llips was brought
to a close. He had been ill for some days previous to his arrival at
Petersburg, and by the time he reached there, was no longer capable of
giving orders. He died four days afterwards; honored and deeply
regretted by his brothers in arms, as a meritorious and well-tried
soldier.

Lord Cornwallis arrived at Petersburg on the 20th of May, after nearly
a month's weary marching from Wilmington. His lordship, on taking
command, found his force augmented by a considerable detachment of
royal artillery, two battalions of light infantry, the 76th and 80th
British regiments, a Hessian regiment, Lieutenant-colonel Simcoe's
corps of Queen's rangers, cavalry and infantry, one hundred yagers,
Arnold's legion of royalists, and the garrison of Portsmouth. His
mind, we are told, was now set at ease with regard to Southern
affairs; his spirits, so long jaded by his harassing tramps about the
Carolinas, were again lifted up by his augmented strength.

While affairs were approaching a crisis in Virginia, troubles were
threatening from the North. There were rumors of invasion from Canada;
of war councils and leagues among the savage tribes; of a revival of
the territorial feuds between New York and Vermont. Such, however, was
the deplorable inefficiency of the military system, that though,
according to the resolves of Congress, there were to have been
thirty-seven thousand men under arms at the beginning of the year,
Washington's whole force on the Hudson in the month of May did not
amount to seven thousand men, of whom little more than four thousand
were effective.

He still had his head-quarters at New Windsor, just above the
Highlands, and within a few miles of West Point. Here he received
intelligence that the enemy were in force on the opposite side of the
Hudson, marauding the country on the north side of Croton River, and
he ordered a hasty advance of Connecticut troops in that direction.
The Croton River flows from east to west across Westchester County,
and formed as it were the barrier of the American lines. The advanced
posts of Washington's army guarded it, and by its aid, protected the
upper country from the incursions of those foraging parties and
marauders which had desolated the neutral ground below it. The
incursions most to be guarded against were those of Colonel Delancey's
loyalists, a horde of tories and refugees which had their stronghold
in Morrisania.

The object of their present incursion wa