prise of the Hessians
has been the cause of this unhappy change in our affairs. It has
recruited the rebel army and given them sufficient spirit to
undertake a winter campaign. Our misfortune has been that we have
held the enemy too cheap. We must remove the seat of war from the
Jerseys now on account of the scarcity of forage and provisions.

The writer shows the wholesome impressions his friends were under in
this closing remark: "The whole garrison is every morning under arms at
five o'clock to be ready for the scoundrels."

In New York great pains were taken to prevent the truth about the
victories at Trenton and Princeton from getting abroad. False accounts
of them were printed in the newspapers, over which a strict military
censorship was established; but in spite of every precaution enough
leaked out through secret channels to put new life and hope in the
hearts and minds of the long-suffering prisoners of war.

It was one of the misfortunes of this most extraordinary campaign that
every blow Washington had struck left his army exhausted. After each
success it was necessary to recuperate. It was now being reorganized in
the shelter of its mountain fastness, strengthened by a simultaneous
uprising of the people, who now took the redress of their wrongs into
their own hands. No foraging party could show itself without being
attacked; no supplies be had except at the point of the sword. A host of
the exasperated yeomanry constantly hovered around the enemy's advanced
posts, which a feeling of pride alone induced him to hold. Putnam was
ordered up to Princeton, Heath to King's Bridge, so that Howe was kept
looking all ways at once. Redoubts were thrown up at New Brunswick,
leading Wayne to remark that the Americans had now thrown away the spade
and the British taken it up. Looking back over the weary months of
disaster the change on the face of affairs seems almost too great for
belief. From the British point of view the campaign had ended in utter
failure and disgrace. In England, Edward Gibbon says that the Americans
had almost lost the name of rebels, and in America Sir William Howe
found that he had to contend with a man in every way his superior.

INDEX

American Army, 12, 17 _note_;
marches to N. York, 12;
its efficiency, 14;
weakened by detachments, 19, 24 _note_;
reenforced, 19, 20;
effectives in summer of 1776, 22, 24 _note_;
defeated at L. Island, 29;
lo