"If we would pursue a right system of policy, in my opinion, ... we should all, Congress and army, be considered as one people, embarked in one cause, in one interest; acting on the same principle, and to the same end. The distinction, the jealousies set up, or perhaps only incautiously let out, can answer not a single good purpose.... No order of men in the thirteen States has paid a more sacred regard to the proceedings of Congress than the army; for without arrogance or the smallest deviation from truth it may be said, that no history now extant can furnish an instance of an army's suffering such uncommon hardships as ours has done, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude. To see men, without clothes to cover them, without blankets to lie on, without shoes (for the want of which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet), and almost as often without provisions as with them, marching through the frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them, till they could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience, which, in my opinion, can scarce be paralleled." The horses died of starvation, and the men harnessed themselves to trucks and sleds, hauling wood and provisions from storehouse to hut. At one time there was not a ration in camp. Washington seized the peril with a strong hand and compelled the people in the country about, who had been selling to the British army at Philadelphia, to give up their stores to the patriots at Valley Forge. Meanwhile, the wives of the officers came to the camp, and these brave women gave of their cheer to its dreary life. Mrs. Washington was there with her husband. "The General's apartment is very small," she wrote to a friend; "he has had a log cabin built to dine in, which has made our quarters much more tolerable than they were at first." The officers and their wives came together and told stories, perhaps over a plate of hickory nuts, which, we are informed, furnished General Washington's dessert. The General was cheerful in the little society; but his one thought was how to keep the brave company of men alive and prepare them for what lay before them. The house where he had his quarters was a farmhouse belonging to a quaker, Mr. Potts, who has said that one day when strolling up the creek, away from the camp, he heard a deep, quiet voice a little way off. He went nearer, and saw Washington's horse tied to a sapling. Hard by, in the thicket, was Washington on his knees, praying earnestly. [Illustration: AT VALLEY FORGE.]