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sir, if you’ll make the plans!”21 To which Washington retorted drily, “Better try Stony Point first, general.”22 On the night of July 15 Wayne and his men approached the promontory with fixed bayonets, so as not to alert the British. When Wayne’s head was grazed by a musket ball, he cried out, “Carry me into the fort and let me die at the head of my column.”23 True to form, he pushed up the bluff and overran the fort, slaying sixty-three British soldiers and taking five hundred prisoners, in a virtuoso performance. He sent a courier to Washington to announce the victory, writing with customary spirit, “Dear General, The fort and garrison with Colonel Johnston are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free. Yours most sincerely, Ant[hon]y Wayne.” Never loath to credit his officers, Washington trumpeted Wayne’s virtues to Congress: “He improved upon the plan recommended by me and executed it in a manner that does signal honor to his judgment and to his bravery.”24 The victory stopped the enemy’s northward advance up the Hudson Valley at a time when a gunpowder shortage had virtually ruled out large-scale American operations.

Washington gradually resigned himself to a lull in the fighting. Baffled by the movements of his French allies, he concluded that America needed another European power if it ever hoped to match British superiority at sea. In late September that wish was fulfilled when he received news that Spain had entered the war against England. “The declaration of Spain in favor of France has given universal joy to every Whig,” Washington wrote to Lafayette, “while the poor Tory droops like a withering flower under a declining sun.”25 It turned out that Spain was more interested in harassing the British monarchy than in fostering American independence, which might threaten Spanish territories in North America. Before long a subdued Washington realized that no sudden windfalls would result from Spanish intervention. “We ought not to deceive ourselves,” he wrote the following spring. “The maritime resources of Great Britain are more substantial and real than those of France and Spain united.”26 For this reason Washington was overjoyed by news that autumn that John Paul Jones had armed an old French ship, christened it the Bonhomme Richard in homage to Ben Franklin, and defeated the British ship Sera-pis off the English coast. In the throes of battle, Jones thundered his immortal line, “I have not yet begun to fight.”27

Aside from Stony Point and an intrepid raid led by Major Henry Lee against a feeble British garrison installed at Paulus Hook, on the west bank of the Hudson, the summer was uneventful, leaving Washington with time to savor society. With food plentiful, he could lay out ample spreads for visitors. Touches of whimsy and flashes of wit resurfaced in his letters. In mid-August Washington extended a dinner invitation to Dr. John Cochran that signaled a fleeting return to normality:

Since our arrival at this happy spot, we have had a ham (sometimes a shoulder) or bacon to grace the head of the table; a piece of roast beef adorns the foot; and a small dish of greens or beans (almost imperceptible) decorates the center. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure . . . we have two beefsteak pies or dishes of crabs in addition, one on each side [of] the center dish . . . Of late, he has had the surprising luck to discover that apples will make pies. And it’s a question if, amidst the violence of his efforts, we do not get one of apples instead of having both of beef. If the ladies can put up with such entertainment and will submit to partake of it on plates, once tin, but now iron . . . I shall be happy to see them.28

On September 12 the French minister, the Chevalier de La Luzerne, and his highly observant secretary, François Barbé-Marbois, met with Washington at Fishkill, New York. Barbé-Marbois jotted down valuable vignettes of an unbuttoned Washington, who personally squired them by boat to his headquarters and showed that he was adept at navigation. “The general held the tiller,