hdrew to New York. His premises were sound, and his conclusions
logical, but he made his usual mistake of overlooking and
underestimating the American general. No sooner was it known that
he was on his way to New York than Washington, at the head of his
dissolving army, resolved to take the offensive and strike an outlying
post. In a letter of December 14, the day after Howe began to move, we
catch the first glimpse of Trenton. It was a bold spirit which, in the
dead of winter, with a broken army, no prospect of reinforcements, and
in the midst of a terror-stricken people, could thus resolve with
some four thousand men to attack an army thoroughly appointed, and
numbering in all its divisions twenty-five thousand soldiers.

It is well to pause a moment and look at that situation, and at the
overwhelming difficulties which hemmed it in, and then try to realize
what manner of man he was who rose superior to it, and conquered it.
Be it remembered, too, that he never deceived himself, and never for
one instant disguised the truth. Two years later he wrote that at this
supreme moment, in what were called "the dark days of America," he was
never despondent; and this was true enough, for despair was not in his
nature. But no delusions lent him courage. On the 18th he wrote to his
brother "that if every nerve was not strained to recruit this new army
the game was pretty nearly up;" and added, "You can form no idea of
the perplexity of my situation. No man, I believe, ever had a greater
choice of difficulties, and less means to extricate himself from them.
However, under a full persuasion of the justice of our cause, I cannot
entertain an idea that it will finally sink, though it may remain
for some time under a cloud." There is no complaint, no boasting, no
despair in this letter. We can detect a bitterness in the references
to Congress and to Lee, but the tone of the letter is as calm as a May
morning, and it concludes with sending love and good wishes to the
writer's sister and her family.

Thus in the dreary winter Washington was planning and devising and
sending hither and thither for men, and never ceased through it all
to write urgent and ever sharper letters and keep a wary eye upon the
future. He not only wrote strongly, but he pledged his own estate and
exceeded his powers in desperate efforts to raise money and men. On
the 20th he wrote to Congress: "It may be thought that I am going a
good deal out of the line of my