A defeated general is always wrong, an eighteenth-century French commander once observed, and a dead one was especially at a loss. Perhaps the best this dead, defeated general could hope for was martyrdom. In that, Montgomery succeeded spectacularly. Poems and songs were composed in his honor, as if “millions of seraphs, clothed in robes of gold” sang his praises, as an ode in the Virginia Gazette suggested. Orations, sermons, and theatrical productions followed. The London Evening Post, ever keen to embarrass Lord North, eulogized Montgomery on a page bordered with heavy black margins, and
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