Though Schuyler welcomed the news that more carpenters were headed his way, he told Washington in mid-July 1776 that his army was currently in a poor condition and lacked such basic equipment as entrenching tools.
"The most descriptive pen cannot describe the Condition of our Army—Sickness, Disorder, and Discord reign triumphant: the latter occasioned by an illiberal and destructive Jealousy, which unhappily subsists between the Troops raised in different Colonies . . . Intrenching Tools of every Kind are wanted, no one can tell what is become of them, nor can we find above fifty of the vast Number of Axes that have been sent up—I expected to find a Scarcity of both & before I left this gave Orders for collecting all that could be got: In procuring the former we have had no Success, of the latter something better than three hundred are to be forwarded to Morrow—perhaps the Scarcity of intrenching Tools at New York no longer subsists, if so be pleased to order all that can be spared—Axes I am in hopes to procure"
General Schuyler to General Washington, 13 July 1776