General Orders, 17 January 1777
General Orders
Head-Quarters, Morristown, Jany 17th 1777.
Parole: Windsor.Countersign: Winchester.
A Court of inquiry to sit to morrow, at 9 o’Clock to examine into a Complaint lodged by Serjt Davis, William Davis, and one Gallakin, all of Capt. Leir’s Company, against Major Proctor, Capt. Lang, and Lieut: Turnbull of the Artillery: All Evidences to attend, and facts as they appear, to be reported.1
The Out-Guards are strictly forbid allowing any Soldiers to pass them, but such as have regular discharges from their commanding officer: This the officers of the different regiments will attend to.
Lieut: Isaac Budd Dunn is appointed Brigade Major to Genl St Clair, and is to be respected and obeyed as such.2
Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. The nature of the complaint against these officers has not been identified, but for the outcome of the court of inquiry, see General Orders, 21 January. Thomas Proctor (1739–1806) was appointed captain of an independent Pennsylvania artillery company at its establishment in October 1775, and he was promoted to major when the company was expanded in size in August 1776. The Pennsylvania council of safety in late December 1776 apparently decided to make Proctor colonel of a Pennsylvania state artillery regiment, which he began organizing in February 1777 (see the Pennsylvania council of safety’s resolution of 6 Feb. 1777, and the Pennsylvania council of safety to Proctor, 6 Feb. 1777, both in PHarH: Records of Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Governments, 1775–90). Proctor’s state regiment was taken into Continental pay later this year and eventually redesignated as the 4th Continental Artillery Regiment, and Proctor resigned in April 1781. James Lang of York County, Pa., served as an ensign and first lieutenant in Col. Samuel John Atlee’s Pennsylvania state musketry battalion before being commissioned a captain in the 10th Pennsylvania Regiment on 4 Dec. 1776. He left the service in April 1779. Charles Turnbull (1753–1795), who enlisted in Proctor’s Pennsylvania artillery company in October 1775, served as a corporal and sergeant before being appointed a second lieutenant on 5 Oct. 1776. Commissioned a captain lieutenant in the Pennsylvania Artillery Regiment in March of this year, Turnbull was captured at Bound Brook, N.J., on 13 April 1777. Turnbull returned to his regiment after his exchange in April 1780 and served as a captain until the end of the war.
2. Isaac Budd Dunn was a lieutenant in the 2d Pennsylvania Regiment before being promoted to captain on 6 Oct. 1776. Dunn transferred to the 3d Pennsylvania Regiment by April 1780 and from January 1781 to the end of the war he served as an aide-de-camp to Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair.