hat general was a brave and
honorable man: he despised Arnold, and did not want to have anything
to do with him.

A young nobleman named Lafayette[32] had come over from France on
purpose to help us against the British. Cornwallis laughed at him
and called him a "boy"; but he found that General Lafayette was a
"boy" who knew how to fight. The British commander moved toward the
seacoast; Lafayette followed him; at length Cornwallis shut himself
up with his army in Yorktown.[33]

[Footnote 31: West Point: see map in paragraph 135.]

[Footnote 32: Lafayette (Lah-fay-et').]

[Footnote 33: Yorktown: see map in paragraph 140.]

142. Washington marches against Yorktown, and takes it and the army
of Cornwallis.--Washington, with his army, was then near New York
City, watching the British there. The French king had done as he
agreed, and had sent over warships and soldiers to help us; but so
far they had never been able to do much. Now was the chance. Before
the British knew what Washington was about, he had sent the French
war-ships down to Yorktown to prevent Cornwallis from getting away
by sea. Then, with his own army and some French soldiers besides,
Washington quickly marched south to attack Yorktown by land.

When he got there he placed his cannon round the town, and began
battering it to pieces. For more than a week he kept firing night
and day. One house had over a thousand balls go through it. Its walls
looked like a sieve. At last Cornwallis could not hold out any longer,
and on October 19th, 1781, his army came out and gave themselves up
as prisoners.

The Americans formed a line more than a mile long on one side of the
road, and the French stood facing them on the other side. The French
had on gay clothes, and looked very handsome; the clothes of
Washington's men were patched and faded, but their eyes shone with
a wonderful light--the light of victory. The British marched out
slowly, between the two lines: somehow they found it pleasanter to
look at the bright uniforms of the French, than to look at the eyes
of the Americans.

[Illustration: THE FLAGS OF THE REVOLUTION.[34]]

[Footnote 34: The flag with the large crosses on it, on the left,
is the English flag at the time of the American Revolution. The flag
on the right is that which Washington raised at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, January 2d, 1776. He simply took the English flag,
and added thirteen stripes to represent the union of the thirteen
Englis