This was not a safe man for the gentlemen of Pennsylvania to cross too far, nor could they swerve him, with all his sense of public opinion, one jot from what he meant to do.  In the stern rebuke, and in the deep pathos of these sentences, we catch a glimpse of the silent and self-controlled man breaking out for a moment as he thinks of his faithful and suffering men.  Whatever happened, he would hold them together, for in this black time we detect the fear which haunted him, that the people at large might give way.  He was determined on independence.  He felt a keen hatred against England for her whole conduct toward America, and this hatred was sharpened by the efforts of the English to injure him personally by forged letters and other despicable contrivances.  He was resolved that England should never prevail, and his language in regard to her has a fierceness of tone which is full of meaning.  He was bent, also, on success, and if under the long strain the people should weaken or waver, he was determined to maintain the army at all hazards.

So, while he struggled against cold and hunger and destitution, while he contended with faction at home and lukewarmness in the administration of the war, even then, in the midst of these trials, he was devising a new system for the organization and permanence of his forces.  Congress meddled with the matter of prisoners and with the promotion of officers, and he argued with and checked them, and still pressed on in his plans.  He insisted that officers must have better provision, for they had begun to resign.  “You must appeal to their interest as well as to their patriotism,” he wrote, “and you must give them half-pay and full pay in proper measure.”  “You must follow the same policy with the men,” he said; “you must have done with short enlistments.  In a word, gentlemen, you must give me an army, a lasting, enduring, continental army, for therein lies independence."[1] It all comes out now, through the dust of details and annoyances, through the misery and suffering of that wretched winter, through the shrill cries of ignorance and hostility,—­the great, clear, strong policy which meant to substitute an army for militia, and thereby secure victory and independence.  It is the burden of all his letters to the governors of States, and to his officers everywhere.  “I will hold the army together,” he said, “but you on all sides must help me build it up."[1]

[Footnote 1:  These two quotations are not literal, of course, but give the substance of many letters.]

Thus with much strenuous labor and many fervent appeals he held his army together in some way, and slowly improved it.  His system began to be put in force, his reiterated lessons were coming home to Congress, and his reforms and suggestions were in some measure adopted.  Under the sound and trained guidance of Baron Steuben a drill and discipline were introduced, which soon showed marked results.  Greene succeeded