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along the centre, which was defended by a stockade
and batteries.
Two small redoubts were advanced before the left.
The ground in front of the left was in some parts level with the works, in others cut by ravines; altogether very convenient for the besiegers.
The space within the works was exceedingly narrow, and except under the cliff was exposed to enfilade.
The twenty-ninth was given to reconnoitring, and
forming a plan of attack and approach.
The
French entreated
Washington for orders to storm the exterior posts of the
British; in the course of the night before the thirtieth, Cornwallis ordered them all to be aban-
doned, and thus prematurely conceded to the allied armies ground which commanded his line of works in a very near advance, and gave great advantages for opening the trenches.
At
Gloucester, the enemy was shut in by dragoons under the
Duke de Lauzun,
Virginia militia under
General Weedon, and eight hundred marines.
Once, and once only,
Tarleton and his legion, who were stationed on the same side, undertook to act offensively; but the
Duke de Lauzun and his dragoons, full of gayety and joy at the sight, ran against them and trampled them down.
Tarleton's horse was taken; its rider barely escaped.
In the night before the sixth of October, every thing
being in readiness, trenches were opened at six hundred yards' distance from the works of Cornwallis,—on the right by the
Americans, on the left by the
French; and the labor was executed in friendly rivalry, with so much secrecy and despatch that it was first revealed to the enemy by the light of morning.
Within three days, the first parallel was completed, the redoubts
