She showed them two dresses of cotton and silk, woven at Mount Vernon, the stripes made from ravelings of brown silk stockings and old crimson damask chair covers. She took pains to tell them that the livery of her coachmen was all homespun, save for the scarlet cuffs, made of English material imported long before the war. After that visit, work for the soldiers, rather than fine feminine clothes, became the fashion in Morristown. At another New Jersey headquarters Washington was staying at a private house, whose mistress one day saw a coach drive up to the door, with ten dragoons as the escort. Out stepped a plain little woman dressed in brown homespun, wearing a hood; over her bosom was folded a large white kerchief. She must be a maid, thought the hostess, until she saw General Washington greeting her, and inquiring about the children, and his favorite horses at Mount Vernon. The general’s wife, dressed like that! Everywhere the soldiers loved Lady Washington, as they called her. During the sad winter at Valley Forge, when the army was in desperate straits, suffering greatly from lack of food and blankets and clothing, and the consequent constant sickness, she went to share the soldiers’ privations and make a spot of cheer in their dreary lives. She arrived in a rough farm sleigh, hired from the innkeeper at the forks of the Brandywine, where the deep snow had forced her to abandon her coach. Stanch patriot that she was, she made light of inconveniences and discomforts and hardships; and never was a woman busier than Martha Washington, all that dismal winter. In a cloak and hood, with her basket on her arm, she went in the deep snow from hut to hut, carrying delicacies for the sick and consolation for the dying, and by her sympathy and generosity stimulating the loyalty and courage of the men. “God bless Lady Washington!” was frequently heard, when her kind, motherly face appeared. Day after day she assembled in her two rooms the wives of the officers, to knit and patch, and make new garments whenever materials could be secured. No more embroidering and spinet playing, and other light accomplishments! The work these women did at Valley Forge was far-reaching in its effects. News of it spread to Philadelphia, where the British were having a gay winter, and the patriotic ladies there commenced making shirts for the soldiers, and ultimately contributed nearly three thousand garments. Small in amount, perhaps, in comparison with such service to-day; but Martha Washington was a pioneer, anticipating the work of the Sanitary Commission and the American Red Cross.