where Tarleton's dragoons surprised and routed Greene's rear-guard.

At Trading Ford, on the Yadkin, Cornwallis was again baffled by a heavy rain. The river rose in the night of Feb. 3d, and was impassable to the British by daylight, while Greene on the other side was speeding safely on toward Guilford C. H.

Cornwallis had to change his route and move higher up the river to Shallow Ford. He crossed there, and entered the Moravian settlements, and remarked in his dispatches that the country there was fertile and well cultivated, and he could find supplies for his troops without difficulty. The Quakers and the Moravians were men of peace, and flourished and increased as all peaceful people are apt to do.

When General Greene entered Salisbury he was wearied and depressed, and almost broken down by the desperate anxiety of his situation. The Yadkin was before him, the enemy only a few miles behind. He stopped for refreshment at the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Steele, one of the patriotic Scotch-Irish women of that town.

She overheard General Greene talking in a desponding tone to one of his friends, and her heart was moved. She went out of the room, and presently came back with two small canvas bags full of money, the earnings of years of toil, and put them in Greene's hands, saying, "Take it, general; you will need it, and I can do without it."

This was the spirit of the American women. When Cornwallis was in Mecklenburg county he stopped at the

house of Robert Wilson, whose wife treated him with so much courtesy that he thought she must be a Tory. But she said, "No, no; she had seven sons in the Patriot army, and would be willing to go herself, if necessary, and die for her country."

Even the boys and girls, the little children, shared the feelings of their fathers and mothers. While the British were in Salisbury some officers were quartered at the house of Dr. Newman, a good Whig. His two little boys were playing the game of "the battle of the Cowpens" on a board with grains of corn-red corn for the British, white for the Americans. Colonel Washington and Tarleton were especially marked, and the boys made Tarleton run all over the board with Washington after him, while they shouted, "Hurrah for Washington! Tarleton runs! Hurrah! hurrah!" Tarleton stood and looked on at the game till he got angry, and then he walked off cursing the "little rebels."

General Greene arrived at Guilford C. H. on the 7th of February. Here he was joined by Colonel Huger of South Carolina and Colonel Lee of Virginia with a troop of cavalry. Cornwallis's design was now to head Greene off from the Dan and compel him to fight or to surrender. He therefore marched with great rapidity, no longer in the rear, but on the left hand of Greene's army, and, as Greene was equally active, both armies moved at the extraordinary rate of thirty miles a day. Sleepless vigilance on the part of the Americans saved them. Greene disposed of his light troops under Colonel Otho Williams, and Colonel

Lee's Legion so judiciously manoeuvred in the face of the enemy as to delay, harass, and frequently to delude him.

On the 13th of February, with the main army, Greene reached Irwin's Ferry on the Dan, a few miles above its junction with the Staunton. A great shout went up from Williams's corps when a courier, covered with mud and his horse in a foam, dashed among them at noon with the news that Greene was safe across and in the rich and friendly county of Halifax.

That shout was heard by the British army. They felt that it meant triumph. But they pressed on, and when they reached the ferry at nightfall on the 15th the last man of Williams's and Lee's troops had just crossed, and the boats were safely moored on the other side of the swollen river.

The prize was lost. With deep chagrin Cornwallis turned about, and after giving his wearied army one day's rest he marched to Hillsboro in Orange county.

This retreat of General Greene was one of the most masterly that history records. Tarleton himself declared that "every movement of the Americans was judiciously designed and vigorously executed." Cornwallis complimented his own officers and soldiers for the enthusiasm and activity and untiring perseverance they had shown. Both armies displayed fine qualities, but the British were well clad and well fed, and so were prepared to endure the tremendous call on their strength and energy in such a march; while the Americans were thinly clothed, provided

with but one blanket to every three men, and had but one meal a day served out to them. What was it sustained them and shod their feet and sheltered their heads and gave them nerves and muscles of steel? They knew that they had taken arms for their country, for their homes, for their freedom.

RECITATION.

THE BATTLEFIELD.

ONCE this soft turf, this river's sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armèd hands
Encountered in the battle-cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget

How gushed the life-blood of her brave-
Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they sought to save.

Now all is calm and fresh and still;

Alone the chirp of flitting bird,

And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine, are heard.

No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;

Men start not at the battle-cry:

Oh, be it never heard again!

BRYANT.

CHAPTER XXVI.

DEFEAT OF COLONEL PYLE.-BATTLE OF GUILFORD

COURTHOUSE.

1781. THOMAS BURKE, a native of Ireland, a man of good family and education, a lawyer by profession, was now governor of North Carolina. He had been four years a delegate to the Continental Congress, and had taken a conspicuous part in North Carolina affairs. His home was in Hillsboro.

The State had no capital city or seat of government, and the legislature seldom met twice in the same place. It assembled wherever it was most safe or convenient.

When Cornwallis had finally decided to pursue Morgan and Greene, he ordered Major Craig, an experienced and able officer, to seize the town of Wilmington. In the latter part of January, Craig had taken possession with about four hundred men, and had fortified himself there, using the Episcopal church as his citadel. He was vigilant and active, organizing bands of Tory raiders, who carried on a merciless warfare on the Whigs all through the Cape Fear, the Haw, and the Deep River country.

The Whigs were not slow to retaliate, and bands of men equally lawless and cruel for more than a year ranged the