The present army was drawn from a wider range than that which had taken Boston, and sectional jealousies and disputes, growing every day more hateful to the commander-in-chief, sprang up rankly.
The men of Maryland thought those of Connecticut ploughboys; the latter held the former to be fops and dandies.

These and a hundred other disputes buzzed and whirled about Washington, stirring his strong temper, and exercising his sternest self-control in the untiring effort to suppress them and put them to death.

"It requires," John Adams truly said, "more serenity of temper, a deeper understanding, and more courage than fell to the lot of Marlborough, to ride in this whirlwind." Fortunately these qualities were all there, and with them an honesty of purpose and an unbending directness of character to which Anne's great general was a stranger.
Meantime, while the internal difficulties were slowly diminished, the forces of the enemy rapidly increased.

First it became evident that attacks were not feasible.

Then the question changed to a mere choice of defenses.