Emaciated from want and crippled with disease resulting from hardships he endured in the Canadian campaign, Morgan was now scarcely able to sit upon his horse. When mounted he could not ride out of a walk. He “was a sufferer to the verge of human endurance, and was forced to ask for leave of absence to regain his broken health. Slowly and painfully he made his way homeward; and he was never again physically fit for active operations. But his warlike spirit was never at rest while an armed enemy of his country was in the field. In June, 1781, when Tarleton was raiding eastern Virginia, he raised and equipped a body of cavalry at his own expense and at the earnest importunity of Benjamin Harrison and Archibald Cary, Speakers of the House of Delegates and Senate of Virginia, he placed himself at their head to join Lafayette. But in August his old malady compelled him again to retire. The spirit of the old hero chafed under his enforced idleness. The termination of the titanic struggle was now discernible to his experienced eye and he longed to participate in the closing events. The French fleet was in the Chesapeake, cutting off the escape of Cornwallis by sea. In his rear was Lafayette—there was no retreat to the southward. On his flank was the Marquis of St. Simon—there was no flight to the mountains. And from the north, at the head of the main army, marched George Washington with his veteran troops. The stupendous event which took place at Yorktown on the 19th day of October, 1781, at 4 o’clock p. m., and its influence on the history of the human race, all the world knows. Morgan was at home at that time on a bed of sickness. He wrote Washington under date of September 20, lamenting that his condition prevented him from serving in the field. It was a letter full of personal and patriotic utterances—so much so that Washington felt impelled to answer it in kind. His answer is dated “Headquarters, before York, 5th October, 1781.” “Surrounded as I am,” he wrote, “with a great variety of concerns on the present occasion, I can yet find time to answer your letter of the 20th ultimo, which I have received with much satisfaction; not only as it is filled with such warm expressions of desire for my success on the present expedition, but as it breathes the spirit and ardor of a veteran soldier, who, though impaired in the service of his country, yet retains the sentiments of a soldier in the firmest degree. “Be assured that I most sincerely lament your present situation, and esteem it a peculiar loss to the United States that you are, at this time, unable to render your services in the field. I most sincerely thank you for the kind expressions of your good wishes, and earnestly hope that you may soon be restored to that share of health which you may desire, and with which you may again be useful to your country in the same eminent degree as has already distinguished your conduct.”