even
under the fences and bushes," about the camps. This primary element of
disintegration is always one of the worst possible to deal with in an
army of citizen soldiers, and the present case proved no exception.

Except a troop of Connecticut light-horse, who had been curtly and
imprudently dismissed because they showed sufficient _esprit de corps_
to demur against doing guard duty as infantry, and whose absence was
only too soon to be dearly atoned for, there was no cavalry, not even
for patrols, outposts, or vedettes. These being thus of necessity drawn
from the infantry, it was usual to see them come back into camp with the
enemy close at their heels, instead of giving the alarm in season to get
the troops under arms.

As for the infantry, it was truly a motley assemblage. A few of the
regiments, raised in the cities, were tolerably well armed and
equipped, and some few were in uniform. But in general they wore the
same homespun in which they had left their homes, even to the field
officers, who were only distinguished by their red cockades. In few
regiments were the arms all of one kind, not a few had only a sprinkling
of bayonets, while some companies, whom it had been found impracticable
to furnish with fire-arms at the home rendezvous, carried the
old-fashioned pikes of by-gone days. Among the good, bad, and
indifferent, Washington had had two thousand militia poured in upon him,
without any arms whatever. But these men could use pick and spade.

The single regiment of artillery this "rabble army," as Knox calls it,
could boast was unquestionably its most reliable arm. Under Knox's able
direction it was getting into fairly good shape, though the guns were of
very light metal. In the early conflicts around New York it was rather
too lavishly used, and suffered accordingly, but its efficiency was so
marked as to draw forth the admission from a British officer of rank
that the rebel artillery officers were at least equal to their own.

These plain facts speak for themselves. If radical defects of
organization lay behind them, it was not the fault of Washington or the
army, but is rather attributable to the want of any settled policy or
firm grasp of the situation on the part of the Congress.

Washington had no illusions either with regard to himself or his
soldiers. His letters of this date prove this. He was as well aware of
his own shortcomings as a general, as of those of his men as soldiers.
There could,