From George Washington to Major Zabdiel Rogers, 21 October 1776
To Major Zabdiel Rogers
October 21: 1776.
My ⟨dr⟩ Sir
you are hereby requested to make the best Stand you can, with the Troops under your Command, against the Enemy who I am ⟨in⟩formed are advanced this Morning to ⟨M⟩aroneck and I will as soon as possible order a party to attack them in flank, of ⟨w⟩hich you will be further informed ⟨in⟩ proper time, be Cautious of Mentioning ⟨my⟩ design.1 I am your Most Obedient Servant
Go: Washington
be pleased to send the Enclosed by a faithfull Officer to be Communicated to All the Troops ⟨on the⟩ Road thro Connecticut.2
LS (mutilated), in Lord Stirling’s writing, DNDAR. Small portions of the text on the left side of the manuscript are torn off or otherwise damaged. This letter apparently was written at White Plains where Stirling commanded at this time. Stirling initially addressed the letter below the postscript to “⟨M⟩ajor Douglass.” He then struck out “Douglass” and wrote “Rogers” on the same line.
1. Major Rogers’s 20th Regiment of Connecticut militia had been stationed on the Westchester County coast since early October (see Heath to Maj. Ebenezer Backus, 2 Oct., MHi: Heath Papers). For accounts of the attack that a detachment of Delaware and Virginia Continentals made on Lt. Col. Robert Rogers’s Loyalist ranger corps at Mamaroneck this evening, see Robert Hanson Harrison to Hancock, 25 Oct., and note 4.
2. This enclosure has not been identified.