First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

One of the most painful moments in Washington’s military career came at this anguished time. On November 30, 1776, he was handed a note written by General Charles Lee, who was commanding a separate force and who had seemed wary of moving it to support Washington’s. The letter was addressed to Washington’s military secretary, Colonel Joseph Reed (Princeton, 1757), but Reed was absent, and Washington, eager to learn Lee’s military plans and assuming it was an official dispatch, opened it. As he read it, he must have been horrified. What he held in his hand was a personal note from General Lee to Reed, and a highly indiscreet one. Reed, it would develop, nine days earlier had dispatched a letter to Lee that detailed the British amusement over Washington’s inept handling of Forts Lee and Washington. They “hold us very cheap in Consequence of the late Affair at Mount Washington where both the Plan of Defence & Execution were contemptible,” he wrote. And Reed knew exactly whom to blame: “An indecisive Mind is one of the greatest Misfortunes that can befall an Army—how often have I lamented it this Campaign.” You, General Lee, would not have left those troops to be captured at Fort Washington, Reed had added: “I have no Doubt had you been here the Garrison at Mount Washington would now have composed a Part of this Army”—rather than being held as prisoners of war.