George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[494] sheltered the British as they fled. Against the

Chap. XXIV.} 1781. Sept. 8.

house Greene ordered artillery to play; but the gunners were shot down by riflemen, and the fieldpieces abandoned to the enemy. Upon a party in an adjacent wood of barren oaks, Washington was ordered to charge with his horsemen; and the close, stiff branches of the stubborn trees made the cavalry useless. Colonel Washington himself, after his glorious share in the campaign, at the last moment of this last encounter, was wounded, disabled, and taken prisoner. So there were at Eutaw two successive engagements. In the first, Greene won brilliantly and with little loss; in the second, he sustained a defeat, with the death or capture of many of his bravest men.¹ In the two engagements, the Americans lost in killed, wounded, and missing, five hundred and fifty-four men; they took five hundred prisoners, including the wounded; and the total loss of the British approached one thousand. The cause of the United States was the cause of Ireland. Among the fruits of the battles of the former was the recovery for the latter of her equal rights in trade and legislation. Yet such is the sad complication in human affairs that the people who of all others should have been found taking part with America sent some of their best troops and their ablest men to take the field against the defenders of their own rights. Irishmen fought in the British ranks at Eutaw. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who received on this day wounds that were all but mortal, had in later years no consolation