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: