General Orders, 4 August 1778
General Orders
Head-Quarters White-Plains Tuesday Augt 4th 78.
Parole Bloomendale—C. Signs Andover. Croten.
The sixth Virginia Regiment being ordered to join the Tenth in the Arrangement of the Brigades was a Mistake—it is to continue with the second as usual.1
All Officers commanding Regiments having men who from their state of health will not be fit for active service in a short time are desired to make a return of them to the Orderly-Office that those proper for the Purpose may be draughted to join the Invalid Corps under Colonel Nichola in Philadelphia.2
The several Regimental Pay-Masters are requested to make out a list of the Prisoners, Deserters and dead men belonging to their respective Regiments immediately, together with the sums that are due each, & file the same with the Auditors, who will give them directions in what manner their Accompts are to be made out, in order that the same may be adjusted and settled without delay.3
Varick transcript, DLC:GW. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln’s orderly book for this date records: “For Detachment General Muhlenburgh[,] Colonels Humpton Van Schaick[,] Lt Colonels Allison Russel[,] Majors Adams Torrey” (MHi: Lincoln Papers). The instructions that were issued to Brig. Gen. Peter Muhlenberg on this date (DLC:GW) are identical in content to those issued to Brig. Gen. James Clinton on 31 July. The detachment left White Plains about five p.m. and returned on 7 August. For a brief record of their movements, see 83.
1. GW’s general orders of 22 July listed Col. John Gibson’s 6th Virginia Regiment and Col. John Green’s 10th Virginia Regiment as “joined.”
2. In a letter of 28 July, Richard Peters of the Board of War had requested that GW issue such an order.
3. An additional paragraph appears at this point in the orderly book of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln: “Wanted for the auditors office in the grand army two persons who can write a good hand and are well acquainted with Ac[coun]ts—None need apply but such as can be well recommended for their honesty, Industry, and Sobriety—a handsome salary will be given” (MHi: Lincoln Papers).