and they built forts in the Hell Gate to defend the approach by way of
Long Island Sound, and they built batteries on the Island of Manhattan
itself. One fort built at this time was on a little island close by the
Battery, and was called Fort Clinton. This afterward became Castle
Garden.

But though the British had sent soldiers and ships to fight the forces
in America, they made no effort to capture the city of New York.

The war went on for two years; there were battles, many of them, on the
land and on the sea. Very often the British had the best of it, and then
again the Americans would have the best of it. But in the end, although
the British fought hard, the Americans fought harder, and in the first
month of the year 1815 the war ended with a great battle in New Orleans,
which the Americans won.




CHAPTER XXXVII

THE STORY of the ERIE CANAL

Everything was going along smoothly when all at once the yellow fever
broke out on the west side, far downtown. It raged with even more
violence than had the small-pox. Citizens fled, and the stricken
district was fenced off so that no one might enter it. It was like a
place of the dead, silent and deserted. Many people went far out of town
to Greenwich Village, and many business houses opened offices in this
little settlement; with the result that Greenwich Village started on a