To George Washington from the Greenwich Committee of Safety, 20 August 1776
From the Greenwich Committee of Safety
Greenwich in the State of Connecticut
Augt 20th 1776.
Sir
The Authority Selectmen & Comttee of this Town have yesterday reced from his Honor the Governor of sd state, a requisition dated the 12th instant, to embody all the householders not obliged to do duty in any Training Band, in order to march forthwith to N. York to Join the Army under your Excellency’s Command. we thereupon warned all the able Bodied men in the Town to assemble at 6 O’Clock this morning, but as the mallitia is already gone into the service, & this Town hath been pretty much drained of men in the progress of the war, we find there are now but few fit to go, & those few badly Equipped, the householders having been at different times Striped of their fire Arms to supply those who turned out in the Defence of their Country. All which being maturely considered by the sd Authority &ca it was Judged most proper to advise your Excellency of our difficulties, in order to know from yr Excelly whether the service requires the whole of the few Men remaining in this Town to be raised immediately, & if so whether they can be supplied with Arms on their arrival at York.
As the Bearer, Doctor Mead a Member of the Comttee will deliver this,1 we think it superfluous to add any more further than that we are with the greatest Esteem Your Excellency’s Obedt huml. servts
John Mackay Chairman pro: Temp.
LS, in John Mackay’s writing, DLC:GW.
1. Amos Mead (1730–1807), a physician who had served as a surgeon with the Connecticut troops at Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War, was a member of the general assembly from 1770 to 1776, 1778 to 1781, 1785, 1787 to 1788, and 1790 to 1793. He was also a member of the Connecticut Ratifying Convention in 1788.