Washington's Crossing

by David Hackett Fischer

Washington’s pay chest was empty. On December 31, 1776, he sent an urgent message to Robert Morris. “Tomorrow the Continental Troops are all at Liberty,” he wrote, with some exaggeration. “In order to get their assistance [I] have promised them a bounty of 10 Dollars if they will continue for one Month—But here again a new difficulty presents itself. We have not the money.”30 Only the day before, Morris had scoured the money chests of Philadelphia for odds and ends of cash to pay Washington’s secret agents. Now he had to do it again. According to legend he visited a rich Quaker and persuaded him to unearth a chest of hard money that Morris knew to be buried in his garden. Morris literally dug up the cash and sent Washington “two parcels of hard money,” which arrived on New Year’s Eve, just in time.