Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 8).djvu/126

122 as appalling as the former scarcity of every needful thing. As rapidly as conditions permitted, General Butler wrought a certain kind of order out of the chaos, but not a kind that augured well for the future. That could hardly have been expected. In one way or another various craft were knocked together, filled, and set afloat in good hope of reaching Fort Washington. June dragged by, and July. August found Butler and Quartermaster-general Hodgdon still at Pittsburg, and it was not until the twenty-sixth of that month that the last of the army began the voyage southward—sixty precious days late.

On July 21 Secretary Knox wrote St. Clair at Fort Washington: "The president is greatly anxious that the campaign be distinguished by decisive measures." A letter of August 4 reads: "The president still continues anxious that you should, at the earliest moment, commence your operations;" and another under the date of September 1 reads: "[The president] therefore enjoins you, by every principle that is sacred, to stimulate your operations in the highest degree, and to move as rapidly as