express in conversation.


BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN.

"Those fellows look very neat and prim; they march well, and their
muskets are polished very bright. I wonder how they would stand fire,"
said Higgins, after the party had seated themselves.

"I doubt if they would like it as well as parading the streets; but
there may be some stout hearts among them," replied old Harmar.

"They should have been at Brandywine or Germantown. At either place they
would have had a chance to prove their stuff. Fife and drum would have
been necessary, I think, to stir them up," said Wilson.

"I paid a visit to Germantown, the other day," said Mr. Jackson Harmar.
"I passed over the chief portion of the battle-ground, and examined
Chew's house, where some of the British took refuge and managed to turn
the fortunes of the day. The house is in a good state of preservation,
and bears many marks of the conflict."

"I have seen it since the day of the battle, and have also walked over
the neighboring grounds," said Smith "You are wrong in stating that the
troops that threw themselves into that house turned the fortune of the
day. Our defeat was the result of many unlooked-for circumstances, which
no general could have been prepared to meet."

"I have always understood that the check received by our troops
at Chew's house gave the enemy time to rally, and thus defeated