The army would be able to exist through another winter, and face another summer.

Then the next campaign might bring the decisive moment; but still, who could tell?
Years, instead of months, might yet elapse before the end was reached, and then no man could say what the result would be.
Washington saw plainly enough that the relief and improvement were only temporary, and that carelessness and indifference were likely to return, and be more case-hardened than ever.

He was too strong and sane a man to waste time in fighting shadows or in nourishing himself with hopes.

He dealt with the present as he found it, and fought down difficulties as they sprang up in his path.

But he was also a man of extraordinary prescience, with a foresight as penetrating as it was judicious.