where food is unattainable, courage, patriotism, and habits of
discipline, enable the soldier to conquer wants which, in ordinary
situations, would be deemed invincible. But to perish in a country
abounding with provisions, requires something more than fortitude; nor
can soldiers readily submit, while in such a country, to the
deprivation of food. It is not therefore surprising that, among a few
of the troops, some indications of a mutiny appeared. It is much more
astonishing that the great body of the army bore a circumstance so
irritating, and to them so unaccountable, without a murmur.

On receiving intelligence of the fact, General Washington ordered the
country to be scoured, and provisions, for supplying the pressing
wants of the moment, to be seized wherever found. In the mean time,
light parties were detached to harass the enemy about Derby, where Sir
William Howe, with his accustomed circumspection, kept his army so
compact, and his soldiers so within the lines, that an opportunity to
annoy him was seldom afforded even to the vigilance of Morgan and Lee.
After completing his forage, he returned, with inconsiderable loss, to
Philadelphia.

That the American army, while the value still retained by paper bills
placed ample funds in the hands of government, should be destitute of
food, in the midst of a state so abounding with provisions as
Pennsylvania, is one of those extraordinary facts which can not fail
to excite attention.

[Sidenote: Defects in the Commissary Department.]

Early in the war, the office of commissary general had been confirmed
on Colonel Trumbull, of Connecticut, a gentleman fitted by his