From Alexander Hamilton to James McHenry, 23 October 1799
To James McHenry
New York, October 23, 1799. “… I am induced to think, that the recruiting Service for the Sixth and Seventh Regiments will be promoted by leaving them to take their Winter Quarters within their respective States.1 I submit this observation. It is not for me to judge, as to these Troops, whether there are reasons for adhering to the primitive plan2 which outweigh the consideration just mention’d.”
Df, in the handwriting of Ethan Brown, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. The Sixth Regiment of Infantry was stationed in North Carolina and Tennessee; the Seventh Regiment of Infantry was stationed in Virginia.
2. The “primitive plan” as described in H’s draft of George Washington to McHenry, first letter of December 13, 1798, was to station two regiments for the winter “in the vicinity of the Potomack near Harpers Ferry,… two other Regiments in the vicinity of Augusta.” See H to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, October 23, 1799.