ton 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, through