Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/41

Rh on furlough or otherwise absent, while the British forces were at least 24,000, supported by a large and thoroughly equipped fleet.

The battle of Long Island soon followed, with disastrous results to the Americans, and the British took possession of New York. Other reverses were not long delayed, and the strategy of Washington found its exhibition only in his skilful retreat from Long Island and through the Jerseys. But he was not disheartened, nor his confidence in ultimate success impaired. When asked what was to be done if Philadelphia were taken, he replied: "We will retreat beyond the Susquehanna, and thence, if necessary, to the Alleghany mountains." His masterly movements on the Delaware were now witnessed, which Frederick the Great is said to have declared "the most brilliant achievements recorded in military annals." "Many years later," Mr. Lossing informs us in his interesting volume on Mount Vernon and its associations, "the great Frederick sent him a portrait of himself, accompanied by the remarkable words: From the oldest general in Europe to the greatest general in the world! Meantime he had a vast work to accomplish with entirely inadequate means. But he went along with heroic fortitude, unswerving constancy, and unsparing self-devotion, through all the trials and sufferings of Monmouth and Brandywine and Germantown and Valley Forge, until the