Albany for the purpose of remonstrating with General Gates against
retaining so large and valuable a part of the army unemployed at a time
when the most imminent danger threatened the vitals of the country.
Gates was by no means disposed to part with his troops. He could not
believe that an expedition then preparing at New York was designed to
reinforce General Howe; and insisted that, should the troops then
embarked at that place, instead of proceeding to the Delaware, make a
sudden movement up the Hudson, it would be in their power, should
Albany be left defenseless, to destroy the valuable arsenal which had
been there erected, and the military stores captured with Burgoyne,
which had been chiefly deposited in that town.

Having, after repeated remonstrances, obtained an order directing three
brigades to the Delaware, Hamilton hastened back to Putnam and found
the troops which had been ordered to join Washington, still at
Peekskill. The detachment from New York had suggested to Putnam the
possibility of taking that place; and he does not appear to have made
very great exertions to divest himself of a force he deemed necessary
for an object, the accomplishment of which would give so much splendor
to his military character. In addition to this circumstance, an opinion
had gained ground among the soldiers that their share of service for
the campaign had been performed, and that it was time for them to go
into winter quarters. Great discontents, too, prevailed concerning
their pay, which the government had permitted to be more than six
months in arrear; and in Poor's brigade a mutiny broke out in the
course of which a soldier who was run through the body by his captain,
shot the captain dead before he expired. Colonel Hamilton came in time
to borrow money from the Governor, George Clinton, of New York, to put
the troops in motion; and they proceeded by brigades to the Delaware.
But these several delays retarded their arrival until the contest for