FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM
ANY of my readers who are true, sound-hearted Americans, and I am sure
all of them are that, would have been glad to see how the New England
farmers swarmed around Boston in April, 1775. Some of them had fought in
the French War, and brought with them their old rusty muskets, which
they knew very well how to use. And most of them were hunters and had
learned how to shoot. And all of them were bold and brave and were
determined to have a free country. The English red-coat soldiers in
Boston would soon find that these countrymen were not men to be laughed
at, even if they had not been trained in war.
One morning the English woke up and rubbed their eyes hard, for there,
on a hill that overlooked the town, was a crowd of Americans. They had
been at work all night, digging and making earthworks to fight behind,
and now had quite a fort. The English officers did not like the look of
things, for the Americans could fire from that hill--Bunker Hill, they
called it--straight down into the town. They must be driven away or
they would drive the troops away.
I can tell you that was a busy and bloody day for Boston. The great
war-ships in the harbor thundered with their cannon at the men on the
hill. And the soldiers began to march up the hill, thinking that the
Yankees would run like sheep when they saw the red-coats coming near.
But the Yankees were not there to run.
"Don't fire, boys, till you see the whites of their eyes," said brave
General Prescott.
So the Yankee boys waited till the British were close at hand. Then they
fired and the red-coats fell in rows, for the farmers did not waste
their bullets. Those that did not fall scampered in haste down the hill.
It was a strange sight to see British soldiers running away from Yankee
farmers.
After a while the British came again. They were not so sure this time.
Again the Yankee muskets rattled along the earthworks, and again the
British turned and ran--those who were able to.
They could never have taken that hill if the farmer soldiers had not run
out of powder. When the red-coats came a third time the Yankees could
not fire, and had to fight them with the butts of their guns. So the
British won the hill; but they had found that the Yankee farmers were
not cowards; after that time they never liked to march against American
earthworks.
Not long after the battle of Bunker Hill General Washington came to
command the Americans, and he spent months in drilling and making
soldiers out of them. He also got a good supply of powder and muskets
and some cannon, and one dark night in March, 1776, he built a fort on
another hill that looked down on Boston.
I warrant you, the British were alarmed when they looked up that hill
the next morning and saw cannon on its top and men behind the cannon.
They would have to climb that hill as they had done Bunker Hill, or else
leave Boston. But they had no fancy for another Bunker Hill, so they
decided to leave. They went on board their ships and sailed away, and
Washington and his men marched joyfully into the town. That was a great
day for America, and it was soon followed by the 4th of July and the
glorious Declaration of Independence. Since that 4th of July no king has
ever ruled over the United States.
We call this war the American Revolution. Do you know what a revolution
is? It means the doing away with a bad government and replacing it with
a better one. In this country it meant that our people were tired of the
rule of England and wished to govern themselves. They had to fight hard
for their freedom, it is true, but it was well worth fighting for.
The war was a long and dreadful one. It went on for seven long years. At
one time everything seemed lost; at other times all grew bright and
hopeful. And thus it went on, up and down, to the end. I cannot tell you
all that took place, but I will give you the important facts.
After the British left Boston, they sailed about for a time, and then
they came with a large army to New York. Washington was there with his
soldiers to meet them, and did his best, but everything seemed to go
wrong. First, the Americans were beaten in battle and had to march out
of New York and let the British march in. Then Washington and his ragged
men were obliged to hasten across the State of New Jersey with a strong
British force after them. They were too weak to face the British.
When they got to the Delaware River the Americans crossed it and took
all the boats, so that the British could not follow them. It was now
near winter time, and both armies went into winter quarters. They faced
each other, but the wide river ran between.
You may well think that by this time the American people were getting
very down-hearted. Many of them thought that all was lost, and that
they would have to submit to King George. The army dwindled away and no
new soldiers came in, so that it looked as if it would go to pieces. It
was growing very dark for American liberty.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE.]
But there was one man who did not despair, and that man was George
Washington. He saw that something must be done to stir up the spirits of
the people, and he was just the man to do it. It was a wonderful
Christmas he kept that year. All Christmas day his ragged and hungry
soldiers were marching up their side of the Delaware, and crossing the
river in boats, though the wind was biting cold, and the air was full of
falling snow, and the broken ice was floating in great blocks down the
river; but nothing stopped the gallant soldiers. All Christmas night
they marched down the other side of the river, though their shoes were
so bad that the ground became reddened by blood from their feet. Two of
the poor fellows were frozen to death.
At Trenton, a number of miles below, there was a body of German
soldiers. These had been hired by King George to help him fight his
battles. That day they had been eating a good Christmas dinner while the
hungry Americans were marching through the snow. At night they went to
bed, not dreaming of danger.
