a
troops were under the command of Brigadier-general Mifflin, who, in
the preceding year, had acted as Washington's aide-de-camp, and
afterwards as quartermaster-general.

Smallwood's Maryland battalion was one of the brightest in point of
equipment. The scarlet and buff uniforms of those Southerners
contrasted vividly with the rustic attire of the yeoman battalions
from the East. Their officers, too, looked down upon their Connecticut
compeers, who could only be distinguished from their men by wearing a
cockade. "There were none," says Graydon, "by whom an unofficer-like
appearance and deportment could be tolerated less than by a city-bred
Marylander; who, at this time, was distinguished by the most
fashionable cut coat, the most _macaroni_ cocked-hat, and hottest
blood in the Union." In the same sectional spirit, he speaks of the
Connecticut light-horse: "Old-fashioned men, truly irregulars; whether
their clothing, equipments, or caparisons were regarded, it would have
been difficult to have discovered any circumstance of uniformity.
Instead of carbines and sabres, they generally carried fowling-pieces,
some of them very long, such as in Pennsylvania are used for shooting
ducks. Here and there one appeared in a dingy regimental of scarlet,
with a triangular, tarnished, laced hat. These singular dragoons were
volunteers, who came to make a tender of their services to the
commander-in-chief."

The troops thus satirized were a body of between four and five hundred
Connecticut light-horse, under Colonel Thomas Seymour. On an appeal
for aid to the governor of their State, they had voluntarily hastened
on in advance of the militia, to render the most speedy succor.
Washington speaks of them as being for the most part, if not all, men
of reputation and property. They were, in fact, mostly farmers. The
Connecticut infantry which had been furnished by Governor Trumbull in
the present emergency, likewise were substantial farmers, whose
business would require their return, when the necessity of their
further stay in the army should be over. They were all men of simple
rural manners, from an agricultural State, where great equality of
condition prevailed; the officers were elected by the men out of their
own ranks, they were their own neighbors, and every way their equals.
All this, as yet, was but little understood or appreciated by the
troops from the South, among whom military rank was more defined and
tenaciously observed,