" We are requested by the Generals of our State to inform you of the "absolute necessity our troops are in for want of Clothing." -- (Charles D. Witt, Robert Barper, and Lewis Graham to the President of the New York Convention, " White Plains, October 24, 1776.")

" The Colonel and Major Barber came here, last evening ; and the "Regiment is now within a few miles of this place, marching with " cheerfulness ; but great part of the men [are] barefooted and barelegged." (Richard Stockton to Abram Clark, " Saratoga, October 28 "1776.")

» Vide pages 223, 224, ante.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

the term of service of very many of them had nearly expired ; ' and, very largely, that short term was made very much shorter by shameful desertions.' There was no harmony of sentiment, no common feeling of patriotism, no sympathy with each other as fellowcountrymen engaged in a common cause, in any portion of the Army. The Eastern troops were stigmatized as, generally, nothing else than a mass of speculating poltroons, for which, very often, there was abundant reason ; 3 and they, reciprocated the illfeeling of those from the Middle and Southern States, by branding them as " Aristocrats " and " Maccaronis "--the former of the two sobriquets in allusion to the distinctions of rank which were maintained among those troops, so different from the practice of the New Englahders ; the latter, in contemptuous reference to the Regiments, from the Middle and Southern States, who were uniformed, well-equipped,