To George Washington from Brigadier General Anthony Wayne, 20 January 1779
From Brigadier General Anthony Wayne
Camp at Mill Stone [N.J.] 20th Jany 1779
Dear General
I have been long wishing for the pleasure of seeing you in Camp but Conclude from the Multiplicity of Buisness in which you are Engaged that it will be some time before we shall Experience that Satisfaction.
Our City is completely finished. it’s Regularity is equal to any on the Continent—& it’s Internal police at least as regular as that of Phila.
I can Assure your Excellency that we are much Improved in City Building; & that from Abstenance Soberiety Virtue &ca &ca we are become as Healthy & as Regular an Army as ever made a Winters Campaign.1
The Assembly of Pennsa meets the first day of February I shall be under the Indespen[si]ble necessity of being in Phila. at that time2—shou’d I not be favour’d with your leave of Absence sooner, I am sure your Excellency will have goodness enough to Indulge me in waiting on you there for the favour I now Solicite. Interim I am with every Sentiment of Esteem Your Excellencies most Obt & very Huml. Sert
Anty Wayne
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. The Pennsylvania troops, who had been delayed in going into winter quarters, built their camp on a low-lying plain about a mile west of the confluence of the Millstone and Raritan rivers and about three miles west of the center of Middlebrook.
2. Wayne went to Philadelphia in early February to attend to personal business and to lobby the Pennsylvania general assembly for passage of a bill granting the state’s Continental officers half pay for life, food and uniforms at reduced costs, exemption from taxes on state bounty lands, and widow’s pensions. Wayne addressed the assembly on 10 March urging approval of the bill, which was passed a short time later (see , 88–90).