One in an occasional series

The music of a single violin floats over the dark, frozen hillsides like a memory of warmth, sad and sweet.

It drifts over ragged tents, over unfinished wooden huts, over smoky fires where soldiers huddle against the cold until their eyes water from the stinging smoke and they have to turn their faces into the bitter wind.

The date is Dec. 23, 1777. Despite the efforts of the solitary violinist, there is little cheer among the soldiers of the Continental Army, encamped for the winter at Valley Forge.

In his tent, Albigence Waldo, 27, a regimental surgeon from Connecticut, hears the music and records his thoughts in his diary:

"This evening an excellent Player on the Violin in that soft kind of Musick... which is so finely adapted to stir up the tender Passions... was playing in the next Tent to mine... soft Airs [that] immediately called up in remembrance all the endearing expressions, the Tender Sentiments, the sympathetic friendship that has given so much satisfaction and sensible pleasure to me from the first time I gained the heart & affections of the tenderest of the Fair... I wish'd to have the Musick Cease, and yet dreaded its ceasing, least I should loose sight of these dear Ideas... . "

The ragged army limped into Valley Forge - almost literally, since so many of the soldiers lack decent shoes - on Dec. 19, after a hard stretch of fighting and marching dating back to late August.

The soldiers are ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-shod - and occasionally restive. The music that so moves Albigence Waldo is a momentary counterpoint to a more piteous "confused Musick" that the troops had raised two nights before when they cawed and hooted like crows and owls and chanted ominously: "No meat! No meat!"

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Not far from where Albigence Waldo sits entranced by the melancholy violin notes and Continental soldiers call out for meat, the commander-in-chief is fretting over his tattered force.

It has been a long four months for George Washington and his soldiers since Sir William Howe showed up with a Redcoat army in the upper Chesapeake Bay late in August.

Since then, the Americans have lost two major battles to the British and seen Howe occupy Philadelphia. Those reversals are all the more galling because the Continental Army has been hampered throughout the campaign by a supply crisis that threatens to get worse now that winter has set in.

In a bitter letter to Congress, Washington warns that "unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place [in the supply system], this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can... ."

So serious has the lack of shoes and clothing become, Washington writes, that nearly 3,000 soldiers are "unfit for duty because they are bare foot and otherwise naked."

As the words spill onto the paper, Washington gets hotter and hotter, complaining that he has been blamed unfairly "not only by the common vulgar, but those in power" for the army's failure to move more aggressively against the British.

"It is time to speak plain in exculpation of myself," Washington fumes. "With truth then I can declare that, no Man, in my opinion, ever had his measures more impeded than I have, by every department of the Army."

Washington pins the supply problems on former quartermaster general Thomas Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, who resigned on Nov. 7 to become a member of the newly created Board of War, which is to supervise the operations of the Continental Army for Congress.

"Since the month of July, we have had no assistance from the Quarter Master Genl.," Washington complains.

The general also aims some unkind words at political leaders in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who have been pressing him to keep the army in the field throughout the winter, to protect their states from further depredation by British troops - as if a winter campaign were an easy thing.

"I can assure those gentlemen," Washington wrote, "that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fire side than to occupy a cold bleak hill and sleep under frost and Snow without Cloaths or Blankets."

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The Continental Army has come to occupy the cold, bleak hills of Valley Forge because of location: close enough to Philadelphia (18 miles) to keep an eye on the British army occupying the city, not crowded with refugees from Philadelphia and well-suited to defense.

Unfortunately, there is no shelter at Valley Forge. In his general orders to the army on Dec. 17, Washington adopts an encouraging tone: "We must make ourselves the best shelter in our power. With activity and diligence Huts may be erected that will be warm and dry."

This was not exactly what the troops wanted to hear. "In our miserable condition, to go into the wild woods and build us habitations to stay (not to live) in, in such a weak, starved and naked condition, was appaling in the highest degree," recalls Joseph Plumb Martin, a teenage soldier from Connecticut.

Martin has seen some heavy fighting in the last few months, but never experienced anything like the hunger than gnaws at him now.

"We were now in absolute danger of perishing, and that, too, in the midst of a plentiful country," Martin remembers years later. "We had then but little, and often nothing to eat for days together."

Really bad weather - and the weather has not been that bad so far - or an attack by the British might destroy the army. Worst of all, many civilians seem to care nothing for the hardships of the soldiers.

But fortunately, the worst did not occur.

"A kind and holy Providence took more notice and better care of us than did the country in whose service we were wearing away our lives by piecemeal," Martin would remember ruefully.

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His troops know that politicians have been complaining about Washington's generalship. Waldo finds the criticism baseless. Washington's "conduct when closely scrutinized is uncensurable," according to the doctor.

But not everyone at Valley Forge is as loyal to Washington.

Among the officers in camp is Maj. Gen. Thomas Conway, a French citizen of Irish birth who is serving in the Continental Army.

Conway, an ambitious schemer who has gotten himself appointed inspector general of the army, is only too happy to foster discontent. Conway may well want to see Washington replaced by Gen. Horatio Gates, who won a stunning victory over the British at Saratoga, N.Y., in October.

Washington despises Conway, and his relations with the new inspector general are colder than the wind blowing off the Schuylkill.

Is Conway really plotting against Washington?

Next time: The Conway Cabal.

Contact Michael D. Schaffer at 215-854-2537 or mschaffer@phillynews.com.