To George Washington from Brigadier General Peter Muhlenberg, 8 May 1780
From Brigadier General Peter Muhlenberg
Fredericksburg [Va.] May the 8th 1780
Sir
I was honor’d with Your Excellency’s favor of the 20th of April by the last post, and have carried the Orders into execution as far as possible.
I am sorry it is not in my power to give Your Excellency a more favorable Account of the situation of Affairs here, relative to the Recruits and Draffts—On my arrival in Virginia1 I found the Governor was Absent from Williamsburg on a visit to Albemarle, but was expected in a short time, either at Williamsburg or Richmond—I waited on him at the last place in the beginning of April,2 producd my Instructions from the Board of War; and agreeable to those Instructions requested his advice, which I receivd in writing—A Copy of which I do myself the honor to enclose3—finding that little could be expected from the Draffts and no Money in the Treasury to carry on the Recruiting Business properly, I wrote to the Honble Board of War at Philadelphia, enclosd a Copy of the Governors Letter & requested further Instructions, but have not yet receivd an Answer4—On the 20th of April I wrote to the Governor, proposing Rocky Ridge a town opposite Richmond for the place of General Rendezvous, & Winchester and Fredericksburg as by posts for the recruits to collect in small numbers—I further proposd as there was a favorable prospect of Recruiting (:one Officer having enlisted near thirty in this Town in a short time:) I should call in all the Officers of the Virginia Line on Continental establishment, who were at present off duty—appoint their districts & send them out to recruit & collect the Deserters, provided the Treasury could furnish Money—I receivd the Governors Answer on the first of May, approving my proposals as far as related to the recruiting Business, but Objected to having Rocky ridge appointed for a Genl Rendezvous it being unhealthy and too near the Seat of Government, and proposd Chesterfield as a healthy and convenient Situation—this place I have accordingly appointed For the General Rendezvous5—I have now by Advertisement ordered the Officers to Assemble at this place imediately, to receive Money & Recruiting Instructions, & I flatter myself they will have more success then was at first expected.6
Before the receipt of Your Excellencys Letter I had allready wrote to the State Board of War, requesting the removal of the Sick from Petersburg, to Rocky Ridge or, some other convenient & healthy place.7 Doctor Brown was with me a few days ago, who approves the place with regard to its healthiness, We have wrote Jointly to Doctor Rickman, who is at the Head of the Medical Department in this State desiring him to provide the Sick with Surgeons & other necessaries—as soon as I receive a Return of the Sick from Doctor Rickman, agreeable to my request I shall transmit it to Your Excellency, from what I can learn their number does not exceed twenty8—I have likewise wrote to Colo. Davies, desiring him to repair to Rocky ridge & take the Superintendance of that post, agreeable to Your Excellencys Instructions—but by a Letter I receivd from the Governor Yesterday I find Colo. Davies is allready at Petersburg, I have therefore wrote him to day to remove the Sick to Chesterfield agreeable to the Governors Letter9—There are a Number of the old Soldiers who were reinlisted and furlowd who are not yet returnd, some of them I expect would be inducd to return, if promisd a pardon from Your Excellency—as soon as the numbers of Recruits amount to fifty, I shall order them on imediately.
