best thing to do was to spend the winter in New York, and this they did.

about the

Washington had to meet other difficulties than battles. When there is war in these days, some favor it and some do not. So it Differences was in Revolutionary times. Some Americans were ready to give of opinion their lives and every penny they possessed to win independence. war Others thought that it was a wrong and foolish thing to oppose their lawful king. Some believed that war was always a crime.

no matter for what reason it was fought. Some joined the army for adventure, some to get the pay that was promised. People were people then as well as now.

FLINTLOCK PISTOL (Given to Washington by Lafayette)

The lack of money was a great difficulty. Congress had issued paper money, but paper money is of no worth unless the government that issues it is able to give gold for it that will be of value any

The lack of where, and no one knew whether this little company of states money would ever be able to pay what the bills promised. Even the truest patriot hesitated to stay in the army with no money to send to his wife and children who were starving at home. Congress had no power to make people pay taxes or to enlist. One man after another gave all that he could. Franklin lent the country his little savings; Washington would accept no salary, and he agreed to use his own fortune to pay the soldiers, if Congress failed; but it was Robert Morris, a rich banker of Philadelphia, who was the real

Robert Morris

LX DOLLARS.

Dnow dem Damble

CONTINENTAL PAPER MONEY
(Two thirds of the real size)

was the "Father of the Revolution," Washington was the general, and Morris was the banker.

Franklin fought no battles, and he had little money to give. The thing that he gave was influence, the power to persuade men to do as he wished. Not long after the Declaration, Franklin and

two others had been sent to France to try to win the help of the Franklin in France French king. So long as the revolt was only a rebellion, the king could have nothing to do with it; but if there was good hope of its being a successful revolution, he was ready to strike a blow at the land that only twenty years before had driven him out of his possessions in America. It began to appear that Washington was a great general. There was once a Roman commander who could not only fight, but who weakened his enemy by "prudent delay." His name was Fabius, and

Washington began to be called the

66

"American Fabius." The French king hesitated.

Meanwhile Franklin became the fashion in France. The Parisians delighted in even his whims and oddities. Every one wanted to see how "Poor Richard" looked and to hear him talk. The government moved slowly, but there was a rich young nobleman named Lafayette, only nineteen years old, who would not wait for king or councilors. He bought a ship, fitted it out, invited some veterans to go

66

LAFAYETTE

(From a contemporary engraving)

with him, and sailed away for the land whose independence he meant to help win. The Americans rejoiced at his coming, and he was happy with them. I feel as if I had known them twenty years," this boy of nineteen wrote home. Lafayette was a brave soldier, and the veterans who came with him were of the greatest help to Washington in training his troops; but of most importance was the evidence that friends across the seas would surely help America if she could only endure a little while longer.

Lafayette comes to America

During the winter the British government planned for General Burgoyne's Howe to go up the Hudson; for General Burgoyne to come down invasion from Canada, capturing Fort Ticonderoga on the way, and for another body of troops to come from Lake Ontario down the Mohawk Valley. All three would meet, and the British would control the State of New York.

Burgoyne captured Ticonderoga. Food, horses, and ammuniThe battle of tion had been collected in the little Vermont village of BenningBennington ton, and Burgoyne planned to send some soldiers to take these

supplies. The plan might have succeeded if it had not been for Colonel John Stark, a New Hampshire man who had fought in the French and Indian wars and at Bunker Hill. In the promotions Congress had not done him justice. He was too indignant

to serve in the army; but when the British invaded his own state, for Vermont was then claimed by New Hampshire, he raised eight hundred men, asked an American officer to lend him a regiment, and marched out to fight. "I'm under no man's command," said he. "I take my orders from the State of New Hampshire." His men had no uniforms, and their weapons were anything that they Congress pardoned Stark for

could get, but they carried the day.
making war all by himself and appointed him a brigadier-general.
Burgoyne was in great danger, but if the troops could come
down the Mohawk, he would be saved. This expedition had

come as far as Fort Stanwix, where Rome now stands. There The Amerthad already been fighting. The Americans had dashed out of the can flag fort and captured five British flags. They hoisted them upside down, and far above them there floated the most remarkable banner that ever waved in the New York wilderness. One soldier gave a white shirt, another an old blue jacket, and a third contributed some strips of red flannel from his wife's petticoat. So it was that the flag adopted by Congress was made, and for the first time "Old Glory" swung out to the breeze.1 Benedict Arnold had been sent to assist the soldiers at Fort Stanwix. He contrived to spread the rumor ahead of him that Burgoyne had been defeated. The British fled back to Lake Ontario.

These rumors became true not long afterwards, for General Howe seemed to think chiefly of capturing the "rebel capital," as Burgoyne's he called Philadelphia, and the paper ordering him to go up the surrender Hudson and help Burgoyne lay in the desk of a man in London who had gone off for a vacation and forgotten all about it. Two battles were fought near Saratoga, and Burgoyne was obliged to surrender. One of the soldiers wrote:

1777

The main event of 1777, the third year of the war, was the failure of the British to gain the Hudson. To prevent this, Wash- Events of ington had lost Philadelphia; but the enemy could be driven from Philadelphia; while the British, once in full possession of the Hudson, could have conquered the country at their leisure. His skillful retreat across New Jersey, his victory at Princeton, and his masterly fashion of delaying the enemy when he could not fight them, had won the attention of Europe, and had given his 1 Fiske's American Revolution.