On his own ground he was more than ready to fight Howe, but despite the terrible temptation he would fight on no other.

Not the least brilliant exploit of Wellington was the retreat to the shrewdly prepared lines of Torres Vedras, and one of the most difficult successes of Washington was his double refusal to fight as the year 1777 drew to a close.
Like most right and wise things, Washington's action looks now, a century later, so plainly sensible that it is hard to imagine how any one could have questioned it; and one cannot, without a great effort, realize the awful strain upon will and temper involved in thus refusing battle.

If the proposed attack on Philadelphia had failed, or if our army had come down from the hills and been beaten in the fields below, no American army would have remained.

The army of the north, of which men were talking so proudly, had done its work and dispersed.
The fate of the Revolution rested where it had been from the beginning, with Washington and his soldiers.

Drive them beyond the mountains and there was no other army to fall back upon.