Page:Nye's History of the USA.djvu/190

 186 The writer has seen the place on the Yadkin where Cornwallis decided not to cross. It was one of the pivotal points of the war, and is of about medium height.

A fight followed at Guilford Court-House, where the Americans were driven back, but the enemy got thinned out so noticeably that Cornwallis decided to retreat. He went back to Washington on a Bull Run schedule, without pausing even for feed or water. Cornwallis was greatly agitated, and the coat he wore at the time, and now shown in the Smithsonian Institution, shows distinctly the marks made where the Colonists played checkers on the tail.

The battle of Eutaw Springs, September 8, also greatly reduced the British forces at that point.

Arnold conducted a campaign into Virginia, and was very brutal about it, killing a great many people who were strangers to him, and who had never harmed him, not knowing him, as the historian says, from "Adam's off ox."

Cornwallis in this Virginia and Southern trip destroyed ten million dollars' worth of property, and then fortified himself at Yorktown.

Washington decided to besiege Yorktown, and, making a feint to fool Clinton, set out for that place, visiting Mount Vernon en route after an absence of six and a half years, though only