can hardly believe that Washington would venture at this season of the year to pass the Delaware.” No more than “a corporal’s guard” was needed to keep the peace in Jersey. Do not, he urged, make “more of the rebels than they deserve.” To Rall he wrote: I am sorry to hear your brigade has been fatigued or alarmed. You may be assured that the rebel army in Pennsylvania … does not exceed eight thousand men who have neither shoes nor stockings, are in fact almost naked, dying of cold, without blankets, and very ill-supplied with provisions.
