On December 4, 1783, his officers met at a tavern to bid him farewell.

The tears ran down his cheeks as he parted with these brave and tried men.

He shook their hands in silence and, in a fashion still preserved in France, kissed each of them.

Then they watched him as he was rowed away in his barge to the New Jersey shore.

Congress was now sitting at Annapolis in Maryland and there on December 23, 1783, Washington appeared and gave up finally his command.