Even decades after the American Revolution, John Adams could remember how much work and difficulty it had all taken.

“1774 (the year before the war began) was the most important and the most difficult year of all,” he later wrote in a letter to Benjamin Rush. “We were about one third Tories, one third timid, and one third true blue.”

Adams and his allies had a fire to start. And the years of the war would throw a whole lot of water on the kindling. How do you strike a spark when you can barely survive?

We love to brag about the long odds now, of course. It’s become part of our national mythology. Listen to “Hamilton” or “1776” or a hundred Independence Day speeches. Every single one will evoke how a rag-tag group of rebels dared to face the overwhelming might of an empire, enduring “the times that try men’s souls” on the road to victory.

After all, we have the advantage of knowing how the story ends. But we don’t always stop to think about what it may have looked like on the ground, at the time.

Too much of the time, those long odds looked an awful lot like disaster.

The British captured New York. They drove George Washington from the field in battle after battle, with the Continental Army slipping away from extinction like an escape artist. Congress itself fled Philadelphia one step ahead of the redcoats. Heck, one signer of the Declaration even fell into British hands and recanted his signature, taking a new loyalty oath to the King.

When you haven’t seen the end of the book … when the fight is still in question and seems to be failing … how do you convince anyone that a “true blue” cause is worth supporting?

It’s not an easy question. Then or now.

Through history, anyone pushing a revolution or major social movement has run into a terrible Catch-22. People have to believe in your cause for you to win. But in order to win, people have to believe in your cause. Round and round it goes, in a frustrating circle that’s hard to escape.

But escape we did.

It took the agitation of people like Adams, refusing to be silent, continuing to be visible even in the hard times.

It took the endurance of people like Washington, visibly hanging on even when leaning against the ropes.

And yeah, it even took the background skills of folks like Ben Franklin, identifying and encouraging potential friends who could be a game-changer.

For all of those and more besides — not just the famous faces, but everyone in the struggle — it took a refusal to quit. A visible hope, backed by effort and sacrifice.

That hope remains one of our greatest legacies today.

Hope — real hope, not just optimism — can be both a magnet and a mirror. People become drawn to it. See themselves in it. And in becoming inspired by it, begin to draw others. It’s how communities get built. It’s how change can happen.

And yes, it’s how rag-tag rebels can win a victory that still inspires Broadway plays today.

“I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states,” Adams wrote in a certain July. “Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory.”

Despair is always tempting. But hope remains powerful. Even Revolutionary.

Long may it go Fourth.