Letters to the Council. 387

allowance, and we have not more than three days bread at a third
allowance on hand, nor any where within reach. When this is
exhausted we must depend on the precarious gleanings of the neigh-
bouring country. Our magazines are absolutely empty every where,
and our commissaries entirely destitute of money or credit to replen-
ish them. We have never experienced a like extremity at any period
of the war. We have often felt temporary want from accidental
delays in forwarding supplies, but we always had something in our
magazines and the means of procuring more. Neither one nor the
other is at present the case. This representation is the result of a
minute examination of our resources. Unless some extraordinary
and immediate exertions are made by the States, from which we
draw our supplies, there is every appearance that the army will infal-
libly disband in a fortnight. I think it my duty to lay this candid
view of our situation before your Excellency, and to intreat the
vigorous interposition of the state to rescue us from the danger of an
event which if it did not prove the total ruin of our affairs, would
a least give them a shock from which they would not easily recover,
and plunge us into a train of new and still more perplexing embar-
rassments than any we have hitherto felt.
I have the honor (.o be with the most perfect regard Your Excel-
lency's Most ob^t Serv^t Go. Washington

Brown
Book I
No. 25

[William Jacob, Baltimore to Gov. Lee.]
[Asks for a captaincy.]

[H. Hollingsworth Head of Elk to the Honble Governor & Council]

And please your Excellency & Honors, Yesterday I rece^d a letter
from the Board of War and another this day relative to the pro-
viding transports for the Troops bound to the southward, inclosed
are Copys of their letters to which I refer to your Honour as the
frost has put it out of my Power to comply with their request, as
all the Vessels I have collected, and all that I could collect are now
froze up in the head of the Bay, fifteen of which I had embark'd
Gen^l Hogans Brigade & Baggage on board of, and now landing them
again on the ice a little above Turkey Point, in order for their going
by land, have Provided Wagons &^ca (at the Generals request who
is indefatiagable to get. forward).
You will observe by the contents of those letters that it is the
opinion of the Honorable Board that the Virginia Troops shall go
by water, and that Vessels be provided for that purpose that a post
be provided that will not freese I sincerely wish I could comply with
their request (but tis dificult) I would therefore advise that the
Vessels be prepared at Annapolis no Port to the North of that will
do, and those of the Eastern shore in particular are improper as the

December
16
Red Book
No. 22
Letter
No. 6
December

21

See
Liber C C

No. 22

p. 48