This was one side of the problem, the most essential because everything hinged on the fleet, but by no means the most harassing.  The doubt about the control of the sea made it impossible to work steadily for a sufficient time toward any one end.  It was necessary to have a plan for every contingency, and be ready to adopt any one of several plans at short notice.  With a foresight and judgment that never failed, Washington planned an attack on New York, another on Yorktown, and a third on Charleston.  The division of the British forces gave him his opportunity of striking at one point with an overwhelming force, but there was always the possibility of their suddenly reuniting.  In the extreme south he felt reasonably sure that Greene would hold Rawdon, but he was obliged to deceive and amuse Clinton, and at the same time, with a ridiculously inferior force, to keep Cornwallis from marching to South Carolina.  Partly by good fortune, partly by skill, Cornwallis was kept in Virginia, while by admirably managed feints and threats Clinton was held in New York in inactivity.  When the decisive moment came, and it was evident that the control of the sea was to be determined in the Chesapeake, Washington, overriding all sorts of obstacles, moved forward, despite a bankrupt and inert government, with a rapidity and daring which have been rarely equaled.  It was a bold stroke to leave Clinton behind at the mouth of the Hudson, and only the quickness with which it was done, and the careful deception which had been practiced, made it possible.  Once at Yorktown, there was little more to do.  The combination was so perfect, and the judgment had been so sure, that Cornwallis was crushed as helplessly as if he had been thrown before the car of Juggernaut.  There was really but little fighting, for there was no opportunity to fight.  Washington held the British in a vice, and the utter helplessness of Cornwallis, the entire inability of such a good and gallant soldier even to struggle, are the most convincing proofs of the military genius of his antagonist.

CHAPTER XI

PEACE

Fortitude in misfortune is more common than composure in the hour of victory.  The bitter medicine of defeat, however unpalatable, is usually extremely sobering, but the strong new wine of success generally sets the heads of poor humanity spinning, and leads often to worse results than folly.  The capture of Cornwallis was enough to have turned the strongest head, for the moment at least, but it had no apparent effect upon the man who had brought it to pass, and who, more than any one else, knew what it meant.  Unshaken and undismayed in the New Jersey winter, and among the complicated miseries of Valley Forge, Washington turned from the spectacle of a powerful British army laying down their arms as coolly as if he had merely fought a successful skirmish, or repelled a dangerous raid.  He had that rare gift, the