When it had come to be July of this year, there was some fighting in the North, for the British General Burgoyne came down from Canada.  He intended to meet the army under Howe which was marching northward, and the two armies were to sweep everything before them.  Burgoyne defeated the Americans led by General Philip Schuyler, in several battles.  Just at this time General Schuyler’s command was given to General Gates.  Now Gates followed the plans that had been made by Schuyler, with the result that Burgoyne and his entire force of 6,000 men surrendered at Saratoga.  This settled one branch of the British army.  The other branch, under General Howe, took possession of Philadelphia, but the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga put an end to their hopes of sweeping everything before them.

In the last month of the year, Washington and his army took up winter quarters at Valley Forge so as to keep a close watch upon the British in Philadelphia.

CHAPTER XXIX

New York a prison-house

The winter passed, and when the spring came the British army moved from Philadelphia to New York City, but not without great trouble, for Washington’s army fought them every step of the way across New Jersey.

The city was now quite different from the flourishing town it had been before the war.  Held possession of by the British, it was a military camp.  No improvements were made.  Many of the citizens who were loyal to the American cause had fled.  Those who were too poor to leave pretended to favor the British, but as little business could be done, they could find no work, and their condition became worse daily.  Thousands of American prisoners were brought here, making it a British prison-house, and every building of any size was a guard-house, every cellar a dungeon.

[Illustration:  Old Sugar-House in Liberty Street, the Prison-House of the Revolution.]

One of the gloomiest of these prisons was an old sugar-house close by the Middle Dutch Church.  It was built in the days of Jacob Leisler, with thick stone walls five stories high, pierced with small windows.  The ceilings were so low and the windows so small that the air could scarcely find entrance.  Underneath was a black and dismal cellar.  The pale and shrunken faces of prisoners filled the openings at the windows by day and by night, seeking a breath of air.  They were so jammed together that there was by no means room at the windows for all.  So these wretched men divided themselves into groups, each group crowding close to the windows for ten minutes, then giving place to another group.  They slept on straw that was never changed, and the food given them was scarcely enough to keep them alive.  Those who suffered this living death might have been free at any time had they been willing to go over to the British, but few of the patriots, even in this dread hour, deserted their cause.  To while away the hours of their captivity, they carved their names upon the walls with rusty nails.  Fevers raged constantly and they died by scores, leaving their half-finished initials on the walls as their only relics.  Their bodies were thrown out of doors, and every morning gathered up in carts and carried to the outskirts of the city to be buried in a trench without ceremony.