“What is still more distressing, I am assured by Colonel Blaine, deputy purchasing commissary for the middle district, comprehending the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, that they are nearly exhausted, and the most vigorous and active exertions on his part will not procure more than sufficient to supply the army during this month, if so long. This being the case, and as any relief that can be obtained from the more southern States will be but partial, trifling, and of a day, we must turn our eyes to the eastward, and lay our account of support from thence. Without it, we can not but disband. I must, therefore, sir, entreat you in the most earnest terms, and by that zeal which has eminently distinguished your character in the present arduous struggle, to give every countenance to the person or persons employed in the purchasing line in your State, and to urge them to the most vigorous efforts to forward supplies of cattle from time to time, and thereby prevent such a melancholy and alarming catastrophe.”
Read these words twice: “Without it the army must disband.”
As soon as Governor Trumbull had received the letter he called together the Council of Safety. He read it to them. They wept.
“An army of cattle might save the cause,” said one.
“Our suffering brothers shall have the army of cattle,” said Brother Jonathan.
He at once aroused the farmers of Connecticut. Horsemen dashed hither and thither, away from Hartford and from the war office to the hillside farms.
“Cattle! cattle!” they cried. “Our army is perishing. Washington has appealed to Brother Jonathan!”
At the head of these alarmists rode Dennis O’Hay, awakening the villages with his resonant brogue:
“It is cattle, an army of cattle, that Washington must have now! His men are going barefooted in the snow. Oh, the shame of it! His men have no meat to warm their veins in the cold. Oh, the shame of it! They fever, they wither, they are buried in clumps and clods. Oh, the shame of it! Arouse, or the heavens will fall down on you! Cattle! Cattle!”