e fretted him vastly to be kept in Philadelphia while
Washington was pursuing the very tactics he himself would have used
against the enemy. After his first success Washington ordered Putnam out
to Crosswicks, a small place southeast of Trenton, "a very advantageous
post" for him to hold while his superior was planning his descent upon
Princeton. On the 5th of January, after Washington had launched his
thunderbolt at Princeton (of his intention to do which Putnam had been
informed by a letter from his adjutant, written at midnight preceding
that eventful third of January, 1777), he wrote at length to his trusty
friend and General: "It is thought advisable for you to march the troops
under your command to Crosswicks, and keep a strict watch upon the enemy
in that quarter. If the enemy continue at Brunswick you must act with
great circumspection, lest you meet with a surprise. As we have made two
successful attacks upon the enemy by the way of surprise, they will be
pointed with resentment, and if there is any possibility of retaliating
they will attempt it. _You will give out your strength to be twice as
great as it is._ Forward on all the baggage and scattered troops
belonging to this division of the army as soon as may be."

In accordance with Washington's suggestion as to the augmenting of the
number of his men, Putnam availed himself of the request of a wounded
British officer, who was his prisoner, that a friend in Cornwallis's
army might be sent for to make his will, to practise a ruse. It was in
Princeton, whither he had been ordered from Crosswicks. As he had but a
few hundred men, in order to prevent his weakness from being known to
the military visitor he was brought in after dark, all the windows in
the college buildings and private houses were lighted up, "and the
handful of troops paraded about to such effect during the night that the
visitor, on his return to the British camp, reported the force under the
old general to be at least five thousand strong!" In this manner the
shrewd but kind-hearted Putnam complied with his prisoner's request, and
at the same time turned it to his own and his soldiers' advantage.

Having failed in his attempt to "bag that old fox" (Washington), Lord
Cornwallis had scurried back to protect his baggage and communications
at New Brunswick, while Washington ensconced himself in the rugged
country about Morristown, and Putnam was left to protect the lowlands
and harass the enemy. S