miles away. Braddock's defeat and the salvation of Washington were
foretold by a Miami chief at a council held in Fort Ponchartrain, on
Detroit River, the ambush and the slaughter having been revealed to him
in a dream. The victims of that battle, too, had been apprised, for one
or two nights before the disaster a young lieutenant in Braddock's
command saw his fellow-officers pass through his tent, bloody and torn,
and when the first gun sounded he knew that it spoke the doom of nearly
all his comrades. At Killingly, Connecticut, in the autumn before the
outbreak of the Revolution, a distant roar of artillery was heard for a
whole day and night in the direction of Boston, mingled with a rattle of
musketry, and so strong was the belief that war had begun and the British
were advancing, that the minute men mustered to await orders. It was
afterward argued that these noises came from an explosion of meteors, a
shower of these missiles being then in progress, invisible, of course, in
the day-time. Just after the signing of the Declaration of Independence
the royal arms on the spire of the Episcopal church at Hampton, Virginia,
were struck off by lightning. Shortly before the surrender of Cornwallis
a display of northern lights was seen in New England, the rays taking the
form of cannon, facing southward. In Connecticut sixty-four of these guns
were counted.

At the battle of Germantown the Americans were enraged by the killing of
one of their men who had gone out with a flag of truce. He was shot from
the windows of Judge Chew's house, which was crowded with British
soldiers, and as he fell to the lawn, dyeing the peaceful emblem with his
blood, at least one of the Continentals swore that his death should be
well avenged. The British reinforcements, sixteen thousand strong, came
hurrying through the street, their officers but half-dressed, so urgent
had been the summons for their aid. Except for their steady tramp the
place was silent; doors were locked and shutters bolted, and if people