Being George Washington by Glenn Beck Page A

south through New Jersey with the British forces at his heels, Washington and his battered men ended their perilous trek in Pennsylvania.
    His troops were hungry, sick, and cold—many lacked basic clothing. One of Washington’s officers described the march to Trenton this way: “It is fearfully cold and raw and a snowstorm setting in. The wind … beats in the faces of the men. It will be a terrible night for the soldiers who have no shoes.”
    Seriously, no shoes? I’m the first to admit that I wouldn’t be able to make that march even if the world’s greatest outfitter of warm-weather clothing custom designed a wardrobe for me—but still, no shoes? Barefoot? In winter? How many of us can really even fathom that level of sacrifice?
    Common Shoes
I know I’m harping quite a bit on this shoe thing, but it’s just so incredible. Think about how much time and effort we put into our footwear today: length, width, material, arch support—the list goes on and on. But back then, when our soldiers were lucky enough to actually have shoes they often had “common” shoes, meaning they weren’t specifically designed to fit your left or right foot. They “fit” either foot—which really meant they fit neither.
     
    But shoes weren’t the only essential missing from the army: so was morale. It was abysmal, and understandably so. How many losses were these soldiers supposed to endure with no end in sight? It’s one thing to march through the bitter cold and freezing snow when you feel like you’re winning—it’s another thing to do it loss after loss after humiliating loss.
    Even though it was still early in the revolution, many of the men had already had enough. Nearly all of those who fought (and lost) with Washington in New York had deserted or disappeared. Anyone else who was still hanging on was mainly doing so because their enlistments would be up in short order. They’d be home soon and, unless Washington was crazy, there wouldn’t be more fighting before then.
    But low morale and the ever-growing number of British troops weren’t Washington’s only enemies. One of the main reasons he was forced to march farther south in the first place was the incredibly reckless actions of his second in command, General Charles Lee.
    Washington had ordered Lee to march his men south and provide him with much needed reinforcements. Instead Lee brazenly ignored the order and stayed put in northern New Jersey. No one knows exactly why he did it—but this much is known: the British-born Lee thought Washington was beneath him and didn’t deserve to be calling the shots.
    Washington wrote to Lee several times during his retreat, the situation becoming so dire that he practically begged for help. The only correspondence that Washington received back was the kind a boss gets from a lazy employee: excuses, delays, and still no progress. Oneparticularly damning letter Lee wrote was never intended for Washington’s eyes, but rather the sympathetic ear of another high-ranking officer. He excoriated Washington for his “fatal indecision of mind,” which, he declared, is in war a “much greater disqualification than stupidity.”
    The strangest part is that this hatred of all things Washington was quite a flip-flop for Lee. In July of that same year, he’d written that “no man loves, respects and reverences another more than I do General Washington. I esteem his virtues, private and public. I know him to be a man of sense, courage and firmness.”
    What caused the waffling? Well, perhaps Lee was bitter that Washington had lost Fort Lee (named after him) in a hasty retreat. If that was really the reason, then—pardon my candor—he was a moron. The entire war could have been lost if it weren’t for Washington’s quick actions to move the doomed troops at Fort Lee before they were surrounded and forced to surrender—which is exactly what happened at Fort
Washington
, right across the Hudson River.
    A Bridge to