From Farm House to the White House - 912 Freedom Library

Farm House to the White House, by William M. Thayer 179
unrestrained revelry. They forced many sympathizers with the American cause to vacate their dwellings for
the accommodation of their own number; and many were quartered upon patriotic families, with the express
understanding that failure to supply their wants would be resented.
Washington went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. The tale of
suffering connected with that place during that long, dreary winter, is known to the world.
Arriving there, many of the troops without blankets or shoes, ragged, worn out, and desponding, they were
exposed to the snows and blasts of December until they could cut down trees and build their own huts. Two
days after encamping, General Huntington reported to Washington:
"My brigade are out of provisions, nor can the commissary obtain any meat."
General Varnum reported:
"Three days successively we have been destitute of bread. Two days we have been entirely without meat."
Against his own judgment, in order to prevent mutiny in his army, Washington was forced to forage the
country and seize supplies wherever he could find them, paying for them in money, or certificates redeemable
by Congress.
Yet we find Washington writing thus:
"For some days past there has been little less than a famine in the camp. A part of the army has been a week
without any kind of flesh, and the rest, three or four days. Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough
admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiers, that they have not been ere this excited by their
suffering to a general mutiny and desertion."
Sickness and mortality prevailed to an alarming extent among the troops, while scarcely any medicines were
at hand. Even scores of horses perished by hunger and the severity of the weather.
One day circumstances drew Washington's attention to a hungry soldier who was on guard. The general had
just come from his own table and he said:
"Go to my table and help yourself."
"I can't; I am on guard," the soldier replied. Immediately taking the soldier's gun to play the part of sentinel,
Washington said, "Go."
The soldier enjoyed the first square meal he had eaten for two days, and at the same time he learned that his
general had true sympathy with the "boys," and that official distinction did not lift him above the humblest of
their number.
With his army in such a deplorable condition, and his cannon frozen up and immovable, Washington knew
very well that, almost any day, the British might march out of Philadelphia and capture or annihilate his entire
command. His anxiety and trouble can be more easily imagined than described.
To add to the trials of that winter, Washington learned of a conspiracy against him, the object of which was to
supersede him by General Gates as commander-in-chief. His old friend Dr. Craik wrote to him:
"Notwithstanding your unwearied diligence and the unparalleled sacrifice of domestic happiness and care of
mind which you have made for the good of your country, yet you are not wanting in secret enemies, who
would rob you of the great and truly deserved esteem your country has for you. Base and villanous men,