In the same connection, it is a noticeable fact that the General Orders of the day and there were no After Orders, on that eventful twelfth of October, made no mention whatever of the movement of tlie enemy or of the disposition of the American troops ; that they were written, entirely, in only tliree short Uaea-- (General Ordi'rs, " Head quakters, Harlem '■ Heights, October 12, 1776")-- that General Washington, on that day, appeal's to have completed none of his letters which were unfinished when General Heath's e.xpress arrived at Head-quarters; and that no allusion whatever was made, by him, to the enemy's occupation of Westchester-county nor to any movement of his own command, consequent on that occupation, in anything which he wrote or ordered to be written on that day, which we have found, except in that note, written by his Secretary, under his own eye, to General Heath, of which mention has been made in the text. As stated in the text, he certainly rodeoverto the village of Westchester and to the head of the creek, towards night, and looked at the preparations which had been made, at those places, to check any movement which the enemy should make ; but, beyond tliat informal inspection, he evidently did nothing whatever, as the Commander in chief of the American Army.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 1774-1783.

was so very limited ; to transfer to that officer the entire responsibility of the opposition which was to be made against the powerful enemy who was actually moving against the very existence of the young States, not yet confederated and very poorly connected even by the ties of a common danger ; and to give to him his parting if not his farewell blessing; and nothing else than the bitterness of despair, the hopelessness which seemed to overwhelm all other traits of his character, could, possibly, have produced such unusual, such remarkable, such extremely dangerous results.