The leader from Virginia, untutored in such things, was astounded at the greedy scramble.

Before the year 1775 ended Washington wrote to his friend Lee that he prayed God he might never again have to witness such lack of public spirit, such jobbing and self-seeking, such "fertility in all the low arts," as now he found at Cambridge.
He declared that if he could have foreseen all this nothing would have induced him to take the command.

Later, the young La Fayette, who had left behind him in France wealth and luxury in order to fight a hard fight in America, was shocked at the slackness and indifference among the supposed patriots for whose cause he was making sacrifices so heavy.

In the backward parts of the colonies the population was densely ignorant and had little grasp of the deeper meaning of the patriot cause.
The army was, as Washington himself said, "a mixed multitude." There was every variety of dress.

Old uniforms, treasured from the days of the last French wars, had been dug out.