Sublime

IN DECEMBER 1777 General William Howe eased into comfortable winter quarters in Philadelphia. For British officers in the eighteenth century, warfare remained a seasonal business, and they saw no reason to sacrifice unduly as cold winds blew. “Assemblies, concerts, comedies, clubs, and the like make us forget that there is any war, save that it is

Howe was more than a secretary. Later he joked that when he arrived in Washington he knew so little that for the first several days he was reduced “to blotting Franklin’s signature.”61 Within weeks he was on top of the job. Howe became the junior member of a two-man firm dedicated to furthering FDR’s career.

For all that, the British and the Hessians suffered 276 casualties, or twice as many as the Americans. Once again General Howe dawdled after victory and bungled a major opportunity. In later testimony before Parliament, he traced his sluggish behavior to an aversion to unnecessary combat losses but also cited unnamed “political reasons”—perhaps his

Howe took perverse pride in his appearance, claiming to be one of the four ugliest men in New York. “Children take one look at me on the street and run.”45 A fellow reporter once called him a “medieval gnome,” and Howe accepted the designation with delight. For most people, Louis Howe was an acquired taste. But he was blessed with superabundant ene

Howe was as good as his word. Without ever setting foot in his district, Franklin won by a larger margin than he had two years before.

For Howe the decision was simple: he loved power. Eleanor, who later developed a great affection for Howe, said, “Louis had enormous interest in having power, and if he could not have it for himself, he wanted it through someone he was influencing.”63 Roosevelt, for his part, found in Howe an extension of his own persona who automatically operated

Moses.” 9Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the people of Israel. 10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they gave no heed. 11Therefore the LORD brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh c

The American death toll for the Battle of Brooklyn (or Battle of Long Island) was grim: three hundred killed and another thousand taken prisoner, including, temporarily, Generals Stirling and Sullivan. For Washington, it had been an unmitigated disaster. As Douglas Southall Freeman concluded, “The American Commander-in-Chief had appeared to be a ty