but they took the huge fort with its three thousand defenders and
a great quantity of munitions of war. Howe's threat was not
carried out. There was no massacre.

Across the river at Fort Lee the helpless Washington watched this
great disaster. He had need still to look out, for Fort Lee was
itself doomed. On the nineteenth Lord Cornwallis with five
thousand men crossed the river five miles above Fort Lee. General
Greene barely escaped with the two thousand men in the fort,
leaving behind one hundred and forty cannon, stores, tools, and
even the men's blankets. On the twentieth the British flag was
floating over Fort Lee and Washington's whole force was in rapid
flight across New Jersey, hardly pausing until it had been
ferried over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.

Treachery, now linked to military disaster, made Washington's
position terrible. Charles Lee, Horatio Gates, and Richard
Montgomery were three important officers of the regular British
army who fought on the American side. Montgomery had been killed
at Quebec; the defects of Gates were not yet conspicuous; and Lee
was next to Washington the most trusted American general. The
names Washington and Lee of the twin forts on opposite sides of
the Hudson show how the two generals stood in the public mind.
While disaster was overtaking Washington, Lee had seven thousand
men at North Castle on the east bank of the Hudson, a few miles
above Fort Washington, blocking Howe's advance farther up the
river. On the day after the fall of Fort Washington, Lee received
positive orders to cross the Hudson at once. Three days later
Fort Lee fell, and Washington repeated the order. Lee did not
budge. He was safe where he was and could cross the river and get