ch drove Dunmore from Virginia, and saved North Carolina from
invasion from that direction, and a threatened uprising of the slaves.

On February 26, 1776, the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge was fought,
which defeated the Tories in Carolina, and convinced the British that
further attempts at this time to conquer the State were useless. So,
toward the end of May, Clinton's fleet sailed from the mouth of Cape
Fear River to Charleston, South Carolina, where his intention was to
reduce that city.

Generals Charles Lee and Robert Howe, of the Continental army, hastened
immediately to the defense of that city, and among the soldiers who
followed them was John Koen. Here again the British were defeated,
Colonel Moultrie's Palmetto fortifications proving an effective defense
to the city by the sea, and Thompson's South Carolinians and North
Carolinians bravely repelling the British land troops. Here Koen fought
by the side of the soldiers of North Carolina, and here, possibly, he
was an eye witness of the brave deed by which Sergeant Jasper won
undying fame.

The British fleet, repulsed in the attempt to capture Charleston, sailed
northward, the danger of invasion that for six months threatened the
South was over, and we find many of the soldiers in North Carolina
released from duty and returning to their homes.

But John Koen's heart was filled with boyish love and admiration for the
commander-in-chief of the American army, and his one desire now was to
follow Washington; so, shouldering his musket, the hardy young soldier
marched away to offer his services to the great general.

We do not know whether or not John Koen was with Washington in the
battle at Long Island and at White Plains, but from his own account as
related by him to his family, he did have the glorious honor of sharing
in the victory at Trenton on December 26, 1776.

Most of us are familiar with the picture of "Washington Crossing the
Delaware," wherein he is represented standing erect in a small boat that
seems about to be dashed to pieces by the heavy waves and the cakes of
ice, but according to Colonel Koen, who was with Washington on that
momentous night, no boats were used. The river was frozen over, and the
soldiers, in order to keep their footing on the slippery ice, laid their
muskets down on the frozen river and walked across on them to the Jersey
shore. At times the ice bent so beneath the tread of the men that they
momentarily expected to be s