 To his family, he confided, and I quote, I am wearied almost to death. 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.