They were wakened in the morning by shots and shouts. Washington and his
men were in the streets of the town. They had hardly time to seize
their guns before the ragged Yankees were all around them and nearly all
of them were made prisoners of war.
Was not that a great and glorious deed? It filled the Americans with new
hope. In a few days afterwards, Washington defeated the British in
another battle, and then settled down with his ragged but brave men in
the hills of New Jersey. He did not go behind a river this time. The
British knew where he was and could come to see him if they wanted to.
But they did not come. Very likely they had seen enough of him for that
winter.
The next year things went wrong again for Washington. A large British
army sailed from New York and landed at the head of Chesapeake Bay. Then
they marched overland to Philadelphia. Washington fought a battle with
them on Brandywine Creek, but his men were defeated and the British
marched on and entered Philadelphia. They now held the largest cities of
the country, Philadelphia and New York.
While the British were living in plenty and having a very good time in
the Quaker city, the poor Americans spent a wretched and terrible winter
at a place called Valley Forge. The winter was a dismally cold one, and
the men had not half enough food to eat or clothes to wear, and very
poor huts to live in. They suffered dreadfully, and before the spring
came many of them died from disease and hardship.
Poor fellows! they were paying dearly for their struggle for liberty.
But there was no such despair this winter as there had been the winter
before, for news came from the north that warmed the soldiers up like a
fire. Though Washington had lost a battle, a great victory had been
gained by the Americans at Saratoga, in the upper part of New York
state.
While General Howe was marching on Philadelphia, another British army,
under General Burgoyne, had been marching south from Canada, along the
line of Lake Champlain and Lake George. But Burgoyne and his men soon
found themselves in a tight place. Food began to run short and a
regiment of a thousand men was sent into Vermont to seize some stores.
They were met by the Green Mountain boys, led by Colonel Stark, a brave
old soldier.
"There are the red-coats," said the bold colonel. "We must beat them
to-day, or Molly Stark is a widow."[1]
Beat them they did. Only seventy men got back to Burgoyne. All the rest
were killed or captured.
Another force, under Colonel St. Leger, marched south from Oswego, on
Lake Ontario. A large body of Indians was with him. This army stopped to
besiege a fort in the wilderness, and General Arnold marched to help the
fort.
The way Arnold defeated St. Leger was a very curious one. He sent a
half-witted fellow into the Indian camp with the tale that a great
American force was coming. The messenger came running in among the
savages, with bullet-holes in his clothes. He seemed half scared to
death, and told the Indians that a vast host was coming after him as
thick as the leaves on the trees.
This story frightened the Indians and they ran off in great haste
through the woods. When the British soldiers saw this they fell into
such a terror that they took to their heels, leaving all their tents and
cannon behind them. The people in the fort did not know what it meant,
till Arnold came up and told them how he had won a victory without
firing a shot, by a sort of fairy story.
All this was very bad for Burgoyne. The Indians he brought with him
began to leave. At length he found himself in a terrible plight. His
provisions were nearly gone, he was surrounded by the Americans, and
after fighting two battles he retreated to Saratoga. Here he had to
surrender. He and all his army became prisoners to the Americans.
We cannot wonder that this warmed up the Americans like a fire. It
filled the English with despair. They began to think that they would
never win back the colonies.
One thing the good news did was to get the French to come to the help of
the Americans. Benjamin Franklin was then in Paris, and he asked the
king to send ships and men and money to America. The French had no love
for the British, who had taken from them all their colonies in America,
so they did as Franklin wished.
There are two more things I wish to tell you in this chapter, one good
and one bad. When the British in Philadelphia heard that the French were
coming to help the Americans, they were afraid they might be caught in a
trap. So they left in great haste and marched for New York. Washington
followed and fought a battle with them, but they got away. After that
Washington's army laid siege to New York, as it had formerly done to
Boston.
That was the good thing. The bad thing was this. General Benedict
Arnold, who had defeated St. Leger and his Indians, and who was one of
the bravest of the American officers, turned traitor to his country. He
had charge of West Point, a strong fort on the Hudson River, and tried
to give this up to the British. But he was found out and had to flee for
his life. Major Andre, a British officer, who had been sent to talk with
Arnold, was caught by three American scouts on his way back to New York.
They searched him for papers, and found what they wanted hidden in his
boot. Poor Andre was hung for a spy, but the traitor Arnold escaped. But
he was hated by the Americans and despised by the British, and twenty
years afterwards he died in shame and remorse.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] All the accounts agree that Colonel Stark spoke of his wife as
"Molly Stark." But it has been found that his wife's name was Elizabeth;
so he may have said "Betty Stark."