmetto logs[29] when defended by such men as Moultrie and Jasper; so they sailed away with such of their ships as had not been destroyed.
Several years later, Charleston was taken. Lord Cornwallis then took command of the British army in South Carolina. General Greene, of Rhode Island, had command of the Americans. He sent Daniel Morgan with his sharpshooters to meet part of the British army at Cowpens;[30] they did meet them, and sent them flying. Then Cornwallis determined to either whip General Greene or drive him out of the state. But General Greene worried Cornwallis so that at last he was glad enough to get into Virginia. He had found North and South Carolina like two hornets' nests, and the further he got away from those hornets, the better he was pleased.
28 Sergeant (sar'jent): a military officer of low rank.
29 Palmetto logs: the wood of the palmetto tree is very soft and spongy; the cannon-balls, when they struck, would bury themselves in the logs, but would neither break them to pieces nor go through them.
30 Cowpens: see map in this paragraph.
[141. Cornwallis and Benedict Arnold; Lafayette; Cornwallis shuts himself up in Yorktown.]—When Lord Cornwallis got into Virginia he found Benedict Arnold waiting to help him. Arnold had been a general in the American army; Washington gave him the command of the fort at West Point, on the Hudson River,[31] and trusted him as though he was his brother. Arnold deceived him, and secretly offered to give up the fort to the British. We call a man who is false to his friends and to his country a traitor: it is the most shameful name we can fasten on him. Arnold was a traitor; and if we could have caught him, we should have hanged him; but he was cunning enough to run away and escape to the British. Now he was burning houses and towns in Virginia, and doing all that he could—as a traitor always will—to destroy those who had once been his best friends. He wanted to stay in Virginia and assist Cornwallis; but that general was a brave and honorable man: he despised Arnold, and did not want to have anything to do with him.
A young nobleman named Lafayette[32] had come over from France on purpose to help us against the British. Cornwallis laughed at him and called him a "boy"; but he found that General Lafayette was a "boy" who knew how to fight. The British commander moved toward the seacoast; Lafayette followed him; at length Cornwallis shut himself up with his army in Yorktown.[33]
31 West Point: see map in paragraph [135].