The winter at Valley Forge was one of untold suffering. When stout old Baron Steuben, one of Frederick the Great’s general officers, first saw the army of shoeless, naked and hungry men, he threw up his hands.
“Nefer,” he cried, in his broken English, “haf I seen such before! Nefer! If an army was half so wretched in Europe they would run away—noddings could hold them.”
But in time things grew more bearable. Little by little the higher souls in Congress made their way against the spirit of intrigue. The enemies of Washington, after their failure with Lafayette, relaxed their efforts. Mifflin resigned his post as head of the commissariat and Washington’s tried friend, General Greene, succeeded him. Food and clothing began to be fairly plentiful; the spirits of the troops rose accordingly.
Baron Steuben also succeeded Conway as inspector-general, and his constant labors on the drill ground soon began to bear fruit. From a wretched rabble, the regiments began to take on the aspect of discipline and training.
Gates also suddenly fell to some degree in the favor of his friends in Congress; and once more he was directed to journey north and take command of the army in that region.
The surrender of Burgoyne had been the cause of the French cabinet’s concluding a treaty of alliance with the United States, and this in turn had been the means of strengthening Washington’s hands in the manner mentioned above.
“It looks,” said Ezra Prentiss, “as though the conspiracy were dead.”
“With Gates, Conway and Mifflin all declining in favor,” spoke his brother, George, “it has that appearance, surely.”
Nat Brewster was also of a similar opinion; but Ben was not so sure. Only a little while before, General Charles Lee, for some time a prisoner in the hands of the British, had been exchanged for the English General Prescott, and when he saw this brilliant and erratic soldier warmly greeted by Washington and his officers, Ben’s heart somehow grew heavy with fear for the future.
What if Conway and Mifflin and Gates were out of favor? They were merely instruments in the hands of the British, through the machinations of Tobias Hawkins.