to reduce that State to submission. One of
Washington's lieutenants, General Lincoln, ill-advisedly thought that
he could defend Charleston. But as soon as the enemy were ready, they
pressed upon him hard and he surrendered. The year ended in gloom. The
British were virtually masters in the Carolinas and in Georgia. The
people of those States felt that they had been abandoned by the
Congress and that they were cut off from relations with the Northern
States. The glamour of glory at sea which had brightened them all
the year before had vanished. John Paul Jones might win a striking
sea-fight, but there was no navy, nor ships enough to transport troops
down to the Southern waters where they might have turned the tide
of battle on shore. During the winter the British continued their
marauding in the South. For lack of troops Washington was obliged
to stay in his quarters near New York and feel the irksomeness of
inactivity. General Nathanael Greene, a very energetic officer, next
indeed to Washington himself in general estimation, commanded in
the South. At the Cowpens (January 17, 1781) one of his
lieutenants--Morgan, a guerilla leader--killed or captured nearly all
of Tarleton's men, who formed a specially crack regiment. A little
later Washington marched southward to Virginia, hoping to cooeperate
with the French fleet under Rochambeau and to capture Benedict Arnold,
now a British Major-General, who was doing much damage in Virginia.
Arnold was too wary to be caught. Cornwallis, the second in command of
the British forces, pursued Lafayette up and down Virginia. Clinton,
the British Commander-in-Chief, began to feel nervous for the
safety of New York and wished to detach some of his forces thither.
Cornwallis led his army into Yorktown and proceeded to fortify it, so
that it might resist a siege. Now at last Washington felt that he
had the enemy's army within his grasp. Sixteen thousand American and
French troops were brought down from the North to furnish the fighting
arm he required.

Yorktown lay on the south shore of the York River, an estuary of
Chesapeake Bay. On the opposite side the little town of Gloucester
projected into the river. In Yorktown itself the English had thrown up
two redoubts and had drawn some lines of wall. The French kept up an
unremitting cannonade, but it became evident that the redoubts must be
taken in order to subdue the place. Washington, much excited, took his
place in the central batte