In this biography, the acclaimed author of Sons of Providence, winner of the 2007 George Washington Book Prize, recovers an immensely important part of the founding drama of the country in the story of Robert Morris, the man who financed Washington's armies and the American Revolution. Morris started life in the colonies as an apprentice in a counting house. By the time of the Revolution he was a rich man, a commercial and social leader in Philadelphia. He organized a clandestine trading network to arm the American rebels, joined the Second Continental Congress, and financed George Washington's two crucial victories -- Valley Forge and the culminating battle at Yorktown that defeated Cornwallis and ended the war. - Jacket flap.