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Show -5- each and saluting junior officers as he passed. The regiment arrived at Spring Glen the afternoon of August 22, 1777. The roisterous welcome they received was totally unexpected as the wild, frontier militiamen from Virginia and Pennsylvania began yelling and firing their muskets in the air. The camp was, as Major Avery described it exactly, in an entry dated August 23, 1777, "totally filthy." "Soldiers relieved themselves wherever they happened to be, and left a litter of filth, bones, and offal over the bivouac area. There was no set arrangement of tents and huts. Kitchens and latrines were placed side by side as fancy dictated." He further describes his first impressions of other soldiers he saw there. "The descriptions of dress is most easily given. Some of the men from far colonies were literally naked, some of them in the fullest extend of the word. The officers who had coats had them of every color and make. I saw officers at parade dressed in a sort of dressing gown made of an old blanket or woolen bed cover." Major Avery continued, explaining the chaotic camp life and the attempt of continental army officers to try and whip the militiamen into some semblance of an army. These officers failed miserably because of the contempt they held for the "rabble" who made up the militia. One regular brigadier told Col. Greene that all militiamen were "untrustworthy, undisciplined, and no better than a mob." He felt that in a fight with British regulars they would break and run. Major Avery made only three more entries in his diary. One dated September 9, 1777, vividly portrayed the mixed feelings of the |