There was something especially piquant in the way in which after Guilford he left Cornwallis to himself. It reminds one of a chess-player who first gets the queen off the board, where she can do no harm, and then wins the game against the smaller pieces. As for Cornwallis, when he reached Petersburg, May 20, he found himself at the head of 5000 men. Arnold had just been recalled to New York, and Lafayette, who had been sent down to oppose him, was at Richmond with 3000 men. A campaign of nine weeks ensued, in the first part of which Cornwallis tried to catch Lafayette and bring him to battle. The general movement was from Richmond up to Fredericksburg, then over toward Charlottesville, then back to the James river, then down the north bank of the river. But during the last part the tables were turned, and it was Lafayette, reinforced by Wayne and Steuben, that pursued Cornwallis on his retreat to the coast. At the end of July the British general reached Yorktown, where he was reinforced and waited with 7000 men. [Sidenote: Washington's masterly movement.] We may now change our simile, and liken Cornwallis to a ball between two bats. The first bat, which had knocked him up into Virginia, was Greene; the second, which sent him quite out of the game, was Washington. The remarkable movement which the latter general now proceeded to execute would have been impossible without French coöperation. A French fleet of overwhelming power, under the Count de Grasse, was approaching Chesapeake bay. Washington, in readiness for it, had first moved Rochambeau's army from Rhode Island across Connecticut to the Hudson river. Then, as soon as all the elements of the situation were disclosed, he left part of his force in position on the Hudson, and in a superb march led the rest down to Virginia. Sir Henry Clinton at New York was completely hoodwinked. He feared that the real aim of the French fleet was New York, in which case it would be natural that an American land-force should meet it at Staten island. Now a glance at the map of New Jersey will show that Washington's army, starting from West Point, could march more than half the way toward Philadelphia and still be supposed to be aiming at Staten island. Washington was a master hand for secrecy. When his movement was first disclosed, his own generals, as well as Sir Henry Clinton, took it for granted that Staten island was the point aimed at. It was not until he had passed Philadelphia that Clinton began to surmise that he might be going down to Virginia.