To the causes which had long threatened the destruction of the army,
the depreciation of paper money was now to be added. It had become so
considerable that the pay of an officer would not procure even those
absolute necessaries which might protect his person from the extremes
of heat and cold. The few who possessed small patrimonial estates
found them melting away; and others were unable to appear as
gentlemen. Such circumstances could not fail to excite disgust with
the service, and a disposition to leave it. Among those who offered
their commissions to the Commander-in-chief, were many who, possessing
a larger portion of military pride, and therefore feeling with
peculiar sensibility the degradation connected with poverty and rags,
afforded the fairest hopes of becoming the ornaments of the army. This
general indifference about holding a commission; this general opinion
that an obligation was conferred, not received by continuing in the
service, could not fail to be unfavourable, not only to that spirit of
emulation which stimulates to bolder deeds than are required, but to a
complete execution of orders, and to a rigid observance of duty.

An officer whose pride was in any degree wounded, whose caprice was
not indulged, who apprehended censure for a fault which his
carelessness about remaining in the army had probably seduced him to
commit, was ready to throw up a commission which, instead of being
valuable, was a burden almost too heavy to be borne. With extreme
anxiety the Commander-in-chief watched the progress of a temper which,
though just commencing, would increase, he feared, with the cause that
produced it. He was, therefore, early and earnest in pressing the
consideration of this important subject on the attention of congress.

{January 10.}