Thanks to the magistrates and civilian population of New Jersey, an appeal from Washington in this urgent crisis brought cheerful, generous relief. This alone saved the army from starvation, disbandment, or such desperate, wholesale plundering as must have eventually ruined all patriot morale. By the end of February, however, the food situation was once more acute. Wrote General Greene: “Our provisions are in a manner gone; we have not a ton of hay at command, nor magazines to draw from.” Periodic food shortages continued to plague the troops during the next few months. As late as May 9, there was only a 3-days’ supply of meat on hand, and it was estimated that the flour, if made into bread, could not last more than 15 or 16 days. Officers and men alike literally lived from hand to mouth all through the 1779-80 encampment period. MONEY TROUBLES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. The cause of many difficulties faced by Washington that winter appears to have been the near chaotic state of American finances. Currency issued by Congress tumbled headlong in value, until in April-June 1780 it took $60 worth of “Continental” paper to equal $1 in coin. “Money is extreme scarce,” wrote General Greene on February 29, “and worth little when we get it. We have been so poor in camp for a fortnight that we could not forward the public dispatches for want of cash to support the expresses.” Civilians who had provisions and other necessaries to sell would no longer “trust” as they had done before; and without funds, teams could not be found to bring in supplies from distant magazines. Reenlistment of veteran troops and recruitment of new levies became doubly difficult. Even the depreciated money wages of the army were not punctually paid, being frequently 5 or 6 months in arrears. Dr. Thacher wailed at length about “the trash which is tendered to requite us for our sacrifices, for our sufferings and privations, while in the service of our country.” No wonder that desertions soon increased alarmingly, and that many officers, no longer able to support families at home, resigned their commissions in disgust! At the end of May an abortive mutiny of two Connecticut regiments in Jockey Hollow, though quickly suppressed, foreshadowed the far more serious outbursts fated to occur within a year. GUARDING THE LINES. Keeping the Continental Army intact under all these conditions was but part of Washington’s herculean task in 1779-80. Again, as at Morristown in the winter of 1777, and at Middlebrook in the winter of 1778-79, the threat of attack by an enemy superior in manpower and equipment hung constantly over his head. Communications between Philadelphia and the Hudson Highlands had to be protected, and the northern British Army had to be prevented from extending its lines, now confined chiefly to New York and Staten Island, or from obtaining forage and provisions in the countryside beyond.