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1776, his adjutant's return showed 679 officers and 10,804 men, of which practically half, 5,399, were sick, detached, or on furlough, leaving 6,164 present for duty, plus about 500 men from the North, under the command of General Arthur St. Clair; about 1,000 Philadelphians, and 400 New Jersey militia—a total of 8,064, of which about 6,000 were available for action.19

Even before Howe left Trenton Washington, realizing that the war was over, unless he could do something startling, had been aching to throw himself across the river and either catch Howe unawares or smash his own army before it evaporated.

The problem would have been somewhat the same as at Boston with three great differences: Howe had no ships to protect him; he had no fortifications, and Washington was at bay, besieged, driven to a sally of some kind.

On December 14th, before he knew that Howe was gone or that Lee was captured, he wrote to General Gates, who was on his way south:

"I expect General Lee will be there this evening or to-morrow, who will be followed by General Heath and his division. If we can draw our forces together, I trust, under the smiles of Providence, we may yet effect an important stroke, or at least prevent General Howe from executing his plans." 20

On the same day he wrote to the Governor of Connecticut (whose situation was so alarming that Washington countermanded his order to General Heath to join him, ordered him back to Peekskill and sent Arnold to New London) that with the aid of Gates' troops he might try something:

"They may, in conjunction with my present force, and that under General Lee, enable us to attempt a stroke upon the forces of the enemy, who lie a good deal scattered, and to all appearances in a state of security. A lucky blow in this quarter would be fatal to them, and would most certainly rouse the spirits of the people, which are quite sunk by our late misfortunes." 21

Gates came down from the North with Benedict Arnold but they brought only 500 frostbitten men through a freezing snowstorm. Washington welcomed Gates as an old friend and asked him to stay and help, but Gates made an excuse of sickness and pushed on to Congress. He had a scheme of his own for saving the nation, and it did not include Washington.

Left alone with his problem, the Dictator was desperate enough to make an attempt at building up a little artillery, and he took the liberty of bribing recruits by increasing their pay by twenty-five percent, which was still far below that of the English and French artillery service.

Even for this unavoidable act, the Dictator apologized to Congress, and asked permission to make certain essential decisions without referring them to Congress "at the distance of a hundred and thirty or forty miles. . . .

"It may be said, that this is an application for powers that are too dangerous to be entrusted. I can only add, that desperate diseases require desperate remedies; and I with truth declare, that I have no lust after power, but I wish with as much fervency as any man upon this wide-extended continent for an opportunity of I turning the sword into the ploughshare. But my feelings, as an officer and a man, have been such as to force me to say, that no person ever had a greater choice of difficulties to contend with than I have." 22

In the midst of his catalogue of difficulties, he gave voice to one great word, for it seems to have suddenly occurred to him that it might be possible to turn the destructive jealousies of the colonies into a constructive rivalry for honors. And he revealed that his ideal was national. He had a country at last, a poor thing, but his own:

"I have labored, ever since I have been in the service, to discourage all kinds of local attachments and distinctions of country, denominating the whole by the greater name of AMERICAN, but I have found it impossible to overcome

prejudices; and, under the new establishment, I conceive it best to stir up an emulation.” 23

Five days later he began to do things that made the word "American" clang in the ear of the world. He gave it its first real acquaintance with Victory.

H'

XXXVIII

THE RETURN TO TRENTON

IS early training in Indian warfare and bush-fighting had taught Washington the importance of deceiving while not being deceived, and of quick recovery from defeat by an unexpected recoil.

In his larger command he enlarged his grasp to an unusual realization of the value of military intelligence in both its forms of espionage and counter-espionage.

The Revolution was a civil war at least in the sense that the combatants on both sides spoke the same language; the dialects were equally confused among loyalists and rebels. This made it easy to send spies, but almost impossible to keep them off.

Washington had a private fund for employing secret agents: he had several cipher codes and he kept himself informed as to the chemicals of espionage, invisible writing and other devices.

His constant cry was, "Give me spies! Buy me spies!" One of a general's duties is to supply the enemy with misinformation and Washington did his best in that direction. For example, he wrote to Colonel Cadwalader:

"Keep a good look-out for spies, and endeavor to magnify your number as much as possible." 1

And to Putnam:

1

"You will give out your strength to be twice as great as it is.. You will keep as many spies out as you will see proper. A number of horsemen, in the dress of the country, must be constantly kept going backwards and forwards."

2

Another part of Washington's bluff was the stiff tone he kept up in his correspondence with Howe concerning the exchange of prisoners. He never admitted for a moment that there was a large possibility that his own whole army would soon be a prisoner.3

Saved temporarily by the interposition of the icy Delaware, he guarded every ford and crossing-place with troops under the strictest orders to build redoubts and park their wagons at such a distance that in case of unavailing opposition they could retire on the next unit without loss of precious equipment.

He neglected no means to keep eager eyes inside the hostile lines.

"Let me entreat you to find out some person, who can be engaged to cross the river as a spy," he wrote to his four brigadier-generals, Lord Stirling, Hugh Mercer, Adam Stephen, and the recently commissioned French engineer, Roche de Fermoy:

"Expense must not be spared. . . and it will readily be paid by me. We are in a neighborhood of very disaffected people. Equal care therefore should be taken, that one of these persons does not undertake the business in order to betray us.” ↑

One of his most trusted spies was John Honeyman, who led a life of infernal disgrace for the sake of the cause. It has always been the peculiar curse of the spy's most essential duty that he must be abhorred by the people he is saving, disowned by the officers who employ him, and left to extricate himself as best he can from a degrading death.

Washington found Honeyman, a Scotch-Irishman, a former member of the bodyguard of General Wolfe, at Hackensack. And Honeyman agreed to pretend to be a butcher and cattle drover.

There was no protection for him except an intervention of Washington once or twice when he was about to meet his

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