To George Washington from Colonel Stephen Moylan, 28 March 1780
From Colonel Stephen Moylan
Middletown [Conn.] 28th March 1780
Dear Sir
As your Excellencys Letter of the 8th instant did not reach my hands until yesterday, it renderd my appearance at the trial of Doctor shippen on the 14th impossible.1 I will obey your order by Sending the six Officers to Springfield from the Cavalry to Sit on the trial of Mr Tychner2—the only prospect I have of getting Cloathing for the 4th Regiment is the promise of the Clothier General. I have sent Captain Pike near two months past on that business, but have not Since heard from him,3 as to the Accoutrements I followed the instructions of your Excellency, in applying to the D.Q.M. Genl. I know that without these necessary Articles as well as some New Arms, these two Regiments Cannot take the field4—Mrs Moylan has had the misfortune to be deliverd of a dead Child, which has Kept me in this town of Late more than I otherwise shoud be as her Situation requires my every Attention,5 I hope it will Sufficiently excuse my abscence from Colchester I hear from thence every day—the horses are in very good order shoud Mrs Moylans health & Circumstances require it, I will be much obliged by your Excellencys giveing me a Liberty to accompany her into the Jerseys in April or May, if I shoud find it detrimental to the Service, I shall not make use of it. I have the honor to be Dear Sir Your most obliged H. St
Stephen Moylan
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. William Shippen, Jr., was charged with administrative misconduct in the medical department. The adjournment of his trial to a later date allowed Moylan to attend after all. For an overview of this complicated case, see General Orders, 13 March, n.1.
Moylan wrote a deposition in Colchester, Conn., on 6 March 1780: “I do declare upon my sacred honour that in the year 1777 I went in company with, and by the desire of, Doctor Shippen, the Director-General of the hospitals, to a store, where I tasted five or six pipes of wine; that I recommended them for his own use, as I thought them cheap and good” (, 100–101).
2. For the charges against Isaac Tichenor, assistant commissary general of purchases, that led to his court-martial, see Moses Hazen to GW, 8 Feb. 1780.
4. For GW’s response to the absence of accoutrements and arms, see his letter to Moylan of 18 April; see also his letter to Ezekiel Cheever, 18 April, found at GW to Elisha Sheldon, same date, n.1.
5. Mary Ricketts Van Horne (1754–1795), raised in a prominent Somerset County, N.J., family, married Moylan on 12 Sept. 1778. For their marriage and subsequent children, see , 81–82.