Liberty: 1784

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George Washington never suffered a truly catastrophic defeat during the revolution, although he certainly had numerous opportunities to fail in a manner that would have ended the war.

His inexperience as a field general nearly saw his army destroyed at Long Island, and it was only good fortune that saw a British relief fleet defeated off Yorktown since a second British fleet arrived shortly after Cornwallis’ surrender. And the other times he took the field to confront the main British Army, he was generally less than successful, as with Brandywine, and Germantown, while some consider the battle at Monmouth to have been a draw. To be fair, he did have his share of victories such as Trenton and Princeton, but they were relatively minor actions against smaller segments of the British army.

Washington had to keep his army intact in order to keep the revolution alive. A serious defeat could have devastated the revolution that began in 1775. But would it have meant an end to the revolutionary spirit, or simply a temporary lull in the fighting?

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