dinner of officers to which none
were admitted who had whole trousers. For days together there was no
bread in camp. The death-rate increased thirty-three per cent from week
to week.

Just now, however, amid this terrible Winter at Valley Forge, Baron
Steuben, a trained German soldier, who had been a pupil of Frederick
the Great, joined our army. Washington made him inspector-general, and
his rigorous daily drill vastly improved the discipline and the spirits
of the American troops. When they left camp in the spring, spite of the
hardships past, they formed a military force on which Washington could
reckon with certainty for efficient work.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
Baron von Steuben.

[1778]

The British, after a gay winter in Philadelphia, startled by the news
that a French fleet was on its way to America, marched for New York,
June 18,1778. The American army overtook them at Monmouth on the 28th;
General Charles Lee--a traitor as we now know, and as Washington then
suspected, forced into high place by influence in Congress--General Lee
led the party intended to attack, but he delayed so long that the
British attacked him instead.

The Americans were retreating through a narrow defile when Washington
came upon the field, and his Herculean efforts, brilliantly seconded by
Wayne, stayed the rout. A stout stand was made, and the British were
held at bay till evening, when they retired and continued their march to
New York. Washington followed and took up his station at White Plains.

CHAPTER V.

THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN

[1775]

At the outbreak of hostilities the thoughts of the colonists naturally
turned to the Canadian border, the old battleground of the French and
Indian War. Then and now a hostility was felt for Canada which had not
slumbered since the burning of Schenectady in 1690.

May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen, at the head of a party of "Green Mountain
Boys," surprised Fort Ticonderoga. Crown Point was taken two days later.
Two hundred and twenty cannon, besides other much-needed military
stores, fell into the hands of the Americans. Some of these heavy guns,
hauled over the Green Mountains on oxsleds the next winter, were planted
by Washington on Dorchester Heights.

In November, 1775, St. Johns and Montreal were captured by a small force
under General Montgomery. The Americans now seemed in a fair way to get
control of all Canada, which contained only 700 regular troops. It was
even hoped tha