From George Washington to John Jay, 10 March 1779
To John Jay
Head Quarters Middlebrook 10 March 1779
Sir
I had the honor of your Excellency’s letter of the 2d Inst. with its several inclosures.1
I have only at present to request the attention of Congress to the inclosed letter from James Reed, signing himself Brigadier General. Congress will be pleased to inform me, if he holds the rank of Brigadier General, that some measures may be taken in his case.2 I have the honor to be your Excellency’s most obt and hble servt
Go: Washington
LS, in James McHenry’s writing, DNA:PCC, item 152; Df, DLC:GW; copy, DNA:PCC, item 169; Varick transcript, DLC:GW. Congress read this letter on 13 March and referred it to the Board of War (
, 13:309).1. GW apparently is referring to Jay’s second letter to him of 2 March.
2. The enclosed letter from Brig. Gen. James Reed of New Hampshire has not been identified. Congress had appointed Reed a brigadier general in the Continental army on 9 Aug. 1776 (see , 5:641; John Hancock to GW, 10 Aug. 1776 [first letter]; and GW to Philip Schuyler, 13 Aug. 1776). Rendered totally blind by smallpox in the fall of 1776, Reed had returned home to Keene, N.H., in January 1777, but he had not resigned his commission and had continued to draw his pay, although not his rations, as a brigadier general. Congress took no action in regard to Reed until 3 Jan. 1781, when it put him on the list of retiring officers entitled to half pay and authorized the payment of the depreciation allowance on his wages up to that date (see , 18:1150, 19:17; Reed to John Sullivan, 3 Oct. 1780, DNA:PCC, item 78; and Samuel Huntington to Reed, 5 Jan. 1781, in , 16:547–48). For Congress’s further adjustments to Reed’s compensation on 14 Dec. 1781, see , 21:1092, 1167–68; and John Hanson to Meshech Weare, 15 Dec. 1781, in , 18:249, n.2 (see also , 34:572, 574, 577 and Charles Thomson to John Langdon, 2? Oct. 1788, in , 25:406).