Scarcely one man of these had a pair of shoes. Even among those
returned capable of doing duty, many were so badly clad, that exposure
to the cold of the season must have destroyed them. Although the total
of the army exceeded seventeen thousand men, the present effective
rank and file amounted to only five thousand and twelve.

While the sufferings of the soldiers filled the hospitals, a dreadful
mortality continued to prevail in those miserable receptacles of the
sick. A violent putrid fever swept off much greater numbers than all
the diseases of the camp.

If then during the deep snow which covered the earth for a great part
of the winter, the British general had taken the field, his own army
would indeed have suffered greatly, but the American loss is not to be
calculated.

[Illustration: Washington's Headquarters at Valley Forge

_Here on December 17, 1777, after the Battles of Brandywine and
Germantown and the occupation of Philadelphia by the British,
Washington established his headquarters for what may be paradoxically
termed the darkest winter of the Revolutionary War. The American
Commander-in-Chief chose this place partly for its defensibility and
partly to protect Congress, then in session at York, Pennsylvania,
from a sudden British attack. It was here that Washington and Baron
Steuben planned the reorganization of the American army, and it was
here, May 1, 1778, that news reached Washington of the consummation of
the French alliance._]

[Sidenote: Attempt to surprise Captain Lee's corps, and the gallant