troops, half concealed by a thicket of woods, advancing in battle array. They were drawn up in battle order, and Washington rode along the ranks, and was received with shouts. Maxwell's light infantry were soon engaged with the vanguard of the enemy, and eventually driven back from its position, which seems to have been at the British side of the river. So, at least, I gather from Irving, who gives a full account of the battle, which, by the way, I shall follow closely. The British did not attempt to push the infantry over the stream, but halted on a high ground and offered to reconnoiter the American position. About ten o'clock a heavy cannonading commenced on both sides. They now made repeated attempts to cross the ford, and numerous skirmishes took place on both sides of the river, for detachments of light troops occasionally ventured across. For two hours or more there was a great show of battle on the part of the British, which was followed up by demonstrations on the part of the Americans, but no great damage was done by either. It was not the policy of the British to attempt anything serious in this quarter, as the Americans soon learned. unless he instantly moved, he would be surrounded. He had been pursued by the enemy, who, it seems, were where they had been reputed not to be, and only escaped through the swiftness of his mare. A dispatch from Sullivan corroborated the story, for the party of horse whom Washington had sent to reconnoiter the forks, having seen the enemy two miles in the rear of Sullivan's right, marching at a rapid rate, followed by a cloud of dust, hastened to apprise him of it. He was outwitted by them, as he had been once before at the battle of Long Island. Knyphausen, with a small division, had made a feigned attack on the Americans at Chadd's Ford, while the main body of the British, under Cornwallis, had made a circuit of seventeen miles, and, crossing the two forks of the Brandywine, had arrived in the neighborhood of Birmingham meeting-house, two miles to Sullivan's right. Washington ordered Sullivan to attack Cornwallis with the whole right wing. Wayne in the mean time was to keep Knyphausen at bay at the ford, while Greene, with the reserve, held himself ready to assist either as occasion might require. Sullivan advanced and began to form a line in front of an open piece of wood; while he was doing so, Cornwallis ad At noon an express brought word to Sullivan, who up to that time seems not to have been engaged in the fray, that Gen-vanced rapidly with his troops, and opened eral Howe, with a park of artillery and a large body of troops, was pushing up the Lancaster road, to cross at the upper fords of the Brandywine, (Chadd's Ford was one of the lower ones,) in order to turn his flank. Washington, to whom the intelligence was at once communicated, dispatched a party of horse to reconnoiter and ascertain the truth of the report. In the mean time he resolved to cross Chadd's Ford, and attack the division of the enemy in front of him, and, if possible, rout it before Howe's division could attack his right under Sullivan. He gave orders for both wings to cooperate, which they were about to do, when Major Spicer, of the militia, rode up from the forks to Sullivan, who was preparing to cross, and assured him that there was no enemy in the quarter reported. Sullivan transmitted the news to Washington, and the order was countermanded. Shortly after, however, a man who lived in the neighborhood dashed up to Washington, mounted on a fleet mare, which was covered with foam, and told him that a brisk fire of musketry and artillery. The Americans defended themselves obstinately, but their right and left wings were broken and driven into the woods. The center stood firm for a time, but, being exposed to the whole fire of the British, gave way in turn. The enemy, in following up their advantage, got entangled in the wood likewise. Extricating themselves, at length, the Americans rallied on a height to the north of Dilworth, and defended themselves even more obstinately than at first. They were again dislodged, and compelled to retreat. In the mean time Knyphausen endeavored to push his way across Chadd's Ford, but was vigorously opposed by Wayne, with Proctor's artillery and Maxwell's infantry. Greene was preparing to succor him with the reserve, Washington ordered him to the support of Sullivan and the right wing. Sullivan was at least five miles distant, but such was the swiftness of Greene's movements, that he arrived on the battle ground in less than fifty minutes! It was not so much a march as a run. He was too late to save but cern," the former writes, "our brave commander-in-chief exposing himself to the hottest fire of the enemy in such a manner that regard for my country obliged me to ride to him, and beg him to retire. He, to gratify me and some others, withdrew to a small distance, but his anxiety for the fate of the day soon brought him up again, where he remained till our troops had retreated. the battle, but in time to save the left wing, which was then in full flight. He opened his ranks to let them through as they came up to him, and, closing again, covered their retreat by a well-directed fire from his field pieces. Retreating slowly himself he took his grand stand at a place about a mile beyond Dilworth, which Washington had pointed out to him. Weedon's brigade drew up in a narrow defile, flanked on both sides by woods, and commanding the road. He was deeply chagrined at the defeat Greene, with Muhlenberg's brigade, passed of the army, for which, he said, he could to the right and took his station on the discover no other cause than the haziness road. The enemy came off impetuously, of