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XXVII.

Nov.

to the board of war, of which Mifflin at that time CHAP. was the head. On the twenty-seventh, they filled the places in that board, and appointed Gates 1777. its president. On the same day Lovell wrote to Gates: "We want you in different places; we want you most near Germantown. Good God,

what a situation we are in! how different from what might have been justly expected!" and he represented Washington as a general who collected astonishing numbers of men to wear out stockings, shoes, and breeches, and "Fabiused affairs into a very disagreeable posture." On the twentyeighth, congress declared themselves by a unanimous resolution in favor of carrying on a winter's campaign with vigor and success, and sent three of their members with Washington's concurrence to direct every measure which circumstances might require. On the same day, Mifflin, explaining to Gates how Conway had braved the commander-inchief, volunteered his own opinion that the extract from Conway's letter was a "collection of just sentiments." Gates, on receiving the letter, wrote to Conway: "You acted with all the dignity of a virtuous soldier." He wished "so very valuable and polite an officer might remain in the service." To congress he complained of the betrayal of his correspondence to Washington, with whom he came to an open rupture. On the thirteenth of December, congress, following Mifflin's report, appointed Conway inspector-general, promoted him to be a majorgeneral, made his office independent of the commander-in-chief, and referred him to the board of war for the regulations which he was to introduce.

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XXVII.

CHAP. Some of those engaged in the cabal wished to provoke Washington to the resignation which he seemed 1777. to have threatened.

Dec.

This happened just as Washington by his skill at Whitemarsh had closed the campaign with honor. The condition of his troops required repose. The problem which he must solve was to keep together through the cold winter an army without tents, and to confine the British to the environs of Philadelphia. There was no town which would serve the purpose. Valley Forge, on the Schuyl kill, but twenty-one miles from Philadelphia, admitted of defence against the artillery of those days, and had more than one route convenient for escape into the interior. The ground lay sheltered between two ridges of hills, and was covered by a thick forest. From his life in the woods, Washington could see in the trees a town of log-cabins, built in regular streets, and affording shelter enough to save the army from dispersion.

As his men moved towards the spot selected for their winter resting - place, they had not clothes to cover their nakedness, nor blankets to lie on, nor tents to sleep under. For the want of shoes their marches through frost and snow might be traced by the blood from their feet, and they were almost as often without provisions as with them. On the nineteenth they arrived at Valley Forge, within a day's march of Howe's army, with no shelter till they could build houses for themselves. The order for their erection was received by officers and men as impossible of execution, and they were still more astonished at the ease with which, as the

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work of their Christmas holidays, they changed the CHAP. forest into huts thatched with boughs in the order of a regular encampment. Washington's unsleeping Dec. vigilance and thorough system for receiving intelligence secured them against surprise; love of country and attachment to their general sustained them under their unparalleled hardships; with any other leader the army would have dissolved and vanished. Yet he was followed to Valley Forge by letters from congress transmitting the remonstrance of the council and assembly of Pennsylvania against his going into winter-quarters. To this senseless reproof Washington on the twenty-third, after laying deserved blame upon Mifflin for neglect of duty as quartermaster-general, replied: "For the want of a two days' supply of provisions, an opportunity scarcely ever offered of taking an advantage of the enemy that has not been either totally obstructed or greatly impeded. Men are confined to hospitals or in farmers' houses for want of shoes. We have this day no less than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men in camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and otherwise naked. Our whole strength in continental troops amounts to no more than eight thousand two hundred in camp fit for duty. Since the fourth instant, our numbers fit for duty from hardships and exposures have decreased nearly two thousand men. Numbers still are obliged to sit all night by fires. Gentlemen reprobate the going into winter-quarters as much as if they thought the soldiers were made of stocks or stones. I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a

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Dec.

CHAP. comfortable room by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent."

[1778.

While the shivering soldiers were shaping the logs for their cabins, the clamor of the Pennsylvanians continued; and the day after Christmas, Sullivan, who held with both sides, gave his written advice to Washington to yield and attack Howe in Philadelphia, "risking every consequence in an action." The press was called into activity. On the last day in the year, an anonymous writer in the "New Jersey Gazette," at Trenton, supposed to be Benjamin Rush, began a series of articles under the name of a French officer, to set forth the unrivalled glory of Gates, who had conquered veterans with militia, pointing out plainly Washing

ton's successor.

The year 1778 opened gloomily at Valley Forge. Jan. To the touching account of the condition of the army, congress, which had not provided one magazine for winter, made no response except a promise to the soldiers of one month's extra pay, and a renewal of authority to take the articles necessary for their comfortable subsistence. Washington was averse to the exercise of military power, not only from reluctance to give distress, but to avoid increasing the prevalent jealousy and suspicion. Seeing no movement towards a reform in the administration, on the fifth of January he renewed his remon

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strances with respect and firmness: "The letter from CHAP. the committee of congress and board of war does not mention the regulations adopted for removing Jan. the difficulties and failures in the commissary line. I trust they will be vigorous or the army cannot exist. It will never answer to procure supplies of clothing or provision by coercive measures. The small seizures made of the former a few days ago, when that or to dissolve was the alternative, excited the greatest uneasiness even among our warmest friends. Such procedures may give a momentary relief, but, if repeated, will prove of the most pernicious consequence. Besides spreading disaffection, jealousy, and fear among the people, they never fail, even in the most veteran troops under the most rigid and exact discipline, to raise in the soldiery a disposition to plunder, difficult to suppress, and not only ruinous to the inhabitants, but, in many instances, to armies themselves. I regret the occasion that compelled us to the measure the other day, and shall consider it among the greatest of our misfortunes if we should be under the necessity of practising it again." Still congress did no more than on the tenth and twelfth of January appoint Gates and Mifflin, with four or five others, to repair to head-quarters and concert reforms.

While those who wished the general out of the way urged him to some rash enterprise, or, to feel the public pulse, sent abroad rumors that he was about to resign, Benjamin Rush in a letter to Patrick Henry represented the army of Washington as having no general at their head, and went on to say: "A Gates, a Lee, or a Conway, would in a few weeks

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