For fifteen months he remained with his family, a close student of passing events in the progress of the war. The attention of the British was now directed towards the South and Morgan was filled with apprehension by the preparations being made to bring it under British subjection. Leading three thousand fresh troops from New York, Cornwallis had arrived near Charleston to take command in that section. So rapid and effective were his operations that on the 12th day of May, 1780, when he was ready to assault the town by land and water, General Lincoln signed a capitulation of the city and surrendered his army. By the end of June, the British commander was able to report that he had put an end to all resistance in South Carolina and Georgia; and that in accordance with his plan of operations, he would after the September harvest reduce the province of North Carolina, continue his march to the Chesapeake, and from that base conquer the province of Virginia. Disregarding the wishes of Washington, Congress on the 13th day of June unanimously named General Gates, instead of General Greene, to succeed Lincoln in command of the Southern Department. It proved to be one of the saddest blunders of the war. In receiving this independent command, Gates was instructed to report directly to Congress and not to the commander-in-chief. He was authorized to appoint his own staff-officers; to address himself directly to Virginia and to the States north of it for supplies; and to engage his army in such manner for the defense of the South as his judgment alone should approve. Ambitious as Lucifer, and vain by nature, this mark of great distinction—bestowed in spite of the known opinion of Washington concerning its unwisdom—gave Gates unlimited confidence in his abilities. Miscalculating the fighting strength of his “grand army,” two thirds of which consisted of raw militia from the various provinces that had never been paraded together, he marched against the best disciplined troops in the world, led by Cornwallis, at Camden, and suffered a defeat which demoralized the entire South, deprived him of his command and terminated his military career. “Two thirds of the army ran like a torrent,” he wrote, forgetting to add that he ran with them and did not quit running until he arrived, ahead of the fleetest of the fugitives, at Hillsborough, North Carolina, two hundred miles away—making the distance in the splendid time of three and one half days! [Illustration: MAJOR JOHN W. BOURLET. Of Concord, N. H. Many years in charge of the printing and publishing of the volumes of the Society. Deceased, January 19, 1910. ]