The last Authentic Accounts we have from Charlestown are from the 17th of April when every thing was safe. The town was summoned on the 10th both the Summons & answer are in town but I could not procure them—else should have transmitted them to Your Excellency.10
As soon as the Officers are Assembled I shall send The return, with what pay is due them, to the Board of War in Philadelphia—unless Your Excellency should think it more convenient for them to draw their pay in the State, as The Governor has been pleasd to promise his Assistance if necessary; In his last Letter he writes, “As to the pay of the Officers left in this State, the poverty of the Continental Treasury shall not prevent their receiving it, if You will procure Authority for them to apply to the General Paymaster here or any other single person, whose receipt shall be so authoritative as to vouch our paying him Monies for that purpose and charging them to the Continent”—The 1st and 2d State Regiments are at present collecting at Williamsburg, I wrote to The Honble Board of War in Philadelphia at The request of the Governor, for Orders to send them on to Charlestown; on the 15th of April, but have not yet receivd an Answer11—both Regiments will have about 350 for the War, I have wrote to the Commanding Officers for returns & shall transmit them to Your Excellency by the next post—I this Moment, just as the post is going out, have obtaind a Copy of Clintons Summons12 together with the extract of a Letter from Parson Hurt at Charlestown.13 “All our Light Horse were Surprisd on Friday 14th of April, just before day, which has causd such a horrid tale to get abroad, that I think I shall give You pleasure in letting You know, Six or Seven Men were lost, The Major of Pulaskies killd, Captn Yancey and one or two others made prisoners—Cols. Washington Jameson &a are safe—some troops and a good deal of Baggage was taken.[”]14 I have the honor to be with great Respect Your Excellencys Most Obedt hble Servt
P: Muhlenberg
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. Muhlenberg’s father did not receive confirmation of his son’s safe arrival in Virginia from Philadelphia until 27 April, when he learned that the general and his family “had suffered a great deal on the journey and found everything in confusion at their residence.” Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg specified the death of his son’s “two best horses,” the loss of half his son’s cattle during the winter, and a travel expenditure of £10,000 (, 3:314).
2. For the transfer of the Virginia government from Williamsburg to Richmond, see Benjamin Harrison to GW, 6–10 May, n.3.
3. Muhlenberg enclosed a copy of a letter from Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson to him written at Richmond on 10 April: “The State of the recruiting business in this Country is as follows. There are some, draughted Soldiers in different parts of the Country, but they are so few, so dispersed, & enlisted for so short a time that we have not thought them worth the expence of gathering up. There is recruits raising under a standing law concerning Officers, Soldiers, Sailors & Marines, these are enlisted for the War, by a person resident in each County, we have an Officer appointed who rides the circuit of the county once in two months to receive these Men at certain places of Rendivous, he has just finished his Circuit, and we have sent on about fifty of these recruits under the command of Captn ——Minnis to the Southward. All the Officers of the Virginia Line now in the State, who have (according to a request of the executive) applied for recruiting instructions & Money, have received them. These have been given with a particular view of reenlisting such Soldiers of their respective Regiments; as are discharged, or entitled to a discharge. I hear they are tolerably successfull; as to the 1st & 2nd State Regiments particularly, there not having been money in the treasury enough to reenlist them at the time they became entitled to discharges, their Officers (as I am informed) postponed paying them off, gave them furloughs to visit their friends till the 1st of May, at which time they were to Rendivous at Williamsburg & Fredericksburg, and it was hoped money would then be ready for reenlisting them, in the Mean-time considerable sums have been furnished the Officers, and more will be provided, and there is good reason to hope this Judicious [measure] of their officers will enable us to recover most of them. Colo. Harrisson’s Regiment of Artillery is very considerably recruited. Under the preceding state of things, I do not know of any immediate Services with which we need to trouble you; perhaps you could be instrumental in giting orders from the proper authority for such of the above Regiments, as are not yet ordered to the Southward to March thither by fifties as fast as they are recruited—we have such orders for all other new recruits not yet regimented; but I do not consider those as orders authorising the March of Men raised by the Officers of a particular Battalion for their Battalion, and that not under Marching orders” (DLC:GW; see also another version of this letter dated 12 April in , 3:351–52).
4. Muhlenberg is referring to a letter he wrote from Fredericksburg on 15 April to the Board of War: “Enclosd I have the Honor to transmit You the Opinion of the Governor of this State relative to the business I was sent on.
“it seems the Regiments are to be filld up by voluntary enlistments, and a few Draughts, who are yet to collect from the Counties who were deficient last draught The numbers are small, and an Officer is appointed by the Government of the State to Collect them; who I am yet to believe will meet with little Success—severall Gentlemen of Consequence inform me, that if it should appear the Recruits cannot be raisd by voluntary enlistment, a Draught will be proposd by the next Assembly, who meet in May—The Governor requested me to inform the Board, it was His wish, the 1st and 2d State Regiments, with Colo. Harrisons Regt of Artillery, who have had some success in recruiting; might be ordered on to the Southward, if thought necessary; as they were alltogether idle at present, I have receivd no Orders from His Excellency The Comander in Chief, & shall be compelld to remain inactive untill I receive further Orders from the Board—The Indians have again committed depredations on the frontiers of this state, and the attention of Government seems entirely taken up, with devising means to carry on an expedition against them.
