'His wife and child had died of smallpox, and he, sick of living alone in the dark woods, had come to Philadelphia, taken works as a hand in a flour mill, and there joined the Associators. Armed with a long rifle, clad in buckskin leggings and a hunting shirt, he almost alone in that motley group of militia appeared fitted for the business on which they were embarked. He took a liking to Paine, if for no other reason than that Paine continued to carry his own musket. He said to him once, in his slow, back-country drawl:
"Citizen, what do you think of our little war?"
"Things start slowly," Paine said.
"Yes but I reckon I seldom seen a seedier lot of fighting men."
"Well, give them time -- you don't make soldiers overnight. And you don't make a new world in one day."
....
Meanwhile, Washington had split his army, placing half his men in Brooklyn to stave off a flank attack that might isolate him on the slim ridge of Manhattan.
(Howard Fast, Citizen Tom Paine, pp. 124-5)