BENJAMIN LEE HUGGINS served as an officer in the United States Navy and the Navy Reserve for twenty years. He received his PhD in history from George Mason University, and is a research associate professor and associate editor at the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia. He has edited three volumes in the series and is currently working on a fourth. A regular contributor to the Journal of the American Revolution, he is also author of an essay in A Companion to George Washington, edited by Edward G. Lengel.