The ten redoubts from Fairmount to Cohocksink were stout and well manned. There was little danger of the Continentals attacking them, for the hills were already whitening with the coverlet of winter. The river was open, supplies and reinforcements were on the way from across the ocean, and the British had nothing to fear. So they gave themselves up to ease and merriment. And fortunate for the cause, then trembling in the balance, that they did so, for had they then conducted the campaign against Washington’s starving troops with vigor, the “rebellion” would never have risen in history to the dignity of a “revolution”! CHAPTER XVII A PERILOUS MISSION To-day, after the passing of a century and a quarter, the Chester hills are much as they were on that chill winter’s day when the straggling lines of ragged, almost barefooted men marched along the old Gulph road. It is a farming country still, and although the forest has been cut away, in places the woodland is now as thickly grown as then. Here and there along the route the admiring descendants of those faithful patriots have erected monuments to their name; yonder can still faintly be defined the outlines of the Star Redoubt; there stands the house which was the headquarters of General Varnum, who commanded the Rhode Island troops; to the left of the road as one travels toward Valley Forge, is the line of breastworks running through the timber, which has been felled and grown up thrice since the axes of the Continentals rang from hill to hill. One night they rested on the toilsome march near the old Gulph Mills, where the road passed through the deep cut between wooded heights: then on again, the various brigades separating and following different roads to the places assigned them. But the roads were, many of them, ill-defined, the timber was thick, the fields rugged. Little wonder that Baron de Kalb described the site chosen for the winter quarters of the American army as a wilderness. Nevertheless, the situation selected for the encampment was a good one. In some of the towns, perhaps--Trenton, Lancaster, Reading, or Wilmington--there would have been shelter for the troops; but there were many objections to each place named. Had clothing and supplies been abundant, the little army might have harassed the British all winter long, and even shut them up completely in Philadelphia when the spring opened. If the officers quarreled with the commander for his obstinacy in choosing this position, the men set to in some cheerfulness to build shelters. They were not afraid of hard work, and they had suffered enough already from the cold and storms to appreciate the log cabins which went up as if by magic on hillside and in hollow.