The rout and panic over, Washington quickly turned to deal with the pressing danger. With coolness and quickness he issued his orders, and succeeded in getting his army off, Putnam's division escaping most narrowly. He then took post at King's Bridge, and began to strengthen and fortify his lines. While thus engaged, the enemy advanced, and on the 16th Washington suddenly took the offensive and attacked the British light troops. The result was a sharp skirmish, in which the British were driven back with serious loss, and great bravery was shown by the Connecticut and Virginia troops, the two commanding officers being killed. This affair, which was the first gleam of success, encouraged the troops, and was turned to the best account by the general. Still a successful skirmish did not touch the essential difficulties of the situation, which then as always came from within, rather than without. To face and check twenty-five thousand well-equipped and highly disciplined soldiers Washington had now some twelve thousand men, lacking in everything which goes to make an army, except mere individual courage and a high average of intelligence. Even this meagre force was an inconstant and diminishing quantity, shifting, uncertain, and always threatening dissolution. The task of facing and fighting the enemy was enough for the ablest of men; but Washington was obliged also to combat and overcome the inertness and dullness born of ignorance, and to teach Congress how to govern a nation at war. In the hours "allotted to sleep," he sat in his headquarters, writing a letter, with "blots and scratches," which told Congress with the utmost precision and vigor just what was needed. It was but one of a long series of similar letters, written with unconquerable patience and with unwearied iteration, lighted here and there by flashes of deep and angry feeling, which would finally strike home under the pressure of defeat, and bring the patriots of the legislature to sudden action, always incomplete, but still action of some sort. It must have been inexpressibly dreary work, but quite as much was due to those letters as to the battles. Thinking for other people, and teaching them what to do, is at best an ungrateful duty, but when it is done while an enemy is at your throat, it shows a grim tenacity of purpose which is well worth consideration.