ugh the rain of British bullets, praying for death; he had lost all
sense of separate existence from the shattered American cause. He did
not perceive that Washington had reached the column, and resolved to
make one more appeal to Lee, he rode up to that withered culprit and
exclaimed passionately:--

"I will stay with you, my dear General, and die with you! Let us all die
here, rather than retreat!"

Lee made no reply. His brain felt as if a hot blast had swept it.

"At least send a detachment to the succour of the artillery," said
Hamilton, with quick suspicion. And Lee ordered Colonel Livingston to
advance.

At the same moment some one told Hamilton that Washington was in the
rear, rallying the troops. He spurred his horse and found that the
General had rallied the regiments of Ramsay and Stewart, after a rebuke
under which they still trembled, and was ordering Oswald to hasten his
cannon to the eminence which his aide had suggested to Lee. Hamilton
himself was in time to intercept two retreating brigades. He succeeded
in rallying them, formed them along a fence at hand, and ordered them to
charge at the point of the bayonet. He placed himself at their head, and
they made a brilliant dash upon the enemy. But his part was soon over.
His horse was shot under him, and as he struck the ground he was
overcome by the shock and the heat, and immediately carried from the
field. But the retreat was suspended, order restored, and although the
battle raged all day, the British gained no advantage. The troops were
so demoralized by the torrid heat that at sunset both Commanders were
obliged to cease hostilities; and Washington, who had been in the saddle
since daybreak, threw himself under a tree to sleep, confident of a
victory on the morrow.

"I had a feeling as if my very soul were exploding," said Hamilton to
Laurens, as they bathed their heads in a stream in the woods, with the
bodies of dead and living huddled on every side of them. "I had a
hideous vision of Washington and the rest of us in a huge battle
picture, in which a redcoat stood on every squirming variety of
continental uniform, while a screeching eagle flew off with the
Declaration of Independence. But after all, there is something
magnificent in so absolutely identifying yourself with a cause that you
go down to its depths of agony and fly to its heights of exaltation. I
was mad to die when the day--and with it the whole Cause--seemed lost.
Patriotism sur