calumny.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, VI, 259, 262.]

Mrs. Washington, as was her custom throughout the war, spent part of
the winter with the General. Her brief allusions to Valley Forge would
hardly lead the reader to infer the horrors that nearly ten thousand
American soldiers were suffering.

"Your Mamma has not yet arrived," Washington writes to Jack
Custis, "but ...expected every hour. [My aide] Meade set off
yesterday (as soon as I got notice of her intention) to meet her.
We are in a dreary kind of place, and uncomfortably provided." And
of this reunion Mrs. Washington wrote: "I came to this place, some
time about the first of February when I found the General very
well, ... in camp in what is called the great valley on the Banks
of the Schuylkill. Officers and men are chiefly in Hutts, which
they say is tolerably comfortable; the army are as healthy as
can be well expected in general. The General's apartment is very
small; he has had a log cabin built to dine in, which has made our
quarters much more tolerable than they were at first."[1]

[Footnote 1: P.L. Ford, _The True George Washington_, 99.]

While the Americans languished and died at Valley Forge during the
winter months, Sir William Howe and his troops lived in Philadelphia
not only in great comfort, but in actual luxury. British gold paid out
in cash to the dealers in provisions bought full supplies from one of
the best markets in America. And the people of the place, largely made
up of Loyalists, vied with each other in providing entertainment for