cted a retreat; he galloped
off, it is said, without saddle, hat or coat.

It was not until the beginning of September that Washington received
word of the disastrous reverse at Camden. The shock was the greater as
previous reports from that quarter had represented the operations a
few days preceding the action as much in our favor. It was evident to
Washington that the course of war must ultimately tend to the Southern
States, yet the situation of affairs in the North did not permit him
to detach any sufficient force for their relief. All that he could do
for the present was to endeavor to hold the enemy in check in that
quarter. For this purpose he gave orders that some regular troops,
enlisted in Maryland for the war, and intended for the main army,
should be sent to the southward. He wrote to Governor Rutledge of
South Carolina (12th September), to raise a permanent, compact,
well-organized body of troops, instead of depending upon a numerous
army of militia, always "inconceivably expensive, and too fluctuating
and undisciplined" to oppose a regular force. He was still more urgent
and explicit on this head in his letters to the President of Congress
(September 15th). "Regular troops alone," said he, "are equal to the
exigencies of modern war, as well for defence as offence; and whenever
a substitute is attempted, it must prove illusory and ruinous. No
militia will ever acquire the habits necessary to resist a regular
force."

He had scarce written the foregoing, when he received a letter from
the now unfortunate Gates, dated at Hillsborough, August 30th and
September 3d, giving particulars of his discomfiture. No longer
vaunting and vainglorious, he pleads nothing but his patriotism, and
deprecates the fall which he apprehends awaits him. The appeal which
he makes to Washington's magnanimity to support him in this day of his
reverse, is the highest testimonial he could give to the exalted
character of the man whom he once affected to underrate and aspired to
supplant.

Washington still cherished the idea of a combined attack upon New York
as soon as a French naval force should arrive. The destruction of the
enemy here would relieve this part of the Union from an internal war,
and enable its troops and resources to be united with those of France
in vigorous efforts against the common enemy elsewhere. Hearing,
therefore, that the Count de Guichen with his West India squadron was
approaching the coast, Washington p