General Orders, 18 February 1779
General Orders
Head-Quarters Middle-Brook Thursday February 18th 1779.
Parole Sherbon.C. Signs Siam—Stamford.
Lieutenant Colin Coke is appointed Pay-Master of the 2nd Virginia regiment, vice Lieutt Erasmus Gill from the 16th instant.1
Parole Sherbon.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
Adj. Gen. Alexander Scammell’s orderly book entry for this date closes with the following additional general order: “The Court Martial whereof Colo. Hall is President will sit Tomorrrow 10 oClock A.M. at the usual place, for the Trial of Lieut. Pearson of the 6th Virginia Regiment and such others as may come before them” (orderly book, 22 Dec. 1778–26 June 1779, DNA: RG 93, Orderly Books, 1775–1783, vol. 28). For Lt. Thomas Pearson’s arrest, see GW to John Conway, 10 Feb., and n.1 to that document. For his trial and conviction on 23 Feb., see General Orders, 19 Feb., source note, and General Orders, 3 March.
1. Colin Cocke had been commissioned an ensign in the 6th Virginia Regiment in March 1776 and was promoted to second lieutenant in August 1776 and to first lieutenant in February 1777. He transferred to the 2d Virginia Regiment in September 1778. Promoted to captain in December 1779, Cocke was captured with most of the rest of the Virginia line at Charleston, S.C., on 12 May 1780 and was exchanged in November 1782.
Erasmus Gill (1752–1807), who had entered the 2d Virginia Regiment as a private sometime early in the war, was appointed an ensign in that regiment in November 1776 and promoted to second lieutenant in June 1777. He eventually became first lieutenant. At this time Gill was leaving the 2d Virginia Regiment to become a cornet in the 4th Continental Light Dragoon Regiment. He subsequently was promoted to captain of the dragoons and served until January 1783, when he was displaced in a reorganization of the corps (see Gill to Congress, 4 May 1783, DNA:PCC, item 41, and Anthony Wayne to GW, 1 Nov. 1783, DNA:PCC, item 152).