“But you haven’t finished about the second attack upon Fort Mifflin, have you, brother Levis?” queried Walter.

“No, not quite,” the captain answered; then went on with his narrative: 

“All through the war Washington showed himself wonderfully patient and hopeful, but it was with intense anxiety he now watched the progress of the enemy in his designs upon Fort Mifflin, unable as he himself was to succor its threatened garrison.”

“But why couldn’t he go and help them with his soldiers, papa?” asked Grace.

“Because, daughter, if he broke up his camp at Whitemarsh, and moved his army to the other side of the Schuylkill, he must leave stores and hospitals for the sick, within reach of the enemy; leave the British troops in possession of the fords of the river; make it difficult, if not impossible, for the troops he was expecting from the North to join him, and perhaps bring on a battle while he was too weak to hope for victory over such odds as Howe could bring against him.

“So the poor fellows in the fort had to fight it out themselves with no assistance from outside.”

“Couldn’t they have slipped out in the night and gone away quietly without fighting, papa?” asked Grace.

“Perhaps so,” he said, with a slight smile; “but such doings as that would never have helped our country to free herself from the British yoke; and these men were too brave and patriotic to try it; they were freemen and never could be slaves; to them death was preferable to slavery.  We may well be proud of the skill and courage with which Lieutenant-Colonel Smith defended his fort against the foe.

“On the 10th of November the British opened their batteries on land and water.  They had five on Province Island, within five hundred yards of the fort; a large floating battery with twenty-two twenty-four pounders, which they brought up within forty yards of an angle of the fort; also six ships, two of them with forty guns each, the others with sixty-four each, all within less than nine hundred yards of the fort.”

“More than three hundred guns all firing on that one little fort!” exclaimed Rosie.  “It is really wonderful how our poor men could stand it.”

“Yes, for six consecutive days a perfect storm of bombs and round shot poured upon them,” said the captain, “and it must have required no small amount of courage to stand such a tempest.”

“I hope they fired back and killed some of those wicked fellows!” exclaimed Walter, his eyes flashing.

“You may be sure they did their best to defend themselves and their fort,” replied the captain.  “And the British loss was great, though the exact number has never been known.

“Nearly two hundred and fifty of our men were killed or wounded.  Lieutenant Treat, commanding the artillery, was killed on the first day by the bursting of a bomb.  The next day quite a number of the garrison were killed or wounded, and Colonel Smith himself had a narrow escape.