From George Washington to Lieutenant Colonel William Washington, 19 November 1779
To Lieutenant Colonel William Washington
Hd Qurs West Point 19th Novr 1779
Dr Sir,
On the rec’pt of this letter you will be pleased to collect the whole of Baylors regt under your Command & proceed by the most convenient & direct route to Chs Town in South Carolina & put yourself under the orders of the Commanding Officer at the Southward1—As this measure is thought necessary I persuade myself that your activity & dispatch (without injuring your Horse[)] will be equal to the importance of the call—It will be well for you to consult Colo. Biddle or some of His Deputies with respect to the supplies of Forage on the different routes, as the one you fix on must be governed by it—I hope that your cloathing & other matters is in such a state as to prevent any delay—but should this not be the case, you will on your arrival in Philadelphia make application to the Board of War for the Articles you may stand in need of.2 I am with great regard &ca
G.W.
Df, in Richard Kidder Meade’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. GW ordered this cavalry to move in response to a congressional resolution requesting reinforcements for the southern department (see Samuel Huntington to GW, 11 Nov., and n.3).
GW again wrote Washington from West Point on 20 Nov.: “Since my letter of yesterday directing your March to the Southward I have seen Capt. [Cadwallader] Jones of your regiment, who gives me such an account of the periods to which the men stand engaged, that I am now to desire you will suspend your march till further orders, & that you will as soon as possible furnish me with a very particular return of the term of inlistment of each man, including the detachment already at the Southward distinguishing them: also a compleat state of the condition of your Horse—Mens Cloaths, accoutrements &ca” (Df, in Richard Kidder Meade’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW).
2. Washington arrived at Philadelphia by early December. South Carolina delegate John Mathews wrote Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln from Philadelphia on 15 Dec.: “Col. Washington informs me, that about 50 of his men are mounted on heavy waggon horses, totally unfit for the service they are appropriated to, and the State of the Continental Treasury at present, will not admit of purchases to replace such as are unfit” ( 14:258; see also GW to Huntington, 2 Dec.).
Delaware state president Caesar Rodney wrote his brother Thomas from Wilmington on 17 Dec. that “Coll Washington with his regiment of Horse is now here on his way to Charles-Town South Carolina. The North Carolina Troops passed here above a week ago for that place, and the Virginia line are at Philadelphia on their way there” ( 331; see also GW to Thomas Clark, 19 Nov., and notes 2 and 4, and to Samuel Huntington, 29 Nov., and the source note to that document).
The Pennsylvania Evening Post for 10 Jan. 1780 printed a notice dated Baltimore, 28 Dec.: “Since our last about half a squadron of col. Baylor’s light dragoons, under the command of lieut. col. Washington, passed through this town, on their way, it is said, to South Carolina.”