From George Washington to James McHenry, 31 July 1798
To James McHenry
Mount Vernon 31st July 1798.
Dear Sir,
To a person as well acquainted with the writers of the letters herewith enclosed, as you are, it is hardly necessary to add a word in further recommendation of Major Parker to an appointment in the augmented army. and yet, there is some thing so singularly meritorious in his whole family as Military men that I shd think I was not doing Justice to the Service were I not to advise—if in time—that he should be Commissioned as a field Officer (being a Captn at the close of the last War & an Aid de Camp to General Morgan on the Western Expedition[)].
Majr Parker thinks a number of Men could be raised in Berkley and Frederick Counties in the last of which he resides, in the Neighbourhood of Genl Morgan & your old friend Richd Kidder Meade, who I am sure wd give him all their assistance.1 I am Yrs Always
Go: Washington
The Letters accompanying this may or may not, as you shall ⟨think⟩ best, be returned to me.2
ALS (letterpress copy), DLC:GW.
1. Thomas Parker (c.1761–1820) of Frederick County, third son of Judge Richard Parker and Elizabeth Beall Parker of Westmoreland County, served in the 1st, 5th, and 9th Virginia regiments between 1776 and 1783. He lived at Retreat on the Shenandoah River in Frederick County. In January 1799 he became lieutenant colonel of the 8th U.S. Infantry in command of the forces at Harpers Ferry.
2. The letters of Richard Kidder Meade (1746–1805), an aide to GW during the Revolution, and of Gen. Daniel Morgan, both of whom lived in Frederick County, have not been found. According to Candidates for Army Appointments in Virginia, November 1798 (DLC:GW), Parker was also recommended by John Marshall, Edward Carrington, John Graves, William Heth, Walter Jones, Charles Lee, Henry Lee, and Josiah Parker. See also GW to Alexander Hamilton and GW to Daniel Morgan, both 10 April 1799.