To Blind the Eyes of Our Enemies

Most historians recognize George Washington as a man of courage and integrity, but many of his biographers have failed to recognize his matchless grasp of the strategic and political factors essential to victory, and his own clear realization after November 1776 of his perpetual military weakness. They thus short-change Washington’s vision and intelligence and rob him of his true greatness. Whatever Washington’s merits as a tactician, as a strategist he had no peer on either side.

   I believe I may with great truth affirm that no man perhaps since the first institution of armies ever commanded one under more difficult circumstances than I have done. To enumerate the particulars would fill a volume. Many of the difficulties and distresses were of so peculiar a cast that, in order to conceal them from the enemy, I was obliged to conceal them from my friends, and indeed from my own army, thereby subjecting my conduct to interpretations unfavorable to my character, especially by those at a distance who could not in the smallest degree be acquainted with the springs that governed it.