Lafayette, with a white sash across his breast, commanded the left; but it was a heavy heart that he carried under his badge that gala-day. Letters which came to him immediately after news of the treaty had brought sad tidings. He learned of the death of a favorite nephew, loved by him like a son, and also that his oldest child, the little Henriette, to whom he had been sending messages in every letter, had died in the previous October. "My heart is full of my own grief, and of yours which I was not with you to share," he wrote Adrienne. "The distance from Europe to America never seemed so immense to me as it does now.... The news came to me immediately after that of the treaty, and while bowed down with grief I had to receive congratulations and [Pg 103]take part in the public rejoicing." Had the letters come through without delay they would have arrived at the beginning of winter, at the moment when General Conway was fanning the flame of his homesickness. The desire to comfort his wife might have turned the scale and sent Lafayette across the sea instead of to Albany. Now, though he longed to go to her, he felt bound to remain for the campaign which was about to open. [Pg 104]XII FARCE AND TREACHERY Much as the French treaty had done for the Americans, it had by no means ended the war. There were as many British soldiers as ever on American soil, and General Howe at Philadelphia and General Clinton at New York could be trusted to make excellent use of them. Signs of British activity were already apparent. A large number of transports had sailed from Philadelphia, but whether they had gone to bring reinforcements or whether it meant that Philadelphia was being abandoned and that the Hudson was again to be the main point of attack Washington did not know. Lafayette was ordered to take some of the best troops at Valley Forge and find out. He left camp on the 18th of May with about twenty-two hundred men, among them six hundred Pennsylvania militia and half a hundred Iroquois Indians. Crossing the Schuylkill, he established himself on high ground between that river and the Delaware, twelve miles from the city, at a hamlet called Barren Hill, whose chief ornament was a [Pg 105]church with a graveyard. It was an excellent spot for purposes of observation; for roads ran in various directions, while the abrupt fall of the land toward the Schuylkill protected his right, and there were substantial stone buildings in a wood in front which could be used as forts in case of need. He guarded against surprise on his left, the direction from which any considerable body of British was likely to approach, by placing there his large detachment of Pennsylvania militia. He planted his five cannon in good positions, sent out his Indian scouts, who wormed themselves several miles nearer the city, had interviews with promising individuals who were to act as spies, and was well pleased with himself.