[Illustration:  THE SOUTHERN STATES IN THE REVOLUTION.]

[Footnote 28:  Sergeant (sar’jent):  a military officer of low rank.]

[Footnote 29:  Palmetto logs:  the wood of the palmetto tree is very soft and spongy; the cannon-balls, when they struck, would bury themselves in the logs, but would neither break them to pieces nor go through them.]

[Footnote 30:  Cowpens:  see map in this paragraph.]

141.  Cornwallis and Benedict Arnold; Lafayette; Cornwallis shuts himself up in Yorktown.—­When Lord Cornwallis got into Virginia he found Benedict Arnold waiting to help him.  Arnold had been a general in the American army; Washington gave him the command of the fort at West Point, on the Hudson River,[31] and trusted him as though he was his brother.  Arnold deceived him, and secretly offered to give up the fort to the British.  We call a man who is false to his friends and to his country a traitor:  it is the most shameful name we can fasten on him.  Arnold was a traitor; and if we could have caught him, we should have hanged him; but he was cunning enough to run away and escape to the British.  Now he was burning houses and towns in Virginia, and doing all that he could—­as a traitor always will—­to destroy those who had once been his best friends.  He wanted to stay in Virginia and assist Cornwallis; but that general was a brave and honorable man:  he despised Arnold, and did not want to have anything to do with him.

A young nobleman named Lafayette[32] had come over from France on purpose to help us against the British.  Cornwallis laughed at him and called him a “boy”; but he found that General Lafayette was a “boy” who knew how to fight.  The British commander moved toward the seacoast; Lafayette followed him; at length Cornwallis shut himself up with his army in Yorktown.[33]

[Footnote 31:  West Point:  see map in paragraph 135.]

[Footnote 32:  Lafayette (Lah-fay-et’).]

[Footnote 33:  Yorktown:  see map in paragraph 140.]

142.  Washington marches against Yorktown, and takes it and the army of Cornwallis.—­Washington, with his army, was then near New York City, watching the British there.  The French king had done as he agreed, and had sent over warships and soldiers to help us; but so far they had never been able to do much.  Now was the chance.  Before the British knew what Washington was about, he had sent the French war-ships down to Yorktown to prevent Cornwallis from getting away by sea.  Then, with his own army and some French soldiers besides, Washington quickly marched south to attack Yorktown by land.

When he got there he placed his cannon round the town, and began battering it to pieces.  For more than a week he kept firing night and day.  One house had over a thousand balls go through it.  Its walls looked like a sieve.  At last Cornwallis could not hold out any longer, and on October 19th, 1781, his army came out and gave themselves up as prisoners.