Meanwhile, as the Commander in Chief noted in another letter of nearly the same date, his few remaining troops were “absolutely perishing” for want of clothing, “Marching over Frost and Snow, many without a Shoe, Stocking or Blanket.” Nor, due to certain inefficiencies in the supply services, was the food situation any better. “The Cry of want of Provisions come to me from every Quarter,” Washington stormed angrily on February 22 to Matthew Irwin, a Deputy Commissary of Issues: “Gen. Maxwell writes word that his People are starving; Gen. Johnston, of Maryland, yesterday inform’d me, that his People could draw none; this difficulty I understand prevails also at Chatham! What Sir is the meaning of this? and why were you so desirous of excluding others from this business when you are unable to accomplish it yourself? Consider, I beseech you, the consequences of this neglect, and exert yourself to remove the Evil.” Even in May, near the end of the 1777 encampment, there was an acute shortage of food. RECRUITMENT GETS UNDER WAY. In this situation, Washington wrought mightily to “new model” the American fighting forces. Late in 1776, heeding at last his pressing argument for longer enlistments, Congress had called upon the States to raise 88 Continental battalions, and had also authorized recruitment of 16 “additional battalions” of infantry, 3,000 light horse, three regiments of artillery, and a corps of engineers. A magnificent dream of an army 75,000 strong! Washington knew, however, that it was more than “to say Presto begone, and every thing is done.” Very early that winter he sent many of his general officers into their own States to hurry on the new levies. Night and day, too, he was in correspondence with anyone who might help in the cause, writing prodigiously. Still the business lagged painfully. “I have repeatedly wrote to all the recruiting Officers, to forward on their Men, as fast as they could arm and cloath them,” the Commander in Chief advised Congress on January 26, “but they are so extremely averse to turning out of comfortable Quarters, that I cannot get a Man to come near me, tho’ I hear from all parts, that the recruiting Service goes on with great Success.” For nearly 3 months more, as events turned out, he had to depend for support on ephemeral militia units, “here to-day, gone to-morrow.” April 5 found him still wondering if he would ever get the new army assembled. SICKNESS AND DEATH. But the patriot cup of woe was not yet filled, and there was still another evil to fight. This was smallpox, which together with dysentery, rheumatism, and assorted “fevers” had victimized hundreds of American troops in 1776. Now the dread disease threatened to run like wildfire through the whole army, old and new recruits alike.