ccors,
the means of subsisting his army were wholly giving out. The men
actually had no food. For days, as Washington wrote, there was no meat
at all in camp. Goaded by hunger, a Connecticut regiment mutinied.
They were brought back to duty, but held out steadily for their pay,
which they had not received for five months. Indeed, the whole army
was more or less mutinous, and it was only by the utmost tact that
Washington kept them from wholesale desertion. After the summer had
passed and the chance for a decisive campaign had gone with it, the
excitement of expected action ceased to sustain the men, and the
unclothed, unpaid, unfed soldiers began again to get restive. We can
imagine what the condition of the rank and file must have been when
we find that Washington himself could not procure an express from
the quartermaster-general, and was obliged to send a letter to the
Minister of France by the unsafe and slow medium of the post. He was
expected to carry on a war against a rich and powerful enemy, and he
could not even pay a courier to carry his dispatches.

With the commander-in-chief thus straitened, the sufferings of the
men grew to be intolerable, and the spirit of revolt which had been
checked through the summer began again to appear. At last, in January,
1781, it burst all the bounds. The Pennsylvania line mutinied and
threatened Congress. Attempts on the part of the English to seduce
them failed, but they remained in a state of open rebellion. The
officers were powerless, and it looked as if the disaffection would
spread, and the whole army go to pieces in the very face of the enemy.
Washington held firm, and intended in his unshaken way to bring them
back to their duty without yielding in a dangerous fashion. But the
government of Pennsylvania, at last thoroughly frightened, rushed into
the field, and patched up a compromise which contained most perilous
concessions. The natural consequence was a fresh mutiny in the New
Jersey line, and this time Washington determined that he would not be
forestalled. He sent forward at once some regiments of loyal troops,
suppressed the mutiny suddenly and with a strong hand, and hanged
two of the ringleaders. The difficulty was conquered, and discipline
restored.

To take this course required great boldness, for these mutinies were
of no ordinary character. In the first place, it was impossible to
tell whether any troops would do their duty against their fellows, and
fai