w misfortune, were prodigious. But
neither the importance nor the urgency of this masterly counter-stroke
to the American cause can be at all appreciated, or even properly
understood, unless what had gone before, what in fact had produced a
crisis so dark and threatening, is brought fully into light. Washington
himself says the act was prompted by a dire necessity. Coming from him,
these words are full of meaning. We realize that the fate of the
Revolution was staked upon this one last throw. If we would take the
full measure of these words of his, spoken in the fullest conviction of
their being final words, we must again go over the whole field, strewed
with dead hopes, littered with exploded reputations, cumbered with
cast-off traditions, over which the patriot army marched to its supreme
trial out into the broad pathway which led to final success.

The campaign of 1776 is, therefore, far too instructive to be studied
merely with reference to its crowning and concluding feature. In
considering it the mind is irresistibly impelled toward one central,
statuesque figure, rising high above the varying fortunes of the hour,
like the Statue of Liberty out of the crash and roar of the surrounding
storm.

Nowhere, we think, does Washington appear to such advantage as during
this truly eventful campaign. Though sometimes troubled in spirit, he is
always unshaken. Though his army was a miserable wreck, driven about at
the will of the enemy, Washington was ever the rallying-point for the
handful of officers and men who still surrounded him. If the cause was
doomed to shipwreck, we feel that he would be the last to leave the
wreck.

His letters, written at this trying period, are characterized by that
same even tone, as they disclose in more prosperous times. He does not
dare to be hopeful, yet he will not give up beaten. There is an
atmosphere of stern, though dignified determination about him, at this
trying hour, which, in a man of his admirable equipoise, is a thing for
an enemy to beware of. In a word, Washington driven into a corner was
doubly dangerous. And it is evident that his mind, roused to unwonted
activity by the gravity of the crisis, the knowledge that all eyes
turned to him, sought only for the opportune moment to show forth its
full powers, and by a conception of genius dominate the storm of
disaster around him.

Washington never claimed to be a man of destiny. He never had any
nicknames among his soldiers.