"All I could do under these circumstances was to send out a few light parties to watch and harass the enemy, whilst other parties were instantly detached different ways to collect, if possible, as much provisions as would satisfy the pressing wants of the soldiers; but will this answer? No, sir. Three or four days of bad weather would prove our destruction. What then is to become of the army this winter? And if we are now as often without provisions as with them what is to become of us in the spring when our force will be collected, with the aid perhaps of militia, to take advantage of an early campaign before the enemy can be reinforced? These are considerations of great magnitude, meriting the closest attention, and will, when my own reputation is so intimately connected with and to be affected by the event, justify my saying that the present commissaries are by no means equal to the execution of the office, or that the disaffection of the people surpasses all belief. The misfortune, however, does in my opinion proceed from both causes, and though I have been tender heretofore of giving my opinion or of lodging complaints, as the change in that department took place contrary to my judgment and the consequences thereof were predicted, yet finding that the inactivity of the army, whether for want of provisions, clothes, or other essentials is charged to my account, not only by the common vulgar but by those in power, it is time to speak plain in exculpation of myself. With truth then I can declare that no man, in my opinion, ever had his measures more impeded than I have by every department of the army. Since the month of July we have had no assistance from the Quartermaster-General, and to want of assistance from this department the Commissary-General charges great part of his deficiency. To this I am to add that notwithstanding it is a standing order (often repeated) that the troops shall always have two days' provision by them, that they may be ready at any sudden call, yet scarcely any opportunity has ever offered of taking advantage of the enemy that has not been either totally obstructed or greatly impeded on this account, and this, the great and crying evil, is not all. Soap, vinegar, and other articles allowed by Congress we see none of, nor have we seen them, I believe, since the battle of Brandywine. The first, indeed, we have little occasion for--few men having more than one shirt, many only the moiety of one, and some none at all. In addition to which, as a proof of the little benefit from a clothier-general, and at the same time as a further proof of the inability of an army under the circumstances of this to perform the common duties of soldiers, we have, by a field return this day made, besides a number of men confined to hospitals for want of shoes and others in farmers' houses on the same account, no less than 2,898 men now in camp unfit for duty because they are barefoot and otherwise naked.