The coach with its four horses, and postillions in white and scarlet livery, attracted great attention. In the country people rushed to doors and windows to get a sight of her. In the towns she was met by escorts of Continental soldiers, the ringing of bells, and enthusiastic cheering. With a mingled feeling of pride and wonder this little woman, who had never been out of Virginia, realized what it was to be the wife of General Washington. This was a real farewell to the quiet plantation and the beginning of her public life. Except for the year when Trenton and Princeton and active winter campaigning made it too dangerous for women to be present, it was Martha Washington’s custom to join her husband when the army went into winter quarters, and to march back home when work opened with the spring. Thus she heard the first and last gun of every campaign, and described herself as a perambulator for those eight years. Because she was the wife of the general, it did not follow that she could live in luxury. In Cambridge to be sure headquarters were in the Craigie House, later the home of the poet Longfellow; and here Mrs. Washington had some social life, with the wives of the Harvard professors. But in other places lodgings were often very, very uncomfortable, “a squeezed-up room or two.” At Valley Forge a log cabin was built--near a Quaker farmhouse where the Washingtons had two rooms--to serve as a kitchen and dining-room; but when this same plan was proposed for the headquarters at Morristown, no lumber was available! At Newburgh their inconvenient dining-room had one window and seven doors, and the sitting-room was so small that when Washington entertained a French officer, the guest had to sit on a camp bed. Martha Washington’s presence lessened the general’s cares and broke the monotony of the long anxious winters. She was always a delightful hostess and even with camp limitations her hospitality and genial manner reminded her guests of Virginia. Nearly every day some of the young officers and their wives were invited to dinner, the General and Mrs. Washington sitting side by side, while Alexander Hamilton carved. Martha Washington was always a simple, dignified woman, as a group of Morristown ladies who went to call upon her testified. Having heard that the general’s wife was a very grand lady, they wore their best bibs and bands, and most elegant silks and ruffles. Mrs. Washington, in a plain homespun dress and a “specked” (checked) apron, received them very graciously, a half knit stocking in her left hand, the ball of yarn in her pocket. After the usual compliments were over, she resumed her knitting. “And there we were,” described one of the women afterward, “without a stitch of work, and sitting in state, but General Washington’s lady was knitting socks!”