done,
and the careful deception which had been practiced, made it possible.
Once at Yorktown, there was little more to do. The combination was
so perfect, and the judgment had been so sure, that Cornwallis was
crushed as helplessly as if he had been thrown before the car of
Juggernaut. There was really but little fighting, for there was no
opportunity to fight. Washington held the British in a vice, and the
utter helplessness of Cornwallis, the entire inability of such a good
and gallant soldier even to struggle, are the most convincing proofs
of the military genius of his antagonist.

CHAPTER XI

PEACE

Fortitude in misfortune is more common than composure in the hour
of victory. The bitter medicine of defeat, however unpalatable,
is usually extremely sobering, but the strong new wine of success
generally sets the heads of poor humanity spinning, and leads often to
worse results than folly. The capture of Cornwallis was enough to have
turned the strongest head, for the moment at least, but it had no
apparent effect upon the man who had brought it to pass, and who, more
than any one else, knew what it meant. Unshaken and undismayed in the
New Jersey winter, and among the complicated miseries of Valley Forge,
Washington turned from the spectacle of a powerful British army laying
down their arms as coolly as if he had merely fought a successful
skirmish, or repelled a dangerous raid. He had that rare gift, the
attribute of the strongest minds, of leaving the past to take care of
itself. He never fretted over what could not be undone, nor dallied
among pleasant memories while aught still remained to do. He wrote to
Congress in words of quiet congratulation, through which pierced the
devout and solemn sense of the great deed accomplished, and then,
while the salvos of artillery were still booming in his ears, and the
shouts of victory were still rising about him, he set himself, after
his fashion, to care for the future and provide for the immediate
completion of his work.

He wrote to De Grasse, urging him to join in an immediate movement
against Charleston, such as he had already suggested, and he presented
in the strongest terms the opportunities now offered for the sudden
and complete ending of the struggle. But the French admiral was by no
means imbued with the tireless and determined spirit of Washington. He
had had his fill even of victory, and was so eager to get back to the
West Indies, where he was t