unloaded and they could not hesitate; so, running boldly into
close quarters, they fought hand to hand with their foes and
speedily overthrew them. For a moment the bayonets flashed and
played; then the British lines broke as their assailants thronged
against them, and the struggle was over. The Americans had lost a
hundred in killed and wounded. Of the British sixty-three had
been slain and very many wounded, every one of the dead or
disabled having suffered from the bayonet. A curious coincidence
was that the number of the dead happened to be exactly equal to
the number of Wayne's men who had been killed in the night attack
by the English general, Grey.

There was great rejoicing among the Americans over the successful
issue of the attack. Wayne speedily recovered from his wound, and
in the joy of his victory it weighed but slightly. He had
performed a most notable feat. No night attack of the kind was
ever delivered with greater boldness, skill, and success. When
the Revolutionary War broke out the American armies were composed
merel y of armed yeomen, stalwart men, of good courage, and
fairly proficient in the use of their weapons, but entirely
without the training which alone could enable them to withstand
the attack of the British regulars in the open, or to deliver an
attack themselves. Washington's victory at Trenton was the first
encounter which showed that the Americans were to be feared when
they took the offensive. With the exception of the battle of
Trenton, and perhaps of Greene's fight at Eutaw Springs, Wayne's
feat was the most successful illustration of daring and
victorious attack by an American army that occurred during the
war; and, unlike Greene, who was only able to fight a drawn
battle, Wayne's triumph was complete. At Monmouth he had shown,