To George Washington from Major General Nathanael Greene, 21 September 1780
From Major General Nathanael Greene
Camp at Tappon Septr 21st 1780
Sir
Agreeable to your Excellency’s directions of the 18th, I have taken our old Camp at this place. We marched yesterday; and Meggs’s Regiment for West Point the day before.1
Colonel Tilghman communicate⟨d⟩ the last intelligence we had from New York.2 Since that I have not been able to obtain the least information of what is going on there, tho’ we have people in, from three different quarters: none of them returning makes me suspect some secret expedition is in contemplation, the success of which depends altogether upon its being kept a secret.3 Colonel Dayton is gone to Elizabeth town and Major Burnet to New Ark, to see if any thing can be learned from those places.
We are pretty well supplied with provisions for five or six days to come, with what is in Camp and on the road from the Eastward and the Westward.4
Nothing material has happened in the Army since your Excellency left Camp.5 I am with great respect your Excellency’s most obdt huml. Servt.
Copy, NjP: De Coppet Collection.
1. See General Orders, 18 and 19 Sept.; see also GW to Greene, 18 September.
2. See Tench Tilghman to GW, 18 Sept. and this date.
3. New York City printer Hugh Gaine wrote in his journal entry for 20 Sept.: “Some Talk of an Embarkation but where bound we know not” (, 2:99).
4. The need for provisions soon became urgent (see Greene to GW, 23 Sept.).