e
British movement were, upon a subject so terribly momentous,
exasperating enough. But as Sullivan hesitated, Cheyney demanded to see
Washington himself, and was accordingly sent to him. Washington ordered
him to dismount. "Now," said he, "draw me a sketch of the upper roads.
Where did the British cross? and where are they now?"

Cheyney alighted and made the plan. Washington seemed to hesitate, as if
doubting the information. The ardent squire, in the intensity of the
moment, cried, "Take my life, general, if I deceive you!"

If the commander doubted, however, there came on the instant further
word. Colonel Bland had sent another despatch to Sullivan, dated at "a
quarter-past one o'clock," and saying that the enemy were then arriving
in great force on Osborne's Hill, a little to the right of Birmingham
meeting-house. This despatch Sullivan sent instantly to Washington, and
the word Cheyney had brought was now made sure beyond peradventure.

Bland's confirmation of Cheyney's news aroused the injudicious but brave
commander of the right wing, and he moved his troops at once up toward
Birmingham. His immediate command, he says in one of the several
defensive letters written after the battle, marched a mile from the
position it occupied to that in which it met the enemy. On a hill just
west of the meeting-house, from which, as they looked north-west, they
could see the British on Osborne's Hill, they made their line of battle,
and Cornwallis, as he sat upon his horse watching them through his
glass, cried out with a round army oath, "The damned rebels form well!"

In what order the American line was formed we know. The division of
Stephen occupied the right, that of Stirling the centre, that of
Sullivan the left. But many of the details are vaguely and
contradictorily stated. Lossing, following the sketch of the battle in
the Pennsylvania Historical Society's collections, describes Sullivan's
circuitous march to outreach Deborre, both seeking to obtain the right
of the line, while Bancroft says that Sullivan posted his division in
advance of the extreme left, detached by a half-mile gap from the rest
of the line, but that, on being remonstrated with, he moved to close up
the space, and was attacked before he had again formed his line of
battle. What followed, however, is distinct enough. Rested and fed, the
royal army precipitated itself, three to one in strength, and equally
disproportionate in discipline and experien