The Colonies quarrelled with one another; their generals plotted and
intrigued, or sullenly held aloof. Cool men, measuring on the one side
this lax and inharmonious alliance of jealous States, without money,
without public-spirited populations, and, above all, without confidence in
their own success, and on the other the imposing power of rich and
resolute England, with its splendid armies and fleets in the St. Lawrence
and in New York Harbor, and with its limitless supply of hired German
auxiliaries--cool men, I say, weighing dispassionately these two opposing
forces, came pretty generally to believe that in the end General
Washington would find himself laid by the heels in the Tower at London.

I cannot honestly say now whether I ever shared this despondent view or
not. But I do know that I chafed bitterly under the orders which kept me
in the Valley, and not only prevented my seeing what fighting there was,
but put me to no better task than watching in a ten-acre field for
rattlesnakes. I can in no apter way describe my employment from May of
1776 to July of the following year. There was unending work, but no
visible fruit, either for the cause or for myself. The menace of impending
danger hung over us constantly--and nothing came of it, month after month.
I grew truly sick of it all. Besides, my wounds did not heal well, and my
bad health from time to time induced both melancholy and an
irritable mind.

The situation in the Valley was extremely simple. There was a small
outspoken Tory party, who made no secret of their sympathies, and kept up
communications with the refugees in Canada. These talked openly of the
time soon to arrive when the King's troops would purge the Valley of
disloyalty, and loyalists should come by more than their own. There was a
somewhat larger Whig party, which by word and deed supported Congress.