the 12th of March that Sir Henry Clinton effected his
tardy approach, and took up a position on Charleston Neck, a few miles
above the town. Admiral Arbuthnot soon showed an intention of
introducing his ships into the harbor; barricading their waists,
anchoring them in a situation where they might take advantage of the
first favorable spring-tide, and fixing buoys on the bar for their
guidance. Commodore Whipple had by this time ascertained by sounding,
that a wrong idea had prevailed of the depth of water in the harbor,
and that his ships could not anchor nearer than within three miles of
the bar, so that it would be impossible for him to defend the passage
of it. He quitted his station within it, therefore, after having
destroyed a part of the enemy's buoys, and took a position where his
ships might be abreast, and form a cross-fire with the batteries of
Fort Moultrie, where Colonel Pinckney commanded.

Washington was informed of these facts, by letters from his former
aide-de-camp, Colonel Laurens, who was in Charleston at the time. The
information caused anxious forebodings. "The impracticability of
defending the bar, I fear, amounts to the loss of the town and
garrison," writes he in reply. His solicitude for the safety of the
South was increased, by heaving of the embarkation at New York of two
thousand five hundred British and Hessian troops, under Lord Rawdon,
reinforcements for Sir Henry Clinton. It seemed evident the enemy
intended to push their operations with vigor at the South; perhaps, to
make it the principal theatre of the war.

Gladly would Washington have hastened to the South in person, but at
this moment his utmost vigilance was required to keep watch upon New
York and maintain the security of the Hudson, the vital part of the
confederacy. The weak state of the American means of warfare in both
quarters, presented a choice of difficulties. The South needed
support. Could the North give it without exposing itself to ruin,
since the enemy, by means of their ships, could suddenly unite their
forces, and fall upon any point that they might consider weak? Such
were the perplexities to which he was continually subjected, in having
with scanty means to provide for the security of a vast extent of
country, and with land forces merely, to contend with an amphibious
enemy.

Looking, however, as usual, to the good of the whole Union, he
determined to leave something at hazard in the Middle States, where
the