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fighting general, and an exponent of small-scale warfare. During a period of his life when he’d lived as a Native American with a Seneca wife, his aggressive behavior earned him the nickname Boiling Water. He had learned his trade in the British army, then left to become a mercenary, participating in any European war he could find. As a result, he was, in Washington’s estimation, “the first officer in Military knowledge and experience we have in the whole army.”
    At nightfall on December 12, Wilkinson found Lee at an inn outside Morristown, apparently unperturbed that the Connecticut militia guarding him had just decided to return to their homes. Not until the following morning did Lee draft a letter to Gates. Its message was unrelievedly gloomy. Lee believed that, to make best use of his untrained militia troops, Washington should be conducting a guerrilla campaign rather than trying to confront in open battle a professional army that could bring devastating firepower to bear on its enemy through parade- ground maneuvers.
    “ Entre nous a certain great man is damnably deficient,” Lee told Gates. Washington’s mistaken strategy had left Philadelphia defenseless and the army on the verge of defeat. “Unless something turns up which I do not expect, our cause is lost. Our counsels have been weak to the last degree.”
    Lee intended to remain in Morristown, despite Washington’s repeated requests that Lee move his forces west of the Delaware. However, Lee advised Gates to join their chief as soon as possible, with the implication that he would be needed as a replacement before long.
    Lee was still eating breakfast in his dressing gown and slippers when Wilkinson heard hoofbeats on the road and looking out of the window saw a troop of British dragoons gallop up to the inn. Too late, Lee realized that he was the target of an enemy raid carried out virtually within sight of his army. He attempted to hide in the chimney, but, when Wilkinson appeared at the window, the horsemen swore they would shoot and set fire to the building unless Lee surrendered. Convinced it was not a bluff, the general gave himself up and was hustled away, still in his bedroom slippers, leaving Wilkinson to deliver his letter to Gates.
    Lee was not only Gates’s friend, but an authority in the area where Gates was weakest, the command of troops in battle. His message crystallized Gates’s opposition to Washington. From then on, he, too, espoused the use of guerrilla warfare relying on militia forces. Following Lee’s advice, however, Gates hurried to join Washington west of the Delaware River. He arrived on December 20, and with the addition of more than two thousand troops Washington at once began to plan a counterstroke against a Hessian brigade stationed across the river in Trenton, New Jersey.
    Believing the attack would fail, Gates refused to take part. With the excuse that he was ill, he left for Philadelphia, intending to travel on to Baltimore, where Congress had retreated to escape the threat of British marauders. Wilkinson loyally went with him until they reached Philadelphia. There he decided he could not miss the battle. In a testimony to their friendship Gates gave him an excuse to return in the form of a letter for Washington.
    On Christmas morning, Wilkinson galloped back from Philadelphia, arriving toward nightfall as the long lines of American troops were getting ready to be ferried over the icy Delaware for Washington’s surprise attack. So poorly shod were the soldiers that Wilkinson later recalled the trail from their barracks to McKonky’s Ferry was “easily traced, for there was a little snow on the ground which was tinged here and there with blood from the feet of the men with broken shoes.” To transport them with their heavy packs across the water was a dangerous operation made more hazardous by swirling ice floes and a high wind that drove snow in the ferrymen’s faces. When Wilkinson came up with Washington to