CHAP. II. gave a turn to the operations of the armies, 1777. and released the inhabitants from the fears created by the presence of their invaders, the great body of the people flew to arms; and those who could not be brought into the field to check the advance of the enemy, and thereby prevent those ravages which uniformly afflict a country that becomes the seat of war, were prompt in avenging those ravages. Small bodies of the militia scoured the country in every direction; seized on stragglers who had separated themselves from their corps; in several small skirmishes behaved unexceptionably well, and were collecting in such numbers as to threaten the weaker posts of the enemy with the fate which their troops at Trenton and Princeton had already experienced. The cautious temper of the British general, readily suggested to him, the necessity of guarding against that spirit of enterprise which his adversary had disclosed; and of which there was now reason to apprehend he might be furnished with the means of giving additional proofs. Sir William Howe, therefore, determined, as the season was unfavourable for active operations, not to expose himself to further loss by extending his cantonments, but to strengthen by contracting his posts. The dif ferent positions which had been heretofore taken, for the purpose of covering the country, all except two, were abandoned, and the whole CHAP. II. British force in the Jerseys was collected at 1777. New Brunswick on the Raritan, and at Amboy, a small town at the mouth of that river. These two posts were judiciously selected for the double purpose of again penetrating into the heart of the country, if he should renew the project of marching by land to Philadelphia, and, in the mean time, of keeping up a safe communication with New York. Although the strength of the American army did not admit of any important blow before general Howe had thus concentrated his force, that movement was not effected entirely without loss. General Maxwell, with a corps of Jersey militia, had been ordered to the neighbourhood of Elizabeth town, and on their evacuating that place, had made a successful attack on their rear, in which about seventy prisoners and a part of their baggage were taken. Almost the whole state of Jersey was now restored to the union. The British general who had lately spread his troops over a very large part of it, and who, in a great measure, overawed those counties his arms had not reached, was now reduced to the possession of two neighbouring towns, and the communication between them; and could only consider himself as master of the ground he occupied. K 2 CHAP. II. The American force had been so diminished 1777. by the extreme severity of the service, by the Their expiration of their engagements, and by the While the enemy was thus surrounded, harassed, and confined, by little more than an imaginary army, the parts of which disappeared at the approach of any serious force, but returned to their former positions when that force retreated, and always attacked small parties with great vigour, and often with success; general Washington came to the hazardous, but judicious resolution, of freeing himself and his future army from the fear of a calamity CHAP. II. which he found it impossible to elude, and 1777. which had been more fatal in his camp, than January 12. the sword of the enemy. Inoculation had been very rarely practised in the western world, and the small-pox had been ever dreaded as a scourge the most tremendous with which the human race could be afflicted. Notwithstanding the efforts incessantly used to guard against this disease, which, taken in the natural way, is so destructive to our species; it had found its way both into the northern and middle army; and had, to a very alarming degree, impaired the force of both. In the northern army especially, its havoc had been so extensive that, according to every probability, only the delay requisite to obtain the superiority on lake Champlain, a measure believed to be of absolute necessity, prevented the British army in 1776, from penetrating to the Hudson. army As the only effectual mode of avoiding a American return of the same evils the ensuing campaign, inoculated. the general determined to inoculate all the soldiers in the American service. With as much secrecy as could be observed, preparations were made to give the infection in camp, and the hospital physicians at Philadelphia were ordered to carry all the southern troops, who were for that purpose stopped in that place and its neighbourhood, as expeditiously as CHAP. II. possible, through the disease. 1777. Similar orders were also given to the physicians at other places; and thus was prepared, for the ensuing campaign, an army exempt from the fear of a calamity which had at all times endangered the most important operations. The process in camp was so conducted that no advantage of it was taken by the enemy, and the example given in the army was fortunately followed very generally through the country; so that this alarming disease, in a great degree, ceased to be the terror of America. While Philadelphia was supposed to be in hazard, the militia of New England had been called for, and had been ordered in considerable numbers to the Delaware. Six thousand men under general Lincoln marched from Massachussetts, and a force in proportion to its population, was raised in Connecticut. Of these the greater number were detained by the invasion of Rhode island; but a few regiments. marched as far as the North river, to the camp of general Heath, who had been left to guard the highlands of New York. Here they were stopped by order of the commander in chief, for the purpose of making a diversion on the side of New York, from which hopes of considerable advantage were entertained. As the enemy was in great force in Jersey, and had detached a strong corps to Rhode Island, New York must necessarily be weak. |