The first effort made to enlist troops for the war had, in some degree, succeeded.  While these men found themselves obliged to continue in service without compensation, and often without the common necessaries of life, they perceived the vacant ranks in their regiments filled up by men who were to continue only for a few months, and who received bounties for that short service, from individuals or from the states, which were of great real value, and which appeared to soldiers not acquainted with the actual state of depreciation, to be immense.  They could not fail to compare situations, and to repine at engagements which deprived them of advantages which they saw in possession of others.  Many were induced to contest those engagements;[36] many to desert a service in which they experienced such irritating inequalities; and all felt with the more poignant indignation, those distressing failures in the commissary department, which so frequently recurred.

[Footnote 36:  In some instances, the civil power of the state in which such soldiers happened to be, attempted to interfere and to discharge even those belonging to the lines of other states, who asserted their right to be discharged.  It was with some difficulty the general could arrest this dangerous interposition.]

[Sidenote:  Committee of Congress deputed to camp.]

In consequence of the strong representations made to congress on these various causes of disquiet, a committee of three members repaired to camp for the purpose of consulting with the Commander-in-chief on such arrangements as the means in possession of the government would enable it to make, and the present state of the army might require.  In representing the condition of the troops, they said, “That the army was unpaid for five months; that it seldom had more than six days’ provisions in advance, and was on several occasions, for several successive days, without meat; that the army was destitute of forage; that the medical department had neither tea, chocolate, wine, nor spirituous liquors of any kind; that every department of the army was without money, and had not even the shadow of credit left; that the patience of the soldiers, borne down by the pressure of complicated sufferings, was on the point of being exhausted.”

To relieve this gloomy state of things by transfusing into it a ray of hope for the future, a resolution was passed, declaring that congress would make good to the line of the army, and to the independent corps thereof, the deficiency of their original pay, which had been occasioned by the depreciation of the continental currency; and that the money or other articles heretofore received, should be considered as advanced on account, to be comprehended in the settlement to be finally made.  The benefits of this resolution were confined to those who were then in actual service, or should thereafter come into it, and who were engaged for the war or for three years.