Every move was laid down; no allowance was made for the change which unforeseeable contingencies might render necessary; the young Under-Secretaries who carefully drew up the instructions in London knew little or nothing about the American field of operations and simply relied upon the fact that their callipers showed that it was so many miles between Point X and Point Y and that the distance should ordinarily be covered in so many hours.
With Washington himself the case was hardly better.

There were few motions that he could make of his own free will.

He had to get authority from the Continental Congress at Philadelphia.

The Congress was not made up of military experts and in many cases it knew nothing about the questions he asked.

The members of the Congress were talkers, not doers, and they sometimes lost themselves in endless debate and sometimes they seemed quite to forget the questions Washington put to them.