said:

"The general, sensible of the difficulty and expense of providing
clothes of almost any kind for the troops, feels an unwillingness
to recommend, much more to order any kind of uniform; but as it is
absolutely necessary that men should have clothes and appear decent
and tight, he earnestly encourages the use of hunting shirts with
long breeches made of the same cloth, gaiter fashion about the legs
to all those yet unprovided." (Force 5th Series, Vol I, pp. 676,
677.)

That was the sort of army Washington commanded; an army to which he
could seldom give orders but only recommendations and suggestions. It
often melted away before his eyes without any power on his part to stop
desertion. At New York in 1776 he collected as you know by the utmost
exertion about 18,000 men, but so afflicted with camp fevers and disease
that only 14,000 of them were effective, and these were more of a rabble
than an army. At the battle of Long Island and other engagements round
New York they were easily beaten by General Howe's huge army of 34,000,
and as is generally believed could have been annihilated or exterminated
if that general had chosen to do so. As it was they were so broken up
and scattered that they disappeared to their homes, and Washington fled
across New Jersey and crossed the Delaware with only 3,300 men.

The Continental Congress fled from Philadelphia. It was a migrating
congress for many a day afterwards; travelling from one place of refuge
to another with its little printing press and papers carried in a wagon.

If you had been living in those days you would have said that the
rebellion had now certainly reached the point of scientific defeat and
should be abandoned and all hope of independence given up. Thousands of
people at that time said so. The loyalists of course said so; and many
who had been rebels, or had been watching to see if the rebellion had
any chance at all, now turned against it and took the British oath of
allegiance. That is unquestionably what you would have done if you had
been living at that time with your present opinions. Your great
grandfather however was not of that mind, nor was Washington.

In fact, Washington prepared to become the worst kind of a guerilla; and
you will find his letter on the subject in the second volume of Irving's
life of him, chapter XLI. In case of being further pressed he said, "We
must then retire to Augusta county, in V