The capture of Massachusetts and Connecticut had cut off at one blow the source of 68 per cent. of all the ammunition and weapon works of the United States. The army, already short of cartridges, would have to remain short till all the complicated and minutely accurate machinery for making them could be built and established.[168] There were only 425,000 rifles in reserve. The volunteers would have to drill without arms till factories could be put into operation. _What Had Been Lost_ Seven militia mobilization camps were in the territory lost to the United States. One thousand acres of powder works in New Jersey were in the possession of the invaders. The volunteers needed shirts, breeches, underwear. The four leading cities in the manufacture of cotton goods, the four that led in making woolen goods and the leaders in making clothing were cut off from the United States. The volunteers needed shoes. More than all, they needed shoes. Shoes, shoes, and again shoes! Americans realized with heavy hearts how these unromantic things were making them helpless--what a blow it had been to their defense when the great Massachusetts factories of Lynn, Brockton, Haverhill, and Boston with their un-replaceable machinery had been taken. These cities and cities scattered through the rest of lost New England, had produced 57 per cent. of the boots and shoes for the United States. The army was short, even under its old, economical estimates of more than 500 field artillery. To put the army of 300,000 volunteers into the field, it would need at least 1,500. In the days of peace it had been calculated that the shortage then existing could not be made good in less than two years. Now, with half a hundred factories toiling, with blackened Watervliet roaring and clanging as never a factory had labored before, guns were being turned out at a rate that promised to reach surprising dimensions when all the shops were fully at work. _Six Months of Helplessness_ But at best there were six months during which nothing could be done except to prepare. During those six months, while the country poured forth its money prodigally to make up in wasteful speed what it had neglected during long years, the invader could sit in the conquered seaboard cities and suck them dry. Nothing on earth could alter it. The volunteers had to learn everything. They had to learn to shoot, to survive slush and rain and cold, to dig trenches. They had to become hardened enough to march twenty and more miles a day with blankets, half a tent, frying pan, plate, knife, fork, water bottle, first aid kit, an emergency ration, an intrenching tool and bayonet, a heavy rifle and ninety heavy cartridges.