From Timothy Pickering to Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., 5 June 1795
Timothy Pickering to Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr.
War-Office, June 5. 1795.
Mr Dandridge will be pleased to lay the inclosed papers before the President.
1. A Letter of the 29th ulto from Genl Morgan.1
2. do do from Colo. Butler.2
3. Extract of a letter from Major Craig.3
4. Copy of a letter to Govr Mifflin.4
The Secretary of War will wait on the President to-morrow morning to take his orders relative to General Morgan and any other matters referred to in the papers.
T. Pickering
ALS, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
1. The letter from Daniel Morgan has not been identified.
2. This letter has not been identified but probably is the one to which Pickering referred in his letter to Thomas Mifflin in note 4 below.
3. An extract of the letter from deputy quartermaster isaac Craig to Pickering, dated 29 May from Pittsburgh, is in DLC:GW. Craig wrote: “On the 22d instant a certain Ralph Rutledge one of a party of four men on their way from Le Boeuf to Presque Isle was killed and scalped within two Miles of Presque Isle, the other three men are missing and it is presumed they are also killed. The State Troops at Le Boeuf are nearly all disbanded very few of them having reinlisted, Captain Buchannan who commanded at that post arrived here yesterday with the greater part of the Men under his command, who are all discharged.”
4. On this date, Pickering wrote to Thomas Mifflin and enclosed the extract of Craig’s letter of 29 May. Noting Craig’s reference to the disbanding of troops at Fort Le Boeuf, Pickering asked that Mifflin keep him informed about replacements. He also told Mifflin that on “the 7th of May a party of ten White Men, on the Allegany, fired on a family of friendly Indians, as they were returning from their winter hunt. Two of the Indians were badly wounded, but … escaped with the loss of all their property. The officer at Fort Franklin furnished clothing to the Indians for their immediate relief.” Based on a letter he had received earlier this day from Lt. Col. Thomas Butler at Pittsburgh, Pickering told Mifflin “that through the good conduct of one of the State Officers nearly all the property has been recovered, and will be restored to the Indians.” Pickering said Butler would “apply to Judge Addison to have the perpetrators of the mischief apprehended, believing that they can be discovered. It is not improbable that the attack on the four men going from Le Boeuf to Presqu’ Isle was an act of retaliation” ( 2d ser., 6:868–69).