The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy Book 1)

by Rick Atkinson

Among Washington’s visitors this morning was Benjamin Rush, the garrulous, animated Philadelphia physician. Rush—a “sprightly, pretty fellow,” in John Adams’s assessment, but “too much of a talker to be a deep thinker”—had come to tender both medical services and political advice. Medically educated in Edinburgh and London after graduating from college in Princeton at age fourteen, he held progressive views: against slavery, capital punishment, and strong drink; for women’s rights, free education, and medical care for the indigent. Given that sickness already had killed far more American soldiers than bullets, he also had opinions on how to keep an army healthy: daily washing of hands and feet; frequent washing of bodies; vigorous scrubbing of cook pots; cropping hair close to the skull to discourage lice; eating mostly vegetables; disinfecting blankets with sunshine. His ardent support for the rebellion had intensified with the recent imprisonment by the British in New Jersey of his father-in-law, Richard Stockton, a fellow signer of the Declaration. “Every particle of my blood,” Rush wrote, “is electrified with revenge.”