rds that he was

"Lighted into a Room & I not being so good a Woodsman as ye rest of my
Company striped myself very orderly & went in to ye Bed as they called it
when to my Surprize I found it to be nothing but a Little Straw--Matted
together without Sheets or any thing else but only one thread Bear blanket
with double its Weight of Vermin such as Lice, Fleas &c. I was glad to get
up (as soon as ye Light was carried from us) I put on my Cloths & Lay as
my Companions. Had we not have been very tired I am sure we should not
have slep'd much that night. I made a Promise not to Sleep so from that
time forward chusing rather to sleep in ye open Air before a fire as will
appear hereafter." The next day he notes that the party "Travell'd up to
Frederick Town where our Baggage came to us we cleaned ourselves (to get
Rid of ye Game we had catched y. Night before)" and slept in "a good
Feather Bed with clean Sheets which was a very agreeable regale."

Wherever he happened to be, the laundress was in constant demand. His
bill from the washer-lady for the week succeeding his inauguration as
President, and before his domestic menage was in running order, was for "6
Ruffled shirts, 2 plain shirts, 8 stocks, 3 pair Silk Hose, 2 White hand.
2 Silk Handks. 1 pr. Flanl. Drawers, 1 Hair nett."

The barber, too, was a constant need, and Washington's ledger shows
constant expenditures for perfumed hair-powder and pomatum, and also for
powder bags and puffs. Apparently the services of this individual were
only for the arranging of his hair, for he seems never to have shaved
Washington, that being done either by himself or by his valet. Of this
latter individual Washington said (when the injury to William Lee unfitted
him for the service), "I do not as yet know whether I shall get a
substitute for William: nothing short of excellent qualities and a man of
good appearance, would induce me to do it--and under my present view of
the matter, too, who would employ himself otherwise than William did--that
is as a butler as well as a valette, for my wants of the latter are so
trifling that any man (as William was) would soon be ruined by idleness,
who had only them to attend to."

In food Washington took what came with philosophy. "If you meet with
collegiate fare, it will be unmanly to complain," he told his grandson,
though he once complained in camp that "we are debarred from the pleasure
of good living; which, Sir, (I dare say with me you