Alexander Hamilton Papers
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To Alexander Hamilton from James Wilkinson, 2 September 1799

From James Wilkinson

[New York] 2nd. Sept. 1799.

Indisposition Sir has prevented my seeing you, since the day before the last. I have a terible Cold, caught I know not how. If the Ministers report1 be correct, & it accords with my own information, & that of the adjutant Generals Office—the 1st. and 2d. Regiments want each two Mates, and the 3d. and 4th. each one, to compleat the Establishment, which should I humbly conceive be appointed, & ordered to join their respective Corps, but whether taken from those in Service, or out of it, cannot be very material. When I left the Mississippi Territory—for the Posts of Massac, Pickering, McHenry, Sargent, Loftus’s Heights & Stoddert on the Mobile, we had a single surgeon only—of the appointment, or the Movement of the Gentlemen, directed to that Quarter I was unadvised. We have neither mate nor Surgeon, at the secluded post of Macanac,2 and my Camp of two hundred & odd men near Natchez, depends entirely on the Surgeon to Fort Sargent. Two additional Mates are Certainly necessary on the Mississippi & Tombigby, whether we increase our force in that Quarter or not.

I am at this moment in a profuse Sweat, but will see you in the afternoon, if I may go out with propriety.

What can be the policy of appointing temporary Mates, while the Regimental Staff is incompleat? I cannot comprehend it.

With respectful & true Attachment   I am sir   Yr. Obdt & Hbl sert

Ja. Wilkinson

Maj. General Hamilton

LS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.

1This is a reference to James McHenry to H, August 30, 1799 (listed in the appendix to this volume). In this letter McHenry listed the vacancies in the officer corps of the Western Army.

2Michilimackinac.

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