978-1-4222-3353-5

Times That Try Men’s Souls

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or spot of ground,” he noted, “but in preserving a good army . . . to take advantage of favorable opportunities, and waste and defeat the enemy by piecemeal.” On September 16, a retreating American unit grew furious when British buglers played a foxhunting call. The Americans turned on their pursuers and eventually drove them back in the Battle of HarlemHeights. But that small victory was followed by a defeat at the Battle of White Plains on October 28. Three weeks later, an ill-advised decision by a young Ameri- can general, Nathanael Greene, led to disaster. Greene sought to hold a fort overlooking the Hudson River. When Fort Washington was overrun on November 16, the British took more than 2,800 Americans prisoner. Hopes Dimming “I am wearied almost to death,” a discouraged George Washington wrote to his brother. Washington began a retreat southward across New Jersey. This French illustration from 1776 shows the city of New York in flames after the British Army captured the city in September of that year. British officers believed that Patriots had deliberately started the fire, which damaged or destroyed a large area of the city.