From George Washington to Samuel Huntington, 29 October 1780
To Samuel Huntington
Head Quarters near passaic Falls 29th October 1780
Sir
I have been honored with Your Excellency’s favors of the 19th 23d and 26th Instants. The intelligence from the southward is most agreeable and important, and may, in its consequences, give a happy change to the face of Affairs in that quarter.1
In regard to the application made by Colo. de Buysson to Congress, and which, they have been pleased to refer to me, I beg leave to lay before them a Copy of my letter of the 10th instant, which was in answer to a similar application made directly to me. In consequence of my advice, he wrote to Sir Henry Clinton, but I cannot say whether he has granted him an extension of his parole to Europe, without that, Congress will readily perceive it does not lay with them, or with me, to indulge him in his request—Neither can he be immediately exchanged, without doing an act of injustice to many Officers of his Rank, who have been much longer in Captivity.2
I am exceedingly happy to find that Congress have been pleased, by their Act of the 21st, to adopt the amendments which I took the liberty to propose in my letter of the 11th. I cannot but hope that the reformed Officers will be content with the generous provision made for them.3
Colo. Donald Campbell, who was continued in his former pay and Rank by a Resolve of the 13th Feby 1777, has continued to draw Rations also, ’till lately, when the Commy of Issues to the Northward has been in doubt whether he was not precluded from drawing Rations by the Resolves of the 10th of March and 12th June last. The case having been referred to me, I would wish to know the sense and pleasure of Congress upon the subject.4
In the inclosed York paper of the 25th Your Excellency will find a proclamation of Arnolds addressed particularly to the Officers & Soldiers of the Continental Army. This unparalled peice of assurance has, if possible, added to the detestation in which they before held him.5 I have the honor to be with the greatest Respect Yr Excellency’s most obt Servt
Go: Washington
LS, in Tench Tilghman’s writing, DNA:PCC, item 152; Df, DLC:GW; copy, DNA:PCC, item 169; Varick transcript, DLC:GW. Congress read GW’s letter on 1 Nov. and referred the portion related to Col. Donald Campbell to the Board of War (, 18:999; see also n.4 below). Huntington acknowledged this letter when he wrote GW on 1 November.
1. Huntington’s second letter to GW on 23 Oct. contained a report on the victory at Kings Mountain, S.C. (see Huntington’s first letter to GW, 23 Oct., source note).
2. See Dubuysson to GW, 2 Sept.; see also Huntington’s first letter to GW, 23 Oct., and n.1 to that document.
3. GW commented on half-pay pensions for officers reduced from service (see GW to Huntington, 11 Oct., and Huntington to GW, 26 Oct., n.1; see also General Orders, 1 Nov.).
4. Congress read reports regarding Campbell on 12 and 16 Jan. 1781 and resolved to consider him “as out of the service from and after the 1st day of January 1781; and that he receive his pay and subsistence to that time without any allowance for depreciation” (, 19:52, 62–63, quote on 63). Congress reviewed another report regarding Campbell on 2 March and proposed more generous retirement compensation (see , 19:228–29).
5. GW presumably enclosed The Royal Gazette (New York) for 25 Oct. with Arnold’s proclamation printed on the third page (see also Lafayette to GW, 28 Oct., and n.3 to that document).
Hessian major Carl Leopold Baurmeister wrote in a dispatch from New York on 29 Oct.: “On the 9th of this month General Clinton introduced General Arnold to all the generals here. The latter is now rising a corps of cavalry and infantry which is eventually to be a thousand strong” (, 388).