But after the long, hard winter at Valley Forge, the spring of 1778 opened with new hopes. The French government had signed a treaty with the United States, agreeing to aid them with men and money, and a fleet of French ships was sent to America. The British finding Philadelphia hardly worth the hard fighting it had cost, since they could not get far away from it, or hurt the American army very much while in the city, got ready to leave it and go back to New York. Washington followed hard after them, and a heavy battle was fought at Monmouth, in New Jersey, from which neither side gained a great deal. The British got back into New York, and Washington took his men up the Hudson, and kept them there, watching a chance to join in some attack with the French troops who came to Newport, in the State of Rhode Island.
For the next three years there was not any very hard fighting under Washington's own command, but his cares were scarcely less. He had to keep watch of all that was going on, and to have his army ready to strike at a moment's warning. Waiting and watching were tedious work. They tried his patience and his firmness. A weaker man would have given up, but Washington was not any more easily tired than he was frightened. He held steadily to his task, and tried hard to keep his countrymen, many of whom were weary of the war, up to their duty.
At one time the cause of liberty was nearly ruined by a traitor. General Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British a fort at West Point, on the Hudson River. If the British could have got that, the States north and east of New York would have been cut off from the rest, and probably they would have all been conquered. Happily the plot failed. This was in 1780.
The next year Washington really closed the war by a splendid move. A large army of the British had been sent to Virginia, under Lord Cornwallis, in hopes to cut the troops who were farther south off from connection with the North.
Washington sent a gallant young French General, Lafayette, whom he loved and trusted greatly, to prevent this. Lafayette had a small force, but he was quick and brave and shrewd, and he managed to get the British shut up in Yorktown, near the Chesapeake Bay. There he learned that a French fleet, under Comte de Grasse, would soon arrive. He sent urgent word to Washington to come South right away.
Washington straightway marched, with nearly all his army, and most of the French troops, for Virginia. They arrived on the 14th of September, 1781, just in time. The French fleet sailed up the bay, the American and French troops came down on the land side, and between them they shut the British General in the little village of Yorktown, and there they laid siege to his army.
When they had got pretty close to the town, they had to drive the British from some redoubts, or walls of earth and stone, behind which they had planted their cannon. This was done by a party of Americans under the gallant Lafayette, and a party of French soldiers. They marched steadily up to the redoubts, and springing over the walls, under heavy fire, drove the enemy out with their bayonets. It was a brave assault, and successful, and it was the last hard fighting of the war. On the 19th of October, Lord Cornwallis, seeing that he could hold out no longer, surrendered his army prisoners of war. It was a great victory, and was won with less loss of life than there might have been if it had been less skillfully fought, for Washington had managed so quietly and so quickly that he had surrounded Lord Cornwallis with nearly twice as many troops as the British General had.
After the surrender at Yorktown, Washington returned North, and on his way stopped at his home at Mount Vernon. He had slept there on his journey southward, a few weeks before, for the first time in nearly seven years, and he had found it sadly injured in his absence. During his second visit, his wife's son, Mr. Custis, died, leaving a son and a daughter, whom Washington adopted as his own, and tenderly cared for as long as he lived.