Major Van Benschoten, with a detachment of the levies, including Van Arsdale and his company, in which he was serving as corporal, proceeded, October 31st, to the camp on the Hudson, and were ordered to Stony Point to augment its garrison. But the winter setting in with severity, the men through anxiety to reach home, began to desert in great numbers, on account of which they were ordered to Poughkeepsie, and set out December 16th. At Fishkill, the next day they were paid off, up to October 31st, the date they arrived in camp. What Capt. Faulkner then paid him was all that Van Arsdale received in lieu of his services, past or subsequent, till after the war ended. He remained with his company until it was disbanded on December 25th, when he was honorably discharged and went home, having acquitted him as "a good soldier" in the estimation of his captain. He spent the winter at Neelytown, giving spare time to improving his mind in some useful studies. It was the famous "Hard Winter," and it made a fearful draft on the woodpile; taking the brothers often to the woods with their axes, to keep up the supply of fuel. Snow covered the ground to an average depth of six feet or more, fences and roads were obliterated, and travel went in all directions over the hard crust. Being difficult if not dangerous for a team, they drew their wood home on a hand sled. On the melting of the snow in the spring, the stumps left were of sufficient length to be used by Tunis for making fence rails! A dark cloud hung over our cause in the spring of 1780; there were no funds with which to pay the army, or even to supply it with necessary food and clothing. Pressed by keenest want, officers were resigning, large bodies of soldiers whose time had expired were leaving, while such as remained were disheartened,--less by the remembrance of hardships past, than by what the future seemed to forebode. It was under such discouragements, when "Allegiance wand'ring turns astray And Faith grows dim for lack of pay."