[Footnote: Tobias Lear, Washington's Private Secretary as quoted by both Custis and Rush.

The report of an eyewitness.

See also Lodge's "Washington," p.94.Denny, in his journal, merely mentions that he went at once to the Secretary of War's office on the evening of the 19th, and does not speak of seeing Washington until the following morning.

On the strength of this omission one or two of St.Clair's apologists have striven to represent the whole account of Washington's wrath as apocryphal; but the attempt is puerile; the relation comes from an eyewitness who had no possible motive to distort the facts.

The Secretary of War, Knox, was certain to inform Washington of the disaster the very evening he heard of it; and whether he sent Denny, or another messenger, or went himself is unimportant.