Beadle's Dime Novels No. 127: Bald Eagle — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

22 BALD EAGLE. Severe as was the trial to the country at large, the individ- ual trial was most heavily felt by Washington himself. He saw that another such winter would sink the hopes of the country. Added to these emergencies, the aid of the French naval power had been far from efficient and salutary. There certainly had been too much disposition to independent action; a latent feeling of vanity prompting to single trials of prowess between English and French arms, rather than combined and concentrated codperation with the tactics of our own army. Washington felt all this, and by the most strenuousefforts and the most skillful reasoning, counteracted the evil. He labored day and night, vigilant for every department of interest, and sustaining a correspondence, wonderful alike for its yoluminous- ness and ability. | He had now concerted a plan of operations, remarkable for wisdom and completeness, the features of which demanded the utmost powers of concealment on the part of all entrusted with the details ; a concealmentso well sustained, that to this day the whole matter is shrouded in mystery, and now that we are able to look back to its entire success, we are compelled to regurd the whole as superhuman—that something beyond mere hu- man skill and forethought were requisite to bring about mea- sures embracing so many contingencies, the favorable action of so many agents considered fortuitous, and the exact subordina- tion of so many parts to the whole. Such were certainly the features of the remarkable events preceding the attack of the allied armies upon the encampment of Cornwallis at York- town. | : ) At this time Washington and his staff occupied a low stone building in the village of Newburgh, a spot venerated yet as the headquarters of the commander-in-chief. A. place so sacred should be the Mecca of the region, where young and old should repair to reillumine the ashes of patriotism or to enkindle its fire. Here, before a plain walnut table, covered with diagrams and dispatches, sat the great man, late at night, maturing the plans of the coming eventful campaign. Ab- sorbed and anxious as he was, there was a singular repose upon the fine features as they were bent over his task. An iron lamp suspended from the ceiling cast the light upon the top of the head, revealing its most classical and harmonious connmicloooks.com