the weather. "The tumult, disorder, but were repeatedly driven back. Bayonets and even despair, which, it seems, had crossed on both sides, and bloody work taken place in the British army, were they made of it. Weedon's brigade main- scarcely to be paralleled; and, it is said, tained its stand long enough for Sullivan's so strongly did the ideas of a retreat prefugitives to retreat, and then, overpowered vail, that Chester was fixed on for their by numbers, gave way, in good order how-rendezvous." Wayne and Greene were Greene gradually drew up his di- in the fray, as I believe I have mentioned vision, the British not thinking it politic in the life of the former. Wayne characto follow him further. His resistance had terized the stopping of the Americans at been too vigorous; besides the day was Chew's house, which was one of the chief pretty well spent. Wayne made a brave causes of their defeat, as "a wind-mill stand at Chadd's Ford, but the approach attack." Unsuccessful as it was, says of some of the enemy's troops on the right Irving, the audacity inspired by this atshowed him that the American right had tempt upon Germantown was greater, we been broken, so he gave up the defense of are told, than that caused by any single his fort, and retreated by the Chester road. incident of the war, after Lexington and Knyphausen's troops were too fatigued to Bunker's Hill. follow him, and those of Cornwallis, as we have seen, dared not, for Greene was still in their sight. Both wings of the American army pushed forward to Chester, which was twelve miles distant. Washington and Greene soon came up, and the whole army took its post that night behind Chester. So ended the hard fought battle of Brandywine. ever. Sullivan participated in the battle of Germantown, leading on that occasion the right wing of the American army against the left of the British. The battle was fought early in the morning of the 4th of October, 1777. It was admirably planned by Washington; but owing to a dense fog which prevailed at the time, and rendered objects indistinct at thirty yards' distance, the co-operation of the different divisions was not as perfect as it would have been; they frequently mistook each other for the enemy, and at last, when victory was about declaring itself in their favor, they were seized with a sudden panic, which lost them the day. Sullivan and Washington were near each other during the greater part of the fight. "I saw, with great con In July, 1778, a French fleet, commanded by the Count D'Estaing, arrived on the coast. It was composed of twelve ships of the line and six frigates, with a land force of four thousand men. Had it arrived a little earlier it might have intercepted the squadron of Lord Howe on its way to New-York; as it was, however, when the count came to the road outside of Sandy Hook, the British ships were quietly anchored inside of it. A series of maneuvers on both sides, of no importance to us at present, led the French fleet to stand away for Rhode Island. On the 29th of July it came to anchor off Point Judith, within five miles of Newport, which was protected by British batteries and a small naval force. The total number of the British force on the island, (I am not speaking of the state, but of the island,) was about six thousand men. It was variously posted about the island; the greater part of it was extended across it, behind entrenched lines, about three miles from Newport. Sullivan commanded at Providence on the main land. Before the arrival of the French fleet, Washing ton apprised him of its coming, and sending to his aid General Greene, and the Marquis Lafayette, ordered him to descend from the main land against the enemy. The French fleet was to force its way into the harbor, at the same time that the Americans approached by land. It was a promising scheine, but, as was customary with him, Count D'Estaing was too tardy in his movements. He entered the harbor ten days after his arrival, and exchanging a cannonade with the British batteries as he passed, anchored a little above the town. In the mean time Sullivan moved down from Providence to the neighborhood of Howland's Ferry. The British burned or scuttled three of their frigates, and some smaller vessels, to keep them out of the count's hands, and evacuating their works on the north end of the island, retired behind the lines at Newport. Sullivan could not resist the temptation of taking possession of the abandoned works, although it was a day in advance of the time agreed upon between himself and the count. The punctilious Frenchman was offended; but while he was preparing his boats to co-operate with his more active coadjutor, a great fleet of ships arrived off Newport, and came to anchor at Point Judith. The count stood out of the harbor the next morning to give his enemy battle, previously sending word to Sullivan, who by this time was within ten miles of Newport, that he would land his promised troops and marines, and cooperate with him on his return. The British and French manuevered through the day to obtain advantageous positions, and gradually disappeared from sight. Sullivan, whose force amounted to ten thousand men, determined to commence the siege on his own account, which he would have done but for an awful tempest of wind and rain, which raged two days and nights. His tents were blown down; many soldiers and horses perished, and most of the ammunition recently dealt out to the troops was destroyed. Both sides cannonaded each other when the weather cleared up, but no great damage ensued; several days elapsed without news of the French fleet. On the evening of the 19th, it made its appearance in a shattered and forlorn