General Grant blamed indiscipline on lax officers, correctly noting that scurrilous behavior could “lose you friends and gain you enemies.” Just so: New Jersey militiamen who had been reluctant to join Washington now assailed their oppressors with raids and ambushes. New Jersey, like Westchester County, soon became a dark borderland of uncertain, shifting loyalties and spasmodic violence. Howe’s staff estimated that rebel bandits by mid-December had rustled seven hundred oxen and almost a thousand sheep and hogs from British foragers. Patrols were bushwhacked, couriers seized, and eight
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