rust home. Their
muskets were unloaded and they could not hesitate; so, running boldly
into close quarters, they fought hand to hand with their foes and
speedily overthrew them. For a moment the bayonets flashed and played;
then the British lines broke as their assailants thronged against them,
and the struggle was over. The Americans had lost a hundred in killed
and wounded. Of the British sixty-three had been slain and very many
wounded, every one of the dead or disabled having suffered from the
bayonet. A curious coincidence was that the number of the dead happened
to be exactly equal to the number of Wayne's men who had been killed in
the night attack by the English general, Grey.

There was great rejoicing among the Americans over the successful issue
of the attack. Wayne speedily recovered from his wound, and in the joy
of his victory it weighed but slightly. He had performed a most notable
feat. No night attack of the kind was ever delivered with greater
boldness, skill, and success. When the Revolutionary War broke out the
American armies were composed merely of armed yeomen, stalwart men,
of good courage, and fairly proficient in the use of their weapons, but
entirely without the training which alone could enable them to withstand
the attack of the British regulars in the open, or to deliver an attack
themselves. Washington's victory at Trenton was the first encounter
which showed that the Americans were to be feared when they took the
offensive. With the exception of the battle of Trenton, and perhaps of
Greene's fight at Eutaw Springs, Wayne's feat was the most successful
illustration of daring and victorious attack by an American army that
occurred during the war; and, unlike Greene, who was only able to fight
a drawn battle, Wayne's triumph was complete. At Monmouth he had shown,
as he afterward showed against Cornwallis, that his troops could meet
the renowned British regulars on even terms in the open. At Stony Point
he showed that he could lead them to a triumphant assault with the
bayonet against regulars who held a fortified place of strength. No
American commander has ever displayed greater energy and daring, a
more resolute courage, or readier resource, than the chief of the
hard-fighting Revolutionary generals, Mad Anthony Wayne.

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. PARIS. AUGUST 10, 1792.

Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus in