Lives of the Presidents Told in Words of One Syllable

nd-ence was drawn up and sent out to the world on July 4, 1776.

[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL BURGOYNE.

From an English print, 1733.]

War now be-gan in dead-ly earn-est; and, at the great bat-tle of Long Isl-and, our men met with great loss of life, and had to flee from the foe. Soon af-ter this bad news the Brit-ish took Phil-a-del-phi-a, and now Wash-ing-ton was sad at heart; on Christ-mas day of 1776, though, our troops won in the great fight that took place at Tren-ton, and there was joy in the whole land; good news came with the New Year, too, for Wash-ing-ton won ma-ny fights; and at last, in Oc-to-ber, 1777, the Brit-ish troops in charge of Gen-er-al Bur-goyne gave up their arms to Gen-er-al Gates. That win-ter of 1777 was a bad one for Wash-ing-ton and his men; at no time in the war did they suf-fer so much; the time was spent at Val-ley Forge, and the men lived in log huts which they had first built, in long straight lines, like cit-y streets; twelve men lived in each hut, an