I reported immediately to the great General, who thanked me for the speed with which I had carried the despatches and returned. And then I was once more among my old comrades of the Line.

They crowded around me, one and all, for I had messages for many of them, and they were eager for the news of old Kent and the shore, and my welcome was right royal.

And now, for a month or so, disasters came crowding upon our arms; defeat and death stalked through our ranks, and cast a gloom over the cause.

We fought the fight at White Plains, and when Fort Washington fell many of our Maryland boys went to the hulks of old Jersey to find a last resting-place under the cold gray waters of Wallabout Bay. Amid constant marching, skirmishes, and defeats the months slipped away, and the cold gloomy winter was upon us. Ah, how cold and bleak and barren the hillsides looked after the smiling fields of Maryland, touched and warmed by the Southern sun! And then the cold, the bitter cold of it all, the white winding sheet of the snow and the ice made us shiver and hug the fire of dry fence-rails and button our threadbare coats more tightly around us, while we looked in despair at the toes peeping through the ends of our boots. But the great General knew how to warm the blood in our veins and drive the despair from our hearts, when on that bitterly cold Christmas night he led us across the Delaware and hurled us against the Hessians.

It is true that we left a trail of blood as we marched, dyeing the snow with its crimson. Yet the fight itself was glorious, and when we came back in our triumph the cold and the snow were as nothing. We made sport of our rags and tatters and laughed the English to scorn.

Then again when we struck them at Princeton seven days later, threw the dust in Cornwallis's eyes, and played with him as we willed, we were ready to follow our leader wherever he pointed the way.

And so, after humbling the English, we returned to our camp for the winter, and there made ready for the spring, when we saw my Lord Cornwallis back on the Hudson again.

Then we lay in Jersey, watching them over in New York, until far into the summer, ready to take up the march when the news should come of the destination of the English fleet that lay off Sandy Hook.

At last one day there came a horseman spurring fast from the southward, bearing the news of a vast fleet that covered the waves of the Chesapeake and lay at that moment off the harbor of Baltimore, threatening it with fire and sword.

Then there was a mighty bustle in the camp, and we whose homes were now in danger took up the march to the southward, eager to meet the foe.