American Major General Charles Lee had picked a great place to hide.

Like big-city mobsters two centuries later, George Washington’s second in command had discovered that New Jersey was a great place to lay low if someone was after you.

Charles had a lot of people after him in December 1776. First and foremost was the British Army, commanded in that area by Lord Charles Cornwallis. After a string of British successes against the Continentals in New York, it wasn’t George Washington the English high command was afraid of.

It was Charles Lee.

So the British send some dragoons to nab the general and take him prisoner. Which they do. Which makes quite a lot of Americans sad. And it inspires one American in particular to find a British officer of high enough rank to trade for General Lee. 

As luck would have it, he finds one.

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