Added to the general depression caused by this defeat was the fact that half the Maryland militia was reported to have deserted before the battle. It was the beginning of that awful winter when naught but the extraordinary virtues of George Washington himself kept the semblance of an army together. The American forces were rapidly becoming a disorganized mob, and the fault lay with Congress, which numbered in its group few of the really great and unselfish men who had once met in Philadelphia to approve of and sign the second greatest document in our history. The period had now arrived when men of the second rank had come to the front in charge of the uncertain affairs of the struggling Colonies. Dr. Franklin was in Paris and John Adams joined him during the winter, for the purpose of watching Silas Deane, who was a bitter foe of Washington, and had sent over the infamous Conway to hamper and embitter the great man’s very existence. Jay, Rutledge, Livingston, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson were employed at home, and Hancock had resigned from the governing house. Samuel Adams was at home in New England for most of that winter; and men much the inferior of these had taken their places--men who lacked foresight and that loftiness of purpose and love of country which had, earlier in the war, kept private jealousies and quarrels in check. Without an organized quartermaster’s department, the soldiers could not be properly clothed or fed, and the warnings of Washington were utterly disregarded by Congress. The troops began to need clothing soon after Brandywine, and by November they were still in unsheltered camps without sufficient clothing, blankets, or tents. Hadley Morris, suffering with the rank and file, saw them lying out o’ nights at Whitemarsh, half clad and without protection from either the frozen ground or the desperate chill of the night air. Forts Mercer and Mifflin had fallen, and there was little cheer brought to these poor fellows by the news that Burgoyne had actually surrendered to General Gates and that the British army of invasion which had started so confidently from Canada was utterly crushed. December came, and snow followed frost. The British were snug and warm in the “rebel capital.” Well fed, well clothed, spending the time in idleness and amusement, the invaders were secure of any attack from the starving, half-clothed men who, with Washington at their head, crawled slowly over the Chester hills toward the little hollow on the bank of the Schuylkill. There was gold in plenty at the command of General Howe, and for this gold the farmers about Philadelphia were glad to sell their grain. And who can blame them for preferring the good English gold to the badly-printed, worthless currency issued by the American Congress?