George Washington Papers
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General Orders, 17 January 1779

General Orders

Head-Quarters Middle-Brook Sunday Jany 17th 1779.

Parole Vienna—C. Signs Vado. Virginia.

At a Brigade General Court Martial held near Millstone January 9th 1779. whereof Major Grier was President, Lieutenant Patrick Fullerton of the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment was tried for “Ungentlemanlike behaviour,” found guilty of the charge and sentenced to pay Captain Tolbut a reasonable price for two shirts, two stocks and one blanket and to be dismissed the service agreeable to the 21st Article 14th section of the Articles of War.1

Major General Lord Stirling, Commander in Chief in the Jersies approves the sentence and orders it to take place immediately: The Pay-Master of the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment is to stop the value of said Articles out of said Fullerton’s wages which may be now due and pay it to Captain Tolbut.2

Varick transcript, DLC:GW.

1Patrick Fullerton had joined Col. Samuel John Atlee’s Pennsylvania musketry battalion as a sergeant in the spring of 1776, and in April 1777 he had been appointed an ensign in the newly created Pennsylvania State Regiment, which was taken into Continental service the following June and subsequently was redesignated the 13th Pennsylvania Regiment. When that regiment was absorbed by the 2d Pennsylvania Regiment on 1 July 1778, Fullerton was given the rank of second lieutenant. The twenty-first article of the fourteenth section of the articles of war says that any officer convicted “of behaving in a scandalous, infamous manner … shall be discharged from the service” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 5:804).

2Capt. John Bankson was the paymaster of the 2d Pennsylvania Regiment (see General Orders, 14 Oct. 1778).

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