Washington, while on the march, wrote to General Putnam: “The enemy appear to be panic-struck. I am in hopes of driving them out of the Jerseys. Keep a strict watch upon the enemy. A number of horsemen, in the dress of the country, must be kept constantly going backward and forward for this purpose.”
To General Heath, who was stationed in the Highlands of the Hudson, he wrote: “The enemy are in great consternation. As the panic affords us a favorable opportunity to drive them out of the Jerseys, it has been determined, in council, that you should move down toward New York, with a considerable force, as if you had a design upon the city. That being an object of great importance, the enemy will be reduced to the necessity of withdrawing a considerable part of their force from the Jerseys, if not the whole, to secure the city.”
Washington reinforced his little band at Morristown, and, keeping a vigilant watch upon the movements of the British, so harassed them, that Cornwallis was compelled to draw in all his outposts, and his land communication with New York was entirely cut off. The whole aspect of the war, in the Jerseys, was changed. The grand military qualities of Washington were generally recognized. Alexander Hamilton wrote:
“The extraordinary spectacle was presented of a powerful army, straitened within narrow limits, by the phantom of a military force, and never permitted to transgress those limits with impunity.”[149]
The British had conducted like savages in the Jerseys, burning, plundering and committing all manner of outrages, often making no discrimination between friends and foes. Thus the whole country was roused against them. The American troops speedily erected a village of log huts in a sheltered valley covered with a dense forest.
General Howe, in New York, was a gamester, a wine-bibber, and a fashionable young man of pleasure. He and his officers spent the winter in convivial and luxurious indulgence. The American prisoners were treated with barbarity which would have disgraced the Mohawks. General Lee was held in close confinement, Howe affecting to regard him as a deserter, as he had once been an officer in the British army.[150]
Washington had but a very feeble force with him at Morristown. He however succeeded in impressing the British with the conviction that he had a powerful army quite well equipped. He wrote: “The enemy must be ignorant of our numbers and situation, or they would never suffer us to remain unmolested.”
The fame of the great struggle for American independence had now pervaded the civilized world. Everywhere, the hearts of the lovers of freedom throbbed in sympathy with the American cause. Many foreign officers came, and applied for service in the patriot army. One of the most illustrious of these was the Polish general, Thaddeus Kosciusko.[151]
Toward the end of May, Washington broke up his camp at Morristown, and advanced to Middlebrook, about ten miles from Brunswick. His entire force consisted of seven thousand three hundred men. The whole country was smiling in the beautiful bloom of spring. A fleet of a hundred crowded British transports left New York. Great was the anxiety to learn where the blow was to fall. At the same time, Sir William Howe took up his headquarters at Brunswick. He soon drew out his forces upon the Raritan, and by plundering and burning private dwellings, endeavored to provoke Washington to descend from his strong position, and attack him. Failing in this, and finding that he could not advance upon Philadelphia with such a foe in his rear, he broke up his camp, and abandoning the Jerseys, returned with all his troops to New York.
Washington having thus driven the foe from the Jerseys, awaited, with great anxiety, tidings of the British fleet. Its destination, whether south or east, was matter only of conjecture. The ships contained quite a formidable army of eighteen thousand thoroughly equipped soldiers. They were capable of striking very heavy blows. Circumstances inclined him to the opinion that it was the aim of the fleet to capture Philadelphia. He therefore moved his army in that direction, and encamped at Coryell’s Ferry, about thirty miles from the city. General Gates was stationed at Philadelphia, with a small force. On the 30th of July, Washington wrote to General Gates: