From George Washington to Major General Robert Howe, 30 March 1780
To Major General Robert Howe
Head Qrs Morris Town March 30: 1780
Dr Sir
From the diminution of our force at the Highlands by the expiration of the service of many of the Troops & which will become still greater from the same cause, and the possibility that the Enemy may attempt to enterprize something against the posts there—I have determined to bring the New-Hampshire Brigade from Danbury to reinforce you—The inclosed Letter to the Commanding Officer there, You will perceive, is for this purpose which you will be pleased to seal & transmit after you have made proper arrangements for quartering them.1 If there are Barracks & Covering sufficient on this side the River at West point, for One of the Massachusetts Brigades stationed on the Other—it appears to me that it will be best to remove it & for the New Hampshire to occupy the Quarters they leave. This however is an arrangement of the propriety of which You will finally decide yourself as circumstances may seem to require.
I am exceedingly pained to find that such a spirit for resigning seems to have taken place in the Massachusetts line. Not less than twelve Officers, Captains, Lieuts. & Ensigns have left it in this way, since the 1st of January—Two thirds of them in the course of a few days past—& I have now before me Four or five applications more for the same purpose I trust that this conduct will be better considered of and that there will be no more resignations.2 Besides the injury which must arise to the service from the practice—the Officers who pursue it will illy requite the measures, which it is said, the State have lately adopted for their relief.3
I have received Your Favors of the 25 & 27 Instant. If the proposed Exchange of Regiments between Majors Maxwell & Ballard is4 agreeable to themselves and to the Officers of the respective Regiments—I dont know that there can be any objection to it. The exchange however should be the effect of such an agreement or it may become a subject of some trouble hereafter.5 I am Dr sir, with great regard Yr Most Obedt st
G.W.
P.S. I am extremely anxious to have the New Hampshire Troops at the Highland posts—as soon as it can be done—and request You will have the place for their reception & accomodation ready for them as soon as circumstances will admit.6
Df, in Robert Hanson Harrison’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
Howe replied to GW from the Highlands, N.Y., on 3 April: “Your Excellencys favour of the 30th of march reachd me Yesterday Evening, by which I have the satisfaction to find my self invested with the powers I requested in my letter of Yesterday morning of Calling down Poors Brigade to this Post, the propriety of which Every Circumstance Justifies. I am in hopes this letter will catch major Beauman [Bauman] at West Point before he sets out as I send it over so Early” (ALS, DLC:GW; see also Howe to GW, 2 and 3 April).
1. GW enclosed a letter to Brig. Gen. Enoch Poor or the officer commanding his brigade, written at Morristown on this date: “The diminution of the force at the Highland posts, by the expiration of the terms of the inlistment of the troops stationed there last Fall, makes it necessary that the New Hampshire Brigade should move to West point or its vicinity—Major General Howe will inform you when he will have quarters ready for the reception of the Brigade, and you will be pleased to march when he shall give you orders” (Df, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW).
Pvt. Zebulon Vaughan of the 5th Massachusetts Regiment, then stationed at West Point, recorded in his diary entry for 8 April the arrival of Poor’s brigade on that date (see 331).
2. An undated document titled “Resignations of Officers received & entered at Head Qrs since the 1st of January 1780” in the writing of GW’s secretary Robert Hanson Harrison showed that twenty-five officers from the Massachusetts line resigned between 1 Jan. and 28 April (DNA:PCC, item 152; see also the editorial essay “Officer Resignations, 10 March–10 May 1780” and associated documents following this letter).
3. GW probably is referring to a resolution the Massachusetts legislature adopted on 12 Jan. to guide a “Committee appointed to settle with the Army” and “to make good to the officers and soldiers of this State’s quota of the Continental army, the wages first promised to them” (, 188; see also a related resolution passed on 14 Jan. in , 195).
4. At this place on the draft, Harrison wrote and then struck out “perfectly.”
5. Howe had written GW from the Highlands, N.Y., on 27 March: “I inclose you a Letter from Col. Badlam respecting an Exchange betwixt the Majors Ballard & Maxwell.
“Your Excellency will perceive by the ⟨T⟩enour of Badlam’s Letter, that this is wish’d for by ⟨the⟩ commandg Officers of their Battns, & by the Officers ⟨in⟩ general, whom it immediately concerns” (LS, torn along the left margin, DLC:GW). The enclosed letter from Lt. Col. Ezra Badlam to Howe, written at West Point, N.Y., on 14 March, reads: “As all the Gentlemen Officers belonging to the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment are very desirous that Major Maxwell be appointed Major to said regiment Could wish if consistent that your honour would be pleased to order, that Major Maxwell be appointed to join the 2nd Regiment, although he is commissioned to the 15th yet by an agreement, between Colo. Bailey who commands the 2nd & Colo. Biglow (who commands the 1[5]th[)] he is to join Colo. Bailey’s in conseqence of Col. Baileys & Biglows agreement. The council of Massachusetts state have granted a warrant, to Major Ballard, to be commissioned to the 15th & his Warrant is sent to the Honorable Board of War so their (in my opinion) no doubt but he will be commissioned to the 15th. Colo. Biglow is well satisfied with Major Ballard & Colo. Bailey wishes for Major Maxwell” (DLC:GW). Maj. Hugh Maxwell switched to Col. John Bailey’s 2d Massachusetts Regiment. Maj. William Hudson Ballard served in Col. Timothy Bigelow’s 15th Massachusetts Regiment.
6. GW sent duplicates of this letter and its enclosure when he wrote Howe on 1 April.