Then too there was no discipline, for the army was composed of raw militia, who elected their officers and carried on war as they pleased. In a passage suppressed by Mr. Sparks, Washington said: "There is no such thing as getting officers of this stamp to carry orders into execution--to curry favor with the men (by whom they were chosen, and on whose smile they may possibly think that they may again rely) seems to be one of the principal objects of their attention. I have made a pretty good slam amongst such kind of officers as the Massachusetts government abounds in, since I came into this camp, having broke one colonel and two captains for cowardly behavior in the action on Bunker Hill, two captains for drawing more pay and provisions than they had men in their company, and one for being absent from his post when the enemy appeared there and burnt a house just by it. Besides these I have at this time one colonel, one major, one captain, and two subalterns under arrest for trial. In short, I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as these people seem to be too attentive to everything but their own interests." This may be plain and homely in phrase, but it is not stilted, and the quick energy of the words shows how the New England farmers and fishermen were being rapidly brought to discipline. Bringing the army into order, however, was but a small part of his duties. It is necessary to run over all his difficulties, great and small, at this time, and count them up, in order to gain a just idea of the force and capacity of the man who overcame them. Washington, in the first place, was obliged to deal not only with his army, but with the general congress and the congress of the province. He had to teach them, utterly ignorant as they were of the needs and details of war, how to organize and supply their armies. There was no commissary department, there were no uniforms, no arrangements for ammunition, no small arms, no cannon, no resources to draw upon for all these necessaries of war. Little by little he taught Congress to provide after a fashion for these things, little by little he developed what he needed, and by his own ingenuity, and by seizing alertly every suggestion from others, he supplied for better or worse one deficiency after another. He had to deal with various governors and various colonies, each with its prejudices, jealousies, and shortcomings. He had to arrange for new levies from a people unused to war, and to settle with infinite anxiety and much wear and tear of mind and body, the conflict as to rank among officers to whom he could apply no test but his own insight. He had to organize and stimulate the arming of privateers, which, by preying on British commerce, were destined to exercise such a powerful influence on the fate of the war. It was neither showy nor attractive, such work as this, but it was very vital, and it was done.