Note 190 — MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; CONTINUED, FROM THE TIME OF HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

“At no period of the war,” says chief-justice Marshall the historian, “had the American army been reduced to a situation of greater peril, than during the winter at Valley-Forge.” “More than once they were absolutely without food. Even while their condition was less desperate in this respect, their stock of provisions was so scanty, that there was seldom at any time in the stores a quantity sufficient for the use of the troops for one week. Consequently, had the enemy moved out in force, the American army could not have continued in camp. The want of provisions would have forced them out of it; and their deplorable condition with respect to clothes, disabled them from keeping the field in the winter. The returns of the first of February (1778) exhibit the astonishing number of three thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine men in camp unfit for duty, for want of clothes. Of this number, scarcely a man had a pair of shoes. Even among those returned capable of doing duty, very many were so badly clad, that exposure to the colds of the season must have destroyed them. Although the total of the army exceeded seventeen thousand men, the present effective rank and file amounted to only five thousand and twelve. The returns throughout the winter do not essentially vary from that which has just been particularly stated.”

Such was the miserable condition of the American army, at the date of the above returns! It was, indeed, sufficiently desperate in appearance, to have appalled the stoutest heart; and it required the magnanimity, as well as the virtue of a Washington, to conquer such difficulties and rise superior to them.