“While we were fighting so hard down there by Chadd’s Ford, Sullivan was doing nothing at all. About one o’clock, it seems, a man named Cheney rode into Sullivan’s division and reported that the British had crossed the river and had reached the Birmingham meeting-house. That was some distance then on Sullivan’s right. But the general still stuck to his belief in Major Spear, and instead of sending out a scouting party, put aside the report as valueless. “This ’Squire Cheney is something of a man in his township--lives over Thornbury way, they tell me--and it angered him to be treated so superciliously by Sullivan. So what does he do but spur on to headquarters and inform General Washington himself. The report could scarcely be believed by the Commander-in-Chief and his staff, and you cannot blame them. Everybody knew how much depended on the day’s action, and that Sullivan should make such a terrible blunder was past belief. “Your friend Colonel Cadwalader told me about it afterward. ‘If you doubt my word, put me under arrest until you can ask Anthony Wayne or Persie Frazer if I am a man to be believed!’ said Cheney, getting red in the face. The staff--some of the young men, it seemed--had laughed at the queer figure the old fellow cut on his horse. ‘I’d have you know that I have this day’s work as much at heart as e’er a one of ye!’ quoth Cheney, and at that His Excellency ordered a change of face, and part of the army moved up to the support of Sullivan. “You know what happened after that. You saw the fugitives and the wounded when you rode to Philadelphia, Hadley. It was a sad day, and all because one man made a mistake,--either foolishly or willfully,--and another man did not consider the fate of the first city in the land of sufficient importance to have every report brought to him corroborated. Sullivan must bear the brunt of this thing,--as his men bore the brunt of the enemy’s charge--because he was in command at that end of the line. But they’re trying to make out that Anthony Wayne could have saved the day with his troops had he wished. They’d not talk so bold had they faced those bloody Hessians as we did.” “It seems awful that there should be friction in an army of patriots,” Hadley said, thoughtfully. “They are all patriotic--they all desire the freedom of the Colonies.” “What some of them desire it would be hard to say,” declared Prentice, gloomily. “And we are not patriots until we win. We’re rebels now--and rebels we shall go down into history unless the Great Jehovah Himself shall strike for us and give us a lasting victory over the British. I tell you, boy, I am discouraged.” And it was a discouraged column of 1,500 men who marched that night to Tredyfrrin, where Wayne had been ordered by the Commander-in-Chief “to watch the movements of the enemy, and, when joined by Smallwood and the Maryland militia, to cut off their baggage and hospital trains.”