enemy's works. They appeared to
be exceeding strong. A chain of redoubts extended along the most
commanding ground from the Schuylkill to the Delaware. They were
framed, planked, and of great thickness, and were surrounded by a deep
ditch, enclosed and fraised. The intervals were filled with an abatis,
in constructing which all the apple trees of the neighborhood, beside
forest trees, had been sacrificed.

The idea of Lord Stirling and those in favor of an attack was, that it
should be at different points at daylight; the main body to attack the
lines to the north of the city, while Greene, embarking his men in
boats at Dunk's Ferry, and passing down the Delaware, and Potter, with
a body of Continentals and militia, moving down the west side of the
Schuylkill, should attack the eastern and western fronts. Washington
saw that there was an opportunity for a brilliant blow, that might
satisfy the impatience of the public, but he saw that it must be
struck at the expense of a fearful loss of life.

Returning to camp, he held a council of war of his principal officers,
in which the matter was debated at great length and with some warmth,
but without coming to a decision. At breaking up, Washington requested
that each member of the council would give his opinion the next
morning in writing, and he sent off a messenger in the night for the
written opinion of General Greene.

Only four members of the council, Stirling, Wayne, Scott and Woodford,
were in favor of an attack; of which Lord Stirling drew up the plan.
Eleven (including Greene) were against it, objecting, among other
things, that the enemy's lines were too strong and too well supported,
and their force too numerous, well disciplined and experienced, to be
assailed without great loss and the hazard of a failure. Had
Washington been actuated by mere personal ambition and a passion for
military fame, he might have disregarded the loss and hazarded the
failure; but his patriotism was superior to his ambition; he shrank
from a glory that must be achieved at such a cost, and the idea of an
attack was abandoned.

A letter from General Greene received about this time, gave Washington
some gratifying intelligence about his youthful friend, the Marquis de
Lafayette. Though not quite recovered from the wound received at the
battle of Brandywine, he had accompanied General Greene as a volunteer
in his expedition into the Jerseys, and had been indulged by him with
an opportu