Читать книгу Washington the Soldier онлайн

60 страница из 123

Greene, would attend his chief in the siege of Boston; fortify Brooklyn Heights; engage in operations about Forts Washington and Lee; take part in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Newport, and Springfield; would then succeed Gates at the south, fight the battles of Guilford Court-House, Hobkirk Hill, and Eutaw Springs, and close his life in Georgia, the adopted home of his declining years.

But, during the midsummer of 1775, the beleaguered City of Boston, astounded by the stolid and bloody resistance to its guardian garrison, began to measure the cost of loyalty to the King, in preference to loyalty to country and duty; while the enclosed patriots began to assure themselves that deliverance was drawing near. Burgoyne, after watching the battle from Copp’s Hill, in writing to England of this “great catastrophe,” prepared the Crown for that large demand for troops upon which he afterwards conditioned his acceptance of a command in America.

The days of waiting for a distinct battle-issue had been fulfilled. The days of waiting for the consolidation of the armies about Boston, under one competent guide and master, also passed. Washington had left Philadelphia and was journeying toward Cambridge.