ops until the loss of blood made
him too weak to go further. Then he stopped long enough to have a
bandage placed on his leg.

Night was coming on. The American troops were going pellmell up the
road toward Chester. There was horrible confusion, and darkness was
coming on. At a bridge just south of Chester, the American soldiers
were at the point of complete disorganization. Seeing the great need
for some decisive mind to bring order out of this chaos, Lafayette
made a stand and placed guards along the road. Finally Washington came
up and made Lafayette give himself into the hands of the surgeons. At
midnight Washington wrote to Congress, and in his letter he praised
the bravery of the young French soldier. Lafayette had passed his
twentieth birthday but four days before.

General Washington was happy to have this French officer proved by
test of battle and to find his favorable judgment more than warranted.
He showed the most tender solicitude for his young friend and gave him
into the care of the surgeons with instructions to do all in their
power for him, and to treat him as if he were his own son.

Lafayette's spirits were not in the least dashed. When the doctors
gathered round to stanch the blood, expressing their apprehensions for
his safety, he looked at the wound and pluckily exclaimed,

"Never mind, gentlemen; I would not take fifteen hundred guineas for
that."

It was partly this buoyant, merry spirit that made Lafayette win all
hearts. To the army he was now no stranger. His broken English was
becoming more and more understandable. But words were not necessary;
the look in his eyes said that he was a fearless and sincere man; that
he had not come to this country to "show off," but from a true love
for the principles for which he had offered his sword. Never was there
a more complete adoption than that of Lafayette by the American army.

Lafayette's first care on reaching Philadelphia was to write to
Adrienne lest she should receive exaggerated news concerning his
wound.

"It was a mere trifle," he wrote. "All I fear is that you should not
have received my letter. As General Howe is giving in the meantime
rather pompous details of his American exploits to the king his
master, if he should write word that I am wounded, he may also write
word that I am killed, which would not cost him anything; but I hope
that my friends, and you especially, will not give faith to reports of
those persons who last year