It was an hour of deep distress to Washington, when, on the twenty-third day of December, 1777, he felt compelled to advise Congress of the condition of his army: “The numbers had been reduced since the fourth of the month, only three weeks, two thousand men, from hardship and exposure. Two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight were unfit for duty, because barefoot and otherwise naked. Only eight thousand two hundred men were present for duty.” He added: “We have not more than three months in which to prepare a great deal of business. If we let them slip, or waste, we shall be laboring under the same difficulties in the next campaign as we have in this, to rectify mistakes and bring things to order. Military arrangements and movements, in consequence, like the mechanism of a clock, _will be imperfect and disordered by the want of any part_.” The concluding clause, italicized, illustrates one of his peculiar characteristics—never to slight the humblest man or agency in his country’s service, and never to count any duty too small to be done well. [Illustration: WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE [From the painting by Scheuster.] ] At this time, the Assembly of Pennsylvania began to snuff up some of the malarious odors of selfish and senseless gossip. They even remonstrated against his going into winter quarters at all. His reply was not wanting in directness and clearness. It reads as follows: “Gentlemen reprobate the going into winter quarters as much as if they thought the soldiers were made of sticks, or stones. I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to remonstrate in a comfortable room, than to occupy a cold bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothing or blankets. However, as they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul I pity their miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve, or prevent.”