"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, through chagrin, envy, or ambition, are endeavoring to lessen you in the minds of the people, and taking underhand methods to traduce your character," etc.
Generals Gates, Mifflin, and Conway were engaged in this plot; but their timely and complete exposure redounded to the honor of Washington.
The duel which General Hamilton fought with General Conway, in which the latter was severely wounded, grew out of this affair. Hamilton could not endure the presence of an officer who was secretly plotting against his chief.
In the month of February Mrs. Washington joined her husband at Valley Forge, to share his winter quarters with him, as she had done at Cambridge and Morristown. She wrote to a friend:
"The general's apartment is very small; he has had a log cabin built to dine in, which has made our quarters much more tolerable than they were at first.
"The commander-in-chief shared the privations of the camp with his men. His cabin was like theirs."
The presence of Mrs. Washington at Valley Forge was a blessing to the army. She occupied her time fully in caring for the sick, sewing and mending for the "boys," and making herself generally useful.
Again the commander-in-chief interceded with Congress for more liberal pay for his soldiers. Alluding to the sufferings of his soldiers, he wrote:
"To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes (for the want of which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet), and almost as often without provisions as with them, marching through the frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them till it could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which, in my opinion, cannot be paralleled."