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But the deficiency in the number of the men was not so conspicuous and disappointing as the want of powder, lead, tools, arms, tents, horses, carts, and medical supplies. Ordinary provisions had become abundant. The adjacent country fed them liberally and supplied many home-made luxuries, not always the best nourishment for a soldier’s life; but it was difficult to persuade the same men that all provisions must enter into a general commissariat, and be issued to all alike; and that such stores must be accumulated, and neither expended lavishly nor sold at a bargain so soon as a surplus remained unexpended. Such articles as cordage, iron, horseshoes, lumber, fire-wood, and every possible thing which might be required for field, garrison, or frontier service, were included in his inventory of essential supplies.

In his personal expenditures of the most trivial item of public property, Washington kept a minute and exact account. Of the single article of powder, he once stated that his chief supply was furnished by the enemy, for, during one period, the armed vessels with which he patrolled the coast captured more powder than Congress had been able to furnish him in several months.