General Orders, 21 January 1779
General Orders
Head-Quarters Middle-Brook Thursday Jany 21st 1779.
Parole Archangel—C. Signs Bolton. Canton.
The Deputy Clothier General is to issue a woolen cap to each effective man present belonging to the brigades in this camp on returns made by the commanding officers of brigades, countersigned by the Adjutant General.
The men on detachment at Monmouth to be omited in the return as they will be drawn for separately.1
The Brigade Commissaries are regularly to turn in all the cattle’s horns and feet, with the hides to the Commissary General of hides at least once a week;2 They will see that the butchers carefully take off all the hide from the feet, as much waste has been occasioned by a contrary practice.
The Officers commanding those brigades which have not yet complied with the order of the 26th of December last relative to Ammunition, are desired to see that the returns are made out and Ammunition drawn agreeable thereto immediately.3
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. For the sending of 250 men under the command of Lt. Col. Caleb North to Monmouth County, N.J., to stop illicit trade with New York City, see GW to Stirling, 8 Jan., and Stirling to GW, 13 Jan., and n.1.
2. George Ewing served as Continental commissary general of hides from August 1777 to April 1779. Much of this duty for the Middlebrook encampment, however, apparently was performed by John Mehelm, deputy commissary general of hides for the state of New Jersey (see General Orders, 28 Jan.).