"Through the following winter, the want of necessaries for the support of the enfeebled and wretched soldier was most severely felt. The poor subsistence which bread of the worst quality afforded was almost the only support which could be had for seven weeks." "The sickness, deaths, and distress at French Mills excited much alarm. This great mortality had obvious causes for its existence." "Predispositions to sickness, the effects of obvious causes, the comfortless condition of men exposed to cold, wanting the common necessaries of life to support them in their exhausted states." Dr. Lovell adds: "It was impossible for the sick to be restored with nothing to subsist upon except damaged bread."[62] Among the causes of the abundant sickness, in March, along the Niagara frontier, given by the surgeons, were "severe duty during the inclement weather, exposure on the lake in open transports, bad bread made of damaged flour, either not nutritious or absolutely deleterious, bad water impregnated with the product of vegetable putrefaction, and the effluvia from materials of animal production with which the air was replete."[63] "The array, in consequence of its stationary position, suffered from diseases aggravated by filth accumulated in its vicinity." "The clothing was not sufficient to protect the men on the northern frontier, and even this short allowance failed to reach them in due season."[64] "The woollen garments have not been issued until the warm weather of summer commenced, when winter finds them either naked or clad in their summer dresses, perishing with cold."[65] The camps were sometimes in malarious districts. "At Fort George and the vicinity, the troops were exposed to intense heat during the day and to cold and chilly atmosphere at night." "The diseases consequent to this exposure, typhus and intermittent fever, dysentery and diarrhoea," and "but little more than half of the men were fit for duty."[66] Gen. Scott wrote from Mexico, February 14, 1848: "The army is also suffering from the want of necessary clothing. The new troops are as destitute as the others. They were first told that they should find abundant supplies at New Orleans, next at Vera Cruz, and finally here."[67]