“For those who persevered, stacked like cordwood in their rustic huts, life remained wretched. Much of the firewood was still so green that when the stove-lengths did manage to catch flame the cabins were inundated with black, choking smoke that left the camp in a permanent twilight. And though slit latrines known as “vaults†had been dug haphazardly about the living quarters, exhausted and hungry men were unlikely to be meticulous about their sanitary habits. Filth rapidly accumulated in and around the cabins, and disease spread unabated. Adding to the dread miasma, when a workhorse died—as close to 500 such horses would before the winter was over—it was quickly butchered for its meat while the carcass was left to rot where it lay. In the absence of horse meat, the troops subsisted for the most part on a crude mixture of flour and water they dubbed firecakes. Either these were baked in kettles or, more commonly, the moist globs were simply lumped onto a rock placed in the center of a campfire. Since there was no yeast or other leavening available, the resultant biscuit-like concoctions were dense; they were also tasteless, and inevitably enveloped in a layer of black ash. In the absence of beef, pork, and mutton, the dead weevils and maggots that had found their way into the flour barrels and thence into the firecakes were often a soldier’s only source of protein. On the rare occasions when meat was procured, the large amount of salt needed to preserve even the flesh of dead horses produced something that had to be soaked repeatedly in order to becomewretched. Much of the firewood was still so green that when the stove-lengths did manage to catch flame the cabins were inundated with black, choking smoke that left the camp in a permanent twilight. And though slit latrines known as “vaults†had been dug haphazardly about the living quarters, exhausted and hungry men were unlikely to be meticulous about their sanitary habits. Filth rapidly accumulated in and around the cabins, and disease spread unabated. Adding to the dread miasma, when a workhorse died—as close to 500 such horses would before the winter was over—it was quickly butchered for its meat while the carcass was left to rot where it lay. In the absence of horse meat, the troops subsisted for the most part on a crude mixture of flour and water they dubbed firecakes. Either these were baked in kettles or, more commonly, the moist globs were simply lumped onto a rock placed in the center of a vfirecakes and cold water. Once, when a scrawny cow became available, he reported himself and his unit feasting on “a bowl of beef soup—full of burnt leaves and dirt.†One suspects that Waldo, with his eye for graphic detail, would have made a fine photographer had the camera been invented but a few decades earlier. History is left instead with his plaintive journal entries. “There comes a Soldier, his bare feet are seen thro’ his worn out Shoes,†begins one. “His legs nearly naked from the tatter’d remains of an only pair of stockings, his Breeches not sufficient to cover his nakedness, his Shirt hanging in Strings, his hair dischevell’d, his face meagre; his whole appearance pictures a person forsaken and discouraged. He comes, and cries with an air of wretchedness & despair, I am Sick, my feet lame, my legs are sore, my body cover’d with this tormenting itch—my Cloaths are worn out, my Constitution is broken, my former Activity is exhausted by fatigue, hunger and &Cold. I fail fast I shall soon be no more!†Concludes the account: “I don’t know of any thing that vexes a man’s Soul more than hot smoke continually blowing into his Eyes, & when he attempts to avoid it, it is met by a cold piercing Wind.†♦ ♦ ♦ The tormenting itch Waldo describes refers to smallpox, the scourge of armies from Hannibal to Cortés. Washington himself was by now immune to the disease, having contracted and survived a mild case at the age of 19 when he accompanied his tubercular brother Lawrence to Barbados.VI Though the experience had left him with barely visible pocks on his body and face, he knew well how smallpox could not only devastate a standing army, but frighten away prospective recruits. At one point, Enoch Poor informed New Hampshire’s governor that close to half his brigade was down with the pox. And such was the fear of contagion that the pickets and guards posted about the camp’s perimeter were instructed to examine anyone entering for telltale signs of the “dimpled death.†As the virus can be transmitted by air, this precaution was for the most part in vain. Nonetheless, at the first sign of smallpox or any other communicable disease, ailing soldiers were evacuated and carried off in open carts through pelting rain, sleet, and snow to the area’s crude, filthy hospitals. If they survived the journey, they were deposited on the doorsteps of what the contrarian doctor Benjamin Rush aptly labeled “the sinks of human life in the army.†Drury, Bob. Valley Forge (Kindle Locations 2804-2810). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Drury, Bob. Valley Forge (Kindle Locations 2797-2804). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Drury, Bob. Valley Forge (Kindle Locations 2791-2797). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Drury, Bob. Valley Forge (Kindle Locations 2778-2785). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Drury, Bob. Valley Forge (Kindle Locations 2782-2789). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Drury, Bob. Valley Forge (Kindle Locations 2778-2782). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. ”
