uggestions of his officers on the subject, and from
these, and his own observations and experience, had prepared a
document exhibiting the actual state of the army, the defects of
previous systems, and the alterations and reforms that were necessary.
The committee remained three months with him in camp, and then made a
report to Congress founded on his statement. The reforms therein
recommended were generally adopted.

{Footnote 1: Names of the committee--General Reed, Nathaniel Folsom,
Francis Dana, Charles Carroll, and Gouverneur Morris.}

In the meantime, the distresses of the army continued to increase. The
surrounding country for a great distance was exhausted, and had the
appearance of having been pillaged. The parties sent out to forage too
often returned empty-handed. "For some days past there has been little
less than a famine in the camp," writes Washington, on one occasion.
"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 soldiery,
that they have not been, ere this, excited by their suffering to a
general mutiny and desertion."

A British historian gives a striking picture of the indolence and
luxury which reigned at the same time in the British army in
Philadelphia. It is true the investment of the city by the Americans
rendered provisions dear and fuel scanty, but the consequent
privations were felt by the inhabitants, not by their invaders. The
latter revelled as if in a conquered place. Private houses were
occupied without rendering compensation; the officers were quartered
on the principal inhabitants, many of whom were of the Society of
"Friends." The quiet habits of the city were outraged by the dissolute
habits of a camp. Gaming prevailed to a shameless degree. A foreign
officer kept a faro bank, at which he made a fortune, and some of the
young officers ruined themselves. "During the whole of this long
winter of riot and dissipation," continues the same writer,
"Washington was suffered to remain undisturbed at Valley Forge, with
an army not exceeding five thousand effective men; and his cannon
frozen up and immovable. A nocturnal attack might have forced him to a
disadvantageous action or compelled him to a disastrous retreat."

On one occasion there was a flurry at the most advanced post, where
Captain Henry Lee (Light-horse Harry) with a few of his