Excerpt from Valley Forge Revisited A stone slab at Fort Huntington marks the grave of an American soldier killed by a neighbor ing had complained to General Wayne of the depredation of the soldiers and had been told impatiently to shoot them if they trespassed again. The army lost, says Dr. Benjamin Rusk, 1500 head of horses for want of forage. A week's rations for a soldier were three ounces of meat and three pounds of flour. Rations were sometimestwo days overdue when issued. Men were left 24 hours on picket. There was not money enough in February to pay the November roll in full. General Wavne said that Falstaff's company was comparatively well clad, for Falstaff had one shirt in his company, while he did not have one whbte shirt to a brigade. In February, General Varnum wrote to General Greene: The army must soon dissolve. Many of the troops are destitute of meat and are several days in arrear. The horses are dying for want of forage. The country in the vicinity of the camp is exhausted. There cannot be a moral certainty of bettering their condition while we remain here. We cannot reconcile their sufferings to the sentiments of honest menn No political conditions can justify it. The condition of the men in their Homeric camp was better than it had been in the preceding months of marching and countermarching. They were somehow fed and occasionally an allowance of drink was served out, and the bake-house saw an occasional play, and there was preaching in the regiments, the hospitals were visited. The Rev. James Sproat, recording his visit, was very highlv pleased with the situation of the camp. 'on the reception of the news of the ratification of the treaties of alliance with France and Spain the soldiers held a jollification, as they had previously celebrated May-day with honors to King Tammany. General Washington would dine with an officer and play at cricket with the staff. Life was not alto gether gloomy at the camp and the army came from its long period of inaction improved in discipline, new modeled in organization and With some uni formity in drill established throughout its ranks. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.