28, Tuesday. Promised the men if they would tarry
another month, they should have my wages for that time.
===============NATHAN HALE.=====

These brief quotations, proving as they do Hale's
intense devotion to duty, and his practical efforts
to hold his men to their duty, show how clearly he
understood the tremendous responsibility resting
upon the commander-in-chief as given in Washington's
own words in letters to friends and to Congress,
soon to be quoted; and that, known or
unknown to Washington, there were men among
his officers fully aware of the condition of the army,
and as anxious to serve it as was their magnificent
leader.

We here quote from Washington's letters; the
first one was written to a friend:

I know the unhappy predicament in which I stand; I
know that much is expected of me; I know that without
men, without arms, without ammunition, without anything
fit for the accommodation of a soldier, little is to be done,
and what is mortifying, I know that I cannot stand justified
to the world without exposing my own weakness, and injuring
the cause, by declaring my wants which I am determined
not to do farther than unavoidable necessity
brings every man acquainted with them. My situation is
so irksome to me at times, that if I did not consult the
public good more than my own tranquillity, I should long
ere this have put everything on the cast of a die. So far

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