Washington's army was dwindling very rapidly, men whose terms of enlistment had expired refusing to serve any longer, so that he had but twenty-two hundred under his command when he crossed the Delaware, and two days later not more than seventeen hundred; indeed, scarcely more than a thousand on whom he could rely.
"He wrote to General Lee, who had been left at White Plains with nearly three thousand men, asking him to lead his division into New Jersey, to reinforce his rapidly melting army.

Lee paid no attention to the request and Washington sent him a positive command to do what he had before requested.
"Lee obeyed very slowly, and while on his way was taken prisoner by the enemy." "Served him right for disobeying Washington!" growled Walter.
"There could be no excuse for such disobedience," continued Grandma Elsie; "and one feels no sympathy for Lee in reading of his sudden seizure by the British, who carried him off in such haste that he had no time to dress but was taken bareheaded and in blanket coat and slippers." "I doubt if his capture was a loss to the American cause," remarked Rosie.
"No," said her mother; "though much deplored at the time, I have no doubt it was really for the good of the cause.

General Sullivan succeeded Lee in command and presently joined Washington with his forces." "I don't see how Washington could have patience with so many disappointments and delays," said Lulu.

"Didn't he ever give way to despair, even for a little while, Grandma Elsie ?" "I have never seen the least intimation of it," replied Mrs.Travilla.
"He is said to have been at this time firm, calm, undaunted, holding fast to his faith in the final triumph of the good cause for which he was toiling and striving.
"There seemed to be nothing but the Delaware between the enemy and his conquest of Philadelphia; the freezing of the river so that the British could pass over it on the ice might occur at any time.

Some one asked Washington what he would do were Philadelphia to be taken.