As the season was advancing, and the Americans were in no condition to keep the field, it was decided to go into winter-quarters at Valley Forge, on the west side of the Schuylkill, where the Valley Creek empties into the river. The surrounding hills were covered with woods and presented an inhospitable appearance. The choice was severely criticised, and De Kalb described it as a wilderness. But the position was central and easily defended. The army arrived there about the middle of December, and the erection of huts began. They were built of logs, and were fourteen by fifteen feet each. The windows were covered with oiled paper, and the openings between the logs were closed with clay. The huts were arranged in streets, giving the place the appearance of a city. It was the first of the year, however, before they were occupied, and previous to that the suffering of the army had become great. Although the weather was intensely cold the men were obliged to work at the buildings, with nothing to support life but flour mixed with water, which they baked into cakes at the open fires. "My brigade's out of provisions, nor can the commissary obtain any meat", wrote Huntington on the 22d of December. "Three days successively we have been destitute of bread", said Varnum the same day, "and two days we have been entirely without meat." Soap, vinegar, and other articles necessary for the health of the men were never furnished, and so imperfectly did the clothier-general perform his duties that many of the men were without shirts, and hundreds were confined to the hospitals and farm-houses for want of shoes. Blankets and proper coverings were so scarce that numbers, after toiling during the day, were obliged to sit by the fires all night to keep from freezing. By the 23d of December two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men were unfit for duty, because they were barefoot and otherwise naked. The horses died of starvation by hundreds, and the men were obliged to haul their own provisions and firewood. As straw could not be found to protect the men from the cold ground, sickness spread through their quarters with fearful rapidity. "The unfortunate soldiers", wrote Lafayette, in after-years, "were in want of everything; they had neither coats, hats, shirts, nor shoes; their feet and their legs froze till they became black, and it was often necessary to amputate them.... The army frequently remained whole days without provisions, and the patient endurance of both soldiers and officers was a miracle which each moment served to renew." At times, however, it seemed as if the forbearance of the men was exhausted, and that the war would end in mutiny. But the officers succeeded in allaying the feelings of discontent, and under the management of Greene, who assumed the duties of quarter-master-general on the 23d of March, a change for the better took place.