Still, Paterson lingered, hoping for a message he could take back to the Howe brothers. Washington replied, smolderingly, “My particular compliments to both.”11 That swagger, from the leader of a far inferior, ill-trained army facing the greatest military power in the world, was all Washington. He’d lacked a cool head when he’d fought for the British, but in the seventeen years since he’d grown into a statesman.
