To George Washington from the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, 4 April 1780
From the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council
In Council Philadelphia April 4th 1780
Sir
By a late Act of Assembly of this state for procuring a supply of flour, hay, short forage, salt, and rum, for the use of the Continental Army, the Supreme Executive, are authorized and impowered to have the same conveyed to such posts and places within the state, as your Excellency shall direct and appoint.1 Our purchasers being appointed, and acting in their several Offices,2 it now becomes necessary for me to request your Excellency to make the above appointment.
The great expenditure of provisions and forage, in this state, and particularly in this City, will we fear soon consume the whole supply, if it could be procured before the next harvest, but as this cannot be done, it will be the more incumbent, to use the utmost œconomy in the present distribution, and as General Greene is on the spot we shall communicate fully to him our sentiments, not doubting his concurrence, and your Excellencys approbation, in the retrenchment of every unnecessary expence.3 The daily consumption of hay in this place, is rated at ten tons upon the calculation of fourteen pounds weight of hay, to each horse, there must [be]4 fourteen hundred horses fed in this City who will require near four thousand tons in the year, Whereas the whole demand for the state is but seventeen hundred tons.
We flatter our selves that we shall be able to collect our full proportion, and that in the mode of conducting the business it will not be found necessary, to keep up so many posts in the Country which consume the supplies in a very great proportion.
Agreeable to your Excellencys desire last fall, we sent notices into every part of the Country for the Officers on parole to go to New York, we do not know of any who being in the enemies list, have refused or neglected except Colonel Hannum of Chester County whose reasons are set forth in the enclosed papers which I send for your Excellencys perusal and Consideration5—and am with every sentiment of respect and regard Your Excellencys most obedient and very humble servant
Jos: Reed President
LS, DLC:GW; Df, PHarH: Records of Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Governments, 1775–90.
GW replied to Joseph Reed, president of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, from Morristown on 9 April: “I have had the Honor to receive Your Excellency’s Letter of the 4th with the Inclosures. I had several days previous to the receipt of it, taken into consideration the Act of Congress of the 25 of February and fixed on the places in Your State, which appeared proper for collecting the Stores at, as Your Excellency will find by the Letter which accompanies this, but was induced to defer the communication till now, as I thought something possibly might cast up at the southward or some material movement or demonstration take place in this quarter, which might assist in determining with respect to the places of Deposit with more propriety. Every degree of economy in the expenditure of our Stores will be certainly necessary as You observe & I am persuaded General Greene will concur with You in any measures which can be adopted consistently to produce this in the instances You mention” (DfS, in Robert Hanson Harrison’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW; see also n.5 below, and Circular to the States, 26 March, and notes 1 and 2 to that document).
The minutes for the meeting of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council on 11 April read: “Two letters were received from his Excellency General Washington, one dated the twenty-sixth day of March, and the Other the Ninth day of April; in the former, the posts for receiving supplies are pointed out as follows, Vizt: Easton, Reading, Lancaster, Estherton, York, Carli[sl]e, Sunbury, Bedford, Ligonier, Philadelphia.
“All the imported Rum & Salt, One thousand Tons of Hay, and half the short forage, to be deposited at Philadelphia” (, 12:312–13; see also Reed to GW, 18 April).
1. Section eight of “An ACT for procuring a supply of Provisions and other Necessaries for the use of the Army,” which the Pennsylvania legislature passed on 23 March, empowered “the Commander in Chief” to “appoint and direct” places of deposit (, 357–61).
2. For the persons appointed “Commissioners of purchases,” see , 12:302–3.
3. In his letter to Reed written at Philadelphia on 5 April, Q.M. Gen. Nathanael Greene indicated “the districts in which, and the persons to whom it will be requisite to deliver Forage for the immediate subsistence of the public horses in this State” (, 1st ser., 8:165; see also , 12:305–6, and , 5:508).
4. This word appears on the draft manuscript.
5. The enclosed papers related to Col. John Hannum’s complicated parole case have not been identified, but see Board of General Officers to GW, 28 June 1779, and n.2 to that document, and GW to John Beatty, 12 July 1779, and notes 2 and 3 to that document.