difficult to fathom. The contradictions are best summarized by military
historian John Alden:

Faults have been, and can be, found in Washington as commander. He
did not have the advantages of a good military education. He did not
know, and he never quite learned, how to discipline and to drill his
men. He was not a consistently brilliant strategist or tactician....
(Often) he secured advantage ... by avoiding battle. Actually he was
quite willing to fight when the odds were not too heavily against
him. He retreated only when he was compelled to do so, during the
campaigns of 1776 and 1777.... On occasion he was perhaps too
venturesome. His generalship improved as the war continued. However,
his defeats in the field were more numerous than his victories; and
he had to share the laurels of his great triumph at Yorktown, with
the French. If Washington had his shortcomings as a tactician, he
nevertheless performed superbly under the most difficult conditions.
He gave dignity, steadfast loyalty, and indomitable courage to the
American cause.... Indeed Congress supplied historians with
convincing evidence of Washington's greatness. It not only appointed
him as commander in chief, but maintained him in that post year after
year, in victory and defeat, in prosperity and adversity, until the
war was won.[42]

[42] Alden, American Revolution, 183-184.

At first Congress was not certain Washington could command and eagerly
sought European officers for field command positions. Charles Lee and
Horatio Gates, two of the four major-generals appointed to serve under
Washington, were residents of Virginia. Both were English army officers
who had left the British army, settled in Berkeley County, and become
ardent advocates of the colonials' cause. Lee, the well-bred son of
English gentry had served under Braddock in the ill-fated Fort Duquesne
expedition of 1756, was later wounded, left the army after the war, and
became interested in western land schemes. He came to Virginia in 1775
after a stint as a general in the Polish army. Lee was courageous,
ambitious, and vain. He could command when necessary, but had difficulty
following Washington's orders. Given credit for stopping the British
attack on Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1776, he came back north
and was captured in New Jersey in December 1776. Exchanged by the
British, he resumed command