Beadle's Dime Novels No. 127: Bald Eagle — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

WASHINGTON’S PLANS. 23 proportions, the hair slightly thinned about the temples, and flecked with the touches of frost. As the light stole downward, leaving a halo upon the scarcely contracted and noble brow, it showed the thoughtful depth of the clear, almost mel- ancholy eye, and left the strongly compressed lips nearly in Shadow. As he perused a paper his hand instinctively grasped his chin, not with a philosophic touch, as we have seen in pictures of Franklin, but with a firm grasp, the fingers spread upon the side of the cheek and throat, an attitude which indicated, not Only firmness of general character, but a concentration of pur- pose for the present contingency. He had just received dispatches from General Lee, by the Way of Morristown, where a portion of the Northern army was located, by which he learned that Sir Henry Clinton, antici- pating an attack of the allied arms upon the city of New York, had withdrawn a part of the forces of Cornwallis at York- town—this, too, at a time when the army of General Greene was making its way to the north. Washington saw at once the importance of a change of operations, and resolved to concentrate all the force of the allied arms against Lord Cornwallis, leaving Sir Henry Clinton unmolested in the city of New York, conceiving that a bold and success- ful campaign in Virginia would decide the fate of the war, With less waste of blood, and less hazard to the cause than an attack against Sir Henry. In order to do this it was essential to leave the impression still upon the mind of the latter, that the movements of the army were designed against himself. He was now busy in preparing dispatches to the various points of the American army, demanding their codperation, as also to the commander of the French fleet, directing him to repair to the Chesapeake. 7 The inmates of the house were buried in skimber, except the personal friend and aid of Washington, the accomplished Hamilton, who walked back and forth under the piazza, wait- ing till the labors of the great man should cease. As he thus moved, occasionally immerging into the moonlight, and look- ing out upon the broad, waters of the Hudson heaving up silver wavelets to the night, he looked less like the counselor of a statesman and soldier, than a young cavalier whose Comicloooks.conn