condition. It had suffered from the storm that had raged on shore, as had also the British fleet. There was not much fighting on either side, when the combatants parted company, the British returning to New-York to refit, and D'Estaing to Newport, from whence he soon sailed to Boston for the same purpose. Being thus abandoned by his allies, there was nothing for Sullivan to do but to send off his men in the best order that he could. He broke up his camp on the night of the 28th, and retired to the northern part of the island. It was daylight before his retreat was discovered, when a pursuit was commenced. His covering parties made frequent stands, abandoning one eminence only to take post on another, and keeping up a fire that checked the advance of the enemy. They were driven. back to the fortified grounds on the north; but as Sullivan had already taken post there, and drawn up his army in battle, the British halted a little more than a mile in front of him, and taking post on Quaker Hill, commenced a cannonade, which was sharply returned. On the 29th, Sullivan determined to abandon the island. He brought his tents ostentatiously forward, and pitched them in sight of the enemy, as if he had resolved to defend his position to the last, and employed most of his troops in throwing up works, taking care to remove his heavy baggage and stores to the very rear of the hill where he had taken post, and where they could be quietly ferried across the bay. As soon as it was dark the tents were struck, and the troops withdrew; in a few hours the whole of them were off the island on the main land, not a man was left behind, nor the smallest article lost! and all this while fires were burning, and the hostile sentries were within four hundred yards of each other. It was a masterly retreat, admirably managed, and it reflected the highest credit on Sullivan. Sullivan's next military service was a campaign undertaken in the summer of 1779, against the Indians, to punish them for the massacre at Wyoming. He assembled three thousand men in that desolated region, and moved up the west branch of the Susquehanna into the country of the Senecas. He was joined on his way by General Clinton, who had come from the valley of the Mohawk with two thousand men. The two forces united, and marched in concert against the red skins. The latter made a stand at Newtown, but were soon overpowered; their village was set on fire, and their corn-fields were cut down and trodden under foot. Catherine's bright sea-weeds, and would certainly town was burned shortly afterward, and the fields round about were ravaged. When they reached Seneca Lake, Kendaia, another village, shared the same fate. Other towns and villages soon followed. Like that of Marion before him, as I have related in the life of that bold guerrilla, his path was marked with rapine and desolation. The Indians fled with their families, until they came to the British garrison at Niagara, where they were protected. Sullivan retraced his steps, having completed the stern errand on which he was dispatched, and reached Easton on the 15th of October, after having been absent five months and a half. He asked permission to retire from the service on the plea of ill health, and it was granted. Having seen enough of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war," | he went back to private life, and turned to his old profession, the law. He was elected a delegate to Congress, probably from Pennsylvania. He took his seat in 1780, and the next year removed to Durham, New Hampshire, the town in which he resided on the breaking out of the war. Appointed Attorney-General to the State, he, in 1783, helped to form its Constitution; he was afterward elected governor three times, in 1786-7-9. President Washington appointed him Judge of the District of New-Hampshire, which office he filled till his death. He died on the 23d of January, 1795, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES I OF A LITTLE AQUARIUM. DEARLY love the sea; I love it in sunshine and storm, when its waves are rippling softly or roaring wildly. I love to look at its beautiful weeds, and to examine the forms and movements of the living things which dwell in its waters, and I delight to remember that they are all made and provided for by the God who created and sustains me and mine. What wonder, then, that each summer, as it came, found me gazing down into the hollows of the rocks, when the tide had scattered largely the spoils of the waters. Often as I have surveyed these, I have felt sorry that the next high tide would not only cover them from my sight, but would probably tear away some of those bear off with it many of those marine animals whose actions so much amused me. There seemed no chance of watching through the life of any one of them, unless it might be of some stone-piercer, which made the holes in the rock; or of some limpet, which clung so tightly to its surface; or of one of the patient sea anemones which were chained there, and were opening their flower-like rays to the sun, and seemed to have no other business in the world than just to grasp the food which the wave brought within their reach. And yet, as I have looked again and again at them, I have thought too that they had other uses, if they satisfied the love of beauty which God's creation is so fitted to gratify, and if they led us to inquire into their nature, and thus to improve the minds which he gave us to cultivate. Many a time have I carried away from these pools some curling, twisting starfish, or gay anemone, or scaly gliding fish, to place in a shallow vessel of water that I might watch it. But I never kept any of these creatures long in life, for I had