d house for three days so that, hereafter, a
pack of cards will remind you only of a foolish soldier,' said Colonel
Provost."

Snow and bitter winds descended upon the camp early in December. It was
a worn, ragged, weary but devoted army of about eleven thousand men that
followed Washington into Valley Forge to make a camp for the winter. Of
these, two thousand and ninety-eight were unfit for duty. Most of the
latter had neither boots nor shoes. They marched over roads frozen hard,
with old rags and pieces of hide wrapped around their feet. There were
many red tracks in the snow in the Valley of the Schuylkill that day.
Hardly a man was dressed for cold weather. Hundreds were shivering and
coughing with influenza.

"When I look at these men I can not help thinking how small are my
troubles," Jack wrote to his mother. "I will complain of them no more.
Solomon and I have given away all the clothes we have except those on our
backs. A fiercer enemy than the British is besieging us here. He is
Winter. It is the duty of the people we are fighting for to defend us
against this enemy. We should not have to exhaust ourselves in such a
battle. Do they think that because God has shown His favor at Brooklyn,
Saratoga, and sundry other places, He is in a way committed? Are they
not disposed to take it easy and over-work the Creator? I can not resist
the impression that they are praying too much and paying too little. I
fear they are lying back and expecting God to send ravens to feed us and
angels to make our boots and weave our blankets and clothing. He will
not go into that kind of business. The Lord is not a shoemaker or a
weaver or a baker. He can have no respect for a people who would leave
its army to starve and freeze to death in the back country. If they are
to do that their faith is rotten with indolence and avarice.

"There are many here who have nothing to wear but blankets with armholes,
belted by a length of rope. There are hundreds who have no blankets to
cover them at night. They have to take turns sitting by the fire while
others are asleep. For them a night's rest is impossible. Let this
letter be read to the people of Albany and may they not lie down to sleep
until they have stirred themselves in our behalf, and if any man dares to
pray to God to help us until he has given of his abundance to that end
and besought his neighbors to do the same, I could wish that his praying
would choke him.