These supplies were so insufficient and unequal, as to produce extreme dissatisfaction.

In the lines of some of the states, the officers gave notice in a body, of their determination to resign on a given day, if some decent and certain provision should not be made for them.

The remonstrances of the Commander-in-chief produced an offer to serve as volunteers until their successors should be appointed; and, on the rejection of this proposition, they were with difficulty induced to remain in service.
Under these complicated embarrassments, it required all that enthusiastic patriotism which pre-eminently distinguishes the soldier of principle; all that ardent attachment to the cause of their country which originally brought them into the field, and which their sufferings could not diminish; all the influence of the Commander-in-chief, whom they almost adored; to retain in the service men who felt themselves neglected, and who believed themselves to be the objects of the jealousy of their country, rather than of its gratitude.
Among the privates, causes of disgust grew out of the very composition of the army, which increased the dissatisfaction produced by their multiplied wants.
The first effort made to enlist troops for the war had, in some degree, succeeded.

While these men found themselves obliged to continue in service without compensation, and often without the common necessaries of life, they perceived the vacant ranks in their regiments filled up by men who were to continue only for a few months, and who received bounties for that short service, from individuals or from the states, which were of great real value, and which appeared to soldiers not acquainted with the actual state of depreciation, to be immense.

They could not fail to compare situations, and to repine at engagements which deprived them of advantages which they saw in possession of others.