General Orders, 18 August 1778
General Orders
Head-Quarters W. Plains Tuesday August 18th 1778.
Parole Cadwallader—C. Signs Concord Crosswicks.
A board of General Officers to consist of Majr General McDougall, Brigadiers General Parsons and Knox to sit tomorrow morning at ten ôClock at Genl Smallwood’s large Marquee to hear the Claims of the Officers in the Maryland Line respecting their Rank and to make such Arrangement of the same as they shall think right which they are to report to the Commander in Chief—In order to facilitate the business, three officers are to be chosen by that line out of those who were in the Regiment formerly commanded by General Smallwood, the Independent Companies and Flying Camp, to attend the board and represent the Claims and Pretensions of the Rest who have been respectively promoted from those Corps into the present Battalions from that State.1
The Commander in Chief will also lay such Papers before the board as have been transmitted to him by the State upon the subject; and they will besides call upon such Persons as they may judge necessary to give Information on the Points in question.
Lieutenant John Potter is appointed Pay-Master in Colonel Wood’s Regiment of Militia.2
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. The board of general officers reported on 7 Sept., ranking seven colonels, five lieutenant colonels, five majors, thirty-two captains, forty-one first lieutenants, thirty-two second lieutenants, and thirty-eight ensigns (DNA: RG 93, War Department Collection of Revolutionary War Records, Revolutionary War Rolls, Maryland).
2. John Potter (1746–1818), who was commissioned as a first lieutenant of the 4th Worcester County Regiment of Massachusetts militia in 1777, served as a lieutenant in Col. Ezra Wood’s regiment of militia from June 1778 to January 1779.