Two hundred miles downriver from Fort Edward, New York had again become precisely what London promised for all of America whenever the rebels returned to their senses: a prosperous, peaceable outpost of the world’s greatest empire. The city’s population of twenty-five thousand before the war had dwindled to five thousand during Britain’s violent eviction of Washington and his army in August 1776. Now the number had climbed back above twelve thousand, with hundreds more returning each week to revive their businesses, seek work, or help the king’s men crush the insurrection.
