The views of congress were entirely different.  While the subject remained suspended before that body, it was taken up by the committee of co-operation at head quarters, where the combined experience and talents of Generals Washington, Schuyler, and Greene, were employed in digesting a system adapted to the actual situation of the United States, which was recommended to congress.  To give the more weight to his opinion by showing its disinterestedness, General Greene offered to continue in the discharge of the duties assigned to him, without any other extra emolument than his family expenses.  This plan, whatever might have been its details, was, in its general outlines, unacceptable to congress.  A system was, at length, completed by that body, which General Greene believed to be incapable of execution.  Resolving not to take upon himself the responsibility of measures the issue of which must be calamitous and disgraceful, he determined to withdraw from a station in which he despaired of being useful.

Apprehending the worst consequences from his resignation in so critical a moment, General Washington pressed him to suspend this decisive step, until the effect of an application from himself and from the committee of co-operation should be known.  Their representations produced no effect.  The resolution to make this bold experiment was unalterable.  General Greene’s resignation was accepted; and the letter conveying it excited so much irritation, that a design was intimated of suspending his command in the line of the army.  But these impressions soon wore off, and the resentment of the moment subsided.  Colonel Pickering, who succeeded General Greene, possessed, in an eminent degree, those qualities which fitted him to combat and subdue the difficulties of his department.  To great energy of mind and body, he added a long experience in the affairs of the continent, with an ardent zeal for its interests; and General Greene himself, with several of the former officers, at the request of the Commander-in-chief, continued for some time after their resignation, to render all the services in their power; but there was a defect of means, for which neither talents nor exertion could compensate.

In the commissary department the same distress was experienced.  General Washington was driven to the necessity of emptying the magazines at West Point, and of foraging on a people whose means of subsisting themselves were already nearly exhausted by the armies on both sides.  The inadequate supplies drawn from these sources afforded but a short relief; and, once more, at a time when the public imagination was contemplating brilliant plans, the execution of which required steady courage with persevering labour, and consequently ample magazines, the army was frequently reduced to the last extremity by the want of food.

So great were the embarrassments produced by the difficulty of procuring subsistence that, although the second division of the fleet from Brest was daily expected, General Washington found it necessary to countermand the orders under which the militia were marching to camp.