“Brandywine and its disappointing finish was scarcely over before the conflict at Germantown involved him with his division in another desperate struggle, where an unfortunate and needless delay by General Knox and the sudden rising of a dense and impenetrable fog snatched from his hands a victory earned and well earned by every exhibition of soldierly quality a commander could give. And even in the hour of keenest personal disappointment, balked of a victory he had richly earned, a victory which would have set his name ringing around the world as its chief author and cause, his thoughts were not of himself, but of the personal danger to Washington to whom he gave the lifelong devotion which only lives in the breasts of noble men. “Without a pang or plaint of his own peril and disappointment, he writes: ‘I saw with great concern our brave Commander-inChief exposing himself to the hottest fire of the enemy in such a manner that regard for my country obliged me to ride to him and beg him to retire.’ And in the longer account of which these words are a part, my friends, not a suggestion can be found or guessed of the added peril which the writer himself freely braved in the efforts to remove his Chief from danger. “This hasty and inadequate resumé of his service in the first two years of the Revolution brings us to the great military operation of which he was the chief and on which will always rest much of his fame—the investment of Rhode Island and the series of movements of which the State and coast of Rhode Island formed the picturesque theater. “The enterprise was a favorite one with Washington, who hoped, indeed, that it would emphasize the French alliance at the outset by an overwhelming and successful effect of an attack on the British army almost within the sound of our voices. Its success was very dear to Washington’s heart, and for it he chose three officers perhaps more closely in his confidence and affection than any others in the Revolutionary Army. Sullivan was in chief command, with Greene and Lafayette as equal subordinate assistants, each having a division comprising as nearly as possible half of the army. “The plan of operations had been agreed upon between Washington and the French Commander, and the conflict was laid out to be, as it should have been, the first great effort of the allied French and American forces against the British army of invasion. “I am speaking to an audience whose youngest members should and probably do know more of the details of these military movements than I can ever hope to know.