With the homesickness which led sometimes to desertion Washington must have had a secret sympathy, for his letters show that he always longed for that pleasant home in Virginia which he did not allow himself to revisit until nearly the end of the war.

The land of a farmer on service often remained untilled, and there are pathetic cases of families in bitter need because the breadwinner was in the army.

In frontier settlements his absence sometimes meant the massacre of his family by the savages.

There is little wonder that desertion was common, so common that after a reverse the men went away by hundreds.

As they usually carried with them their rifles and other equipment, desertion involved a double loss.