1. Gibbs was an aide-de-camp to George Washington and captain and commander of Washington’s Guards.

2. Having embarked from New York on July 23, 1777, with fifteen thousand troops, Sir William Howe landed at the Head of Elk, Maryland, on August 25. Washington did not know Howe’s destination, but subsequent intelligence reports indicated that it might be Philadelphia. Washington thereupon moved his army to the vicinity of Trenton and Philadelphia and by mid-August had established a camp near the Neshaminy River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. On August 23 Washington, having learned that British transports were proceeding up Chesapeake Bay, broke camp and started south. By August 25 his troops had reached Naamans Creek, Delaware, and Washington, who had been informed that the British had landed near Cecil County Court House, established headquarters in Wilmington. On August 26, Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, Major General Nathanael Greene, a troop of horse, and the headquarters staff went on a scouting expedition that brought them within two miles of the British camp at the Head of Elk. The scouting party was about to return to Wilmington when a storm forced them to spend the night of September 26 at a farmhouse (which, it was subsequently learned, belonged to a Tory). The night passed without incident, and on the following day the scouting party rejoined the army at Wilmington. For accounts of this expedition, see Washington to the President of Congress, August 27, 1777 (LS, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress); Washington to Landon Carter, October 27, 1777 (GW description begins John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (Washington, 1931–1944). description ends , IX, 451–52); Mémoires, Correspondance et Manuscrits du Général Lafayette, Publiés par Sa Famille (Paris and London, 1837), I, 21–22; George Washington Greene, The Life of Nathanael Greene, Major-General in the Army of the Revolution (New York, 1867), I, 443–44.

3. Attached to this document is the following bill:

“Received the above of Col: Hamilton

The receipt on this bill is in H’s handwriting and signed by Sanigan.

Christiana is a town on a creek of the same name, which flows into the Delaware River near Wilmington.