The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools

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    In the meantime, the army with which Washington was to co-operate in the projected attack upon New York, was so reduced by the departure of troops whose term had expired and the tardiness in furnishing recruits, that it did not amount quite to four thousand rank and file, fit for duty. Among these was a prevalent discontent. Their pay was five months in arrear; if now paid it would be in Continental currency, without allowance for depreciation, consequently, almost worthless for present purposes.
    A long interval of scarcity and several days of actual famine, brought matters to a crisis. On the 25th of May, in the dusk of the evening, two regiments of the Connecticut line assembled on their parade by beat of drum, and declared their intention to march home bag and baggage, “or, at best, to gain subsistence at the point of the bayonet.” Every argument and expostulation was used with the mutineers. They were reminded of their past good conduct, of the noble objects for which they were contending, and of the future indemnifications promised by Congress. Their answer was, that their sufferings were too great to be allayed by promises, in which they had little faith; they wanted present relief. It was with difficulty they could be prevailed upon to return to their huts. Indeed, a few turned out a second time, with their packs, and were not to be pacified. These were arrested and confined.
    In this alarming state of destitution, Washington looked round anxiously for bread for his famishing troops. New York, Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were what he termed his “flour country.” Virginia was sufficiently tasked to supply the South. New York, by legislative coercion, had already given all that she could spare from the subsistence of her inhabitants. Jersey was exhausted by the long residence of the army. Maryland had made great exertions, and might still do something more, and Delaware might contribute handsomely, in proportion to her extent: but Pennsylvania was now the chief dependence, for that State was represented to be full of flour. Washington’s letter of the 16th of December to President Reed, had obtained temporary relief from that quarter; he now wrote to him a second time, and still more earnestly, and sought to rouse President Reed to extraordinary exertions. “This is a time,” writes he, “to hazard and to take a tone of energy and decision. All parties but the disaffected will acquiesce in the necessity and give it their support.” He urges Reed to press upon the legislature of Pennsylvania the policy of investing its executive with plenipotentiary powers. His letter procured relief for the army from the legislature, and a resolve empowering the president and council, during its recess, to declare martial law, should circumstances render it expedient.
    In like manner, he endeavored to rouse the dormant fire of Congress, and impart to it his own indomitable energy. “Certain I am,” writes he to a member of that body, “unless Congress speak in a more decisive tone, unless they are vested with powers by the several States, competent to the purposes of war, or assume them as matters of right, and they and the States respectively act with more energy than they have hitherto done, that our cause is lost. We can no longer drudge on in the old way. By ill-timing the adoption of measures, by delays in the execution of them, or by unwarrantable jealousies, we incur enormous expenses and derive no benefit from them. One State will comply with a requisition of Congress; another neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves; and all differ, either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up-hill; and, while such a system as the present one, or rather want of one, prevails, we shall ever be unable to apply our strength or resources to any advantage.”
    At this juncture came official intelligence from the South to connect which with the general course of events, requires a brief notice of the operations of Sir Henry Clinton in that quarter.
    In the preceding chapter we left the British fleet under Admiral Arbuthnot, preparing to force its way into the harbor of Charleston. Several days elapsed before the ships were able, by taking out their guns, provisions, and water, and availing themselves of wind and tide to pass the bar. They did so on the 20th of March, with but slight opposition from several galleys. Commodore Whipple, then, seeing the