General Orders, 6 June 1779
General Orders
Head-Quarters Slott’s1 [N.Y.] Sunday June 6th 1779.
Parole Philadelphia—C. Signs Peeks-Kill—Poland.
The Pennsylvania division is to take post at June’s2 or in the Vicinity according to the situation of ground &c. & send a light party of three or four hundred men into the passage of the mountain, at the cross roads, where Colo. Malcom is, there to remain ’till further orders.
The Virginia division to move to Smith’s tavern3—Baron De Kalb’s division (except the two companies of Light Infantry ordered therefrom, which are to remain at Suffren’s) to move on by way of Slott’s and Galloway’s4 & join the other troops: The whole to move at the rising of the moon.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
Adj. Gen. Alexander Scammell’s orderly book entry for this date includes the following additional general order: “A Subaltern Serjt Corpl & twenty men from the Virginia line to mount immediately at the Commander in Chief’s Quarters at Slott’s” (orderly book, 22 Dec. 1778–26 June 1779, DNA: RG 93, Orderly Books, 1775–1783, vol. 28).
GW’s aide-de-camp Richard Kidder Meade received money from Maj. Caleb Gibbs on 7 June and paid $10 “at Slotes for Lodging & Milk” (Revolutionary War Accounts, Vouchers, and Receipted Accounts 1, 1776–1780, DLC:GW, Ser. 5).
1. Scammell’s orderly book entry for this date reads “Slott’s-House” (orderly book, 22 Dec. 1778–26 June 1779, DNA: RG 93, Orderly Books, 1775–1783, vol. 28).
Stephen Slot (Slott, Slote, Sloat) had built a house and tavern in 1755 at the Ramapo Pass in Orange County, N.Y., which is now part of Rockland County. The structures were situated about two miles from the New Jersey border near the intersection of the rather winding road from Ringwood, N.J., and the road from Suffern, N.Y., through Smiths Clove. At this junction, the location of present-day Sloatsburg, a single road continued in a northerly direction into New York toward West Point, New Windsor, and Newburgh.
2. Zebert June kept a tavern in Orange County along the road through Smiths Clove roughly ten miles north of Slot’s house and tavern. At June’s tavern, another road led southeast through the mountains to Haverstraw, New York.
3. Smith’s tavern was located in Orange County on the east side of the road about two miles north of June’s tavern.
4. Galloways was along the road through Smiths Clove about five miles from Slot’s house and tavern, making it approximately the halfway point between that place and June’s tavern to the north.