“No Accountts from Carolina that may be depended on” (DNA:PCC, item 148; see also n.3 above, and , 17:415).
5. Neither Muhlenberg’s letter to Jefferson dated 20 April, nor Jefferson’s reply of 1 May, has been identified.
Chesterfield, Va., roughly ten miles south of Richmond, was a small village in the late eighteenth century. It now is the seat of Chesterfield County.
Rocky Ridge, about three miles southwest of Richmond and later named Manchester, was annexed to Richmond in the early twentieth century.
6. Muhlenberg’s advertisement, printed in The Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg) for 13 May, is dated 1 May and reads: “The Officers of the Virginia line, on continental establishment, who are at present off duty, are desired to meet at Fredericksburg, as soon as possible.”
7. Muhlenberg’s letter to the Virginia Board of War has not been identified.
8. The letter from Muhlenberg and William Brown to William Rickman has not been identified, but see GW to Brown, 22 April; see also Muhlenberg to GW, 23 May, and Brown to GW, 29 May (both DLC:GW).
9. Neither Muhlenberg’s letters to Col. William Davies nor Jefferson’s to Muhlenberg have been identified, but Muhlenberg quotes a portion of Jefferson’s missive later in this letter to GW.
10. See n.12 below.
11. See n.4 above.
12. Muhlenberg enclosed a copy of the demand from Gen. Henry Clinton and Vice Adm. Marriot Arbuthnot that American defenders surrender Charleston, South Carolina. Written at “Camp before Charles-Town” on 10 April, it reads: “Sir Henry Clinton K.B. Commander in Cheif of his Majesties Forces in the Colonies lying on the Atlantic from Nova Scotia &c. &c. And Admiral Arbuthnot Commander in Cheif of his Majesties Ships in North America.
“Regretting the Effusion of Blood, & the distresses which must now commence, deem it consistent with Humanity to warn the Town & Garrison of Charles-Town of the Havock & Devastation with which they are threatened from the formidable Force surrounding them by Land & by Sea. An Alternative is offered at this Hour to the Inhabitants of saving their Lives & Properties contained in the Town, or of abiding by the fatal Consequences of a Cannonade & Storm; Shou’d the Place, in a fallacious Security, or its Commanders in a wanton Indifference to the fate of the Inhabitants, delay a Surrender, or shou’d the Public Stores, or Shipping be destroy’d, the resentment of an exasperated Soldiery may intervene. But the same mild & compassionate offer can never be renew’d. The respective Commanders who hereby summon the Town, do not apprehend so rash a Step, as farther resistance will be taken: but rather that the Gates will be open’d, & themselves received with a Confidence which will forbode further reconciliation” (DLC:GW).
Muhlenberg also enclosed a copy of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln’s reply to Clinton and Arbuthnot from the “Lines off Charles-Town” on the same date: “I have receiv’d your Summons of this date—Sixty days have pass’d since it has been known, that your intentions against this Town were hostile; in which time has been afforded to abandon it, but duty & Inclination point the Propriety of supporting it to the last Extremity” (DLC:GW). In his journal entry for 10 April, Clinton characterized Lincoln’s response as “very proper, very modest; if he is a firm man he will hold out to extremity” ( 158; see also James Duane to GW, 4 May, n.1).
13. John Hurt (1752–1824) served as chaplain for the 6th Virginia Regiment from October 1776 until his appointment as brigade chaplain in August 1778 (see , 11:810). He held that position until the end of the war and served again as chaplain in the U.S. Army from March 1791 to August 1794. For “The Love of Our Country,” a sermon that Hurt preached in 1777, see , 143–57; see also Hurt to GW, 24 Aug. 1789, in 3:531–33, and William J. Hourihan, “John Hurt of Virginia: The First United States Regular Army Chaplain, 1791–1794,” The Army Chaplaincy: Professional Bulletin of the Unit Ministry Team (Summer 1995): 32–38.
14. For the Battle of Monck’s Corner, S.C., see Abraham Buford to GW, 6–8 May 1780, n.5.
Peter Vernier (d. 1780) became major in Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski’s legion in February 1779 and received a mortal wound at the Battle of Monck’s Corner.