Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/304

 278 not within range, but the English ships were actively engaged.

Yorktown was not a strong position, and was defended only by field-works. On the 30th of September, 1781, the British abandoned their outer line of defences, perhaps prematurely. On the night of the 6th of October the first parallel was made. On the afternoon of the 9th the parallel opened fire, and from that time to the end of the siege the cannonade was nearly continuous.

Almost the first fighting that occurred was a skirmish, on the Gloucester side of the river. Here were posted Simcoe's rangers, Tarleton's dragoons, Ewald's chasseurs, and an English regiment. Opposed to them were more than a thousand Frenchmen under Choisy and de Lauzun, and twelve or fifteen hundred militia under General Weedon. Tarleton and Simcoe had discarded the use of carbines by their cavalry, and this aided in their discomfiture. On the morning of the 3d of October it was reported to Lauzun that there were English dragoons outside the works of Gloucester. Advancing to reconnoitre, he saw a pretty woman at the door of a small house by the roadside. Lauzun would not have been Lauzun if he had passed a pretty woman unquestioned. She informed him that Colonel Tarleton had just been at her house, and desired very much “to shake hands with the French duke.” “I assured her,” says Lauzun, “that I had come on purpose to give him that satisfaction. She pitied me much, thinking, I suppose, from experience, that it was impossible to resist Tarleton; the American troops were in the same case.”