In the frost and snow he withdrew to Valley Forge, within easy striking distance of Philadelphia.  He had literally nothing to rely upon but his own stern will and strong head.  His soldiers, steadily dwindling in numbers, marked their road to Valley Forge by the blood from their naked feet.  They were destitute and in rags.  When they reached their destination they had no shelter, and it was only by the energy and ingenuity of the General that they were led to build huts, and thus secure a measure of protection against the weather.  There were literally no supplies, and the Board of War failed completely to remedy the evil.  The army was in such straits that it was obliged to seize by force the commonest necessaries.  This was a desperate expedient and shocked public opinion, which Washington, as a statesman, watched and cultivated as an essential element of success in his difficult business.  He disliked to take extreme measures, but there was nothing else to be done when his men were starving, when nearly three thousand of them were unfit for duty because “barefoot and otherwise naked,” and when a large part of the army were obliged to sit up all night by the fires for warmth’s sake, having no blankets with which to cover themselves if they lay down.  With nothing to eat, nothing to burn, nothing wherewith to clothe themselves, wasting away from exposure and disease, we can only wonder at the forbearance which stayed the hand of violent seizure so long.  Yet, as Washington had foreseen, there was even then an outcry against him.  Nevertheless, his action ultimately did more good than harm in the very matter of public opinion, for it opened men’s eyes, and led to some tardy improvements and some increased effort.

Worse even than this criticism was the remonstrance of the legislature of Pennsylvania against the going into winter-quarters.  They expected Washington to keep the open field, and even to attack the British, with his starving, ragged army, in all the severity of a northern winter.  They had failed him at every point and in every promise, in men, clothing, and supplies.  They were not content that he covered their State and kept the Revolution alive among the huts of Valley Forge.  They wished the impossible.  They asked for the moon, and then cried out because it was not given to them.  It was a stupid, unkind thing to do, and Washington answered their complaints in a letter to the president of Congress.  After setting forth the shortcomings of the Pennsylvanians in the very plainest of plain English, he said:  “But what makes this matter still more extraordinary in my eye is that these very gentlemen should think a winter’s campaign, and the covering of these States from the invasion of an enemy, so easy and practicable a business.  I can answer those gentlemen, that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room, by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets.  However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent.”