[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] But d'Estaing stopped at Savannah to assist General Lincoln in his effort to recover that place, and afterward, the joint operation having failed disastrously, returned to France. Clinton next carried his arms southward and besieged and took Charleston. He was occupied in the South from the beginning of 1780 until June. The winter of 1779-80 was the severest ever known in this part of the country. Not only the whole North River, but much of New York Bay, was frozen solid,1 and if the army under Washington had been in any condition to assume the aggressive New York, with its relatively small garrison, must probably have succumbed. But never was Washington's army in a more deplorable plight than dur-ing that terrible winter. It was encamped in two divisions, one 1 General Heath relates in his Memoirs, un-and the Seventh British regiment, came over der date of February 7, 1780, that " A body from Long Island to Westchester on the ice." of the enemy's horse, said to be about 300, FROM JANUARY, 1779. TO SEPTEMBER, 1780 461 under Heath at Peekskill and in the Highlands, the other and prin-cipal part under Washington at Morristown. The principal event of the winter in Westchester County was the so-called " Affair at Youngs's House," a considerable and very disas-trous engagement, in which some 250 men were concerned on the American side and more than twice that number on the enemy's.