Knowing the British were only a few miles from him, Washington now expected an attack at any time, and decided to move his army to a high rise in the ground near Red Clay creek, which was a better position. Mr. Caleb Byrnes, a miller, had a house on this high ground. Very early on the morning of September the seventh, he was awakened by the tramp of marching feet, the sound of loud voices shouting orders, and the clatter and rumble of gun wagons. He slipped from bed and crossed to the window and looked out. There below, he saw long lines and companies of soldiers in buff and blue. Their bayonets glittered in the sunlight. Sweating horses were pulling cannon up the slope in front of the house. Mrs. Byrnes slipped from bed and came over to look from the window, too. She was shivering with excitement. “It’s the whole American army,” said Byrnes. He told his wife to waken the children and then he dressed as quickly as he could and hurried downstairs and out of the house. An officer on horseback was there giving orders. The cannon had now been placed all along the high ground “for half a mile as thick as they could stand.”[28] As soon as the officer saw Mr. Byrnes, he rode over to him and said, “You’d better get out of here as soon as you can. When the battle begins this house will be shot down and torn to pieces by cannon.” “And my mill?” asked Mr. Byrnes, pointing to the mill, which stood about three-quarters of a mile down the road. “That will probably go, too,” said the officer. Mrs. Byrnes had now come to the door and stood listening. “Well, I’d rather stay right here,” she said. “If there’s a battle we’ll take the children and get under the big arch that is under the chimney in the cellar; there couldn’t anything hurt us there, anyway.” Mr. Byrnes agreed with his wife that they had better stay; and in spite of the warnings of the officers they refused to move. Mr. Byrnes’ brother, who lived near the mill, also refused to leave his house. But the other neighbors packed up their furniture and took their families further up in the country, where they might be safe from the cannon. As it happened, they were no safer than the Byrnes after all, for on September the ninth, Washington found that the enemy were circling around him toward the north in the direction of Philadelphia, and he decided to move on and meet the British at Chadd’s Ford, and force a battle there. Marching orders were given, and a few hours later the entire American army was gone from Delaware. So ended Washington’s first stay in our state. But there was another time when Washington was in Delaware. This second time he was no longer commander-in-chief of a struggling army but the President of the United States. The war was over. Liberty was won, and the English had left our shores. It was December of 1783, and Washington was to pass through Wilmington on his way from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon, where he was to eat his Christmas dinner.