not considered that, in order to maintain animal life in the waters, there must be some vegetable life there; not merely a piece of floating weed, but a living, growing plant. Animals, whether on earth or in the water, constantly by their breathing exhaust the oxygen of the air, and render it impure and unfit to sustain life. But plants form and give out oxygen, and thus render either earth or sea fitted for breathing. It is the same with the fresh as with the salt waters, and it is well known that vegetation in a pond renders the fish which inhabit it numerous and healthy. Wiser naturalists than I had duly considered this, and made known their plans for grouping together in the waters both plants and animals; and it was after reading some interesting experiments of this kind that I said to myself, “I will make an aquarium; but how shall I begin?" I was near the sea, so that, happily, I had no need to make artificial sea-water. It was easy enough to procure the water, but how should I arrange the contents of my aquarium? I had smiled at the simple efforts of a neighbor, who, in his construction of one, had arranged it in layers as a sailor would do what he calls a sea pie. First, our friend placed a layer of stones, then a layer of sea-weeds, then a layer of crabs, and above these, various smaller and lighter animals. As I have often had occasion to observe, however, it is much easier to smile at the want of wisdom in another, than to be wise for one's self, and so I found it, when a series of mischances befell my own aquarium, owing to my want of judgment and experience. Having procured a glass vessel which would hold two pails of water, and fixed it on a wooden frame, I placed at the base some small beach-stones, mingled with a small quantity of sea-sand. The stones were first well washed in clean sea-water, and even brushed over with a soft brush, as I knew it would be important that nothing should adhere to them, which, by decomposing, would render the water unwholesome. "Charlie," said I, to a young friend, "will you help me to furnish my aquarium? Will you carry down some jars and bottles to the rocks, and bring a hammer to break away stones on which seaweeds may be growing?" Charlie did not require to be asked twice; so, taking with us a large basket, we set off on our undertaking. First of all, we collected a few pieces of colored granite, which lay near a breakwater, and which we thought would serve us for little rocks. Then we looked for large rounded pebbles, on which tufts of sea-weed were growing. Some of these stones were beautifully colored with incrustations from lying in the sea, but, wherever we could do so without injury to our plants, we scrubbed them gently in clean sea-water. Of these we constructed some handsome artificial rocks, raising some up above the surface of the water, in order that such animals as the periwinkle, which need an occasional breath of air from the land, should be able to mount up and enjoy it. We grouped them as tastefully as we could, so as to leave little archways, nooks, and crannies, among which the fishes might glide, and which might serve as hiding-places to such little creatures as did not court daylight, nor approve of prying eyes. We now began to search for stones covered with sea-weeds. We rejected all of a dark olive color, not only on account of their large size, but because I knew from experience that they render the water slimy. Some of our common red seaweeds, finely branched, and which resemble miniature trees, and some of those larger bright grass-green sea-weeds which look like thin leaves, were eagerly sought after. Some of our fragments of rock were like little mounds from a grassy meadow, being covered with the soft, silky, green hairs of the rock joint-wort, (Conferva rupestris,) while a quantity of the much larger, longer, and brighter seaweed which the fishermen call watergut, (Enteromorpha intestinalis,) grew on some of them. This last sea-weed looks at first sight like masses of blades of grass ; but these are, in fact, tubes, and are seen, when under water, to be rounded and hollow, while at all times we can see that they have no veins running down them as grass leaves have. The red sea-weeds contrasted very prettily with these. We took the most common sorts, as we inferred they were the most hardy, and would give us the least trouble. Clumps of the common hair-flag, (Plocamium coccineum,) and tufts of the scarlet hair-wort (Dasya coccinea,) are common on all our shores, where they are blown about by every wind, and, when brought fresh from the rocks on the pebbles to which they are attached, they are well fitted for a A few other common red weeds, difficult to describe, but known by sight to all ramblers by the sea, and generally called vase-weeds, (Ceranium,) added much to the grace of our vegetable groups; and some tufts of that common plant, the jointed stony coralline (Corallina officinalis) proved a useful and ornamental addition. This is really a plant, though it is a mere vegetable film, incrusted with stone. It grows in pools all about our shores, and is there of a beautiful lilac tint, but it lies on the beach bleached either to pure white or dirty yellow. Pretty as the red sea-weeds were, they were not more so than those gauze-like green lavers, or wash-worts, which, when they fringe the rocks, are stirred by every motion of wind, and which floated gracefully up and down in our aquarium, when we lifted them up, or when some tiny fish crept beneath them for shadow. Some of these plants have curled, others flat edges. They are always plentiful, sometimes so much so that the fisherman rails at them, in no gentle language, for hinder vase. * |