Oftentimes there were difficulties in the hospitality.  “I have been at my prest. quarters since the 1st day of Decr.,” Washington complained to the commissary-general, “and have not a Kitchen to cook a Dinner in, altho’ the Logs have been put together some considerable time by my own Guard.  Nor is there a place at this moment in which a servant can lodge, with the smallest degree of comfort.  Eighteen belonging to my family, and all Mrs. Ford’s, are crowded together in her Kitchen, and scarce one of them able to speak for the cold they have caught.”  Pickering, in telling how he tried to secure lodgings away from head-quarters, gave for his reasons that “they are exceedingly pinched for room....  Had I conceived how much satisfaction, quiet and even leisure, I should have enjoyed at separate quarters, I would have taken them six months ago.  For at head-quarters there is a continual throng, and my room, in particular, (when I was happy enough to get one,) was always crowded by all that came to headquarters on business, because there was no other for them, we having, for the most part, been in such small houses.”

There were other difficulties.  “I cannot get as much cloth,” the general wrote, “as will make cloaths for my servants, notwithstanding one of them that attends my person and table is indecently and most shamefully naked.”  One of his aides said to a correspondent, jocularly, “I take your Caution to me in Regard to my Health very kindly, but I assure you, you need be under no Apprehension of my losing it on the Score of Excess of living, that Vice is banished from this Army and the General’s Family in particular.  We never sup, but go to bed and are early up.”  “Only conceive,” Washington complained to Congress, “the mortification they (even the general officers) must suffer, when they cannot invite a French officer, a visiting friend, or a travelling acquaintance, to a better repast, than stinking whiskey (and not always that) and a bit of Beef without vegetables.”

At times, too, it was necessary to be an exemplar.  “Our truly republican general,” said Laurens, “has declared to his officers that he will set the example of passing the winter in a hut himself,” and John Adams, in a time of famine, declared that “General Washington sets a fine example.  He has banished wine from his table, and entertains his friends with rum and water.”

Whenever it was possible, however, there was company at head-quarters.  “Since the General left Germantown in the middle of September last,” the General Orders once read, “he has been without his baggage, and on that account is unable to receive company in the manner he could wish.  He nevertheless desires the Generals, Field Officers and Brigades Major of the day, to dine with him in future, at three o’clock in the afternoon.”  Again the same vehicle informed the army that “the hurry of business often preventing particular invitations being given to officers to dine with the General; He presents his compliments to the Brigadiers and Field Officers of the day, and requests while the Camp continues settled in the City, they will favor him with their company to dinner, without further or special invitation.”