GENERAL LINCOLN SENT SOUTH. 547 hundred and fifteen privates were taken prisoners, and the rest retreated up the Savannah River and crossed into South Carolina. Savannah, the capital of Georgia, was taken possession of by the victors, with cannon, military stores, and provisions; their loss was only seven killed and nineteen wounded. Colonel Campbell conducted himself with great moderation; protecting the persons and property of the inhabitants, and proclaiming security and favor to all that should return to their allegiance. Numbers in consequence flocked to the British standard; the lower part of Georgia was considered as subdued, and posts were established by the British to maintain posses sion. While Colonel Campbell had thus invaded Georgia in front, General Prevost, who commanded the British forces in Florida, had received orders from Sir Henry Clinton to take it in flank. He accordingly traversed deserts to its southern frontier, took Sunbury, the only remaining fort of importance, and marched to Savannah, where he assumed the general command, detaching Colonel Campbell against Augusta. By the middle of January (1779) all Georgia was reduced to submis sion. A more experienced American general than Howe had by this time arrived to take command of the Southern Department-Major-general Lincoln, who had gained such reputation in the campaign against Burgoyne, and whose appointment to this station had been solicited by the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia. He had received his orders from Washington in the beginning of October. Of his operations at the South we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. CHAPTER XXXVIII. WINTER CANTONMENTS OF THE AMERICAN ARMY.-WASHINGTON AT MIDDLEBROOK.-PLAN OF ALARM SIGNALS FOR THE JERSEYS.-LAFAYETTE'S PROJECT FOR AN INVASION OF CANADA.-FAVORED BY CONGRESS.-CONDEMNED BY WASHINGTON.-RELINQUISHED.-WASHINGTON IN PHILADELPHIA.—THE WAR SPIRIT DECLINING.- DISSENSIONS IN CONGRESS. SECTIONAL FEELINGS.-PATRIOTIC APPEALS OF WASHINGTON.-PLANS FOR THE NEXT CAMPAIGN.-INDIAN ATROCITIES TO BE REPRESSED.- AVENGING EXPEDITION SET ON FOOT.-DISCONTENTS OF THE JERSEY TROOPS.-APPEASED BY THE INTERFERENCE OF WASHINGTON. SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE INDIANS. BOUT the beginning of December, Washington distributed his troops for the winter in a line of strong cantonments extending from Long Island Sound to the Delaware. General Putnam commanded at Danbury, General McDougall in the Highlands, while the head-quarters of the commander-in-chief were near Middlebrook in the Jerseys. The objects of this arrangement were the protection of the country, the security of the important posts on the Hudson, and the safety, discipline, and easy subsistence of the army. In the course of this winter he devised a plan of alarm signals, which General Philemon Dickinson was employed to carry into effect. On Bottle Hill, which com manded a vast map of country, sentinels kept watch day and night. Should there be an irruption of the enemy, an eighteen-pounder, called the Old Sow, fired every half hour, gave the alarm in the day-time or in dark and stormy nights; an immense fire or beacon at other times. On the booming of that heavy gun, lights sprang up from hill to hill along the different ranges of heights; the country was aroused, and the yeomanry, hastily armed, hurried to their gathering places. Washington was now doomed to experience great loss in the narrow circle of those about him, on whose attachment and devotion he could place implicit reliance. The Marquis Lafayette, seeing no immediate prospect of active employment in the United States, and anticipating a war on the continent of Europe, was disposed to return to France to offer his services to his sovereign; desirous, however, of preserving a relation with America, he merely solicited from Congress the liberty of going home for the next winter; engaging himself not to depart until certain that the campaign was over. Washington backed his application for a furlough, as an arrangement that would still link him with the service; expressing his reluctance to part with an officer who united "to all the military fire of youth an uncommon maturity of judgment." Congress in consequence granted the marquis an unlimited leave of absence, to return to America whenever he should find it convenient. The marquis, in truth, was full of a grand project for LAFAYETTE'S CANADA SCHEME. 551 the following summer's campaign, which he was anxious to lay before the cabinet of Versailles; it was to effect the conquest of Canada by the combined forces, naval and military, of France and the United States. Of course it embraced a wide scope of operations. One body of American troops was to be directed against Detroit; another against Niagara; a third was to seize Oswego, launch a flotilla, and get command of Lake Ontario; and a fourth to penetrate Canada by the river St. Francis, and secure Montreal and the posts on Lake Champlain. While the Americans thus invaded Upper Canada, a French fleet with five thousand men was to ascend the St. Lawrence, and make an attack on Quebec. The scheme met the approbation of a great majority in Congress, who ordered it to be communicated to Dr. Franklin, then minister at Paris, to be laid by him before the French cabinet. Previous to a final determination, the House prudently consulted the opinion of the commander-in-chief. Washington opposed the scheme, both by letter and in a personal interview, with Congress, as too complicated and extensive, and requiring too great resources in men and money to be undertaken with a prospect of success. He opposed it also on political grounds. Though it had apparently originated in a proposition of the Marquis Lafayette, it might have had its birth in the French cabinet, with a view to some ulterior object. He suggested the danger of introducing a large body of French troops into Canada, and putting them in possession of the capital of a prov· |