Though driven out of New York, they were by no means conquered. They felt that they had been beaten by strategy and trick. In open fight they still had confidence in their ability to hold the invaders in check, if not signally to defeat them. The moment the news reached Washington that New York had fallen, O’Halloran, Wagner, and Liest despatched orders to every socialist and Irish organization in the North and West, calling for their last available men. The three themselves hurried northward to meet the retiring army, reaching Philadelphia at the same time that its advance-guard arrived. Most of the troops had been compelled to march on foot across New Jersey, owing to the failure of railroad transport; and it was not till the fourteenth of May that the last brigades arrived. In this emergency, and by consent of the other two members of the “Directory,” O’Halloran, who showed by far the most endurance and courage of all, was given supreme military command. He found that he was still in control of a formidable army. It had lost by death and desertions about a hundred and fifty thousand men since the allies landed. But the detachments which had been collected from the cities on the shore of the Hudson opposite New York, the detail which had been met at Philadelphia, the forces which had been brought from Washington and Baltimore, and the reinforcements which had already arrived from points to the westward, had more than made good these losses. O’Halloran found that he could oppose to the invaders as numerous an army as had met them before New York, while he assumed that they would be unable to replace the men whom they had lost. In a measure, this was true; yet General von Blücken had repaired his losses much more fully than O’Halloran suspected. During the attack on New York of the fourth of May he had sent to Boston for twenty thousand men from the British garrison there. The day that New York fell, eighteen thousand more were called to his force, leaving only about five thousand to hold Boston, and as many more along the line of communication southward. But the retreat of the revolutionists had made this force ample. Meanwhile several troop-ships had arrived, bringing reinforcements from Europe. Two days after he had taken possession of New York, Brooklyn, and the New Jersey cities, General von Blücken found his strength so far recruited that he was able to push forward in pursuit of the retiring foe. At the same time a portion of the fleet, with a considerable force of marines, was sent to make a demonstration against Washington, and if the city was found undefended, to seize it. Another smaller detachment was ordered up the Chesapeake to try Baltimore. XVI. THE FINAL STRUGGLE.