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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Biographical sketch of Nathanael Greene
Johnson, William, 1771-1834
1822
Volume 15, Pages 182-183

[Extracts from Johnson's Life of Greene, Vol. 2, Page 316.]

“Our troops were never without provisions so much during all last campaign as they have been since Mr. Hart has undertaken the business, and the provisions not more than twenty or thirty miles off. The army went on suffering and complaining, at intervals fed, and at times almost in a state of mutiny, and kept to duty only by alternate soothing and severity. Rum and tobacco, two articles of indispensable necessity to American soldiery, could seldom be commanded, and a very large proportion of the army were in a state of disgusting nakedness. A tattered remnant of some garment, clumsily stuck together with the thorns of the locust tree, formed the sole covering of hundreds. Great

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part of my troops are in a deplorable situation for want of clothing. Not a rag of clothing has come from the North, except a small quantity of linen for the officers. We have three hundred men without arms, and more than 1,000 men are so naked for want of clothing that they can only be put on duty in case of desperate necessity.”