17') 



Till-: STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FA< 1 > 



On Januar 7, he defeated the enemy enemy. Cornwallis withdrew to South Carolina. 



at Princt M prison* to July 10th, a French fleet arrived at Newport, 



it threat ::idelphiae b- bringing the Count de Rochambeau and 6,000 



ington south. In the battle on the Brand \ w ine. Bokuers. In September a treasonable plot 



SeoteniU-r llth. he was outnumbered and com- schemed by Arnold was discovered. The prin- 



pelled to retreat with a loss of nearly loot) 

 On the 26th. the British took possession 

 ladelphia without opposition 



Wad 



i. Washington attacked the British at 

 (Jerniantown. seven miles from Philadelpliia. 



is repulsed with heavy loss; and soon 



:ird both armies went into winter quarter.-. 

 the Americans at Valley Forge, on the Sehm 1- 

 kill. ! iles from Philadelphia. Mean- 



time, a British army. 7,500 strong, l>< -i.li > In 

 dians. commanded by General Burgo'yne, ad- 

 vanced from Canada by Lake Champlain, and 

 took Ticonderoga, Fort Independence, and 



.'. hieh were 



Bennington. Vt.. io destroy a collection 

 of stores, were met then* (August Kith) and 

 defeated with the loss of about 200 killed and 



cipal military operations of 1781 were in the 

 south, where CJreene had superseded Gates. 

 At the Cowpens, S. C., on January 17th, General 

 Morgan won a brilliant victory over the British 

 under Colonel Tarleton. On March 15th. the 

 British gained a victory at Guilford Court House, 

 N. C., but drew from it no advantage; and on 

 September 8th occurred the drawn battle of 

 Km aw Springs, which nearly terminated the 

 war in South Carolina. Cornwallis, having ad- 

 vanced into Virginia in April, was opposed by 

 Lafayette, Wayne, and Steuben, and fortified 

 himself at Yorktown. Meanwhile, the American 

 army under Washington and the French army 

 of Rochambeau had formed a junction on the 

 Hudson. The allied army arrived before York- 

 town September 28, 1781, and began a regular 



600 prisoners by the Vermont and New Hamp- I siege, which lasted till October 19th, when Corn- 

 nilitia led by General Stark. Burgoyne wallis surrendered with his whole force of 7,247 



was encountered by General Gates, to whom, 

 after I - of 'Still water (September 19th) 



and Saratoga (October 7th), he capitulated at 

 Saratoga (October 17th) with his whole army. 

 The consequences of this victory were apparent 

 in the signing, in February, 1778, of treaties of 

 alliance and of amity and commerce with France. 

 The British evacuated Philadelphia in the night 

 of June 17th with more than 17,000 men. 

 Washington pursued, and on the 28th the two 



- engaged in battle on the plains of Mon- 



.. near Freehold, N. J. The Americans 

 Masters of the field, while the British 



ed to New York. An attempt made in 

 August, with the aistance of the French fleet 



< 'ount d'Estaing, to drive the British from 

 Rhode Island, proved a failure. On December 



be British, having defeated the American 

 forces at Savannah, took possession of the city. 

 In September, 1779, Savannah was besieged by 

 :id American force, and on October 

 9th an assault was made upon it, which was 

 repulsed with a loss to the allies of nearly 800 

 men, among them Casimir Pulaski. About this 

 time the British evacuated Rhode Island, to 

 concentrate their forces at New York. One of 

 -t brilliant achievements of the war was 

 the storming (July Hi. 1779) of Stony Point on 

 idson by Genera] Wayne. On the ocean, 

 uhich swarmed with American privateers, Paul 

 Jones chiefly distinguished himself. Charleston, 

 8. C., after a feeble defense of several weeks, 

 was surrendered to the British on May 12, 1780, 



Moral Lincoln. The rest of South Carolina 

 nominally submitted to the royal authority; 

 but a guerilla warfare was kept up by Sumter, 

 Marion, and other partisan leaders. Congress 



men, besides 840 sailors; 106 guns were taken. 

 This victory substantially terminated the con- 

 test. A preliminary treaty of peace was signed 

 at Paris, November 30, 1782, by Franklin, Adams, 

 Jay, and Laurens. On September 3, 1783, a 

 definitive treaty was signed at Versailles, by 

 which the United States were formally acknowl- 

 edged by Great Britain to be free, sovereign, and 

 independent. New York, the last position held 

 by tne British on our coast, was evacuated No- 

 vember 25, 1783. On June 12, 1776, while the 

 resolution of independence was under considera- 

 tion in Congress, a committee of one from each 

 colony was created to draft a form of confedera- 

 tion, and the articles reported by it were adopted 

 November 15, 1777. Having been ratified by 

 all the States, they went into effect on March 1, 

 1781. Dissatisfaction with the confederation, 

 owing to the weakness of the central government 

 under it, soon became widespread, and in 1786 

 a convention of delegates from several States at 

 Annapolis, Md., recommended the calling of a 

 convention of delegates from all the States to 

 propose changes in the articles of confederation. 

 This plan was approved by Congress on February 

 21, 1787, and the convention organized at Phila- 

 delphia on May 25th, by the choice of Washing- 

 ton as president. It remained in session until 

 September 17th, when it adjourned after adopt- 

 ing the Constitution. All the States were repre- 

 sented except Rhode Island. Having been rati- 

 fied by the requisite number of States, the Con- 

 stitution went into effect on March 4, 1789. At 

 the first election Washington was chosen presi- 

 dent and John Adams vice-president, and Wash- 

 ington was inaugurated in New York on April 

 30th. In the summer of 1790 an Indian war 



neral Gates to recover South Carolina, broke out with the tribes of the northwest, who, 



On hi> first encounter with Cornwallis at Cam- 

 den, August 16th, he was routed with great 

 loss, and with the remnant of his force fled to 

 Nort li ( 'arolina. Early in September Cornwallis 



after inflicting defeats on Generals Harmar and 

 St. Clair, were finally quelled by General Wayne, 

 and peace was restored in August, 1795. At the 

 second presidential election in 1792, Washington 



marched into North Carolina, where, on October again received the unanimous votes of the elec- 



rth, at King's Mountain, a detachment from toral colleges, and Adams was reflected vice- 



his army was totally defeated by 900 militia, president. The whiskey insurrection against an 



who killed and captured upward of 1,100 of the unpopular excise law in 1794 threw Western 



