General Orders, 29 March 1780
General Orders
Head-Quarters Morristown Wednesday March 29th 1780.
Parole Loquacious— C. Signs—Lustre—Lucid—
Lieutenant Col. Ford will take charge of the 2nd Maryland regiment ’till further orders.1
The General or other officer of the day is to give the Parole and Countersigns to all guards or cause it to be done by the Brigade Major, that the omissions and mistakes which have happened of late may be avoided in future.
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. Lt. Col. Benjamin Ford’s regular unit was the 6th Maryland Regiment. Col. Otho Holland Williams resumed command of the 6th Maryland Regiment after ending his duties as acting adjutant general (see General Orders, 11 April, and n.3).
Upset with rank arrangements within the Maryland line and on furlough from January 1780, Col. Thomas Price of the 2d Maryland Regiment wrote GW from Frederick, Md., on “April 31st” [1 May]: “I have Waited Long With impatience and Anxiety to be Restored to My Rank in the Army, or to Obtain Som Reward for my past Services But being Cruelly disappointed and unwilling to obay those I have been used to Command I am under the Nacessity of Resigning My Commesion as Collonel in the Maryland Line” (L, DNA: RG 93, manuscript file no. 1573; the docket indicates that GW received this letter on 28 July). Price’s letter prompted GW to write Maryland governor Thomas Sim Lee on 1 Sept. with a request that he “communicate” Price’s “resignation to the Board of War” and oversee promotions to fill vacancies (DLC:GW). For the rank disputes among Maryland officers, see Board of General Officers to GW, 13 April 1779, and William Smallwood to GW, 18 Dec. 1779, and n.1.