1. It saved New York state. 2. It destroyed the plan for the war. 3. It induced the King to offer us peace with representation in Parliament, or anything else we wanted except independence. 4. It secured for us the aid of France.
[Illustration: %Flag of the United States, 1777%]
%146. Valley Forge.%—The winter at Valley Forge marks the darkest period of the war. It was a season of discouragement, when mean spirits grew bold. Some officers of the army formed a plot, called from one of them the "Conway cabal," to displace Washington and put Gates in command. The country people, tempted by British gold, sent their provisions into Philadelphia and not to Valley Forge. There the suffering of the half-clad, half-fed, ill-housed patriots surpasses description.
But the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Then it was that an able Prussian soldier, Baron Steuben, joined the army, turned the camp into a school, drilled the soldiers, and made the army better than ever. Then it was that France acknowledged our independence, and joined us in the war.
%147. France acknowledges our Independence.%—In October, 1776, Congress sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris to try to persuade the French King to help us in the war. Till Burgoyne surrendered and Great Britain offered peace, Franklin found all his efforts vain.[1] But now, when it seemed likely that the states might again be brought under the British crown, the French King promptly acknowledged us to be an independent nation, made a treaty of alliance and a treaty of commerce (February 6, 1778), and soon had a fleet on its way to help us.
[Footnote 1: For an account of Franklin in France, see McMaster's With the Fathers, pp. 253-270.]
%148. The British leave Philadelphia.%—Hearing of the approach of the French fleet, Sir Henry Clinton, who in May had succeeded Howe in command, left Philadelphia and hurried to the defense of New York. Washington followed, and, coming up with the rear guard of the enemy at Monmouth in New Jersey, fought a battle (June 28, 1778), and would have gained a great victory had not the traitor, Charles Lee, been in command.[2] Without any reason he suddenly ordered a retreat, which was fortunately prevented from becoming a rout by Washington, who came on the field in time to stop it.
[Footnote 2: After remaining a prisoner in the hands of the British from
December, 1776, to April, 1778, Lee had been exchanged for a
British officer.]
After the battle the British hurried on to New York, where Washington partially surrounded them by stretching out his army from Morristown in New Jersey to West Point on the Hudson.
%149. Stony Point.%—In hope of drawing Washington away from New York, Clinton in 1779 sent a marauding party to plunder and ravage the farms and towns of Connecticut. But Washington soon brought it back by dispatching Anthony Wayne to capture Stony Point, which he did (July, 1779) by one of the most brilliant assaults in military history.