If historiographers should be hardy enough to fill the page
of history with the advantages that have been gained with
unequal numbers (on the part of America) in the course
of this contest, and attempt to relate the distressing
circumstances under which they have been obtained, it
is more than probable that posterity will bestow on their
labors the epithet and marks of fiction; for it will not be
believed that such a force as Great Britain has employed
for eight years in this country could be baffled, in their
plan of subjugating it, by numbers infinitely less, composed
of men oftentimes half starved, always in rags, without pay,
and experiencing, at times, every species of distress which
human nature is capable of undergoing.
-GEORGE WASHINGTON TO NATHANAEL GREENE
February 6, 1783