ght and then suddenly reappear at an unexpected point. This is
the haunting terror of sea power. Already the British had destroyed
Falmouth, now Portland, Maine, and Norfolk, the principal town in
Virginia. Washington had no illusions of security. He was anxious above
all for the safety of New York, commanding the vital artery of the
Hudson, which must at all costs be defended. Accordingly, in April, he
took his army to New York and established there his own headquarters.

Even before Washington moved to New York, three great British
expeditions were nearing America. One of these we have already seen at
Quebec. Another was bound for Charleston, to land there an army and to
make the place a rallying center for the numerous but harassed Loyalists
of the South. The third and largest of these expeditions was to strike
at New York and, by a show of strength, bring the colonists to reason
and reconciliation. If mildness failed the British intended to capture
New York, sail up the Hudson and cut off New England from the other
colonies.

The squadron destined for Charleston carried an army in command of a
fine soldier, Lord Cornwallis, destined later to be the defeated
leader in the last dramatic scene of the war. In May this fleet reached
Wilmington, North Carolina, and took on board two thousand men under
General Sir Henry Clinton, who had been sent by Howe from Boston in
vain to win the Carolinas and who now assumed military command of the
combined forces. Admiral Sir Peter Parker commanded the fleet, and on
the 4th of June he was off Charleston Harbor. Parker found that in order
to cross the bar he would have to lighten his larger ships. This was
done by the laborious process of removing the guns, which, of course,
he had to replace when the bar was crossed. On the 28th of June, Parker
drew up his ships before Fort Moultrie in the harbor. He had expected
simultaneous aid by land from three thousand soldiers put ashore from
the fleet on a sandbar, but these troops could give him no help against
the fort from which they were cut off by a channel of deep water. A
battle soon proved the British ships unable to withstand the American
fire from Fort Moultrie. Late in the evening Parker drew off, with
two hundred and twenty-five casualties against an American loss of
thirty-seven. The check was greater than that of Bunker Hill, for there
the British took the ground which they attacked. The British sailors
bore witness to the gall