1From George Washington to Colonel Alexander Spotswood, 8 April 1777 (Washington Papers)
I am sorry to find by your Letter of yesterdays date that your Regiment is so much reduced —Let me beseech you to use every possible means to collect your Men together, & not suffer some to be in one place, some in another &ca—and let me also entreat you, to charge your Recruiting Officers in explicit, and positive terms to be exceedingly attentive to that duty, as idleness and dissipation...