Mindful of the need to maintain strong public support for the Patriot cause, Washington prohibited his soldiers from unlawfully appropriating any items of private property.
"The General most earnestly recommends, & requires of all the Officers, that they be exceeding diligent and strict in preventing all Invasions and Abuse of private property in their quarters, or elsewhere[.] he hopes, and indeed flatters himself, that every private soldier will detest, and abhor such practices, when he considers, that it is for the preservaton of his own Rights, Liberty and Property, and those of his Fellow Countrymen, that he is now called into service: that it is unmanly and sully’s the dignity of the great cause, in which we are all engaged, to violate that property, he is called to protect, and especially, that it is most cruel and inconsistant, thus to add to the Distresses of those of their Countrymen, who are suffering under the Iron hand of oppression."
General George Washington, General Orders, 5 July 1775founders.archives.gov
https://history.army.mil/Publications/Publications-Catalog/The-Canadian-Campaign/