ard winter at Valley Forge, the spring of 1778
opened with new hopes. The French government had signed a treaty with
the United States, agreeing to aid them with men and money, and a fleet
of French ships was sent to America. The British finding Philadelphia
hardly worth the hard fighting it had cost, since they could not get far
away from it, or hurt the American army very much while in the city, got
ready to leave it and go back to New York. Washington followed hard
after them, and a heavy battle was fought at Monmouth, in New Jersey,
from which neither side gained a great deal. The British got back into
New York, and Washington took his men up the Hudson, and kept them
there, watching a chance to join in some attack with the French troops
who came to Newport, in the State of Rhode Island.

For the next three years there was not any very hard fighting under
Washington's own command, but his cares were scarcely less. He had to
keep watch of all that was going on, and to have his army ready to
strike at a moment's warning. Waiting and watching were tedious work.
They tried his patience and his firmness. A weaker man would have given
up, but Washington was not any more easily tired than he was frightened.
He held steadily to his task, and tried hard to keep his countrymen,
many of whom were weary of the war, up to their duty.

At one time the cause of liberty was nearly ruined by a traitor. General
Benedict Arnold tried to sell to the British a fort at West Point, on
the Hudson River. If the British could have got that, the States north
and east of New York would have been cut off from the rest, and probably
they would have all been conquered. Happily the plot failed. This was in
1780.

The next year Washington really closed the war by a splendid move. A
large army of the British had been sent to Virginia, under Lord
Cornwallis, in hopes to cut the troops who were farther south off from
connection with the North.

Washington sent a gallant young French General, Lafayette, whom he loved
and trusted greatly, to prevent this. Lafayette had a small force, but
he was quick and brave and shrewd, and he managed to get the British
shut up in Yorktown, near the Chesapeake Bay. There he learned that a
French fleet, under Comte de Grasse, would soon arrive. He sent urgent
word to Washington to come South right away.

Washington straightway marched, with nearly all his army, and most of
the French troops, for Virginia. They arr