As straw could not be found to protect the men from the cold ground, sickness spread through their quarters with fearful rapidity.

"The unfortunate soldiers," wrote Lafayette in after years, "they were in want of everything; they had neither coats, hats, shirts nor shoes; their feet and their legs froze till they became black, and it was often necessary to amputate them." ...

The army frequently remained whole days without provisions, and the patient endurance of the soldiers and officers was a miracle which each moment served to renew ...

while the country around Valley Forge was so impoverished by the military operations of the previous summer as to make it impossible for it to support the army.

The sufferings of the latter were chiefly owing to the inefficiency of Congress.[1] [Footnote 1: F.D.Stone, _Struggle for the Delaware_, vi, ch.