Yorktown, 28 October, 1777.
We have been three days soaking and poaching in the heaviest rain that
has been known for several years, and what adds to the gloom is the
uncertainty in which we remain to this moment concerning the fate of
Gates and Burgoyne. We are out of patience. It is impossible to bear
this suspense with any temper.
I am in comfortable lodgings, which is a felicity that has fallen to the
lot of a very few of our members. Yet the house where I am is so
thronged that I cannot enjoy such accommodations as I wish. I cannot
have a room as I used, and therefore cannot find opportunities to write
as I once did.
The people of this country are chiefly Germans, who have schools in
their own language, as well as prayers, psalms, and sermons, so that
multitudes are born, grow up, and die here, without ever learning the
English. In politics they are a breed of mongrels or neutrals, and
benumbed with a general torpor. If the people in Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Delaware, and Jersey had the feelings and the spirit of some people that
I know, Howe would be soon ensnared in a trap more fatal than that in
which, as it is said, Burgoyne was taken. Howe is completely in our
power, and if he is not totally ruined it will be entirely owing to the
awkwardness and indolence of this country. Fighting, however, begins to
become fashionable. Colonel Greene has exhibited a glorious example in
the defense of Red Bank. But this must be done by a New England man at
the head of two New England regiments, Rhode Islanders. Colonel Smith,
however, is a Marylander from Baltimore. He has shown another example of
magnanimity which gives me the most agreeable hopes. Commodore
Hazelwood, too, has behaved in a manner that exceeds all praise. This
spirit will be caught by other officers, for bravery is epidemical and
contagious as the plague. This army suffers much for want of blankets
and shoes.
I celebrated the 25th of this month in my own mind and heart much more
than I shall the 30th,[184] because I think the first a more fortunate
day than the last. My duty to your father and my mother, to uncles and
aunts. Love to brothers and sisters; but above all, present all the
affection that words can express to our dear babes.