city of Boston?
Haven't we also read how the "ragged Continentals" left their bloody
footprints in the snow, as they marched to Trenton all that bitter
cold night in December, 1777, and gave the Hessians a Christmas
greeting they little expected?

In January, 1779, England sent orders to General Clinton "to bring
Mr. Washington to a general and decisive action at the opening of the
campaign," and also "to harry the frontiers and coasts north and
south."

General Clinton wrote back that he had found "Mr. Washington" a hard
nut to crack, but he would do his level best, he said, "to strike at
Washington while he was in motion."

{78} The main American force was still in winter quarters in northern
New Jersey, near New York. Various brigades were stationed up and
down the Hudson as far as West Point. As at the beginning of the war,
so now in 1779, the line of the Hudson from Albany to New York was
the key to the general situation. Its protection, as Washington had
written, was of "infinite consequence to our cause."

The first real move in the game was made in May, when a large British
force marched up, captured, and strongly fortified the two forts at
Stony Point and Verplanck's Point, only thirteen miles below West
Point. The enemy thus secured the control of King's Ferry, where
troops and supplies for the patriot army were ferried across the
Hudson.

Our spies now sent word to Washington that the British were ready to
move on some secret service. The patriot army was at once marched up,
and went into camp within easy reach of West Point, to wait for the
next move in the game. Once more these far-famed Hudson Highlands
were to become the storm center of the struggle.

For some reason, Clinton did not push farther up the Hudson. On the
contrary, he began to make raids into various parts of the country,
from Martha's Vineyard to the James River. These raids were marked by
cruelties unknown in the earlier years of the war. The hated Tryon,
once the royal governor of New York, led {79} twenty-six hundred men
into Connecticut. His brutal soldiers killed unarmed and helpless men
and women, and sacked and burned houses and churches.

One of Clinton's objects in sending out the raiders was to coax
Washington to weaken his army by sending out forces to offset them,
or to tease him into making what he called a "false move." Washington
was, of course, keenly alive to the misery brought upon the people of
the country by th