and to become nervous in consequence.  He wanted to get out to sea; the season was advancing, and he was anxious to return to the West Indies; and above all he did not wish to fight in the bay.  He therefore proposed firmly and vigorously to leave two ships in the river, and stand out to sea with his fleet.  The Yorktown campaign began to look as if it had reached its conclusion.  Once again Washington wrote one of his masterly letters of expostulation and remonstrance, and once more he prevailed, aided by the reasoning and appeals of Lafayette, who carried the message.  De Grasse consented to stay, and Washington, grateful beyond measure, wrote him that “a great mind knows how to make personal sacrifice to secure an important general good.”  Under the circumstances, and in view of the general truth of this complimentary sentiment, one cannot help rejoicing that De Grasse had “a great mind.”

At all events he stayed, and thereafter everything went well.  The northern army landed at Williamsburg and marched for Yorktown on the 28th.  They reconnoitred the outlying works the next day, and prepared for an immediate assault; but in the night Cornwallis abandoned all his outside works and withdrew into the town.  Washington thereupon advanced at once, and prepared for the siege.  On the night of the 5th, the trenches were opened only six hundred yards from the enemy’s line, and in three days the first parallel was completed.  On the 11th the second parallel was begun, and on the 14th the American batteries played on the two advanced redoubts with such effect that the breaches were pronounced practicable.  Washington at once ordered an assault.  The smaller redoubt was stormed by the Americans under Hamilton and taken in ten minutes.  The other, larger and more strongly garrisoned, was carried by the French with equal gallantry, after half an hour’s fighting.  During the assault Washington stood in an embrasure of the grand battery watching the advance of the men.  He was always given to exposing himself recklessly when there was fighting to be done, but not when he was only an observer.  This night, however, he was much exposed to the enemy’s fire.  One of his aides, anxious and disturbed for his safety, told him that the place was perilous.  “If you think so,” was the quiet answer, “you are at liberty to step back.”  The moment was too exciting, too fraught with meaning, to think of peril.  The old fighting spirit of Braddock’s field was unchained for the last time.  He would have liked to head the American assault, sword in hand, and as he could not do that he stood as near his troops as he could, utterly regardless of the bullets whistling in the air about him.  Who can wonder at his intense excitement at that moment?  Others saw a brilliant storming of two outworks, but to Washington the whole Revolution, and all the labor and thought and conflict of six years were culminating in the smoke and din on those redoubts, while out of the dust and heat of the sharp quick fight success was coming.  He had waited long, and worked hard, and his whole soul went out as he watched the troops cross the abattis and scale the works.  He could have no thought of danger then, and when all was over he turned to Knox and said, “The work is done, and well done.  Bring me my horse.”