 In another letter he wrote, and I quote, I think the game is pretty near up. You can form no idea of the perplexity of my situation. No man, I believe, ever had a greater choice of difficulties and less means to extricate himself from them. Keep in mind, Washington was not a man given to exaggeration, so he was pretty much saying that American independence was on the verge of defeat. So with the cause on the brink and the British army settling into their winter encampments,