d up
the hill with bayonets fixed, resolved to capture the guns. But the guns
flashed with extraordinary rapidity. Both the British and the watching
Americans were amazed. There were no tin canisters and grape-shot in the
American army, even the round shot were exhausted. Loading cannon with
musket balls was a slow process; but Hamilton was never without
resource. He stood the cannon on end, filled his three-cornered hat with
the balls, and loaded as rapidly as had he leaped a century. His guns
mowed down the British in such numbers that Leslie fell back, and
joining the Hessian grenadiers and infantry, who had now crossed the
stream, charged up the southwestern declivity of the hill and
endeavoured to turn McDougall's right flank. McDougall's advance opposed
them hotly, while slowly retreating toward the crown of the eminence.
The British cavalry attacked the American militia on the extreme right,
and the raw troops fled ignominiously. McDougall, with only six hundred
men and Hamilton's two guns, sustained an unequal conflict for an hour,
twice repulsing the British light infantry and cavalry. But the attack
on his flank compelled him to give way and retreat toward the
intrenchments. Under cover of a heavy rainstorm and of troops despatched
in haste, he retreated in good order with his wounded and artillery,
leaving the victors in possession of a few inconsiderable breastworks.

Fort Washington was betrayed, and fell on the 16th of November. Then
began that miserable retreat of the American army through the Jerseys,
with the British sometimes in full pursuit, sometimes merely camping on
the trail of the hapless revolutionists. For Washington's force was now
reduced to thirty-five hundred, and they were ragged, half fed, and
wretched in mind and body. Many had no shoes, and in one regiment there
was not a pair of trousers. They left the moment their leave expired,
and recruits were drummed up with great difficulty. Washington was
obliged to write eight times to General Lee, who was at North Castle
with a considerable force, before he was able to hope for relief in that
quarter.

Hamilton had a horse at times, at others not. But his vitality was proof
against even those endless days and nights of marching and
countermarching, through forests and swamps, in the worst of late autumn
and winter weather; and he kept up the spirits of his little regiment,
now reduced from bullets, exposure, and the expiration of service to