On the following morning he asked for an interview with General Schuyler and several other military men whom he knew to be friendly to Washington, and they confirmed the advice of Troup.  In the afternoon he wrote to Gates a letter that was peremptory, although dignified and circumspect, demanding the addition of a superior brigade.  He expressed his indignation in no measured terms, and in more guarded phrases his opinion of the flimsiness of the victorious General’s arguments.  Gates sent the troops at once, and despatched a volume of explanation to Washington.

Hamilton set out immediately for New Windsor, Troup bearing him company the greater part of the way, for he was feeling very ill.  But he forgot his ailments when he arrived.  To his fury he discovered that not a regiment had gone south.  Two of the brigades, which had received no pay for eight months, had mutinied, and he was obliged to ask Governor Clinton to borrow $5000, with which to pay them off.  He had the satisfaction of despatching them, wrote a peremptory letter to Putnam, who had other plans brewing, another to Gates, asking for further reinforcements, then went to bed in Governor Clinton’s house with fever and rheumatism.  But he wrote to Washington, apprising him of a scheme among the officers of the northern department to recover the city of New York, and denouncing Putnam in the most emphatic terms.  Two days later he recovered sufficiently to proceed to Fishkill, where he wrested troops from Putnam, and ascertained that heavy British reinforcements had gone from that neighbourhood to Howe.  He wrote at once to Washington, advising him of his peril, and endeavoured to push on; but his delicate frame would stand no more, and on the 15th he went to bed in Mr. Kennedy’s house in Peekskill, with so violent an attack of rheumatism that to his bitter disgust he was obliged to resign himself to weeks of inactivity.  But he had the satisfaction to receive a letter from Washington approving all that he had done.  And in truth he had saved the situation, and Washington never forgot it.

III

Hamilton rejoined the army at Valley Forge and soon recovered his health and spirits.  It was well that the spirits revived, for no one else during that terrible winter could lay claim to any.  The Headquarters were in a small valley, shut in by high hills white with snow and black with trees that looked like iron.  The troops were starving and freezing and dying a mile away, muttering and cursing, but believing in Washington.  On a hill beyond the pass Lafayette was comfortable in quarters of his own, but bored and fearing the worst.  Laurens chafed at the inaction; he would have had a battle a day.  As the winter wore on, the family succumbed to the depressing influence of unrelieved monotony and dread of the future, and only Hamilton knew to what depths of anxiety Washington could descend.  But despair had no part