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

by Rick Atkinson

loyalist in Virginia told his diary, “The minds of the people are much altered. A few days ago they had given up the cause for lost.… Now they are all liberty-mad again.… Damn them all!” Many in the Continental ranks were liberty-mad enough to favor driving Howe’s legions from New Jersey, if not New York. “Never were men in higher spirits than our whole army is,” Captain Rodney wrote his brother in late December. “All are determined to extirpate them from the Jerseys.” Washington was determined, too. Victory at Trenton revived his reputation and enhanced his stature. Odes would be penned in his honor, with such immortal couplets as “Washington, though least expected near, / Opened fire upon the Hessians’ rear.” As Dr. Rush had urged, in late December Congress granted the commanding general autocratic powers for six months to pay enlistment bounties, raise additional regiments, appoint all officers below the rank of general, confiscate provisions, and arrest those who refused Continental currency or “are otherwise disaffected to the American cause.” Rodney told his diary, “Gen’l. Washington is dictator.” As if reassuring itself, Congress declared that the commander in chief “can safely be entrusted with the most unlimited power.” “The country,” one biographer would write, “awakened to the belief that its general was a genius.” If that judgment proved premature, victory made a bold, resolute man bolder and even more hell-bent. Washington, a Hessian conceded, was without doub...