The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools

information of the force and condition of the post at Peekskill, and had undergone a military trial. A vessel of war came up the Hudson in all haste, and landed a flag of truce at Verplanck’s Point, by which a message was transmitted to Putnam from Sir Henry Clinton, claiming Edmund Palmer as a lieutenant in the British service. The reply of the old general was brief but emphatic:
    “H EAD -Q UARTERS , 7th Aug., 1777.
    “Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy’s service, was taken as a spy lurking within our lines; he has been tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy; and the flag is ordered to depart immediately.
    “I SRAEL P UTNAM .”
    “P. S.—He has, accordingly, been executed.”
    Governor Clinton, the other guardian of the Highlands, and actually at his post at Fort Montgomery, was equally on the alert. He had faithfully followed Washington’s directions in ordering out militia from different counties to reinforce his own garrison and the army under Schuyler.
    One measure more was taken by Washington, during this interval, in aid of the Northern department. The Indians who accompanied Burgoyne were objects of great dread to the American troops, especially the militia. As a counterpoise to them, he now sent up Colonel Morgan with five hundred riflemen, to fight them in their own way. “They are all chosen men,” said he, “selected from the army at large, and well acquainted with the use of rifles and with that mode of fighting. I expect the most eminent services from them, and I shall be mistaken if their presence does not go far towards producing a general desertion among the savages.”
    During his encampment in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, Washington was repeatedly at that city, making himself acquainted with the military capabilities of the place and its surrounding country, and directing the construction of fortifications on the river. In one of these visits he became acquainted with the young Marquis de Lafayette, who had recently arrived from France, in company with a number of French, Polish, and German officers, among whom was the Baron de Kalb. The marquis was not quite twenty years of age, yet had already been married nearly three years to a lady of rank and fortune. Full of the romance of liberty, he had torn himself from his youthful bride, turned his back upon the gayeties and splendors of a court, and in defiance of impediments and difficulties multiplied in his path, had made his way to America to join its hazardous fortunes.
    It was at a public dinner, where a number of members of Congress were present, that Lafayette first saw Washington. He immediately knew him, he said, from the officers who surrounded him, by his commanding air and person. When the party was breaking up, Washington took him aside, complimented him in a gracious manner on his disinterested zeal and the generosity of his conduct, and invited him to make head-quarters his home.
    Many days had now elapsed without further tidings of the fleet, when the tormenting uncertainties concerning it were brought to an end by intelligence that it had actually entered the Chesapeake and anchored at Swan Point, at least two hundred miles within the capes. “By General Howe’s coming so far up the Chesapeake,” writes Washington, “he must mean to reach Philadelphia by that route, though to be sure it is a strange one.” The mystery of these various appearances and vanishings which had caused so much wonder and perplexity is easily explained. Shortly before putting to sea with the ships of war, Howe had sent a number of transports and a ship cut down as a floating battery up the Hudson, which had induced Washington to despatch troops to the Highlands. After putting to sea, the fleet was a week in reaching the Capes of Delaware. When there, the commanders were deterred from entering the river by reports of measures taken to obstruct its navigation. It was then determined to make for Chesapeake Bay, and approach in that way as near as possible to Philadelphia. Contrary winds, however, kept them for a long time from getting into the bay.
    Lafayette in his memoirs describes a review of Washington’s army which he witnessed about this time. “Eleven thousand men, but tolerably armed and still worse clad, presented,” he said, “a singular spectacle; in this parti-colored and often naked state, the best dresses were hunting shirts of brown linen. Their tactics were equally irregular. They were