After peeling off his uniform and donning a nightshirt, he sat at a table and scratched a querulous note to his old friend Horatio Gates, who was headed for Pennsylvania from Ticonderoga with six hundred Northern Army soldiers. After once again complaining about the loss of Fort Washington, Lee turned his pen on the commanding general: Entre nous, a certain great man is most damnably deficient. He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties. If I stay in the province, I risk myself and army, and if I do not stay the province is lost forever. I have neither guides,
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