stopped the gallant soldiers. All Christmas night
they marched down the other side of the river, though their shoes were
so bad that the ground became reddened by blood from their feet. Two of
the poor fellows were frozen to death.

At Trenton, a number of miles below, there was a body of German
soldiers. These had been hired by King George to help him fight his
battles. That day they had been eating a good Christmas dinner while the
hungry Americans were marching through the snow. At night they went to
bed, not dreaming of danger.

They were wakened in the morning by shots and shouts. Washington and his
men were in the streets of the town. They had hardly time to seize
their guns before the ragged Yankees were all around them and nearly all
of them were made prisoners of war.

Was not that a great and glorious deed? It filled the Americans with new
hope. In a few days afterwards, Washington defeated the British in
another battle, and then settled down with his ragged but brave men in
the hills of New Jersey. He did not go behind a river this time. The
British knew where he was and could come to see him if they wanted to.
But they did not come. Very likely they had seen enough of him for that
winter.

The next year things went wrong again for Washington. A large British
army sailed from New York and landed at the head of Chesapeake Bay. Then
they marched overland to Philadelphia. Washington fought a battle with
them on Brandywine Creek, but his men were defeated and the British
marched on and entered Philadelphia. They now held the largest cities of
the country, Philadelphia and New York.

While the British were living in plenty and having a very good time in
the Quaker city, the poor Americans spent a wretched and terrible winter
at a place called Valley Forge. The winter was a dismally cold one, and
the men had not half enough food to eat or clothes to wear, and very
poor huts to live in. They suffered dreadfully, and before the spring
came many of them died from disease and hardship.

Poor fellows! they were paying dearly for their struggle for liberty.
But there was no such despair this winter as there had been the winter
before, for news came from the north that warmed the soldiers up like a
fire. Though Washington had lost a battle, a great victory had been
gained by the Americans at Saratoga, in the upper part of New York
state.

While General Howe was marching on Philadelphia, another British army,
unde