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

through the house repeatedly with a tremendous noise. A poor soldier who was about to have a leg amputated, lost the other by one of these balls. The day was passed among such horrors. For six days, she and her children remained in this dismal place of refuge.
    Burgoyne was now reduced to despair. His forces were diminished by losses, by the desertion of Canadians and royalists, and the total defection of the Indians; and on inspection it was found that the provisions on hand, even upon short allowance, would not suffice for more than three days. A council of war, therefore, was called of all the generals, field-officers and captains commanding troops. The deliberations were brief. All concurred in the necessity of opening a treaty with General Gates, for a surrender on honorable terms.
    Negotiations were accordingly opened on the 13th, under sanction of a flag. Lieutenant Kingston, Burgoyne’s adjutant-general, was the bearer of a note, proposing a cessation of hostilities until terms could be adjusted. The first terms offered by Gates were that the enemy should lay down their arms within their intrenchments, and surrender themselves prisoners of war. These were indignantly rejected, with an intimation that, if persisted in, hostilities must recommence.
    Counter proposals were then made by General Burgoyne, and finally accepted by General Gates. According to these the British troops were to march out of the camp with artillery and all the honors of war, to a fixed place, where they were to pile their arms at a word of command from their own officers. They were to be allowed a free passage to Europe upon condition of not serving again in America, during the present war. The officers were to be on parole, and to wear their side-arms. All private property to be sacred; no baggage to be searched or molested. The capitulation was signed on the 17th of October.
    The British army, at the time of the surrender, was reduced by capture, death and desertion, from nine thousand to five thousand seven hundred and fifty-two men. That of Gates, regulars and militia, amounted to ten thousand five hundred and fifty-four men on duty; between two and three thousand being on the sick list or absent on furlough. By this capitulation, the Americans gained a fine train of artillery, seven thousand stand of arms, and a great quantity of clothing, tents, and military stores of all kinds.
    When the British troops marched forth to deposit their arms at the appointed place, Colonel Wilkinson, the adjutant-general, was the only American soldier to be seen. Gates had ordered his troops to keep rigidly within their lines, that they might not add by their presence to the humiliation of a brave enemy. In fact, throughout all his conduct during the campaign, British writers and Burgoyne himself give him credit for acting with great humanity and forbearance.
    The surrender of Burgoyne was soon followed by the evacuation of Ticonderoga and Fort Independence, the garrisons retiring to the Isle aux Noix and St. Johns. As to the armament on the Hudson, the commanders whom Sir Henry Clinton had left in charge of it, received, in the midst of their desolating career the astounding intelligence of the capture of the army with which they had come to co-operate. Nothing remained for them, therefore, but to drop down the river and return to New York. The fortresses in the Highlands could not be maintained, and were evacuated and destroyed.

CHAPTER XLVII.
    B ATTLE OF G ERMANTOWN .—H OSTILITIES ON THE D ELAWARE .

    Having given the catastrophe of the British invasion from the North, we will revert to that part of the year’s campaign which was passing under the immediate eye of Washington. We left him encamped at Pott’s Grove towards the end of September, giving his troops a few days’ repose after their severe fatigues. Being rejoined by Wayne and Smallwood with their brigades, and other troops being arrived from the Jerseys, his force amounted to about eight thousand Continentals and three thousand militia: with these he advanced on the 30th of September to Skippack Creek, about fourteen miles from Germantown, where the main body of the British army lay encamped; a detachment under Cornwallis occupying Philadelphia.
    Immediately after the battle of Brandywine, Admiral Lord Howe with great exertions had succeeded in getting his ships of war and transports round from the Chesapeake into the Delaware, and had anchored them along the western shore from