The Americans were outgeneralled and outnumbered.  Their attention was distracted by land and water, while a British detachment, ten thousand strong, crept over the ridge of hills by night, and through the Bedford Pass, overpowering the guards before their approach was suspected.  At dawn they poured down upon the American troops, surprising them, not in one direction, but in flank, in rear, and in front.  The green woods swarmed with redcoats, and the Hessians acted with a brutality demoralizing to raw troops.  Hamilton’s little company behaved well, and he was in the thick of the fight all day.  The dead were in heaps, the beautiful green slopes were red, there was not a hope of victory, but he exulted that the colonies were fighting at last, and that he was acting; he had grown very tired of talking.

He was driven from his position finally, and lost his baggage and a field-piece, but did not take refuge within the redoubts until nightfall.  There, in addition to fatigue, hunger, a bed on the wet ground, and the atmosphere of hideous depression which pressed low upon the new revolutionists, he learned that Troup had been taken prisoner.  Then he discovered the depths to which a mercurial nature could descend.  He had been fiercely alive all day; the roar of the battle, the plunging horses, the quickening stench of the powder, that obsession by the devil of battles which makes the tenderest kill hot and fast, all had made him feel something more than himself, much as he had felt in the hurricane when he had fancied himself on high among the Berserkers of the storm.  In his present collapse he felt as if he were in a hole underground.

Washington arrived on the scene next morning, and for forty-eight hours he barely left the saddle, encouraging the wretched men and exercising an unceasing vigilance.  For two long days they were inactive in the rain.  The Chief, having assured himself that the British aimed to obtain command of the river, determined upon the retreat which ranks as one of the greatest military achievements in history.  On the night of the 29th, under cover of a heavy fog, the feat of embarking nine thousand men, with all the ammunition and field-pieces of the army, and ferrying them across the East River with muffled oars, was accomplished within earshot of the enemy.  Washington rode from regiment to regiment, superintending and encouraging, finally taking his stand at the head of the ferry stairs.  He stood there until the last man had embarked at four in the morning.  The last man was Hamilton.  His was one of the regiments, and the rear one, detailed to cover the retreat, to attract fire to itself if necessary.  His position was on the Heights, just outside the intrenchments, at the point closest to the enemy.  For nine hours he hardly moved, his ear straining for the first indication that the British heard the soft splashing of bare feet in the mud.  The fog was so thick that he could see nothing, not